Skiing the Alps and exploring Switzerland’s Capital

Switzerland was kind of a taste of home this weekend, much colder than Florence with beautiful snowy mountains, rivers, and lakes.

I skied the Jungfrau region of the Swiss alps which included Grindelwald and Murren.

Fun Fact: This is where the ski scene from “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was filmed… if you don’t remember the scene here it is:

(no mom I didn’t do any backflips off of cliffs)

Even though it wasn’t snowing when we were skiing there, the weather was incredible and the views were unbelievable; you truly cannot imagine how expansive the ranges are in the Alps by looking at pictures. Although I love Montana and its beautiful mountains, they cannot compare to the Alps.

 

The expert chocolate maker and salesman, his jokes and heavy German accent added to the experience!

After getting back from a full day of skiing, I went chocolate tasting and sampled a huge array of different chocolates! I tried everything from 99% cocoa chocolate, to spicy chocolate with hot peppers in it, to chocolates that are filled with 1/4 of a shot of cognac along with the traditional flavors.

While I was in Interlaken I stayed in a hostel with 7 other guys from Gonzaga; all of us slept in bunkbeds. The room was pretty simple but it had a beautiful view off of the balcony of the Alps.

The view from “The Funny Farm” hostel balcony

Interlaken is a small town of approximately 5,000 people. Most of the town is tourists. It is in a beautiful area between two extremely blue lakes (hence the name Inter-laken) and about 45 minutes from Switzerland’s capital–Bern.

The next day I was there we took a bus to Bern and went sight-seeing in the city. Bern is the capital of the entire country of Switzerland and is also the capital of the region that is also named Bern. In this picture I am holding the flag for the region of Bern, that fittingly “bears” the image of a bear. Bears are a huge theme in the city, seeing bear trinkets all over the place is common. Another unique thing in the city is the bear pit, which holds three bears all year. Unfortunately we didn’t see the bears because they are hibernating. The bear pit had a terrifyingly short guard rail (reminded me a lot of anchorman for those of you who have seen it.)

The bear pit

The last day I spent in Switzerland I walked around the town along the river and to one of the lakes where I took some cool pictures and skipped some rocks. After that I spent my time looking around the countless watch, chocolate and knife shops and enjoying my last few hours in this beautiful country.

    

During my time in Switzerland I really fell in love with it. It is just reminiscent enough of home with the colder weather, beautiful mountains, lakes, and rivers, but still different enough that it is new and exciting. Not to say anything bad about Italians, because i have met many amazing Florentines, but the Swiss citizens were extremely hospitable and polite. We had several people who helped us get around town and up to the ski mountain, and there were many people who would stop to talk or just give a smile when passing them on the street.

I really liked the punctual culture in Switzerland as well. If there was a train that was scheduled to depart at 12:37, it wouldn’t be a second late. When I talked to the street vendors, they would offer a price that was fair and a good offer, there was no deception or a drawn-out bartering process. I guess it makes sense that the Swiss are known for their watches and banks–they are straight forward and concise, and they were still really polite!

Another “funny” side note about the trip was the event that was happening at the “Funny Farm” which was the name of my hostel for the weekend. The entire weekend we would see people of all ages walking around the hostel wearing extremely elaborate home-made costumes with team colors and painted faces. They were all friendly (partly because of the amount of alcohol they consumed I’m sure) but I guess there was a festival in Interlaken where there are around five teams that make elaborate costumes and play music and have a competition to see who plays the best songs. It was quite the party, here’s a picture with one of our buddies.

This is one place that I will put on my bucket list to visit again, without a doubt.

Finally, the first blog post. Florence, Rome, The Vatican City.

The most famous sculpture in Florence, Michelangelo’s portrayal of David. This statue is HUGE! and incredibly detailed

Huge real christmas tree in front of the cathedral

Belltower of The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (The Basilica of Saint Mary of the flower” 

I don’t even know where to start with this because I have done so much in the past couple of weeks, hence why I haven’t had time to write journals or do blog posts. This surely will be incomplete but I have been taking a few notes about stuff I need to write about. This will also probably be one of my longer posts because I have been doing so much and I haven’t done a single blog post, maybe things will slow down when class gets into full swing.

The first couple of weeks in Italy have been hectic, but incredible.

Right when I got to Florence my biggest piece of luggage was lost, so I had to give them my information to the airport so they could return it. I wasn’t too worried because I had enough clothes to get me by for a couple of days, so I went along and explored Florence.

My first four days in Florence I just walked everywhere around town and saw everything I possibly could.

The second day after I got to Florence I was about to get into bed and I saw a bedbug crawling on my pillow, this was a little bit more worrisome than the lost baggage. Without any previous knowledge of bedbugs, I didn’t think it would be a huge deal… I was wrong. When I told the family that runs my pensione, they were strictly business. They checked every inch of the sheets and pillows, and applied poison accordingly and had us haul the mattresses to the garbage. Once they did that they ordered us to take absolutely everything except our phones, laptops, soap, and toothbrush and put them in plastic bags and lay them outside on the terrace so that the cold weather would kill the bedbugs. Long story short, I wore basically the exact same clothes for the past 5 days and my only possessions were a toothbrush, the clothes I was wearing, my laptop, and a travel container filled with soap. I was able to buy some really awesome new underwear and do a little bit of sink laundry to get by.

My new underwear featuring part of Michelangelo’s sculpture of David, I had no choice but to buy them because of the bedbugs 🙂

I quick recap of my first couple of days in Florence:

I arrived in Florence and moved into my pensione, I live with about 25 people. The people who run the pensione are extremely friendly and they make us breakfast lunch and dinner every day besides weekends. I know this is cliché to say, but Italian food is ridiculously good. Every type of pasta, cheese, breakfast croissant, espresso drink and dessert they serve is simply much better than what there is in the US, not to mention the wine is pretty good as well.

I went around town to all of the notable spots that I could. That being said, I realized how much there is to see in Florence. We stumbled upon a museum the first full day we were in Florence and spent a couple of hours there taking pictures and reading about Renaissance Florence. We later found out that this museum was one of the small ones and most of the statues in there were smaller models used as reference for the large ones in the Uffizi museum (the largest museum in Florence).

I also went and saw a procession in front of the Duomo that signified when the three kings brought Jesus gifts after he was born, this is the end of the Christmas season in Italy and they took down the massive tree in the square the next day. This is also when gifts are exchanged rather than on Christmas day.

Ponte Vecchio

Piazza Di Michelangelo

 

The rest of my time in Florence during the first four days consisted of dodging obnoxious street vendors selling “selfie sticks” that are just an extendable stick that attaches to your phone so it is easier to take a selfie of a lot of people, pronounced by the vendors: “selpie!” eating gelato, looking at maps trying not to get lost, and trying to take in all of the experience.

I realize that my post isn’t perfectly chronological, but I have to share one of many stories, this one happened at the orientation meeting for school.

The dean of the program is Professor Burke, he is very engaging, and has an extremely dry sense of humor. He is absolutely hilarious. He is also from Butte and it’s pretty fun to talk with him about Montana. But anyways, this orientation meeting was extraordinarily long and in a hot room that was filled with uncomfortable seats, hung over college students, and boring professors with heavy Italian accents that like to speak too much. As this meeting was wrapping up dean Burke took the microphone and started telling us a story without missing a beat or showing any emotion the entire time:

“In the arctic there is the polar icecap, or at least there used to be before global warming, but anyways there were many explorers who would travel on the polar icecap. They would travel for miles and miles and get extremely tired. They would describe the fact that all they could see was white for miles. The landscape was extremely dry, boring, and monotonous and the explorers had written accounts about being lulled into a state of delirium. I realize that this meeting is lulling most of you into a sense of delirium. This meeting is kind of like the polar icecap you are like the explorers. I promise it won’t go much longer.”

Everyone laughed and it brought the entire room’s spirits up, the orientation was soon over and everyone headed back to their pensiones.

After four days of getting acquainted with Florence we took a bus to Rome.

The Pantheon

The drive to Rome was beautiful as we drove through the Tuscan countryside through rolling hills covered in wineries. While Florence is a pretty big city that is intimidating to a kid from Bozeman, Rome puts Florence to shame when comparing the size and amount of people in the city. There is so much more traffic, crazy drivers, and “selpie” salesmen everywhere. Not to mention there are many more beautiful statues, Churches, and marble sculptures around town.

All of the groups were assigned tour guides that led us around town, I had a really nice tour guide named Patricia (Pa-treets-ee-uh) that was about 4’9” and knew absolutely everything about Roman and Italian history. She was really sweet. We toured around town for three days and saw so many things. Patricia knew that we went to a Jesuit college so we went to a lot of Jesuit churches, and even toured the church where St. Ignatius of Loyola lived (the man who founded the society of Jesus, aka the Jesuits) and was buried. Every night we had a huge dinner that is so much different from any dinner I’ve ever had. The school planned all of the dinners and we ate at extremely fancy restaurants. The waiters would bring dish after dish consistently for the entire three hours that we were there. Many of the things I ate I had no idea what it was, but there was excellent sausage, cheese, bread, vegetables, pastas, chicken and pork, and always dessert that they serve with cappuccino.

After touring the Jesuit churches around town and seeing the many Piazzas (squares) that had elaborate centerpieces and statues the first night we were there, we toured ancient Rome the second day.

The tomb of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Patricia would point out lots of really interesting things as we walked through Rome, she would point out where Benito Mussolini stood to give his speeches and lots of really cool facts about the ancient Roman Forum. We walked through the forum and it lead us to the Coliseum. One of the most interesting things about Rome for me is that the entire city is just built on top of Ancient Rome. The Roman forum is one of the few places that opens up and is still at Rome’s original elevation. It is all sunken down at least 20 feet.

Once we walked through the Roman forum we got to the Coliseum and it is just as incredible as it looks in pictures. The history of the coliseum was one of the most interesting parts of all of the tours. It will make you want to watch Russell Crowe in the Gladiator really bad.

Once we toured ancient Rome and the Coliseum we were free to walk around wherever we wanted. We walked all around town and got a good feel for Rome. Even though I really loved Rome and thought it was beautiful and has awesome history, I am extremely glad I’m studying in Florence. Rome is so much more busy and filled with dangerous stuff. For example, you can see people trying to pickpocket all over the place, there are so many more street vendors trying to get you to buy stuff and shining their laser pointers all over these ancient statues that kind of undermines the views, and there are lots of beggars. I had a lady come up to me right outside of St. Peter’s square that clearly had rolled up a shirt and stuffed it under her shirt and started yelling Italian at me and pointing to her cup to get change from me to “help her baby.” Rome is also very dirty, there is a lot of litter and millions of cigarette butts laying all over the streets. I didn’t personally walk right next to the river on the riverbank but apparently its common to see needles, human waste (no public restrooms in Italy), and lots of homeless people. Florence is well-kept, less busy, and safer.

The third day we toured around Rome we went through the Vatican museum and toured all of Vatican city. This was absolutely breathtaking. Even though the museum is extremely crowded all of the time, the artwork there is incredible. The Michelangelo and Bernini statues are amazing and it is incredible how skilled these men were to carve what they did out of marble. The Sistine Chapel was also really humbling, the pictures of it are beautiful but when you actually walk through it and look at it, it is much different. Also you can’t take pictures in the Sistine Chapel and the security guards keep it quiet in there, that really makes the experience better.

I personally think that St. Peter’s Basilica was the most incredible part of Rome. The first time I walked through with the tour I don’t think I said a single word for 45 minutes I just looked at it in wonder. It’s incomprehensibly huge and filled with the most beautiful statues, artwork, and history in the entire world. The amount of history and symbolism throughout the entire church is amazing. I was really intrigued by the Swiss guards as well, I would highly recommend reading about them if you have the chance to.

Bernini’s Portrayal of David

Apollo and Daphne by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

One more Bernini sculpture

After our tour was done for the day Tucker and I decided to stay behind in the Vatican city rather than walking to our hotel. We walked to the very top of of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica and looked over St. Peter’s square. You can walk all around the upper rim of the church on the inside and look down at the altar and the people walking through, and then you keep climbing to the top and look over St. Peter’s square. This may be the best five Euro investment I’ve ever made. (five Euro is also cheaper than the price for a single beer in Rome). When you walk to the top of the basilica you get a lot better perspective of how big the church is. Once we finished at the basilica we walked all the way back across town to our hotel and had dinner that night for our last night in Rome.

Michelangelo’s Sculpture of Mother Mary and Jesus, most likely the most famous statue in the world. This statue has an incredible history, I copied the caption from Wikipedia. It’s named Pieta. It is the only work that Michelangelo signed because there was debate as to who sculpted it, Michelangelo was 21 when he sculpted it. The most substantial damage occurred to Pieta on May 21, 1972 (Pentecost Sunday) when a mentally disturbed geologist named Laszlo Toth walked into the chapel and attacked the sculpture with a geologist’s hammer while shouting “I am Jesus Christ, I have risen from the dead!” With fifteen blows he removed Mary’s arm at the elbow, knocked off a chunk of her nose, and chipped one of her eyelids. Onlookers took many of the pieces of marble that flew off. Later, some pieces were returned, but many were not, including Mary’s nose, which had to be reconstructed from a block cut out of her back. After the attack, the work was painstakingly restored and returned to its place in St. Peter’s, just to the right of the entrance, between the Holy door and the altar of Saint Sebastian, and is now protected by a bulletproof acrylic glass panel.

The next morning we woke up and walked again to St. Peter’s square for Pope Francis’ blessing. This was really cool seeing him and even cooler because some of our friends from Gonzaga got on the screen as Pope Francis welcomed the American students studying abroad in Italy.

It is amazing to see how popular Pope Francis is in Rome; He is like a rock-star and popular culture hero. You can literally buy anything that will have Pope Francis on it; T-shirts, calendars, rosaries, bottles of holy water, and I even saw shot glasses with his Face on the front … But it is pretty cool to see how he has won over the world with his demeanor. Our tour guide said that he refuses to stay where all the rest of the Pope’s have lived because it is too extravagant and he wants something more simple. What an awesome leader for the Catholic religion.

After the Pope’s Blessing we headed “home” to Florence and had a much-needed good night’s rest. Over that week, I had walked 78.5 miles around Rome and Florence and I think I lost all of the weight that I gained over the holidays.

I did end up surviving the bedbug and lost baggage incident as well, my bags were found, my clothes are washed and my room is bedbug free! Class started last week and the “vacation” is over for the time being, but over the past couple of weeks I have been able to see a lot of Rome and Florence, and I will be able to travel a lot over my three-day weekends.

Next weekend I am headed to Interlaken, Switzerland to ski and travel around the Swiss alps.

The first 2 weeks I gained many memories that will last a lifetime. So far this trip has been honestly indescribable. I will never be able to do justice to the things that I saw in Rome and Florence by writing about them (I am an engineering major not an english major—so cut me some slack). I am awestruck by the beauty of Firenze (Florence) and Roma (Rome…duh). I couldn’t be more thankful for this opportunity of a lifetime. I am very excited to spend my last few hours as a teenager in this beautiful place. And the best part is: I have more than 4 months left here!!!

Ciao!