JBThiel

Ah… Salzburg. The birthplace of Mozart and the setting of the wonderful musical “The Sound of Music.” That’s mainly what this town is known for, but it is beautiful nonetheless. Not even the dismal weather could detract from that fact. We arrive at around 11 and immediately head to the salt mines. This was so cool. We got to slide down these big slides and see how the salt is made and distributed. Several big rock like structures are illuminated showing the translucense of the salt rocks. We even got to see a trippy light show and ride a boat on an underground lagoon. It was a pretty cool experience. Afterwards, we check into our hotel which is much nicer than the one in Munich. We get to walk around town for a bit and find ... read more

Well today's entry won't be so detailed but Ben and I met Marco, the guy that works at our residence, at about 1:45 in the street. We walk to the match because the stadium is about 15 minutes away. As we walk there we talk a bit about soccer in Europe and how big a deal it is. The match we are about to see would be the equivalent of watching a Georgia Southern Football game or a gladiators arena football game in terms of the skill level relevant to A league level teams in Europe. But the way the fans show up for the games and the big deal they make about Hellas Verona shows the true meaning that soccer really has over here... its like a religion. Marco has different seats than Ben and ... read more

It is Thursday here in Verona. It is cloudy outside and just about everyone has left for the Milan airport to head to Paris. About 6 other students are headed to Belgium (brrrrr!) and 1 is actually going to London. Ben and I decided to stay back in Verona to take it easy this weekend and make sure our Euro’s don’t grow feet and walk away from us. Students that are around me are probably sick of me ranting about this but last week I got on excel and made a budget spreadsheet to get an idea of how much I will spend and its looking like I’m going to be just fine in terms of money. Much thanks again to you who helped make this trip possible and certainly less stressful (you know who you ... read more

Well its late now and I thought I would blog a little takeaway from class today. We actually met twice, once in the morning and another time at 4 to watch a video on Michaelangelo. In the morning, Tony had maps of Florence printed out for us and told us a bit about the highlights of what we'd see there. It was pretty informative and I have a better idea of what I want to see, however I think for that trip much of our itinerary is planned out already as Martin will be taking us around. We have an assignment due tomorrow and I've been up late working on it (it took longer than i thought it would) but one of the chapters I had to read was about young michaelangelo. He was born into ... read more

I wake up for class today and am immediately feeling better. What saved my life this morning was Starbuck via, that instant stuff you just pour in some hot water. I’m all jittery and energized to start the day. Upon entering class, Tony immediately starts reviewing. He tells us to memorize page 23 of our notebook which breaks down the art and history in Florence in a timeline format showing the transition from the Gothic/Medieval period to the Early Renaissance and Later Renaissance periods. Listening to this guy ramble is so funny, I wish I could capture it in words, but he’ll be talking about one thing and then interject something that has absolutely no correlation to what he was teaching at all. “Go to page 23, you see Ghiberti, who was he, tell me someone, ... read more