A Month Long Exit

This is my final entry for this online journal and details briefly the last month that I was in Europe. An hour after Brady left the Dublin Airport for Chicago; I took a flight from Dublin to Naples, Italy. For a number of reasons, including lack of sleep, changing of time zones, this was the most confusing flight I had taken because after dozing off I awoke and looked at my watch and thought that we should have landed 10 minutes ago, but we didn’t land for another hour. For all my travels, I had everything planned out to a t, but that all ended when Brady went home because I just ran out of time to plan this last month, so a lot of it was by the seat of my pants, which was quite fun and ended out working really well. In Naples, I stayed with 2 ERAMUS students from Romania and Poland through Couchsurfing.com, a social networking website that matches travelers with residences with a spare bed/couch to sleep on. Staying with a local who can show you around the city/tell you what to see and how to get there is the best way to see a place, especially a city like Naples, the most disgusting city I’ve ever been in. There literally is trash everywhere with cars, trolleys, motor-bikes and pedestrians all using the same narrow streets, but thanks to Bartek, my Polish host, I got to see the better sides of Naples. After finding my way to his apartment, he took me to Herculaneum, the sister city of Pompeii. At first, I was a little disappointed that Bartek had deiced to not go to Pompeii, but Herculaneum ended up being better because it wasn’t touristy and Bartek knew so many interesting facts about from his studying of it at the university. From this ancient city, he guided us back to Naples to the Dohue, the main cathedral in Naples. I think that this cathedral is one of my favorite that I’ve visited while and Europe and that’s saying a lot seeing that I probably have been in close to 50 churches. At night, we played an Italian card game called scoopa that was a lot of fun. The next day, I thought that I would climb Mt. Vesuvius, but ended up going with Bartek and a friend to a black sand beach that was gorgeous and filled with Italian families. After getting some sun, we headed to the castle that overlooked the city for come amazing views of the Bay of Naples. At night, I had some Napoleon pizza, which had to be good seeing that pizza was created in this city, before going to a friend of Bartek’s birthday party. This party was interesting because it was about 20 Italian college students, but none of them spoke English. However, I talked to Bartek and did run into an Erasmus girl from Barcelona, so I got to talk to her for a bit in Spanish. For my third day in Naples, I got up and went to the outdoor market to buy some shorts because I had sent all of mine home with Brady by accident before grabbing my bag and heading to the Archeological Museum to see the better artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum, however, it was closed so I mulled around for about 2 hrs before taking a bus to Sora, 2 hrs north of Naples for my farm stay.

In Sora, a town of about 25,000 people, I stayed in a tent in a fruit orchard of this small farm on the bottom of the mountains for a total of 5 days with my friend Sam. This farm had olive, grapes and fruits and vegetables, but its main source of income was from boarding guests. My stay here was a great break from traveling Europe and was more just a place to relax with daily naps in the hammocks on the porch. We ate well there with good homemade breakfasts cooked by the owner’s grandmother and for lunch and usually supper; Sam and I would get food from one of the small grocery stores in town. Other than sleeping and eating, we went horseback-riding one morning in the mountains, hiking two different days to a small mountain town and to the church above Sora. At the end of my stay, Sam and I took a bus 2 hrs north to Rome, where she flew home and I stayed in a Roman hostel for 5 days.

I had planned to see Rome by myself, but from the start, I kept meeting people so I really never was alone. In the hostel, they had free breakfast and supper, so I got to meet a lot of people from all over the world during meals. My second day in Rome, I sat down to watch a bike race that ended up being the Italian version of the Tour de France and I met a group from Canada who I sat with for 3 hrs until the race was over. I hadn’t planned to watch the bike race, but one of the final riders was Lance Armstrong, so I had to stay to the end to see him. Then, randomly through facebook, a friend from Marquette who saw that I was in Rome at the same time she was, so we saw the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain one day and made supper at her apartment the next night. It is always fun to meet up with friends from home when you’re traveling. My day at the Vatican was very interesting with it starting with a tour under the St. Peter’s Basilica to see the tomb of St. Peter and then I walked around the Vatican Museums and ended the day in the Sistine Chapel. Other sites that I saw in Rome included the Coliseum, two catacombs, the Capital Building and the Pantheon. Rome is described as a very tourist city, but it is easy to get around and has so much to see, I really enjoyed my time there. On June 3, I took a flight from Rome to Frankfurt, Germany and then a train a north hour to the city of Marburg to visit my roommate David from Marquette who was studding there for the semester.

I spent 3 days in Marburg getting to know the Brothers Grim and Martin Luther’s home town as well all of David’s friends who lived in the dorm with him. I also got to dive into the German culture because there is basically no tourist in Marburg. All I’ve ever heard about Germany was the beer, which I will admit is quite good, but for much less, I would get a fresh pretzel or strudel from one of the many bakeries located around town. In the city, David took me to a castle and to Rapuzel’s tower as well as to some great restaurants. My last day in Germany I spent in Frankfurt doing a walking tour of the old part of the city which was really interesting because Frankfurt has been an economical center for Europe for centuries and still is one of the banking centers of Europe. One interesting fact about the city is that it has the only skyscrapers in continental Europe.

On June 7, I took a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Dublin, Ireland and then a train across Ireland to the small town of Westport to meet up with my friend Abbie and her family as they were traveling Ireland for 10 days. Here, my hostel as an old house used by nuns and priest, making it very quiet and relaxing and my favorite hostel in Europe. I had a good time with Abbie and her family playing cards and some great meals, but the best part was one day I climbed Croagh Patrick, a mountain at the edge of the sea where St. Patrick prayed for 40 days to cast out all the snakes from Ireland. I had already climbed two mountains in Spain and one in Italy, but this one was a tough one that required me to use my hands for the last 30 minutes of the two hour climb. On the top of this mountain there was a church because this is a popular pilgrimage for many Catholics.

After spending a few days with them, I headed to Galway, Ireland and spent my last night in Europe at a comedy club. On June 11, I took a 3 hr bus ride back to Dublin, then an 8 hour flight to Chicago and then a 3 hr bus ride from Chicago to Madison. In Madison, Brady picked me up because I had told everybody my flight was on June 12, but a few days before my flight, I told Brady the truth so I would have a ride home from Madison. It was nice to surprise Mom and Dad a day early and have a full day free of any plans to just relax and readjust to being in the US.

Thanks for following me along as I travelled Europe.

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