Blogs from Europe - page 12072

I missed you all sooooooooo much this weekend...I think this was my first Easter away from home! I thought I'd make sure you knew that before I told you how fun my weekend was :) Sunday I got up at 5am to make it to our Easter sunrise service in Villa Bourghese, a huge park overlooking the Vatican. We had a brisk 45 min walk to make it there, but it was a beautiful morning and it felt good to start off my day in the peace of the early morning instead of my usual 10am roll out of bed and rush off to school. As I walked up the hill into the overlook where the service was I looked out across Rome. It was so beautiful, the morning clouds were still hanging low over the ... read more

Venice Europe » Italy » Venice By Brian LauranApril 10th 2007Brian LongVenice was amazing. Who ever thought that getting lost in a city could be so much fun.... read more

The first nights in Avellino were difficult. To say that I was homesick is not sufficient. I had lived abroad before, and loved it. But it had been so long since I had been truly independent. I had become too reliant on my relationship, which was one of the reasons that I left, but I had not prepared myself for how truly alone I would be. There is a thin line between independence and loneliness, and I was terrified that I had crossed it. An even bigger fear was that I had permanently lost a part of myself by relying on someone else for too long. The second night I walked up and down the streets—there was a fair and vendors were set up selling everything from antiques to toys to children’s books. I was relieved ... read more

London, like any huge cosmopolitan metropolis, is the home of many nationalities. Roughly 40% of the London population is of foreign origin, you can hear people talking in Turkish, Spanish, French, German, Bengali, Pakistani, Polish, Japanese,etc... The Camden Borough is supporting a project which wants to bring this diversity of languages closer to everybody and encourages teaching all sort of languages after school, community languages that is. They're sponsoring a Teaching Community Languages course which I attend every Friday for 3 hours and it's run by a lovely Bengali teacher. From what I've seen so far, it looks like it's gonna be lots of fun and lots of work as well, as we have assignments and very strict dead-lines, but there's nothing to fear, I've always been quite studious, and I actually enjoy it. The group ... read more

Geo: 47.81, 13.04Today I did a day trip to Salzburg, it was only a two hour train ride, 150 kms from Munich. Salzburg is just over the German/Austrian border. This city is well known for being the birthplace of Mozart and for scenes of The Sound of Music being filmed in the city. The name Salzburg means 'salt castle' and comes from the barges of salt that were transported down the Salzach River which runs through the city. I walked through the palace gardens that were seen in the Sound of Music movie. From here I could see the Hohensalzburg Fortress at the top of the hill. The city is surrounded by the alps. Luckily for the city, only the cathedral dome and the bridges were destroyed during WWII. I saw a house that Mozart lived ... read more