It's safe to say I did enough traveling in the past two weeks to last a lifetime (not quite...but it feels like that).
Before I upload all the pictures, I figure I'll give a succinct description of each place I went for those of you who disagree with the common phrase and are more interested in the one-thousand words than the much more descriptive and efficient pictures:
1. Interlaken, Switzerland: Two friends and I flew into Geneva and took a train through the stunning Swiss countryside to this little town located between two lakes with a turquoise water color straight out of the Caribbean (aptly named Interlaken...i.e. "between lakes.") The town also happens to be the most picturesque place I've ever been, right in the midst of the Alps. The town ALSO happens to be the skydiving capital of the world...and so my friends and I took advantage of that label and went skydiving, dropping out of a plane thousands of feet above the epic peaks of the Alps. It was truly the most unbelievable experience of my life. The feeling...well...was indescribable. Let's just say it felt like gravity pulled you down at a rate much faster than 9.8 meters per second squared. I probably won't do it again just because it was absurdly expensive, but I'm definitely glad I did it. It was an incredible feeling, an incredible view, and most of all, the experience of a lifetime and probably one of the defining moments of my time abroad thus far.
2. Budapest, Hungary: Budapest was amazing. The primary reason why I decided to go here was that my good friend from home spent his fall semester here and told me all of the great things about it (plus it just sounded cool and different from the typical Paris, London, Madrid, etc...kind of the reason I came to Copenhagen also). My friend laid out a nice two and a half day itinerary for me which was extremely useful. I saw everything there, including the famous St. Stevens Cathedral, the amazing Parliament Building, and a bunch of other buildings and areas with complicated Hungarian names I don't remember. It was a beautiful, lively city that was much different from any of the other places I went because of it had a little bit more of an "Eastern" feel to it than the abundance of "Western" cities I've been to. The Danube river was massive and impressive. It gives the city its character. The significance of the river with regard to the city's lay out and cultural center and everything was very reminiscent of the Thames and London. So from a sight-seeing perspective, the city was great, but from a financial perspective, it was even better. It was by far the cheapest place I've been so far and it made me realize just how incredibly expensive Copenhagen is. The exchange rate from the Hungarian Forint to the Dollar is about 200 to 1. The funny thing is that at first I thought it was 20 to 1, so I was incredibly frustrated at how expensive everything was, so when I finally realized it was 200 to 1, I was overjoyed. I could buy a huge bottle of water for about fifty cents (in Copenhagen the same amount of water would be around 9-10 dollars...no joke). Things were cheap and I loved it. Great place.
3. Barcelona, Spain: An interesting city. It was simultaneously a stunningly beautiful place on the gorgeous Mediterranean and also the trashiest, dirtiest place I've ever been. It was a combination of beaches and palm trees and crystal blue water with trash, scum, pick-pocketers, people trying to take your money, hustlers, mean people, lots of poverty, etc. It was tough at times to look around and imagine myself having to live here. I had a great time here, but it wasn't really safe to go out at night considering the amount of crime and pick-pocketing and everything, so I pretty much just stuck to seeing everything during the day and staying in the hostel at night. Probably one of the coolest places I've been during this whole time abroad was the famous Park Guell in Barcelona, designed by the man who basically designed the city of Barcelona, Gaudi. It was an awesome place up in the hills so you could look down and have a great view of the city. Check out the pictures.
4. Milan, Italy: boring...sort of. It rained the whole time I was here. It was gray and gloomy. The city is considered the fashion/shopping capital of the world, and for good reason. The only thing to do there is shop. It wasn't really a great city for me. Also, the hostel I was staying it was pretty terrible. The guys didn't speak English and I was very frustrated with the room and accommodations and everything (I felt like it was wrongly portrayed on the website, and the breakfast I was supposed to get was nothing more than hot water, a tea bag and a cheap processed/packaged pastry that tasted like paper). The guys didn't really care what I thought.
Another disappointment was that I really wanted to see Da Vinci's "Last Supper," but when I got to the place I was turned away and told it was sold out. Whatever that means, I don't know. It's not like it's in an auditorium with a fixed number of seats. I pleaded with the lady to let me buy a ticket but she kind of shrugged me off/pretended she didn't understand English. I was extremely frustrated and at that point was pretty much hating Milan after walking through the rain for hours to get to this place.
HOWEVER, the one redeeming part of Milan was "il Duomo di Milano," or the famous Milan Cathedral. It's the fourth-biggest church in the world. It's extraordinary. I spent my Easter Sunday here, sitting in the pews in this epic holy space the likes of which I'd only seen in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. Because it was free and I figured I'd try to get something out of my time in Milan, I went to the Catholic Easter services here. The service was far different from what I'm used to, obviously, but it was still really cool and a great experience. For this great hour and a half, the weekend in Milan wasn't a total waste.
5. Rome, Italy: Do I really need to say anything about Rome? It was everything and more than I imagined. Beautiful, classic, epic, blah blah blah. Great food, great sights, great weather, great atmosphere. Great time. I loved every bit of it (except for the guy my friends and I ran into that went on a rant about how stuck up all Americans were and how we wanted the whole world to speak English and we didn't care about anyone but ourselves and loved to get into wars and kill tons of people for no reason). That guy was pretty annoying, but we shrugged him off and focused on things like the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, etc.
6. Siena, Italy: A stunning, picturesque little town/city a little south of Florence in Tuscany. Here my roommate from Copenhagen and I met up with my close friend from Tufts who is spending the semester here. It's hard to describe other than to say that anytime I imagined the quintessential Italian/Tuscan village on a nice sunny day with small winding streets and quaint little shops and a great feel, this was what I imagined. See pictures for better description. I feel like I'm using the same words to describe everything...so I guess I'll let the pictures do the talking.
7. Florence, Italy: The former capital of the Renaissance, it wasn't hard to tell that Florence was basically one big museum of a town that was constantly filled to the brim with tourists. The tourism there was worse than Rome...Florence itself is so small that it wasn't able to handle all the tourists. At least in Rome there was space to move. At certain times in Florence, my friend and I were packed in the middle of these huge hordes of people not just waiting in line to see things like Michelangelo's "David" or anything like that but just walking around the streets. Still, Florence is the capital of Tuscany and for good reason. It was extremely beautiful. My friend and I spent an afternoon (since we were very tired from all the traveling) in the famous Michelangelo park.
While in Florence, we took a half-day trip out to the shore to Pisa to see the leaning tower and surrounding town. Very cool. The leaning aspect of the tower is pretty crazy to see in person. See pictures.
After Florence we finally made our way back to Rome and then flew back to Copenhagen. It was a long and busy two weeks, but I made it. I made lots of great memories. My little paragraphs here couldn't come close to really describing the unique feel of each different city, which was definitely the coolest part about traveling around--just seeing how the differently the people acted and everything.
Three or so weeks left of classes, then a week or two of finals, then a couple weeks of down time and then I go sailing for three weeks. Time is flying.
