Sorry for the hiatus

Grad school applications + school work + traveling = absolutely no spare time. Please forgive us for not keeping this blog updated. I really would have liked to talk more about our recent travels, but I'm afraid you will have to settle for the abridged versions of Barcelona, Amsterdam, Rome, London and Paris.

Sorry. I don't have time to pick pictures. Just got look at them :)

Here it goes.

Barcelona:

Night 1

La Rambla. Mexican (not spanish) food and margaritas with friends. Huge shopping complexes

Day 2

Beach. Sangria. "No Woman, No cry" in Catalan. More huge shopping complexes. Walked REALLY, REALLY far! Barcelona game. Intense winds. Bought a Barcelona scarf. Too busy tying my new scarf and dropped my ticket. Dallan angry. Ashley scared. Ticket found. Good luck. Barca wins. Dallan happy. Ashley cold.

Day 3

Bus Tour. Sagrada Familia. Sweet. Park Guell. Sweet. Paella & Sangria. Delicious. Dallan happy ... and full. Karaoke with friends.

Day 4

Casa Batillo. Casa Mila. :) Camp Nou. Dallan spends a REALLY long time trying on jerseys. Buys his Jersey. Dallan Happy. Ashley grumpy. Back on the bus. Talked to an old Italian couple... in Italian. Happy with our language skills. Ate Tapas.... NOT GOOD! SO weird! Night views of Casa Batillo and Casa Mila.

Day 5: Get ready to go home. Take our sweet time thinking that buses to the airport leave every 30 minutes. Big mistake. Missed the bus. Not another for 2 hours. Forced to take a 150 euros ($220) taxi ride in order to make our flight. Ryan Air Bag Gestapo. Made it past. Finally home.

Amsterdam:

Night 1

Late flight. Awesome airport. Get a little lost. Go to sleep.

Day 1

Free Walking Tour. Awesome. Canals. Horrible execution stories. Leaning buildings. Red Light during the day. Break. Eat at La Place. Best sandwiches ever! More Canals. Pancakes. Not very good... not really pancakes. Red light by night. Kinda grimy but interesting nonetheless. Chinese Food. Coffee. Ice Cream.

Day 2

Walk around... a lot. Fair Trade store. Shopping. More canals. Catch a flight home.

Rome

Day 1

Caught night train from Torino. Horrible sleep. 8 hours. Crowded. Get into Rome at 6 am. Walk to Trevi Fountain. Completely empty and really cool. Walk to Coliseum. Ashley dead tired and grumpy aka mad funny. Coffee & pastry. Ashley refreshed. Coliseum, Palatine Hill and the Forum walking tours. Feeling like kids again. Decide to watch Gladiator as soon as possible. Back to hostel. Nap. Meet guide at Spanish Steps for free walking tour of Rome by night. Pantheon. Super amazing. Trevi at night ... this time packed. Yummy food. Back to hostel. Sleep.

Day 2

Head to Vatican City. Tour the Vatican Museum. Rafael rooms, School of Athens. Sistine Chapel, crazy. St. Peter's Basilica, massive and decadent. Walk to Piazza Novona. Ash starving. Super good food. Crazy birds in sky. Maybe an omen? Pantheon again. Go to see New Moon in English.

Day 3

Go to museum. See biggest head, foot and hand statues ever. Tour Rome by day. Buy food stuffs. Eat deliciousness. Catch an earlier train home because night trains suck.

London/Paris

Day 1

Plane. Wait for bus. Freezing cold and rainy. Bus late. Long ride. Take metro. See Colleen (Dallan's sister) for the first time in 3 months. Meet Tom and Pete. Back to Tom's flat. Chill for most of the night. Thai food. Tired. Go to sleep.

Day 2

Walk around. Tom acts as Tour Guide. Big Ben. House of Parliament. West End. Piccadilly Circus. Trafalgar Square. Wagamamas (Katsu Chicken Curry, Thanks Ty ;)) Tom leaves. Britsh Museum. Free! So sweet! Egyptian exhibit puts Torino Egyptian Museum to shame. Harrod's. Too big, crowded and overwhelming. Burgers (pizza for Colleen). Chill again.

Day 3.

Train to Paris. Try to book train home. Sold out. Pay extra and longer travel time. Ashley and Dallan angry and poorer.Train station area = really shady. Creepy guy. Bums sleeping on wet cement. Guy being held up against the wall. Dinner = mediocre and expensive. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Day 4.

1st Sunday of the month = free museums. Walk to Louvre. Packed.... because its free. Walk to Orsee. Packed.... because its free. Walk to the other side of town. Begins to rain and then pour. Get dumped on. Soaked and cold. Eiffel Tower. Awesome. Crepes, mmmmmm. Arc de Triomf. Go up (free). Awesome view. Shopping Street. Visit to the 1st Sephora ever. Go to see The Road in English. Eiffel tower at night. Light show!!

Day 5

Louvre. Employees on strike. Don't allow us to buy tickets. Walk in anyway.... for free! Look at some art. Tom translates. Mona Lisa. Raft of Medusa. Lady Liberty. Venus de Milo statue. Louvre too big. Walked to Notre Dame. Where is Quasimodo? Eat lunch. Go inside church. Sweet stained glass. Chocolate shop. Unsuccessfully try to find shopping. Tea and Coffee.

Day 6

Say goodbye to Tom and Colleen (for now). 7 am train. 12 hour travel time. Finally home. Travels are over. Staying in Torino until the end.

It's been a pretty awesome run. We are sad our travels are over, but we are looking forward to the last couple of days in Torino.

Coming soon: Travel awards. Looking back and Looking forward.

From: Ashley and Dallan

I've got a fever... and the only prescription... is more cowbell!!

Despite the fact that we are up to our necks in grad school applications, don't have a lot of extra spending money, and were starting to come down with something, we went to Switzerland anyway. In truth, I really needed the break from Torino and work, but it was also our 6 year anniversary over the weekend, so we decided to do something fun.

I'm so glad that we decided to go because Switzerland was awesome!! It was so beautiful and completely different than anything that we have done (or will do), so I'm very glad that we got to experience it. We stayed in Interlaken for two nights but did quite a bit of exploring outside of Interlaken as well.

The first night in Interlaken we walked around the cute little town and ate dinner with some friends from the program. I'm a little ashamed to say that we ate at Hooters. I thought that I liked their chicken....but that place is just nasty! The poor girls had to wear those hideously ill fitting shorts even in the freezing cold Switzerland night air! They were nice enough to give them a fuzzy vest to wear over their tank tops (rolls eyes). However, we discovered my new favorite cider-Strongbow Gold! Delicious. After dinner we walked around in the shops and bought some pretty good chocolate. However, I must say that Swiss Chocolate has nothing on Torino's Gianduiotti. Don't worry...I plan on bringing some back for everyone to try..... If I don't eat it all on the 14 hour plane ride home.

The next day Dallan and I decided to make the trip to Gimmelwald, a little town with about 100 inhabitants that live in almost complete isolation. We had to take a train and a bus just to get to the point where you take the Gondola up to the village. On our way we stopped in a little town called Lauterbrunnen that had a beautiful waterfall behind its main street. I had some swiss fondue for lunch...not my cup of tea.

Once we finally got to Gimmelwald I saw some of the most amazing sights I have ever seen in my life. I hope our pictures do it some justice, but photographs could never capture the feeling of having mountains that size all around you or the ever present sound of cowbells. This place was not only insanely beautiful, but such a strange experience. These were bonafied log cabins sitting on mountainsides. There were no cars, hardly any people, and plenty of cows, chickens, sheep, goats, and even a few ponies. There isn't even a food store. The only way up or down is on the gondola and it appears that people mostly just work in the gardens growing their own produce. Gimmelwald was apparently a dangerous place as well. Dallan and I were admiring the view when I turned to see a very large rock falling at insanely high speeds from the top of the hill behind us. It was actually coming right at us and we started to move out of the way, but it made a turn for a house and landed with a horrible crash. I would like to say that I ran to the rescue of any people that might be inside the house, but I just started bursting with laughter. It was truly one of the most absurd things I had ever seen. Luckily, when we did go to see if everything was okay, it turned out that nobody was home and the house itself suffered minimal damage. The fence, the pavement and the stone ledge earned some pretty gnarly battle scars though.

After Gimmelwald we went back to Interlaken and had some AMAZING Thai food. You have no idea how delicious noodles taste when they are covered with anything but tomatoe sauce after 2 months of living in Italy. Unfortunately, Dallan wasn't feeling too well. I had a pretty sore throat, but Dal had a horrendous cough and body aches. He said he felt good while we were up in the mountains (I guess cowbells really were the cure for his fever), but wasn't feeling too hot in the evening. We had a relaxing evening and watched a really cute movie called Outsourced which turned out to be pretty relevant to our experiences. I was glad to get to relax for awhile. It was a pretty great weekend. We are leaving on Friday to go to Barcelona for 4 days :). We have about 45 days until we come home, but we have some great trips coming up and I can't wait!

- Ashley

Lake Como

As Dallan said, we kind of have a lot on our plates right now, so I'll make this quick...

Lake Como was awful. We didn't have any fun at all.

The food was kind of disappointing, especially the tiramisu!

The views were so so.

The little towns weren't very cute.

Don't go to Lake Como. Don't even bother looking at the rest of our pictures.

-Ashley

P.S. You got that I was kidding, right? We LOVED Lake Como. Everything was absolutely beautiful, and it was one of our favorite trips thus far. Oh, and the tiramisu... was AMAZING!!!!

Siena > Florence ... to be honest.

Ciao ragazzi! I know that it has been a while since we last posted anything about our travels, but we have excuses. Hopefully worthy excuses. As of late we've been fairly busy with several endeavors. For the next few weeks, Ashley and I will be hard at work on finishing up all components of our Graduate School Applications (which means a break from the BIGGER trips for a few weekends). All throughout November and early December we will be gone almost every weekend. Most trips will be outside Italy (Barcelona, Amsterdam, London/Paris, and hopefully Switzerland somewhere in between), but Rome may be saved for our big Thanksgiving weekend. We'll see ... booking trips (affordable trips!) seems to take FOREVER.

Because we are so pressed for time (and I kinda had to force myself to sit down and write this) I will make this as quick as possible. We have done a lot of awesome stuff in the past few weeks. To be completely honest, I tend to enjoy just spitting things out about our trips in a rapid fire sort of way. 'Tis Fun! So here we go:

Did some more exploring of Torino. We sat in Piazza San Carlo (favorite in Torino) and drank a Cappuccino & Marochino (a Chocolate/Coffee drink so rich and thick it turned Ashley's teeth brown ... see pic at TOP). Lots of walking. Went to Velentino Park (Torino's Central Park) and saw the 150 year old remake of a medieval village and castle. Little secret: I so wanted to buy a sword and helmet and just swing my wannabe Excalibur around the whole place ... no such luck. Let's move on. Saw a massive fountain (out of service) that was being worked on. Had statues of women for each month of the year. October (Mine and Ashley's Birthday month) had the largest breasts on a statue that we'd seen thus far in Italy. No joke. Funny nonetheless. Torino is also home to the largest open air market in Europe. It was huge and packed. Think local farmer's market + flee market + steroids and you pretty much get what I mean. The amount of produce and various other edible items was insane. I wanted to buy everything ... didn't buy anything (SEE ABOVE). Watched some old Italian guys play Bacce Ball in the Park and then went to watch Barca play at the Shamrock Pub later that night.

We had a big weekend in Florence. Expensive trains again. Stayed at a nice hostel named Ostello Archi Rossi. Everything in Florence is in walking distance. City had one of the better markets for souvenirs. Went to the Duomo (Above) = Big Pretty Church & Massive Dome = HUGE!!! We decided to walk to the top of the tower near the Duomo to get some good pictures.... like walking up stairs at home ... only 100 times over (400+ steps to be exact). Realized I was out of shape :). Got rained on. Walked the entire city. Got up early. Went to the Bargello museum. Once an old prison during the Renaissance. Full of sculptures. Saw Donatello's David (not the one by Michelangelo). Went to the Uffizi Gallery. Full of Renaissance paintings. Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera were our favorite. After a while though, painting after painting (all of which were similar in theme) got a little boring. If you want to go to the Uffizi, take a guided tour or read an art history book prior. If that is not your cup of tea ... then GO TO SIENA!

Had reservations to see the David at the Accademia ... decided to go to Siena instead. We made the right choice. Siena was one of our favorite cities thus far. The city sits on top of a hill in Tuscany. The roads/streets are all stone. Il Campo, Siena's famous Piazza (Above), proved to be one of our favorite places in Italy thus far. Its home to the famous Palio di Siena, which is a dangerous horse race that takes place in the square annually. Siena's duomo was also beautiful. Walked around as the sun set. Got semi-lost (on purpose ... one of our favorite things to do I think). Ate dinner in Il Campo. I thanked Ashley for having made me go there. Best decision of the trip. All in all, Florence was a bit of a disappointment considering it was the home of Michelangelo & Da Vinci .... unless you are an art historian, 'tis just a tad bit boring if you ask us! Siena was amazing and I wish we could have spent more time there.

Next Ash will post about our Day trip to Lake Como, and then I'll write a little about our trip to the Piedmont countryside and the Alba Truffle Fair.
Until then, Ciao!

-Dallan

La Toilette

We noticed that we had started to write a lot about our traveling experiences and were forgetting to mention some of the random happenings and observations that occur on a daily basis. This particular post is about one of the more notable differences we have encountered since the beginning of our stay, la toilette (twah-let-tay).

*Warning*: If you are expecting the usual pictures of gorgeous landscapes or breathtaking architecture then you may want to stop now.

Oh, the lovely toilets in Italy. I have yet to travel outside of Italy, so I'm not sure if these beauties are found in the rest of Europe (my hunch says yes), but hopefully I can at least surprise those of you who have not traveled to Europe before.

I'll start with my favorite breed: floor toilet

Thankfully this is a pretty rare find. It seems like they can usually be found in old buildings. I won't go into a detailed description, I think the picture pretty much speaks for itself. But... I do want to point out that this was in the women's restroom. Not just men get the luxury that is the "floor toilet."

Far more common is a lack of toilet seat. It is usually either missing altogether or at least comes in a much narrower form than the ones back home.

In my apartment's case, they even come in fishy varieties.

What you can't see in these pictures is the flushers. Not one toilet here has a handle flush on the side of the toilet. Here the flushers come in many varieties. For example, some have buttons on the wall to push, large pads or pedals on the floor to step on, or an option to start and stop your own flush (which isn't such a bad idea considering the western world's water consumption). However, I found out the hard way that not all contraptions near a toilet are meant to flush it. One of the first weeks here, I went in to a discoteca to use the restroom on a Friday or Saturday evening out and about in Torino. I saw a string coming from the ceiling of the restroom, and I pulled on it expecting it to flush the toilet. It didn't seem so unreasonable to me seeing as I had seen many pictures of toilets with chain flushers. Anyway, I pulled on the thing and to my dismay the toilet did not flush, but instead a loud alarm sounded. Dallan and Alex were waiting for me outside and said that the neat blue lights that came from the floor suddenly turned red just as the ringing began. Turns out I had tripped some sort of alarm meant to be pulled in the event that you injure yourself or come to harm in the restroom, but I would like to note that not one person came to my aid.

-Ashley

Venice (P.S. - One month down.)

Okay, okay ... I know what you are all expecting me to say, "Venice was super!" Well, you would be close. Venice was super for the most part, but everything that cost us a ridiculous amount of money ........ kinda sucked. Don't get me wrong, I'll have plenty of great things to say about Venice once I get this one little tidbit out of the way. Venice, like most popular tourist destinations, has mastered the art of exploiting the hell out of visitors while locals sit back and laugh ... I'm guessing. I laugh now that I look back, but while I was eating two ridiculously disgusting, supposedly Italian meals (two nights in a row) I was a bit upset. Maybe a little angry. No, borderline livid ... considering what we paid for them (17 Euros the second night/25 US dollars ... BEFORE DRINKS,COVER CHARGE, & GRATUITY!!). Ash got some decent food for a little bit cheaper, but that was tainted by the fact that her plate had about 5 or so ravioli on it! My food was the worst food that I had eaten in Italy thus far, and I'm being honest. We tried our best to avoid horrible food and horrible service, but we could only walk and potentially get lost in the labyrinth that is Venice for so long. Gondola rides? No THANKS!! 100 EUROS! I laughed at the guy when he told me how much. We got pictures of them though! So here you go:

Oh well, enough bad and on to the good.

Pretty much anything that one could do for free in Venice (i.e. walk around and stare at canals/old stuff) makes the trip worth while. The canals are a bit surreal sometimes, especially in the sense that they are both beautiful and perplexing. The water and age old architecture is amazing to look at, but front doors sometimes open to maybe a foot worth of standing room before sinking into the water. Some boats are parked (or docked rather) right at the doorstep. Interesting lifestyle. They sacrifice the practicality of roads and hard surfaces I guess for the beauty that is Venice. Other than the canals and waterways themselves, our favorite aspect of Venice had to be the famous Piazza San Marco (or Saint Mark's Square ... the one with the pigeons). It is absolutely massive, as are many Piazzas in Italy. This one was the biggest yet. The Piazza is made even more amazing by St. Mark's Basilica and the massive tower the stands in the middle. The detailed sculptures on the basilica are astonishing. It's easy to get lost while gazing at old monuments such as this. Ash and I happened to be in the Piazza as the sun was setting. They turn two rows of lights on that line the entire square. Everyone gasped when it happened. Here is a good pic that captures most of the largest open space in Venice:

We also took a tour of three major Venetian Islands (Murano, Torcello, & Burano). Murano left more to be desired other than getting to see some authentic Venetian glass blowing. Twas HOT. Torcello is more marshy than anything. It had several fairly cool relics and one old church. Here is a picture of an old statue that we found sitting in front of this tiny little vineyard:

Burano was by far our favorite. Not only were the canals very cool, but the little buildings were also fun to look at. Each building was painted a different color than the two beside it. And we're not talking mild, earthy tones either. These colors were vibrant and bright. If you had seen one of these buildings standing alone in the States, you'd most likely say, "What the hell was that person thinking?" Not here. When every building is either bright blue, orange, pink, yellow, etc. it works. Check it out:

We also got our hands on some amazing Gelato. Yum. All in all, the trip was awesome but fairly expensive. So if you want to go to Venice, be prepared to pay for food you might not like ... or just avoid any restaurant that has its menu in 5 different languages. Not a good sign. Check out our pictures! Other than that, as of this week, Ash and I have officially been in Italy for one month. This week we stay in Torino and hopefully get to explore a bit more. Next weekend we both have birthdays and plan on going to Florence. Hope all is well back home.

Ciao!

-Dallan

Cinque Terre = Five Lands

Despite the fact that Ashley already wrote about it, I do want to quickly mention that Portofino was absolutely amazing and by far one of my favorite places on the trip thus far. So there, I said it, but now to talk about the Cinque Terre. I will also make note of the fact that this too was one of the most beautiful and unique places that I have ever been to in my entire life. I know. It sounds like I'm exaggerating ... but I'm not. After leaving Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure, we took a train to the Cinque Terre (specifically Riomaggiore). The Cinque Terre (or Five Lands) is essentially 5 tiny villages along the Italian Riviera. Many tourists come here to hike from village to village. After looking at several pictures of all 5 villages before the trip, I decided that Riomaggiore was the one that I was most looking forward to. Riomaggiore was the village furthest south, and after calling earlier in the day, we got lucky and stayed overnight on Saturday.

Upon arriving, we decided to explore a bit and found our way along a rocky pathway on the cliffside leading to a pebble filled "beach" ... once again, no sand just rocks. It was honestly one my favorite moments of the trip, so we stole some pebbles for souvenirs. :) I encourage everyone to click on the links to the right to look at all the pictures because one or two can't do these places justice:

On our way back to the harbor/port/whatever you want to call it, we decided that walking out onto some rocks/marble in the middle of the ocean might be a good idea. Well, I got some pretty great pictures!!!! BUT, in doing so, I stepped on a half submerged rock full of seaweed ... aka ZERO TRACTION. I slipped right into the ocean. Shoes: soaked and full of water. Shorts: soaked and full of water. Underwear: soaked. Sock: soaked. Ashley's camera??? : SAVED. Post slippage picture:

After making me take a picture as a happy version of my wet self, Ash and I went to look for some sandals/flip-flops. We found some. One pair in my size in the whole village ... with the Brazilian Flag across both sandals and the word BRAZIL across both as well. Picture in our gallery. We thought it was funny and I'm never throwing these flip-flops away ... ever. After exploring we ate at a really nice restaurant with the best view of the ocean at sunset. Romantic mushy stuff. I ate Fish Ravioli with Hake and Prawn sauce ... amazing, and Ash had a Pesto Pasta dish. The region is also well known for its amazing pesto.

I am now writing too much and getting tired (midnight here), so I will once again wrap it up as quickly as possible. Explored the village at night ... and got lost. Climbed a million stairs. Stairs are ridiculous! Twice the size of average steps and steep! Had a few beers while watching a Juve game with fellow Juve fan. He didn't speak the best of English, but we became good friends nonetheless. Left in the morning for the first Cinque Terre village, Monterosso. Also beautiful. But it started to rain. Hard. And we were in flip-flops. Uncomfortable. We had an amazing time and could not have asked for anything better. I loved this place. All of them.

Tomorrow morning we are off to Venice for two nights! Sure to have more to talk about when we get back. We miss everyone and hope that people still read this thing! Until next time!

Ciao!

-Dallan