Pass the Cheese Please!

Parole: Londra (London), torre (tower), fiume (river)

Spring Break 2011 will be a time that I will remember for the rest of my life.  I visited many countries and met up with other friends studying abroad around Northern Europe.  At one point during my journey, I realized that I was in 4 countries and 3 time zones within 3 days.  How awesome is that?  My destinations included London, Uppsala & Stockholm, Sweden, Helsinki, Finland,  and Tallinn, Estonia. By far, my favorite city was Tallinn.  I would say that London was a close second place.

So let’s get down to business.  I will be posting over the next few days so that I don’t overwhelm you!  On a sidenote, the work experience part of our program will be starting Monday, so two of us will be staying at Federico’s farm and working at a nearby caseificio and two of us will be staying in the apartment to work on a large fattoria per la produzione di latte.

Arrivederci Parma.   Hello London.

On Sunday, April 18^th I was the only one left in the apartment.  So, I went to Federico’s farm for the evening and came back on Monday.  I had a lot of fun.  While I was there, I helped him and his father work on many little, random projects around his farm and house, both of which are in the process of being renovated.  I was the only American there, so obviously, English was not the dominate language.  I feel like I learned a lot of Italian and improved my speaking abilities significantly by being alone with a family of Italians.  I hope that I get this opportunity again.  Even Federico’s three-year old son was teaching me Italian.  At dinner, he would say a word (usually complicated ones like Italian names for dinosaurs) and then I would have to repeat it.  After I would repeat the word (or at least try to) we would all laugh at me (I can’t pronounce words correctly in my own language, let alone in Italian!).  In return, I did the same thing to him with English words.  I was nice and said simple words like “water” and “plate”, as opposed to things like “ippopotamo” (hippopotamus…in Italian it is a lot harder to say than you think!)

Monday, I headed to the Parma airport for my cheap RyanAir flight to London.  I had so many thoughts running through my head.  The most common ones where Keys? Wallet? Phone? Passport? Tickets? Electircal tape? (hey, you never know).  I must have looked funny patting myself down every few minutes to make sure that I still had all of the essentials. The London airport that I flew into is a 40 minute train ride outside of London, so I got to my hostel around 6:30 that evening.  I took a walk around the city.  It was really peaceful because the tourists were all back at their hotels or at dinner for the evening.  This meant that I was able to observe a lot of native Londoners.  It appears to be a very physically active city.  The bikers and joggers wore reflective gear, which is not something you see in Italy.  The bikers also were wearing helmets, and their bikes had headlights, also a rareity in Italy.  Something I did not figure out is why 96.475% (just an estimate) of all runners that I saw were wearing backpacks.  They were not even backpacks with waterbladders in them.  Most of them were just regular backpacks!  Anyway, Parliament and Big Ben were pretty all lit up in the evening.  I also noticed that the water level on the River Thames seemed to be pretty low.  One former boat is now a bar/resturant, and it was sitting on pieces of wood holding it up off from the shore!  There was also some sort of rig that had a platform and some small cranes, and it was near the riverbank, and it was about 15 feet above the water level, and there was no water underneath it on once side.

Low Tide on the River Thames

See the High Tide?

Wandering around, it was difficult to cross the road.  Why?  It is so hard to figure out which way to look when crossing the road.  The whole “left hand” driving thing is still so trange to me.  For the tourists, most of the intersections had signs on them that said “look left” or “look right”, just to lessen the chance of us getting hit because we didn’t check for cars while J-Walking (read that as cross walks weren’t always used anyway).

Signs on the road for pedestrians from the rest of the world

The next morning I got up early and headed to Buckingham Palace, some memorials, and some parks.  Because the time was one hour later than what I was used to, it was no problem for me to get up early, grab a quick breakfast, and be on my merry way.

Buckingham Palace

It is amazing how peaceful a city is at 8:30 in the morning.  There was less than 20 people around Buckingham Palace.  I walked some more and explored Hyde Park (500+ acres, has beautiful gardens, a pond, a resturant), Green Park, and Saint James Park.  While I was in Hyde Park, about 200 guards on horses went by.  Following the calvary was a trailer that said “HORSE AMBULENCE” and a street cleaner.  They clearly have a system.  There were also a few people riding their horses around on dirt paths in Hyde Park.

Me at Serpent Lake in Hyde Park

Crossing for Horses

By 11:30, there were literally hundreds and hundreds of people outside of Buckingham.  In the afternoon I went to the London Aquarium. Ironically, there is a sushi bar located on top of it.  Then, I met up with Katie Grandle, a Cornell student spending the year studying at Durham University, and we went on the London Eye.  The London Eye had a great view.  For those of you who don’t know, it is a giant ferris wheel with 32 “pods” that hold around 30 people.  Now, it only has 31 pods.  Number 13 was removed because the Britis are very superstitious people.

See the missing No. 13 pod?

A majority of the day Wednesday I spent on one of the famous “The Origional Tour” open top bus tours.  I learned a lot about London, and found some sights that I really wanted to see.  Best of all, my ticket was good for 24 hours, so I could use it to get on and off the bus to go around the city.  I also did some more wondering around the actual City of London, and walked around St. Paul’s Cathederal, walked over the Thames on the millineium bridge, and walked around Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.  A final destination Wednesday was the Royal Mews, where the Golden Carraiage is loacted.  The carriage weighs 4 tons and there is 1 man for every two horses in the team of horses that pull it.

St. Paul's

Shakespeare's Globe Theater

If I ever get the chance to return to London, I have a few more places that I would like to visit.  I would like to visit the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, and the Britian at War museum.  Westminster Abbey was closed when I wanted to tour it because of a Holy Week service.  I did walk around the outside of it a few times. It was also being prepared for the Royal Wedding.

Fun Facts about London

• “Big Ben” refers to the 13.2 ton bell that rings every hour, not the tower itself.
• The actual city of London is only about 1 square mile.  It is the business center.  It contains the oldest and the newest structures in London.  They are working on digging up ancient Roman ruins there.  It is amazing how the Romans were all the way up there, and actually founded London.
• The city of London was completely destroyed in 1666 with the great fire that started at the Kings Bakery on Pudding Lane.  If the memorial tower to the fire is set on its side, the tip will land at the source of the fire.
• The great fire destroyed the entire city but only killed 4 people.  The plague killed hundreds of thousands of people.  The fire is believed to end the plague, because it killed the rats and the pathogen-carrying fleas that were on them.
• St. Paul’s Cathedral was destroyed in the London Fire.  The builder of the new Cathedral, Christopher Wren, also designed a pub just down the street from the Cathedral.  Which was built first?  Yep, the pub.  The tour guide said he is the “best boss ever” because is workers could take a break, “drink a pint, and go back to work!”
• The narrowest pub in London is “Ye Olde Cock Tavern”, at 9.5 feet wide.
• “Alfred’s Pub” had a bell in it for when a vote was about to happen in Parliament, so the councilmen could get back in time to make a decision.
• The Brits are very superstitious, as I mentioned about the number 13 pod on the London Eye.  They say the country is in danger if the “Lions drink”, referring to the lion statues on the edge of the Thames.  The Thames is a tidal river, and while I was there, they lions almost got rid of their thirst, because the water level fluctuated greater than 10 feet daily.  The floating restaurant I mentioned earlier was actually floating during the day, and the rig I talked about only had a few feet in between the water level and the platform during the day.  Further, Ravens are kept in the Tower of London.  If they disappear, the monarch is in danger.  Many of these Ravens died during WWII.  As a result, they had to repopulate the tower with Ravens, just so that the Brits wouldn’t freak out.
• Winston Churchill was a wise, brilliant, and a funny man.  A guide on the Original Tour told us some quotes.  Someone once said to him “if you were my husband, I would poison you.” He responded with “If you were my wife, I would drink it!” Another evening, Churchill was drunk at a bar, and a woman said “you’re drunk.” Mr. Churchill responded with “and in the morning, I won’t be.  In the morning, you will still be ugly.” Like I said, he was a very smart man.

Thanks for sticking with me.  Part two will be posted soon!

New Words: stazione ferroviaria (train station), biglietto (ticket), me aiuto! (help me!)

I apologize in advance for the long post.  I have so much to share about getting from New York state to Parma, Italy.

We are here we are here!  It is crazy that we are a half a world away from home.  For Liz and Lindsey, it took 25 hours to get to Parma.  For Aubrey and I, it took about 35.  Getting to Parma, was definitely a journey in itself.

The four of us were supposed to meet in Philadelphia for our direct flight to Rome.  Aubrey and I flew out of Syracuse, Liz out of Albany, and Lindsey out of Manchester.  As Mr. Steinbeck suggested even the “The best laid schemes of mice and men. Go often askew”.

The flight 3833 from Syracuse to Philly was delayed 3 hours, putting Aubrey and I past our 2.5 hour layover, causing us to miss our direct flight to Rome.  Our new flights sent us to London, and then to Rome.

At least we got to see the French Alps in the daytime!

When we landed in Philly, Lindsey called me.  They were on the plane that we were supposed to be on, waiting in line at the deicer.  So close!  Can we just jump off the plane onto the tarmac, run over to the deicing station, and climb aboard?  Not so much.  How would we catch up with them in Italy?  They do not have world phones, but at least Aubrey has one, so we can call our contacts in Parma when we get there.  We wished them the best of luck, I sent them some phone numbers and said see you in Parma.  I felt I like I was on the amazing race. On the bright side, there were 11 other people traveling to Rome from Syracuse, so we had a checks system to make certain that we were in the right place in the airport.

We flew to London.  Check that off our list of places to go.  Stayed for 3 hours, and flew Alitailia to Rome.  For some reason, Aubrey’s world phone was not working in England.  Maybe it was not supposed to work in England.  We will try again in Rome.  We landed in Roma after our three and a half hour flight from London, got our baggage, and caught the Leonardo Express to Roma Termini.  Roma Termini is very confusing for a first timer.  The Leonardo Express from the airport arrives at the station a little ways away from the rest of the platforms.  We had to drag out luggage around the station.  We tried Aubrey’s phone again.  Still nothing.  We bought prepaid Tim Wireless SIM cards and phones at the station.  Very cheap 25€ phones, that feel like they will break so easily.  I pressed the down arrow on Aubrey’s phone and a piece of plastic flew off of it.  However, it should do the job.  The SIM card would not be activated for another 12 hours, so we still could not call anybody.  We tried pay phones, but it always told us “partial rest not available” on the screen of the payphone.  We were not able to figure it out, so we did were not in contact with anyone.

We had a lot of bags.

At the train station, we booked our train with 74€ tickets on the Frecciarossa train (a bullet train), directly to Parma.  We followed the signs, waited at the door under the track.  We heard the train roll in, but the doors to the tracks didn’t open.  That is how it works in NY Penn station.  Apparently not here.  Next thing we know, the train takes off, and it is no longer listed on the departures board.  We missed our train.  We waited, however security told us to leave, so we went back upstairs, dragging our luggage still, and tried to figure out what to do.  We stressed out a little when we realized we really could not contact anyone, and that we missed our train.

So we got our tickets changed for an additional 2.40€, as we had to take a different Frecciarossa to Bolonga, and then a local (R or regional) train to Parma, putting us there a 2:00AM.  We found our train immediately.  Apparently all the train tracks end upstairs, so we were able to walk around them, and get directly onto our train, instead of going underneath the tracks and using the stairs to cross.  Basically we missed our first train because of poor signage.

The train had desks, outlets, and best of all for 0.01€, unlimited access to the world wide web for 24 hours.  We plugged in our phones and my computer, and I began to write an email to all of our contacts in Parma, as well as a few at Cornell that may be able to help us.  Our problem was that we would be arriving in Parma at 2:00AM, did not know how to get to our apartment, did not know where Liz and Lindsey were, had no phones that would work in the country, and could not figure out the payphones.  The email was like an SOS cry for help.

About 3 hours into the 4 hour train ride, I recieved an email from Federico Righi, our contact in Parma.  He is like our advisor here.  He told us he got our email, and that his collegue Gulio would pick us up at the Parma train station, and take us to our apartment where Liz and Lindsey were.  What a huge sigh of relief!  The weight was lifted off our backs.  We finally had a plan.

We arrived at the train station, in Parma, and Guilo spotted us right away.  It must have been Aubrey’s huge blue suitcase.  Or that we were American.  More likely the former.  We packed ourselves and our stuff into his car, he took us to the flat, we buzzed in, and Liz and Lindsey woke up and opened the door for us after about 20 minutes of buzzing.  I have never been so happy so see someone as I was then.  After 35 hours of travel, we finally made it to our apartment, and were able to sleep in a real bed. (Aubrey took the big bed, so I was stuck with a twin).

Us at Palazzo della Pilotta

I have so much more to share, but this post is way too long as it is.

Arrivederci!