Hey Readers,

I coming back to you experienced.  Since my last post I have done a lot of traveling and have seen a lot of Europe.  Thanks to a good friend from Austria that I met at Cornell last semester, I was able to see a lot of Austria and then some of Northern Italy.  Soon after I came back to Uppsala from this trip I went on a cruise to Riga, the Capital of Latvia.  Very interesting and I will try to let you in on a little of my experiences.  Also, yesterday, a few friends and I did a quick little jaunt to the small historic town of Sigtuna, Sweden.

The rest of the exchange group in Sweden as well as myself have got an unsettling because we see our time here coming to a close.  We do not want it to be over.  The weather is getting better and we want to spend every minute of good weather enjoying Sweden a bit more.  Its funny that I say the weather is getting better because I am currently looking at a wintery mix falling from the sky.  The nasty weather is really the reason I am able to put up a post today because I would otherwise be doing something else.  Actually,  this afternoon I am being hooked up with a baseball connection and I will be able to play some of my favorite sport.  I look forward to playing baseball in a nation where the sport and I are both aliens from the same origin.

My first experience of Central Europe:

I left at the end of March for Vienna, Austria.  Landing there, I could immediately tell that I was in a new land.  It was warm!  and green! The flowers were blooming and the new leaves were coming out.

Ulrike, my Austrian friend that I met at Cornell, gave me a wonderful tour of Vienna, which is her hometown.  I saw many things and got a good taste of Vienna.  Even the sausage.  Vienna is really a gorgeous city.

However, I didn’t really see one part of Austria that wasn’t pleasing to the eye.

From Vienna, we started our journey out.  Our next stop was Graz, Austria to spend Easter with Ulrike’s mother.

A very memorable Easter for sure.  The “Mommys Hotel”  was a 5 star (heart) stay for sure.  Danke shön.

Graz is also very attractive.

After our stay in Graz we went down to Italy.  First stop:  Padova

Not even a two hour drive from Graz and it seemed like a completely different world.  Seemingly like I crossed another ocean.  They spoke a different language, all the buildings had a different style to them, and a warmer climate lent the viability of tropical plant species that I had never seen before.  One thing that stayed the same from Austria was the scenic backdrop of the Alps.

Here you can see the artistic style of Italy. Note the winged lion- a popular statue and mythical creature in italian folklore.

We also made our way to a couple Italian Villa’s.  These historic buildings were the homes of the very wealthy.

Called villas because of the beautiful views they would have as they often sit atop a hill.  We could not take pictures inside but it was sometimes amazing to see some of the art inside- Painted ceiling/walls depicting biblical and greek mythology scenes as well as marble flooring.

Italians love wine and as we passed the countryside, there was always a vineyard to see.

Next Stop- Venice- the city on stilts

A very neat town and yes, I did do a little gondola.  The city seemed very congested and this makes sense- a lot of tourist, concentrated on an island, and the streets are small.

Note: I did not get there consent for the photo but I will put the photo into the blog anyways because my photo was taken a number of times without my permission.  There is a strong likelihood that I am in someone else’s’ blog in a photo.

Next stop- Verona, Italy.  Neat northern Italy city and setting of Romeo and Juliet.  A fundamentally romantic Italian town.

We got to see the Juliet’s home and the setting of the famous “balcony scene”.

But I am not a romantic of course.

While in Italy, I really enjoyed their Dairy marketing.  The italian ice cream is some of the best ice cream I have ever had. Great flavors and very rich and creamy.  The best way to describe it is that it is very good quality soft serve ice cream.  Gelateria, which means ice cream shop in Italian, can be found on any block in Italy because it is so popular (for good reason).  Another cool part of the dairy marketing in Italy are roadside milk dispensers that you can fill up your containers with fresh milk.  I love these things.

And I got some of my own- it is very good, ice cold milk.

A great time in Northern Italy but now we were going to head back up to Austria and stop in Innsbruck- a two time host of the Winter Olympics.  It was a very scenic drive the way up there in the Alps.  I enjoyed seeing the many quaint small towns thriving along the alps.  A beautiful autobahn.

Innsbruck is an awesome town to be in because it is surrounded by the snow-capped mountains of the Alps.

This is also a city that is heavily trafficked by tourists and this town hosts the concept of lederhosen and yodeling.  Looked into buying some gear for myself but it cost too much.  A serious hobby.

The last stop on our journey was Salzburg, Austria.  Home of Mozart and yet another beautiful and historic city.

The city makes a strong effort to maintain its historic image and style and McDonalds must also conform to its style.

The trip was wonderful and many thanks go out to Ulrike and her boyfriend for taking me along with them.

The Cruise to Riga:

A blur….

haha.  No, it was a good time with many friends.  We left on a Sunday night and got back on Tuesday morning.  Spent 6 hours in Riga.  Six hours was enough I think.  The city was interesting and gave off a unique vibe.  It was the feeling of eastern europe and powerful gov’t.  The people of Riga made it most interesting.  Straight faces with little optimism in their eyes. Evidently a poorer country with more beggars, homeless, and addicts around.  The country was recently freed from Russian occupation and I was told the Russian influence is still quite strong.  Latvia will be the closest I will get to Russia because of the difficulty to enter Russia (especially for an American.)

Riga is nice where tourism is the main industry.

The water did not look so appealing however.

The marketplace was really neat to see.  It seemed as though the place would not pass sanitary inspections at times however the food looked really good.

The indoor marketplace was massive and you could find anything you wanted as long as you spoke Latvian.

And here is a video PEDA may have trouble with…

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Overall it was a great trip but I have some friends over now to have some fika.

Cheers