The Munchkins Take Munich and Salzburg

I'm back home now, but no worries--my blog isn't!  I'm still reliving the memories of my travels and study abroad experience through my pictures that I am just now getting a chance to go through.  My last trip of the semester was probably one of my favorites--six of us girls, Anna, Matie, Erin, Liz, Hillary, and I went to Munich and Salzburg for the first weekend of April.  It was just the kind of trip we all needed--very low-key and without a specific agenda.  We had yet to experience the German culture, so it was a new and unique experience for all of us.  The language barrier was quite rough, and I'm sure we looked like complete idiots trying to order off the all-German menus, but it was hilarious nonetheless.  We realized upon getting to Munich that we didn't even know how to say "Munich" in German (or "hello" or "thank you" or any of the other basics for that matter!), so in our attempts to read the German spelling ("Munchen"), we began to call it "Munchkin." We even all bought these super touristy winter hats that said Munchen and wore them all around the city.  Let's just say we got quite a few stares, but we could have cared less!

In Munich, we went to Marianplatz, the main square buzzing with activity, visited some churches in and around the square, and climbed a nearby tower overlooking the whole city.  I honestly couldn't tell you the names of these churches or specific places, partly because I can't remember, but mostly because I cannot even attempt to spell them in German!  I do know, however, that each and every church we visited was unique and definitely measured up to the European standard for Catholic Churches (I've seen my fair share of churches this year!).  Later in the afternoon, we walked through the markets and tasted some delicious food from an all-natural stand where the lady explained (in English, thankfully!) what everything was and how it is made.  Our favorite were the dried "apfel" chips of which we purchased many!  After the markets, we made our way to the English gardens, a park that is even bigger than Central Park, for a leisurely stroll in our munchkin hats :)

View of Marianplatz from the clock tower

Climbing the clock tower

Tasting goodies in the German markets

We even tried on Bavarian Dirndls (even though the sign in the dressing room said not to take pictures!)

That evening for dinner we went to the Hofbräuhaus, the famous beer hall in Munich.  It was a pretty entertaining experience since none of the six of us are major beer drinkers, but on the menu, you have to order beer by the liter!  We ordered lots of food to go with it including a few too many giant soft pretzels and slowly nursed our beers all evening until it became almost impossible to put another piece of food in our mouths.  It took a little help from the other girls, but I did manage to finish my full liter of beer--and it was good too!  I just know that after the beer plus the several pretzels and large portions of meat, I definitely can't eat German food every day!  It was good, but I was glad for our Italian food on a 
daily basis...my stomach is much better adjusted to it!

One liter...here we go!

Sporting our "Munchkin" hats at the Hofbrauhaus!  

We did it!

The next morning we packed up our bags and boarded our train to Salzburg, which is about an hour and a half away from Munich.  I had been looking forward to going to Austria all semester, and it definitely met--and exceeded--my expectations!  We couldn't see the hills very well because it was a bit foggy and cloudy, but the town itself was very quaint and easy to see in a couple days' time.  We only had Saturday there so we just made up our plans as we went, hitting some, but not all, of the Sound of Music sights while enjoying the local culture.  Our day started with a very necessary coffee stop, which turned into a very fun local experience.  We went to this adorable bakery/breakfast place where we had apple strudel and vanilla chai lattes.  The waitresses didn't speak much English but they brought out a few copies of the translated menu for us and we got by :)  We liked the place so much that we came back the following morning!

Yumm...wish I could go back to this moment in time!

In the early part of the day, we wandered around the city on a self-guided tour to find all that Salzburg has to offer.  We found some of the Sound of Music sites, a couple churches, and then even climbed up to the fortress to enjoy the beautiful views of the city outstretched before our eyes.

Fountain that Maria dances around while singing "I Have Confidence"

The cemetery that Hollywood used as the model for the scene when the Von Trapp family hides from the Nazis

Climbing up to the fortress

Amazing view at the top of the fortress

During the afternoon, we went to the Nonnberg Abbey where the real Maria lived and studied (as well as where parts of the movie were filmed), the string puppets exhibit, and the Mirabell Gardens, the site of the Do-Re-Me scene with Maria and the children.

Outside the gates of the Abbey asking for Fraulein Maria! 

Dancing around the fountain like the Vonn Trapp children :)

Enjoying the Mirabell Gardens

That night, we channeled all our Sound of Music energy and excitement into actually watching the film which is shown on a nightly basis at our hostel.  It was so strange to watch it after seeing many of the filming locations.  We were kept very entertained by an interesting guy who worked at the hostel and kept on coming in to the room where the movie was showing making random comments.  Matie even snapped a few photos of this character--this one may or may not be my favorite pic of the whole trip!!

I loved this trip because I really got to know the girls I traveled with better.  Between our imitating Portia Prebys and Riccardo Riccardi, sporting Munchkin hats 24/7 like total tourists, trying on German Oktoberfest costumes, singing and acting out the Sound of Music our whole way through Salzburg, and attempting/failing to pronounce German words, I don't think I've laughed so much in one weekend's time!  Shoutout to my Smick Munchkins + Hillary--thanks for one of the best weekends ever!

Buona Pasqua!!

Happy Easter to you all!!  It's been an unforgettable Lent and Easter season here in Rome.  The first couple weeks of this semester, I was overcome with feelings of incredible loss, worry, loneliness, homesickness, and depression.  So throughout this Lent I kept a journal in which every day I wrote down at least three things that were happy about my day/little ways I saw God.  It really was a great exercise in positive thinking and reminded me that even when I am at my lowest, God NEVER abandons me.  Just a few of my many blessings this Lent:

• Attending Pope Benedict's last public mass on Ash Wednesday
• Getting to know my fellow study abroad girls & connecting with some much more than I thought possible
• Experiencing TV journalism firsthand through meeting, connecting, and being interviewed by NBC employees
• Finding churches with mass in English!
• Cards and care packages from loved ones back home
• Witnessing the white smoke and election of a new pope 
• Connecting with friends studying abroad in Europe
• Traveling to Paris, Belgium, Northern Italy, Siena, Pisa, and Cinque Terre
• Attending the installation mass of Papa Francesco
• Meeting with other American Catholics and bonding over our shared faith and culture
• Good Friday mass at Saint Peter's with Papa Francesco, followed by Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum
• Easter Sunday mass in Saint Peter's Square on a beautiful (non-rainy!!) day in Roma

Wow.  If anything, this Lent has put me back on track to see things in perspective.  We all have our crosses to carry in life, and although my struggles have not disappeared, I do know that we do not struggle alone.  The one True Cross offers hope.  Hope in eternal life.  

I will leave you this Easter Sunday with an excerpt from Pope Francis's Urbi et Orbi message today: 

"What does it mean that Jesus is risen?  It means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom.  The love God can do this!.......Bear in your families and in your countries the message of joy, hope and peace which every year, on this day, is powerfully renewed." 

Buona Pasqua a tutti e pace a tutto il mondo!

Siena, Pisa, and Cinque Terre

Last Friday, we had our final group tour for our lectures and tours class--a day trip to Siena.  I must say I had mixed feelings about the whole thing, because while tours with our professors (who are great btw!) seem to drag on a little longer than we'd all like, it was weird and kinda sad knowing that I won't have any more of them.  

Siena was a beautiful Italian town, and I'm glad I got to visit and learn about it in the process.  We saw the Duomo which was almost identical to Orvieto's Duomo which I saw last semeser--the inside is much more ornate in Siena, however with its black and white stripes and its frescoed Biblioteca Piccolomini.  We also visited the main piazza in Siena, Piazza del Campo, which is the site of the famous Palio horse races that take place in July and August.  

Siena Duomo

Inside the Duomo

Biblioteca Piccolomini in the Duomo

Piazza del Campo

A highlight of Siena was the Basilica di San Domenico where Saint Catherine of Siena's incorruptible head and thumb are housed!  A little creepy, but a cool story behind it: when St. Catherine died in Rome, her body was buried in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (a church right down the street from our classroom building), but the people of Siena wanted her back, so they smuggled her head back to Siena in a bag.  When stopped by the Roman guards, they prayed to St. Catherine to help them.  Upon inspection of the bag, it appeared to no longer contain her head, but rose petals instead.  Once they got back to Siena, her head was visible once more.  How crazy is that?! 

View of San Domenico in the distance

After a delicious meal with Ana, she and the rest of the group boarded the bus back to Rome, while my friend Karla and I stayed in Siena for the evening.  We were planning on doing some further shopping and sightseeing in the little town, but as soon as we checked into our B&B and laid down on our memory foam mattresses, we were completely out until 9:30 pm!!  Oh well--at least we finally caught up on some sleep!!  

The perfect Italian meal <3

The next morning, Karla and I took the train to Pisa, where we did a short stopover just to see the Leaning Tower and take our obligatory pictures.  The tower is pretty cool, but it is pretty much the only thing to see in Pisa and is naturally very touristy.  We took our goofy pictures holding up and hugging the tower and laughed at other people doing the same.  

#tourist

This guy was literally doing every pose humanly possible with the tower...quite the entertainment!

However, due to a slightly longer than expected bus ride from the Duomo/Tower back to the train station, we missed our next train to Cinque Terre by literally 2 minutes!  So we ended up waiting in Pisa for another hour before (illegally) getting on the next train with our tickets from our missed train.  When the conductor came around to check tickets, we acted stupid and confused about the times, and hey, it worked!  But instead of our original direct train to Monterosso (the northern-most town where we were staying in Cinque Terre), the train we got on had a stopover in La Spezia, so we had to repeat the playing stupid game again!  Karla described all the in-between random happenings very well in her Facebook status update that day: 

"While en route to The Cinque Terre with Mackenzie Woods...Due to stupid pictures in Pisa, our one-hour direct train to Monterosso became a 3+hour fiasco with transfers. Of course, all began to literally go downhill when I tumbled down a fleet of stairs, only to be stopped by the kind janitor who was mopping said staircase. Upon finding a seat (after having jumped moving tracks) we witnessed the potential theft of a child via a dog carrier by an elderly Asian woman who insisted it was a dog. The epic did not end there, as we proceeded to be harassed by preteen Italian boys putting lizards in our path.....I'm not on drugs; I'm on trenitalia, and I need a drink."

By the time we finally made it to Cinque Terre where our friend Erin and her sister Meg were waiting to meet us, we were laughing out of delirium at the ridiculousness of our day plus the fact that just as we arrived in this beautiful outdoorsy coastal town, it started to rain (and continued to do so for the rest of the weekend).  We made the best of it though, exchanging travel stories with Erin and Meg over a drink at a cute bar overlooking the water in Monterosso.  We then made our way to our B&B by hiking through the hills--literally--since the main road between the new town of Monterosso (where the train station is located) and the old town is under construction.  So what should have taken only a minute by car took us 30 minutes hiking!  We were relieved when we finally made it to our adorable B&B and were greeted by the owners, Gian Luigi and Cherry!  We rounded out the evening by walking around the little town in the rain and eating homemade pesto pasta and drinking vino in a cute restaurant on the shoreline.  

Sunday morning we went to Palm Sunday mass at the little Catholic Church in Monterosso and it was just the cutest thing EVER!  The procession started outside with lots of little children and their grandparents who were giving them handmade ornately decorated palm branches, each tied with a donut-like pastry on it.  Even the little altar boys were eating the donuts off their palm branches during mass!  It was quite different to experience mass in this tiny town--especially compared to the size and grandeur of masses I've been attending at the Vatican--but I really liked the personal, close-knit community aspect in Monterosso.  It just felt so authentically Italian.

Palm Sunday procession

Italian children playing with their palms

Doesn't get much more Italian than this...

Because of mudslides over the past few months and rainy weather, the main coastal trails in Cinque Terre were closed, so Karla and I hiked inland and still got some fabulous views.  We did the majority of our hiking within Monterosso and then took a train through the other towns, stopping off in the southernmost one, Riomaggiore.  By the time we got there, though, it was pouring rain and we didn't have much time until we had to get back to catch our train.  We didn't escape train delays and issues on the way back, which made for a very long (and motion-sick on my part) trip back to Rome.  Needless to say, we were exhausted and looking forward to being off of buses and trains for awhile.

Cinque Terre was beautiful, even in the rain, so I can only imagine those 5 coastal towns in the summertime---next family vacation, mom and dad??!

The land of chocolate, waffles, and chocolate-waffles!

So here's the scoop on Belgium--a couple weeks late, but better than never!

Belgium was never a country I imagined visiting during my time here in Europe, but somehow, it came up in conversation with friends over the course of this second semester.  Before I knew it, there I was with Hillary and Shannon, devouring waffles and exploring the streets of Brussels and Brugge!  It was just the kind of weekend I needed after our Northern Italy trip--no schedules, no specific sites to check off a list--just wandering around, getting lost, oh, and did I mention?--eating!!  It wasn't the healthiest of weekends, but really, how often are you in a city with a waffle cart or chocolate store on every corner? This was not an experience to be missed, my friends!

We spent two of our three-day weekend in Brussels, where we saw the Grand Place, Gallerie Royale, Palace of Justice, Royal Palace, and Belgian Parliament.  All the architecture is worlds different from anything I've seen in Italy.  It actually reminded me quite a bit of Paris, which makes sense since Paris is only a short train-ride away from Belgium.  We also saw the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudule, which looks pretty similar to Notre Dame in Paris--the inside was prettier than Notre Dame, in my opinion though!  

In front of the Royal Palace

Main square in Brussels, the Grote Market

Notre Dame look-alike

On Friday night we also made our way to the Atomium (the only sight we had to take public transportation to--everything else was within walking distance, which was fabulous!).  This somewhat odd monument resembling an atom was built in the 1950s for the World's Fair Exhibition, and although we didn't go up inside its metal spheres, we got some cool pictures of it lit up at night.  

A common theme throughout the weekend was this little peeing boy, known as the Mannekin Pis, a supposedly iconic figure for Brussels, whose statue is dressed up by different groups in the city every few days.  Not really sure the reason behind the fascination with a statue of a boy peeing, but in any case, we found it funny and took far too many pictures of the real statue as well as all its various duplicates in chocolate, waffle, and souvenir shops!  

Chocolate shop

Mannekin Pis corkscrews!

The real deal--Mannekin Pis

Outfit change on Sunday

My favorite part of the whole weekend, however, was our day trip on Saturday to Brugge.  Brugge is like Brussels on a smaller, cuter scale in that it has similar elements of Northern European architecture with large, open piazzas, but also has several canals that make it sort of Venice-like.  There's a general old-town feel, as you stroll through the cobblestone streets past horse drawn carriages and over little bridges, all the while taking in the sweet aroma of chocolate.  Mmmmmmm.  I miss it already!

Between hot-chocolate drinking, shopping, and wandering around, we also went on a boat tour through the canals which turned out to be an awesome way to experience the ambience of the town.  

Random side note: the waiter at the restaurant where we ate lunch was hilarious and was totally flirting with us, even asking if we believed he was 20 years old (he looked much older), and showing us his passport when we said no!  He kept on coming back to our table to talk to us and bring us free dessert, and then while we were walking out, he turned to me and said, "You are very beautiful."  We took a picture with our new friend (his name was Din lol) on Shannon's camera and later on when we were looking through our pictures for the day, we realized just how funny this one was.  Can you tell who he liked the best??! hahaha

All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better weekend!  I hope I get to return to Belgium someday!