SB Week 3

I'm having the most amazing time of my life, and aside from the fact that I'm sick of wearing the same 4 things on repeat from living out of a backpack, I can’t imagine any other complaints.
*note- I am actually back in Leeds now, but I will continue to blog with a week delay.

Interlaken, Switzerland:
Literally in a valley of the Swiss Alps it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. Things are very expensive, most likely due to it being hard to get things in and out of the mountains. Because of this we cooked all of our own meals at the hostel, this time taking care to using tomato sauce for pasta. The second day there we took a lift up into the mountain and hiked all day. We saw some amazing views. If anyone is familiar with the Narnia stories (nerdy I know) I literally felt like I was in Narnia. The ground was covered in snow, but it was 65-70 degrees and everything was melting (like when Aslan comes to kick out the White Witch, ha). Due to all the melting there were fresh streams and waterfalls all over the valley, amazing.

Munich, Germany:
Obviously all of Europe, Germany especially, are still working through the history of WWII. Munich however was the start of the Nazi movement, and so we learned a lot about the early history of Hitler and the Nazi’s. Because Munich was the center of Nazi’s it was heavily bombed in the war, and aside from 2-3 tall landmarks that American bombers used to navigate the sky, the entire city was entirely destroyed and since replicated. There are two main experiences we had here. I would like to forewarn that I didn’t even attempt to be brief in the following stories, only because they deserve to be fully explained.

First we went to the concentration camp known as Dachau. It was the first camp built and the one all others were modeled after. It was a bit hard to take everything in, but we stood in a gas chamber (although it was never used), walked through a crematory (which was used heavily), and in general witnessed the life of what thousands of people lived, but very few survived. There is no words to explain what is was like, but I will say it is a memory we’ll all never forget.

Afterwards we wanted to lighten up the mood so we went to grab a bite to eat at the Hofbrauhaus. Imagine a restaurant that seats 8,000 people. Anyways this is the largest and most famous bier hall in all of Germany. First of all it is where the “Beer Hall Push” took place. If you don’t know what that is, it is basically the starting of the Nazi’s and also the reason Hitler got arrested, he then went on to writing Mind Comp while in prison and the rest is history. You can still see where swastikas used to be painted on the ceiling; they are now covered with German and Bavarian flags. Anyways we went there, got a bite to eat, and then noticed these two older men sitting next to us. One of them was drinking out of a special mug which we were told meant he was one of a few hundred deemed regulars of the hall, and thus had his own table and special service. We decided to go talk to the two men. One of them spoke little to no english, but luckily the man next to me was fluent. After a while talking I couldn’t resist asking him how old he was during the war. He then went on to explain that he was a sergeant in the Hitler Youth. He fought for the Nazi’s on the Eastern front and was captured by the Russians. They held him captive for 9 years, 7 of which was after the war ended… It was a bit hard to take in after spending the day at the concentration camp, but what made it most difficult was that these were two of the nicest old men you could ask to meet. Again hard to explain the resulting feelings, we were all in shock for the rest of the night that we had a beer and chatted with two Nazi’s. Again that is something I will never forget. It’s hard to imagine that Americans were fighting and killing men like I met the other day.

Things I Learned:
-Fresh spring water should only be called so when your drinking it out of a river.
-Germans serve beer by the liter, even to 5 twenty year old college students that seemed like a bad idea.
-In Germany they give you a bowl of baked soft pretzels instead of bread at meals. It is amazing, they’re not free, but still awesome.
-We are extremely lucky to live in a world that fights against persecution and injustice like in WWII. We owe our vets, like my Grandpa Rick many thanks.

God Bless,
Joe

Joe's first half of SB

To touch on my first week of vaca, which I never got around to blogging on.

Barcelona:

A very fun city, I met up with 15-20 other University of Illinois students. Besides that it is a little dangerous (lots of robberies and such – we stuck to taxi’s at night) it was a lot of fun. Sagrada Familia (a Catholic church they’ve been building for over 50 years and still have 20 years to go) may be the coolest man made thing I’ve seen on the trip. Google it.

Granada:

Very nice change of pace after the up-tempo Barcelona. I got to try Tapas (free food with drinks) and in general relax. This was also the first time I’ve been able to put my four years of Spanish to practice (they speak Catalyn in Barcelona – who knew?). I was pleasantly surprised at how well this went. Despite my Spanish skills, I still had one main miscommunication for the trip - at McDonalds. I ordered a cheeseburger, and was given a McChicken with only half a bun (picture below). Not sure why me and McDonalds are not seeing eye to eye, but at least this time I got something to eat and not 3 large cokes.

After this week I left for Leeds, where I met my family. Luckily for me and any of the readers out there, Evan and his journalism prowess blogged on all that for me. I’m doing my best to pick up on some of his styles, but it seems I will remain the Engineer of the family. I am working on recruiting him to write for me the rest of the trip.

I have to say it was a vacation of a lifetime to have the family out here with me. I am extremely privileged to be doing all this and am particularly thankful I was able to share that with them. It happened so fast it seems surreal, but my mom and Aunt Jeanie really did have everything planned out to a T. I would like to thank them and anyone else who gave advice or a little convincing to get them all here.

Things I learned

1.) Sleeping on a hard wood floor for four nights is not recommended if you don’t like neck, back, hip, or shoulder pains.

2.) Carrying your wallet in your front pocket is safer and a must for some European cities. Just be prepared to have a mini heart attack every time you reach to your back pocket and your wallet isn’t there.

3.) A couple of us guys were going to cook for the girls in Barcelona. We attempted to do Uncle Pat’s pizza recipe, only to realize that we didn’t know the names of half the ingredients in Spanish. We made pasta instead, but we accidentally used tomato paste instead of sauce. This is a definite no, no, if you’re attempting to impress ladies with cooking skills.

4.) Savor that in American water and bread at restaurants is free. It’s not like that in Europe.

5.) Having the family come was not only an opportunity of a lifetime; it also meant real hotels, restaurants, transportation & preordered tickets. Best of all they were free (for me and Evan at least)

God Bless,

Joe

The Cinque Terre, Lake Como, Machester, and Home

Posts by Evan Part Three...

THE CINQUE TERRE

Joe really wanted to go to the Cinque Terre because he had friends who had gone there. We all figured we'd just go to appease him and weren't expecting too much- it turned out to be the most amazing day of the trip. Everything about the place is incredible!

For those who don't know what it is, the Cinque Terre is 5 villages (I guess there's six, but there's 5 main ones) built on the cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Yes, it is as breathtaking as it sounds.

I don't even know how to recount anything from our time there except to say we all loved it. You can take a train, take a boat, or hike the distance between the villages and, according to the lady at our hotel, the hikes get progressively easier ranging from a 2 hour "very difficult" hike to a 20 minute "lovers stroll." We opted to take a train, hike, take a train, and then hike the final leg.

The first of our hikes was pretty difficult but we managed to all 6 do the hike. We were hiking over narrow, steep, jagged rocks with no ledge on the side of a mountain but the views over mountains and the sea made it all worth it and were the most beautiful sights any of us had ever seen and are beyond words or pictures (but we still have lots of pictures).

The final leg was the second hike we took and it was really easy as they had built a walkway with lots of graffiti all around. We were all exhausted but when we came across some huge rocks, Lauren, Shawn, Joe, and I found the energy to go climb out onto them. It didn't seem nearly as dangerous as the pictures would suggest.

LAKE COMO: DAYS ONE AND TWO
After that, we headed to Lake Como. We were all really looking forward to Lake Como but unfortunately, it rained all day both days we spent there. We stayed at a nice family-run hotel with an old elevator that screeched to a halt and led to lots of laughs (which then resulted in us getting yelled at for being too loud.. oh well).

Day one we ended up sleeping in due to the rain and then went to get something to eat. After we ate, we moved on and ended up at a different restaurant for dessert where Joe ordered the best dessert I've ever seen. It was a strawberry banana concoction of sorts covered in fresh strawberries and bananas (below).

Day two was Easter Sunday and we woke up early to go pick up Joe's friend, Haley, from the airport (they were leaving for their next leg of the trip on Monday). We visited Piacenza, where Mom's grandma Ernestine is from, quickly before looking for some food. After being shut out of about 3 restaurants who were booked for Easter lunch, we decided to go wherever we could find. However, we unknowingly ended up in some weird Chinese-Italian restaurant where nothing aside from plain old cheese (I mean margarita) pizza tasted at all how we expected.

The next morning, the sun was shining just to mock us for being in Lake Como on such lousy days. With the sun shining, the area looked amazing and I'm glad we at least got to see how amazing it looks!

We then dropped Joe and Haley off at the train station and we said goodbye to Joe for another two and a half months.

MANCHESTER

Our trip was essentially over aside from a night in Manchester and a flight home. In Manchester, we (now just Mom, Dad, Lauren, Shawn, and I) went to the mall for the night. We ate some dinner (shockingly, English food tasted really good) and did some shopping (hooray for Manchester United sales!) before heading back for our last night abroad.

This morning, we flew home and landed in Chicago about 3 hours ago. All in all, the trip was beyond all expectations and completely amazing. I thank God for the amazing opportunity I got to do all these incredible things. As a finale of my posts, I present a short list of things I learned in Europe:

1. Trying to catch a taxi in Paris is impossible: Once, we flagged a guy down, he nodded, told us "one minute," and proceeded to drive away and never come back... what?
2. Italians do not care about making money: About 5 times, we walked into a resturant and were told to leave since it was time for siesta. Who turns down customers at 3 in the afternoon? Apparently, tired Italians do!
3. Chinese food + Italian food = Bad: "Weird" is an understatement!
4. All the planning in the world does not mean a flawless trip: See Hotel St. Honore- ridiculous.
5. America's policy of free water and bread is amazing
6. Americans have earned their rep: I've never understood why everyone says Americans are so loud and obnoxious.. we were easily the loudest people everywhere we went!
   

Okay all, that's the trip. Thanks for reading.

God Bless,
Evan

Rome, Florence, and Pisa (and lots of pictures!)

Hey all, still Evan here...

ROME DAY ONE

So, we fly from Paris to Rome next. This flight was AWFUL, we got to the airport and immediately joined a really long line, only to be cut by about 10 people who were then pointing at us, laughing, and speaking Italian. Lauren and Mom were NOT pleased, so they tried to cut them and regain our spots in line while Dad, Joe, Shawn, and I stayed back and watched the really awkward interactions for about a half hour. Then the airport made an announcement that we didn't understand (it was in French or Italian.. we don't really know which) but luckily Dad asked a guy in line and he said they were calling everyone en route to Rome to go to the front of the line. Ha! Karma got us back in the front of the line. So we then stood around FOREVER for spots on a flight with no assigned seats (terrible idea.. lots of pushing and hurrying for good spots on the plane was involved..) but eventaully, we got on and flew to Rome!

Once we got to Rome, we found our driver, a nice old Italian man named Franchesco who spoke no English but managed to become our favorite person on the trip by pulling tricks on us, giving us all our Italian names (Joseppi, Maria, Laurenza, Shawnee, Joseppi, and Evante) and giving us a free tour of the city (he is the one with us in the picture above!).

After that, we got to our hotel and realized how nice our rooms were! After that, the day was quickly ending so we figured we should go knock some tourist attractions out. First up was the Spanish steps. I won't lie, at first I thought it was going to be really lame since they were just steps with nothing cool about them but once we got to the top and the sun started setting above the Vatican, I realized they were pretty cool steps after all.

Next up (I'm telling you, this trip was NON-STOP.. just wait until Rome day 2!)was the Trevi Fountain. We all really liked that as it was bright and beautiful.

After, we went for our first dinner in Roma! It was delicious and our waiter was really charasmatic (our favorite comment was his response to whether he would make seafood linguine on a Monday even though the menu said it was only available Tuesday and Thursday: "for you, I do anything"). Long story short, dinner was amazing.

Afterwards, we headed back to our rooms and once there, Mom, Dad, Joe, and I walked around to try to find a gelato stand that wasn't closed. We eventually stumbled upon a closed resturant who gave us 2 lemon sorbets and 2 chocolate gelatos in glass containers and told us to leave... this isn't really an important piece of information but c'mon.. who gives dessert in glass and then tells the people to leave? It just seems like a waste of glass to me... Then it was bed time.

ROME DAY TWO

Maybe the busiest day of the trip, I'll try to keep it shorter than Day One.

We woke up and had the complimentary breakfast at the hotel, which was nice and outside in the garden. After that, we went to the Vatican where we walked through the museum, looked at the Sistine Chapel, and then went out to St. Peter's Square. The Sistine Chapel was (obviously) amazing, I really can't even imagine how difficult that must have been to paint! St. Peter's square was also really cool just because of how must history it holds. It was all set up for Easter, so the chairs were everywhere!

After that, we went to the Pantheon. Long story short, it's the most perfect dome ever made to the point where we don't even have the technology to make it now in 2010. Somehow, they figured it out and made it a perfect half-sphere... crazy! (Thanks for the history lesson, Joe!) After that, we went to the Colosseum and the ancient ruins of Rome. That stuff was all really cool because it's all so famous and so old. Insane to think how long they used those buildings and how well-built they must have been to still be around today! After all that walking, we were all EXHAUSTED and Shawn was actually sick. Still, we had to eat. When in Rome...

This was my favorite meal... but you probably don't care. We went to a resturant called Rendevouz and had the world's best lasagne, the world's best tiramisu, and ice-cream filled chocolate/stawberry/vanilla-covered desserts.

After that, we went back to the rooms.

FLORENCE

We rented a car (actually.. more like a bus, please see the picture!) and Dad drove us (safely! despite the fact that Italian drivers are the CRAZIEST in the world.. and people think Chicago is bad!)to Florence where we spent one night and 2 days. First night there, we saw the Ponte Vecchio and just walked around. There we saw another amazing sunset over the Ponte Vecchio, thus making it the fifth-straight amazing sunset we came across on sheer luck (the first 4: Eiffel Tower, Mount Mart, Spanish Steps, and the Colosseum). We slept, we woke up, and we went by the Duomo (which was closed because it was so close to Easter). Then we saw the mock David before going to a store called David 2, a leather shop with the most AMAZING leather jackets. The prices were outrageous, but that didn't stop us from trying the jackets on!

After that, we walked around some more and shopped a LOT before bidding our farewell to Florence.

PISA

We then drove to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower. We didn't stay for over 2 hours in Pisa as we only went to see the tower, but I think it was worthwhile for nothing other than the ridiculous pictures we took there, I attached one as an example.

Sorry if my posts are long and boring, we just all decided I should write out all the things we want to remember. I only have one more post left on our visit to Europe, then it's back to Joe's much more concise and readable posts! Next up is my favorite stop on the trip, the Cinque Terre!

Until Next Time- Ciao and God Bless,
Evan

Leeds and Paris

Hey everyone. First, this is Joe's brother, Evan, not Joe. I guess he's too lazy to write this blog post so the duty has been passed to me for the week. I've been meaning to do this earlier but it took me a while to find the time without falling asleep. Sorry...

Seven days. Three European countries: Chicago to Manchester. Manchester to Leeds. Leeds to Paris. Paris to Rome. Rome to Florence. Florence to Pisa. Pisa to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre to Lake Como. Wow that was tiring just to type.

LEEDS

So Thursday, we (Mom, Dad, Lauren, Shawn, and I) headed to O'Hare and, after an hour long delay due to a broken door, were headed off to Manchester. It took a while, but we got to Manchester pretty early in the morning. After a good 2 hours of train rides (which included stopping on the tracks? I guess they do that in England..), we got to Leeds and met up with Joe. We had arrived! From there, we had a pretty relaxing day- we ate, we shopped, we toured Leeds, we ate some more (fish and chips are delicious!), and we all crashed after a long day or 2 of travel.
The accents were another highlight.

Sorry, not too much to report from Leeds since we didn't do much.

PARIS DAY ONE

Joe and I were put under a lot of pressure to be (he and I stayed away from the other four at his dorm room while they stayed at a hotel) on time in the morning. Naturally, we were the first ones ready- Lauren and Shawn's wake up call never came, so I guess they had an excuse. Eventually, we all gathered our things and we were off to Paris!

Here's where the trip started getting c-r-a-z-y! We landed in Paris and took a metro to the station nearest our hotel. From there, we were on our own with a map and 6 huge luggage bags and 6 carry-ons. It seemed like we were wandering around aimlessly for a while and we had no way to communicate since everyone spoke French! There were so many people and so many stories of pick-pocketers we were all getting really anxious. Somehow, Joe and dad navegated us to our hotel. We were all extremely excited.. until we walked in the hotel.

Some shady hotel manager hands us keys to 2 rooms 3 stories apart and we headed up the old, narrow, creaky stairs to the first room. We looked around and it was dingy, dark, tiny, had no electrical outlets in our room, and no room to move around in the bathroom. Needless to say, it looked NOTHING like the hotel mom saw pictures of online! Despite how bad the room and the service seemed, we figured we'd grit it out and enjoy Paris all the same. That was, until we saw Lauren and Shawn's room. Up 3 more flights of stairs with broken lighting, we walked in to their room only to see it's size was smaller, it's lighting was darker, and the paint on the ceiling was peeling- now, we had a problem. After an hour or two of looking for a new hotel and the most ridiculous argument I've ever witnessed (it involved the hotel worker laughing at us and Lauren getting extremely upset), we had decided to spend one night in the original hotel and the second night in a MUCH nicer hotel down the street.

After all that, we were running a little late for our reservations for the Eiffel Tower so we grabbed some crepes and sandwhiches on the go. I know Joe already explained how amazing Banana Nutella Crepes are but I would like to second the notion; they are AMAZING! Then, we went to the Eiffel Tower. I'm going to be honest, I've always thought the Eiffel Tower was kind of stupid because I never thought it looked very tall. We pulled up the tower, and I was amazed for mutliple reasons. First, the tower was insanely big and breathtaking. Second, we immediately saw a man with about 20 purses running away from the police and plowing people down. And third, as soon as I stepped out of the cab, I had people approaching me asking me for money and harrassing us into buying stupid things that we would, under no circumstances, ever buy (cheap plastic models of the Eiffel Tower or other things of the like).

Once I got over all that shock, we went to the top of the tower. What an incredible expirience. The view was amazing and we saw our first awesome sunset in Europe. I'm sure you will all see pictures, but really, it's something I can't explain and pictures can't really justify.

After the Eiffel Tower, we ventured to the Bastille area to get some dinner and crepes. After that, we went back to our hotel and, given how much we all hated the hotel, went to sleep as soon as possible.

In short, day one in Paris left me in shock and awe.

PARIS DAY TWO

Trust me when I say the FIRST thing we did on day two in Paris was change hotels. Once that was all done, we went to Notre Dame. It was a really cool church but I felt kind of weird walking around while a service was going on. I felt insanely rude and intrusive but still enjoyed how ornate and detailed the whole church was. Next we visited the Louvre which I was really looking forward too. I enjoyed it, but it didn't quite live up to expectations mostly because the Mona Lisa was so small. Interestingly, one of my favoryite things in the Louvre was the building itself. After the Louvre, we went to the Arc de Triomph and Champs Elysees- I'm kind of running out of adjectives to describe things with but the arc was impressive and the Champs Elysseys had a lot of cool stores and items but cost a lot of money. We were doing really well on time so we firgured we'd go to Mount Mart and watch sunset from there. We now had 2 straight days of really cool sunsets. (this is going to be a common trend on our trip. So far we have sunsets from the Eiffel Tower and Mount Mart) We watched some street performers while Joe ran into someone he knew from U of I which we all found to be really strange and cool at the same time. His friends are officially global.

After all those festivities, we did some street shopping and ate dinner before visiting Moulan Rouge and the whole strip. For some reason, the most memorable things from that portion of our dat was a really colorful candy tent that we bought gummies from. I know all Joe's friends were making fun of him for focusing on the food, but I think I may be worse.. we ARE brothers after all.

Okay, the computer is dying and I'm taking a long time to write this so I think I'll wrap this post up here. Next stop: Rome!

I know I ran through all those really quickly, but trust me when I say even the most dull things we saw were breathtaking. The entire trip is increible and I'm so lucky to be able to go on it! Already, the trip had been more than I could have ever hoped for and we still hadn't even begun our Italian adventures. I especially want to thank my Aunt Jeanie and my mom for spending so much time planning this whole thing. It's been awesome and, aside from a few inevidable bumps when you travel this much, has gone without a hitch. I couldn't ask for a better tour guide than Joe Rook (even though he takes us the wrong way a few times in every city).

Alright, I'll try to write again tomorrow night. Until then...

God Bless,
Evan