Because I'm Fascinating

Masks are awesome. Even when wearing one that only covers my eyes, it makes you feel invisible and therefore only encourages acting like a complete asshole. Yes, I bought three masks - stop judging me. The first one was probably the best because I looked like a court jester which included bells so my friends could find me despite my fun sizedness.

Venice itself is a beautiful city where a map is useless because you can and will get lost so why not just embrace it. If you make one wrong turn, you step away from the masses of tourists and end up in a dark alley. Here you can come across a local dressed like they’re from the 13th century (when the masks were first introduced) and it’s funny, because you actually feel like you’re being transported back in time. It’s amazing the commitment some people put into their wardrobe. I hope to one day find someone who will dress up all poofy foofy with me. If they now you’re watching, people will often pose for you.

When I was about 14 I went to Venice and since then have been convinced that the Rialto bridge (the main bridge) is my most favorite place in the world. Since then I’ve been lucky enough to travel quite a bit and so when I came to it once again, the Rialto did not seem as grand as before. It’s still a gorgeous place as well as an amazing view - as if Disney land created a little world for us to experience, but I no longer felt as small.

In Venice, our friend Blake turned 20. Our night started out being intrigued by a drink that seemed to be sold everywhere - Bellini (peach beverage and champagne). As we purchased our drinks from the supermarket and started walking, who do we run into but PEOPLE DRESSED AS BELLINIS. I don’t believe in fate, but if I did this would be the example I would constantly bring up to prove my point.

Even though it was Carnival, Venice closed down at midnight. Prior to however, the city was alive and we found this one square that had a few bars surrounding it and what can be described as techno and drunk people dancing to it in costume. The DJ was dressed in a furry goat costume and the same three words were projected onto a wall: Mind Vision Confusion. Sometimes a word would be skipped to mix it up so…mind confusion mind confusion mind vision mind confusion.

Blake is hands down the nicest drunk I have ever met. While essentially carrying him home -

- I felt the urge to yell BANANA whenever we saw someone dressed in a banana costume (there were plenty). This resulted in Blake pointing out that I am excellent at spotting such things. Our conversation turned where us girls were interested in what he thought were our strengths and what we brought to the table. The answer? “Prettiness, cuteness…….and charmingness” - as Blake responded in my oh so favorite high pitched drunk voice.

The next day we went to the island of Murano by water bus where everything is made of glass. On our way we passed through the Jewish quarter which was very quiet because of Shabbat.

I have already decided when I start making bank, I’m going to have a giant fountain in my backyard which I will fill with statues and baller looking glass objects. Glass flowers below:

The following day, our friends left to go back to Rome by train and it was just Caitlin and I. Because Venice is small and we had already spent 3 days there, it gave us a great opportunity to just relax and go to the outskirts of the city through a park and sit on various benches. It was interesting to see locals who were unaffected by the busy touristy “downtown” that was just 10 minutes away.

We enjoyed a lovely last meal which I snapped pictures of for my photography class. The amount of food pictures I have, I’m starting to consider I should make that the theme of my final project.

I saw a young teenage couple holding hands and proceeded to stalk them so I could get a cute shot. They were moving really fast, possibly because I’m a creep, so unfortunately they just came out like blobs.

The only complaint I have about Venice is in reference to the Bridge of Sighs. Given its name because prisoners were walked across it on their way to prison and they sighed at their last views of Venice; I remember talking a picture with my sister when I was first there. I was looking forward to taking a similar shot with my friends but was disappointed to see that it was covered top bottom left right with a billboard.

Goodbye Venice - we will meet again someday and I will actually ride a gondola.

“Berlin - Something used to be here” - eloquently said by my friend and travel buddy, Genna. As a history buff, I found Berlin to be fairly depressing…and cold. The tours we took were amazing and the history over the last 80 years is incredible but that’s the thing…First the Holocaust, then liberation by the Soviets who rape all the women and up goes the Berlin Wall and doesn’t go down until AFTER i was born…. I used to think it funny that David Hasselhoff sang when the wall came down (apparently not physically at first, just opening the borders but now I think it even more absurd. More on that later. This post will read more like a history lesson but I don’t want to forget the things I’ve learned as I find them incredibly fascinating.

Our story starts with this: Crispy M&Ms, more or less the reason I came to Europe.

Our cab driver, who is in a Mercedes Benz is playing middle eastern techno which is actually pretty awesome - his driving however, not so much. He speeds up just to slam the breaks at every light. 

We start our morning by taking a 3.5 hour tour. We meet in a square by Bradenburger tor (Bradenburg bridge), one of the only historical things still standing after the war/wall. 

The story behind the statue on top is actually pretty funny. Napoleon foughtthe Germans in Berlin at some point in history (1806 thanks Wikipedia) and when he won, he took the statue and it was briefly in the Louvre, though the head was chopped off. In 1814, when the Germans got it back, they replaced the head of the statue as Victoria, the Goddess of Victory. The statue once gazed straight out as if looking over Berlin. Now she looked directly at the sign of the square which was so perfectly named “Parisier Platz” - Paris square. Not a bad sense of humor in the 1800s.

This square also has a lot of embassies, as well as this hotel where all the politicians and celebrities stay. Hotel Adlon aka where Michael Jackson was dangling his baby out the window.

If you crossed this line 20 years ago - you would have been shot and killed.

Below is the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. Interesting - There is no sign explaining what this is so its meant to be interpreted. This is what Genna and I came up with. Endless stones to symbolize the mass amounts of people murdered (Exhibit A). Also however, as you start to walk through the pillars, the ground gets lower and the pillars get higher boxing you in (Exhibit B). Our interpretation was that its a symbol of how fast things escalated during WWII.

.  

30 seconds away was the bunker where Hitler commited suicide. It’s now a parking lot. I only wish there was something left to spit on.

Because Germany did some f***ed up shit (you know) its kind of hard for them to be able to have a memorial for fallen German shoulders like other countries have for their own. SO, to resolve this they came up with a generic Memorial for Those Affected by War..in general. The memorial is actually pretty cool with a mother holding her son and there is a hole above so it is exposed to the elements. Must have been interesting to see in the winter.

Next we ate…SUSHI..and it came around on a conveyor belt. AWESOME and 21 euro well spent.

We followed up our nom sesh by going to the Jewish Museum which was a combined Holocaust memorial slash history of the Jews in Germany since like…a long time ago.

There’s this random room that you enter through a steel door and the concept is that you’re meant to go in alone and feel the “void” - Explanation:

. 

Room:

Jewish History according to Genna after walking through the museum and absorbing - so basically Jews settled somewhere, built things, got blamed for something, and had to leave.

This is kind of ridiculous and simultaneously hilarious due to the level of absurdity (its a real word)- see the Zodiac sign below? The Gemini are depicted in medieval Jews’ hats.

There was also this awesome game where some chick is traveling and you need to pick the stuff she has to pack. End result:

Now on to those damn kosher bears. There was a wall bending machine with kosher haribo bears. We pretty much did every possible combination of money/punch/swear/plead and alas no bears came out.

Fun fact - schnitzel is not chicken. its pork

Berlin had a Dunkin Donuts with Grease themed donuts so that was exciting

 

Epic memorial to the Russian soldiers who lost their lives during WWII.

East Side Gallery is a collection of graffati on the Berlin wall. Some of my faves below:

^(I LOVE YOU LIFE)

Overall I’m sure other people would like Berlin so I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go. Also considering the city bombed all their buildings and tore down the others (Over here there used to be a palace - now there’s a giant shampoo ad), in 20 years I bet the city will look completely different. Maybe I’ll consider going back…probably not.

xoxo

PS

 

^US EMBASSY BEAR

^BOYFRIEND BEAR

We begin our journey by landing in Barcelona at 10pm in a giant airport WITH NOBODY IN IT. I couldn’t help but feel that we had been taken here post apocalypse to repopulate the city. (seen below during the day)

We entered our hostel, Equity Point Centric, at the moment when a bar crawl was about to leave so the place was a shit show. The location was awesome. Right down the street from one of Gaudi’s buildings.

We were staying in a room with 12 people and it was a pretty interesting mixture:

1. A Canadian named Cody (more on this later)

2. Argentinian named Ivan

3. Two middle aged French ladies

4. Assorted potpourri of others

On Friday, we made our way through down the street and through a square towards La Rambla, an adorable outdoor strip with flowers, candy, street people and snacks. On our way through the square, we came across 1000 birds. There were small children, probably around 2 and no bigger than 3 pigeons combined that were feeding the flock of birds and at one point picking them up and throwing them.

Meanwhile us 20 somethings are screaming like little..well..children. Kelly tries to use me as a human shield which proves to be futile as 5’2 not so much covers a lot of area.

We continued our journey down La Rambla where we got ridiculously excited to find a dunkin donuts. I was just about to get an iced caramel latte, the usual, when we realized right next door was a market with fruits, veggies, seafood, candy, AND SMOOTHIES (my kryptonite).

Stopped at a 5 euro store and got a sweet watch! My m.o. is to buy watches and never wear them but so far my baby has been on my wrist so we’ll see how that goes.

We stopped to get some Sangria (from a box of course) and I ordered a vegetable sandwich which ended up being tuna with eggs. We went to sit on the beach and it was AWESOME. It’s the middle of February and here we are enjoying the waves and wind and not wearing jackets. Barcelona is probably bigger than Paris but it was nice to not be running from site to site and enjoy the weather.

We continued our day by taking a siesta (<3) and then got dressed to go out. Caitlin’s friend is studying in Barcelona so he knew “what’s good.” Small world - her friend was in my Jew class last semester.

With our new friends Cody and Ivan, we took a cab to take the most direct route. Right? Wrong. First of all, as we’re waiting for a cab, this guy Moustafa (who we kept calling Moufasa for most of the night) hopped in the cab with us. No idea where this kid came from. In our cab it was Moustafa and three girls. The cab driver had no idea where we were going and dropped us off at a construction site that blocked off the road. “On the other side” he says..that’s where the club is. Really? LIES. Here we are in what can only be described as hood city dressed like high end prostitutes and the club is in fact NOT on the other side of the construction site.

Moustafa actually put himself to good use and asked literally every person we came across where the bar was.

We finally make it and the place is dope. It looks like a giant warehouse. I kept drinking vodka and coke because I didn’t know how to say “cranberry” in Catalan (the language in Barcelona) or Spanish and my tree hand gestures weren’t cutting it. Cody and I had a conversation about 3D vs 4D that went something like this:

>What would you do if something showed up being 4D?

<My mind wouldn’t get it. It’s not ready. Not prepared

>That’s what I’m saying.

Other fun things I learned from Cody over the weekend:

-People in people in Papau new guinea

-While he is on his world wind vacation, his mom is watering his pot plants back in Vancouver

***

When I was 13 I was in Barcelona for a day and went to his awesome park that Gaudi designed. I couldn’t remember the name of the park. Calling my Mom, I described it as “that place with tiles and stairs.” Ended up figuring out the name - Parc Guell and it was AWESOME. You would never expect it to be there. You take the metro to a random somewhat residential area and that walk up a long hill and boom there it is - looking all ginger house bready.

We went to our hostel to partake in some more siesta-ing and this is what happened. Cody comes in with two WASTED girls. He goes to the bathroom to shave and leaves them these drunk assholes. Apparently they smoked hash, drank a bottle of Jaeger and Vodka and went skinny dipping. Silly bitch number one keeps trying to open the bolted windows so she can smoke a joint. Silly bitch number two keeps mumbling about how she hates all Spanish food, keeps repeating that if we go to Paris we “HAVE TO TAKE A TOUR” and in between keeps passing out with her boobs slipping out. You stay classy.

That night we went to a club called Catwalk. I don’t think I would survive living in Barcelona as everything starts later - we didn’t get to the club until 2am. The place was really cool and they played American Top 40 hits at the top and house at the bottom. There were mattresses suspended from the ceiling and scantily clad women on top of them.

Men in Barcelona are by far the worst we have experienced. They’re like little puppies that hump your leg but unlike other countries, when you shake them off, they just hump harder.

We ended our excellent night by running to the beach nearby which resulted with bed sand to the max.

My last excellent memory of Barcelona was eating at the airport. I know I know kinda lame but I was just talking about how much i wanted cold lo mein and BOOM there it is. Not as good as panda express but it was greasy and asian and that’s all I needed. Also, I found a beef in the shape of a heart. Totally meant to be.

Shark carcass, bowls made of wood, mop demonstrations, angel wings, shiny things, underwear(gross?) Just a few of the things you can get at the flea market near Trastevere (where we live). The market is literally never ending. We walked in a straight line for 40 minutes and could not see the end (I know I’m fun size but my tall friend Audrey confirmed it just keeps going and going). I’m actually proud of myself for not buying a bird cage or shiny plate like I really wanted. The coolest purchase of the day would probably be fake Ray Bans in lime green. Can someone say spot the tourist?

This weekend we went to a soccer game. Roma vs. Napoli. Apparently last year a few people died at the same game as its a huge rivalry. With that said, I’m kind of disappointed there was no violence and I didn’t have to dodge any punches. Regardless, the atmosphere was intoxicating and there were “cheer leaders” in front of the crowd telling us when to clap/yell. I’m not entirely sure what we were saying but it sounded bad ass and I tried my best to follow along.

Also, were you aware that in Italian, soccer is “calcio”? Calcio does not mean calculator as I suspected for the last two weeks.

PS I have become obsessed with space invaders. Basically its little tile mosaics/designs all over Europe. See exhibit A below and catch my Space Invaders album on Facebook.

Exhibit A

xoxo

Don’t talk to strangers. They only want one of 3 things:  

a. steal something from you

b. kidnap you

c. or take your anal virginity

Something along the lines of what the host of our bar crawl warned us about. Good to know.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE PARIS. I took French from 6th-10th grade and its amazing how much I actually remember. I could ask directions, order food, tell people where we’re from, read museum signs. I was actually annoyed when we got on our Air France flight back to Rome and they greeted me in Italian. UGH Anyway, arriving Thursday night to our hostel called “Peace and Love,” we checked in at the bar downstairs and walked the 8 flights of stairs to our room.

We went to get dinner down the street where our waiter was named Nasdflkjkj but he said we could call him Alex. He was adorable, probably because he was nice to us, and the food was pretty damn good. I am a fan of any place where you can put salami, cheese, potatoes and some lettuce in a bowl and call it a salad.

Friday was insanely packed. In the morning Xavier, my friend from Northeastern, met as at our hostel. It just so happened that when he was evacuated from Cairo (interning there), they brought him to Paris and he stayed the weekend to hang out. We started our morning on the Champs d’Elysees, main street in Paris where roads converge to the Arc de Triomphe. Not realizing we could get to the center by going underground, we crossed traffic like a bunch of sitting ducks, simultaneously commenting on how brave we are. Silly Americans.

The views from the top of the Arc were INCREDIBLE. You could see all of the roads converging and as cheesy as it sounds, I felt practically euphoric.

 

My first trip to Europe was to Paris when I was 13/14 and I loved it so much I was counting down the days till I could go back. My friends took the typical (and awesome) picture of touching the eiffel tower. Naturally, I had to class it up:

We continued our trip through the square where Marie Antoinnette, and 1000+ others, were decapitated, then through the Toulouse Gardens and past the Louvre. We made our way to Notre Dame before it got dark.

Back to the Louvre, it’s true what they say, you can spend days, if not weeks and you’ll never see the whole thing.

We started with Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, which to be honest was not particularly impressive (as we all agreed). She’s not very attractive or interesting and though I do see a certain unique facial expression, “Lisa” ain’t got nothing on Da Vinci’s other works. Though I’ve been to the Louvre before, I recently read the Da Vinci code by Dan Brown (one of my favorite books) and was disappointed that the greatest collection of Da Vinci works in one place (5) were not in the same room as the book described.

In typical tourist fashion, we found an important piece of art and took a tourist picture. yes, i know we’re adorable. Venus de Milo is important because it is one of the only actual Greek statues AKA not a Roman copy dating back to 130 BC. I still don’t understand how people without chain saws could create a statue from marble of Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

Our Louvre trip ended with my over excitedness to see the location where Dan Brown’s book ends and SPOILER ALERT Mary Magdalene’s body is supposedly buried. Kind of disappointed to find out its in a MALL that is connected to the Louvre. Yeah..I know.

To recap the next day in a faster fashion mostly because I’m tired of typing and want to go eat a Clementine.

Morning ; Sacre Coeur a church above a hill where there are gorgeous views. When I was first there with my aprents, there’s this guy who takes (WHAT IS THE NAME OF THESE THINGS: they’re like different colors of tiny thin metal piping but its actually fluffy and they come in packs at the craft store in different colors and you can make braceleters or whatever). ANYWAY he took that and wrapped it around plastic stuff and makes keychains. I had a dog from when I was a kid and I still have it at home and smile at it whenever I see it. This time I got a cat.

Next we went to see the Moulin Rouge (not that cool) BUT I did get a giant cotton candy bigger than my face:

We continued to the Eiffel Tower where we WALKED up to the first level and then were promptly evacuated due to “maybe there’s a bomb.” BUT did you know there’s an ice skating rink? Dope right?

Mary kate and Ashley Olsen’s “Passport to Paris” anyone?

We ended our night at a bar crawl near the Moulin Rouge (the area switches off between sex store or sandwich shop) where this conversation went down:

“You’re really sexy”

“Nope you’re just really drunk”

On our last day we went to the Pompidou which is a modern art museum gallery and exhibition hall. First Sundays of the month are free woohoo!

  

I sweat Kandinsky (Fave) and Dali and Matisse

but I’m not sure I understand Modern modern art. To clarify, a bunch of light bulbs strung together on a string hanging from the ceiling can be cool, especially if you take drugs, but in my opinion not worthy of an art gallery whatever.

We ended our trip in the most adorable parisian neighborhood - The Jewish Quarter. It’s one street and I had the best falafel EVAR (and I’ve been to Israel so I know my falaf)

On our way out, I saw a guy (presumably a Rabbi) standing around and offering people to wrap Tefilin. A guy probably 19 stopped his friends, took off his coat, and took him up on his offer. YEAh jews

and now i end my novel with a crepe - because really, there’s nothing more Parisian than that.

 

NOM NOM NOM

xoxo

ps adorable french child

On the way back from my on site class I stopped in a park to do my Italian hw (naturally of which I understood approximately 15%). There were birds all around picking at the gravel looking for food and flying around aimlessly. Considering that whenever I go to the zoo or beach I get pooped on by a pigeon, I was just waiting for the universe to do its thing.

This old woman comes in with a bike and asks me politely to go sit somewhere else for a few minutes. I’m thinking this must be her favorite bench who am I to say no. As soon as I move to another bench, she pulls out a bag of crushed bread and starts tossing it. I WISH I HAD MY CAMERA. There had to be 80+ birds concentrated in a 3x3 ft area hitting each other and picking up the bread. After bag number 2 came bags 3 and 4. The bread was never ending and the birds just kept coming. After the semi-violent feeding, she gathers her bags, thanks me and leaves. NBD