Bri Abroad

Today we did not do very much. We ate more pizza and planned our trip to the airport which must be made at 4:30 tomorrow morning. That’s about it.

Today we went to the Egyptian Museum and saw some mummies and such. It was entertaining. Then we tried to decipher how we are going to get to the airport on Monday morning and Gloria at the Torino Turismo Office was very helpful. We are still waffling between taking the rental back tomorrow and taxing to the airport later and just driving it early early Monday. Then we ate some yummy pizza at a popular little joint and executed a failing quest for Italian boots. No Italian boots for Bri. Then we watched some of Matt’s Family Guy episodes to kill time. I think that is what is on the agenda tomorrow- kill time, then we fly to Vienna on Monday and fly to DC on Tuesday! Almost there!

Today we drove to Turin with some stressful one way street city driving. We ate some ice cream and a calzone and wandered the streets and checked out the Shroud of Turin stuff. We went to the church where it is displayed at times, but it is actually stored somewhere else, when we tried to find that, we stumbled across a little museum dedicated to it and learned a lot about it. Now we are back at our hotel for the evening with no plans except to use the handy dandy phone and the cheap internet.

Current Mood: tired

Another good day, if a little boring. We drove quite a ways to find the little towns of Barbaresco and Barolo, one being cute because it has a church like object on a hill (as all towns do) and another because it has numerous wine tasting locations (as all towns do). We saw some more hills covered in criss-crossing grapevine lines and some more run down buildings and the like. We kept pausing for pictures on the sides of skinny winding roads along the ridges and nearly got run over several times. In Barolo, everything was closed because they have a break from noon to three. How inconvenient. But at three we popped into a little cellar where a lady and a sommelier nonchalantly helped us taste some wines. We only tasted three kinds and then bought bottles of two of them and then left because we were unsure of what else to do. But the cellar room was very neat and there were about a dozen huge wine vats to see and take pictures of. I read my juicy novel in the car both ways and let them figure out how to get around. Then we laid about for a bit and got Pizza in Nizza (the nearest town) and then went to bed.

Current Mood: rural

What a loverly day in the Italian wine country! I am learning new things about wine and cheese and truffles every day. After breakfast we headed to the little town of Acqui Terme, which was nothing too special except that it is home to a hot spring and in the middle of town a little fountain spews hot sulfuric water and draws a large superstitious crowd of old ladies. We ate a very expensive lunch but it was delicious. They commonly eat three courses and a desert here, but we each ordered one- Gnocchi, Beef, and I got a skinny little ravioli. Just one, and it was flat. But tasty! The best part was desert. Mmmhmmm. Then we chilled out at the inn for a while before heading to dinner in this really neat little cellar-like restaurant. We had an excellent wine and a plate of cheeses and our morale is high.

Current Mood: upbeat

I finally have internet access, so I have posted what I have been writing as if I wrote it on the days that happened. There are about five new entries so read them all!

Today started off in a sunny fashion, even though it took forever to get ready and go. We ate breakfast and loaded the car for what we expected to be a harrowing road trip four hours north to Asti. In fact, it was not bad at all. The Autostrade is like a nice big tollway with lots of gas stations built right in. We navigated expertly to our place, which is in the middle of nowhere. I was very proud. The joint is really cute and nice, very very authentic. Our little guide lady got us all informed and we plopped down on her cute veranda with bottles of wine made from her trees and talked to some of the other couples staying. First some Scots, then some Dutch, then some Australians. I was hit by a sudden and very bad wave of homesickness, which I don’t think I’ve had really for the whole trip. Even though Mom is here and I should not be homesick, I have deduced that it is because I have never gone more than 24 hours without having some sort of contact with Matt, and usually at least 15 minutes of my day are spent talking to him on the phone or internet. So this whole not having talked to him for five days is getting rough.
We tried to drive to a little place that our hostess set us up with for dinner, but we couldn’t handle more nocturnal navigation so we turned around and came home with no dinner.
The countryside is beautiful and I highly recommend the little inn and the country of Italy in general.

This morning we did slightly better by emerging from the room at 9:30 and catching free breakfast. We took our time getting ready and went for our double-dip of Florence at 1:00. We visited the extensive Boboli Gardens, crossed the Ponte Vecchio which is fully of high-priced jewelry, then saw some neat really old paintings on a chapel wall in Santa Maria del Carmine Church. We then spoiled our dinner with a lovely ice cream cone and found the outdoor market, much to our pocket’s distress. I bought two belts for 10 each and a pair of earrings for a dollar. We ate dinner (pizza) and headed back to the room to pack and drink leftover wine from dinner last night. I am nervous about tomorrow: we have to drive four hours north to a small town in the Asti wine region. Should be great fun, wish I had brought tranquilizer darts.

We got up at noon today and attempted to take “showers”….which is really a bathtub with a detachable shower head. There is no place to hang it on the wall up high and no shower curtain, so you have to sit the whole time. It’s pretty fun. But with the window open to the view and the colorfully tacky tile, I felt very “Under the Tuscan Sun.” Then we went in search of food because after breakfast yesterday all we ate was Starbucks and candy.
We got a lot of Florence out of the way even though we didn’t intend to do much sightseeing today. We went in Brunelleschi’s famous domed cathedral The Duomo and saw a few other major buildings. Then we ate an evilly expensive and unremarkable dinner at our hotel’s restaurant, so tomorrow we will try to get cheaper more authentic food. We are pretty happy with our hotel and our experience so far- it’s quite within our tastes I would say. Much better than Vienna. Not as good as Salzburg!

Again I polished off the breakfast buffet at the Hilton, then we chilled in our hotel room until checkout at two pm. We had quite the experience getting downstairs, there was a huge convention and we had to wait for about thirty minutes for an empty elevator to get us and our bags downstairs. We caught a train to the airport and even though we were about five hours early, I am glad we had plenty of time to gather ourselves and figure out what was going on. I did a lot of crosswords during the wait. Our plane was a prop plane (eek) and pretty small, but the flight to Bologna was only about one and a half hours and the flight between Bologna and Florence was only TWENTY minutes!! We arrived and promptly collected our baggage and rental car. This is where the fun began. After forty five minutes of reviewing directions, figuring out how to use European stick-shift, and getting our five huge suitcases into a compact car, we plunged into the Italian streets. It really was like flying by the seat of your pants. We were all yelling and shouting at each other and Mom did a fantastic job of driving except for this one near-collision with a dude on a moped. Miraculously, after flying down streets and around circular intersections, we actually found our hotel. It is sooooo cute!! We are up on a mountain overlooking Florence and our room is indescribably Italian. The view from our porch is ridiculous. The bed is very comfy and I plan to sleep for a long time.

I must first tell you about the amazing meal we ate last night. We got reservations at this little Hungarian joint named Kardos and as soon as we walked in the door they had a bohemian band playing Sound of Music songs on their out of tune fiddle things. Mom and I both got Emperor’s Goulash and it was AMAZING. The meat fell apart in your mouth and there was a potato dumpling sitting right in the middle of it. We of course sprang for the desert plate and enjoyed three different types of desert- chocolate mousse, some cake/pudding item, and a fruity strudel. Yay for Kardos! The waiter was very nice and did the whole hold your coats for you thing and offered us free Apricot Brandy, which tasted like schnapps and none of us could handle it so we poured it into our water cups to disguise the fact that we had not partaken.

So, onto today. We ate our nice 25 dollar breakfast and I did a good job of getting my money’s worth. Then we went to the Schonbrunn Palace (where I went with Emilee and Abigail on the first weekend) on the edge of town and got a full day of activities in there. We did the audio tour and then took a gander at the gardens. One thing we did that I hadn’t done on my previous trip there was explore the labyrinth. There was this amazing thing in it called the Dance-Glockenspiel, consisting of nine metal tiles arranged in a square on the ground. Each one, when stepped on, would ring a bell underneath, thus sounding like a glockenspiel. I had a grand old time hopping around on them and making beautiful music. We also made it to the end of the maze instead of giving up and going back to the entrance. Then we hiked up to the Gloriette and looked over Vienna, and polished the trip off with the Apple-Strudel making show. Then we headed into town and went to the Kaisergruft, which was on my list of things to do. On the outside, it looks like just another church in Vienna. Then you descend several modern looking stairways and turn the corner and BAM- you’re in a crypt full of 150 Habsburg royalty. Coffins range from plain wooden boxes tucked into holes in the wall, then you walk down an aisle of ancient 15th century cast iron coffins, then you reach the crowning glory- Empress Maria Theresa’s double coffin with her and her husband Franz Stephan. This thing seriously is the size of a spacious bedroom, made fully out of cast iron with sculptures of them on top and weeping angels on the sides, interspersed with extremely detailed murals. Then some more coffins of lesser royalty, then the last coffin to be brought in, Empress Zita who died in 1989. Then in the last room is the famous Franz Joseph and his silly little wife Sissi, who is somewhat of favorite in Vienna despite her ridiculously selfish and crazy ways. All in all it was pretty creepy but very very cool. We topped the day off with some of my favorite pizza and ice cream and now I hope to get a good nights rest for tomorrow’s travels.

I am writing from school since the Hilton is not cool enough to have reasonably priced internet. 6 Euros for half an hour, ew.

Yesterday I collected Mom and Stephen from the airport and got them settled in their hotel, then we went to the city and wandered a bit, went inside the big gothic church, and got some coffee. Then we moved out of my dorm room and they were very sleepy, so they napped and then we ate some weiner schnitzel and cordon bleu for dinner at a local restaraunt. They hit the hay at around 8:30, and even though I should have studied, I followed about an hour afterwards. Sleeping on the floor hurt a lot.

I just finished my first final exam for my religions class and I think I did well. There are a lot of cheaters cheaters pumpkin eaters over here, and our teacher is pretty dense. Seriously, people were talking ACROSS the room about answers and he had no idea. I took the written part of my Mozart exam which was surprisingly easy, so now all I have left is the listening part, and then I will be free!!!

I won't be able to update until Saturday night at the earliest, assuming our hotel in Florence has access. For the next couple of days we will be poking around Vienna and eating, so you probably won't be missing much.

Current Mood: extremely coherent

Hello friends! I am moving out of my room now, so you may not hear from me for a while. Internet in Italy may be sparse. Mom and Stephen got here safely and they are rushing me out of the dorm, so I have to go! Love you all!

Current Mood: rushed

I am considering tonight my official last night in Vienna, so I threw myself a little going away party down at the pizza joint. I invited everyone, but some people had class so it was just Abigail, Emilee, Michelle, Michael, and everyone's favorite Jessica. But by some twist of fate, they didn't have tables big enough, so Michael and Jessica had to eat across the aisle from us. The pizza was perfect, I had a glass of Weisswein Gespritz which is officially my favorite Austrian beverage (good thing I found it at the very end of my stay). Afterwards, Michelle and I checked out this place called Kenny's Eis, a late-night ice-creamery. Even though it's in the mid forties outside, it was DeLiCiOuS! I got a scoop of Hazlenut and a scoop of "cookies". Yum yum. I like food.

I am mostly packed up, and in exactly 12 hours I will be in my mommie's arms!!

Current Mood: excited

This morning I woke up very early to go to the police station to de-register. I thought I was in for a rough time, but as soon as I got there I took a number, they called it 15 seconds later, and I went in the little room and handed the clerk my forms. She didn't understand that I was leaving at first, but then she understood. Turns out I didn't need to fill out a whole new form. Oh well. I was so pleased with myself for accomplishing the feat so quickly that I treated myself to a Apple Pie from McDonald's. After a day of studying and naps, I went to eat dinner with Abigail.

Many people told me that I would not want to leave after eight weeks, but the high school drama here is getting overwhelming. Jessica is freaking out about moving into my room so she can room with Abigail. She actually asked me today if some of my cabinets were already empty. I responded "Um, if you're asking so you can start moving in before I move out, the answer is no." She actually said, "Well...why not?" WEIRD. People are weird.

I will be glad to be gone. I must buckle down and study for exams! In 36 hours my mom will be here!

Current Mood: impatient

Hello there!

Well we got all dressed up with no where to go today. We were going to go to see The Magic Flute (Opera by Mozart) but our teacher lied to us about the date and Madame Butterfly was playing again. Ew. So we looked a little overdressed for a simple trip to Starbucks, but the weather is turning colder and I am afraid of what it will be like in Washington DC this winter.

It's going to be rough!

Current Mood: cold

I woke up. I showered, I ate my habitual breakfast of eggs and bread.

Then I went to the grocery store with Emilee and we made hamburgers! It was educational. We also made strange potatoes that are in a little airtight bag, and you just boil the whole thing and then take them out of the bag. Strange. Then we made the mistake of watching Miranda's SPICE WORLD. Horrible. So bad. About the Spice Girls. Bad.

Now I might go watch a movie and score more free coffee. I am sooo impatient for Mom to come! Only three more days without her! And after tomorrow there won't be any more boring long days of nothing to do!

I want to post more random pics but I cannot. Maybe on the hotel internet on Wednesday.

Current Mood: sleepy

This evening I broke my anti-social streak and went to the Praterstern with Jessica, Michael, and Abigail. The Prater is this huge permanent carnival/amusement park thing kind of like a less classy Six-Flags that you pay by the ride, and it is a staple of Viennese life. They have a big ferris wheel that is insanely expensive and slow, so we passed on that and went for some sketchy roller-coasters that probably wouldn't fit safety standards in the US. They were alright, but at 4 Euros a pop they were a little pricey. It was a generally fun evening though, and I discovered that Michael will let me make and drink coffee in his room for free, so we like that. I feel a little sick because I drank five cups today and I usually don't drink any.

I also packed one whole suitcase today. Probably slightly premature, but that's A-OK with me.

Current Mood: wired

The highlight of my day was Chinese food for dinner. Class was class, I will say no more. I had a lovely time at dinner, got two meals out of 7.60 Euros, and at the end they brought us heaping platters of fried bananas and pineapples FOR FREE! And the usual little glass of hot plum wine, which I think just tastes like dishwashing liquid. The whole experience was lovely and we all got along rather well. I got a lot of productive things done today and I am mostly preparing for my family visit. I'm planning on spending the rest of the evening writing. Guten Nacht = )

oh and here are a few pictures for you to peruse, representing a little slice of life across the pond.

A typical public scene, Viennese persons waiting for a strassenbahn outside the U-Bahn station	View out of our dorm to the little farm next door
The Gold Jade Chinese restaurant, where I got some free fried bananas yum

Current Mood: Full-tummied

The internet is misbehaving. Most of the time I can't get on, and when I can I can't load anything. My updates may begin to be more sporadic.

I got a good portion of my novel writing done today. I've decided my goal is 100,000 words and I've written about 1,000. That took about one hour, so if I continue to move at a decent pace this might not take as long as I thought. I have a good plot outline and my one sentence summary, so I can keep a clear focus on the goal.

We shall see.

Current Mood: frustrated

My boring weekend came to an end with a rather busy day. I started off with my Religions class as usual and of course the teacher gave extraneous guidelines for the paper I already wrote. Serves me right. I'm not going to change it though, because I get the feeling that he is intimidated by my "Wall Street" English and I think he just gives me check plusses without reading the entire work. Which is good because underneath the proper grammar is usually a generally weak argument.

Anyways, in our Mozart class we got to go on a walking tour, which I was hoping would be cool but it was rather superficial. It was like, "Let's go find plaques on buildings that say Mozart!" The trip culminated in a very long tram ride to a nice little cemetery. It was refreshing to be outside at least, and I saw some parts of Vienna that I've haven't been to.

Right after the walking tour I went straight to the opera house with Miranda and Zena and played third wheel for a while. For dinner I gave the traditional German hot dog in a bun a second chance and again it failed me. Those things aren't even tasty for being as unhealthy as they are. We sat in line for a long time- Operas are much more popular than ballets, even thought I have found the ballets to be soooo much better. I saw Madame Butterfly, about a crazy 15 year-old geisha who believes her American Naval Lietenant dude "husband" when he says he'll come back. Of course he runs off and marries an American so she kills herself and gives their son to him and his new wife. This isn't an incredible amount of plot, but somehow operas can make this last for three hours. Excruciatingly boring hours. There is never anything to watch, no physical action, just a bunch of solo arias being sung at you. And the stage at this particular theatre is very large and the set only took up 40% of the frame, whilst the ballets extended to 80 or 90%, and had far better lighting. It was like peering into a little box, and the set was cartoony and fake. Lameness all around. Not to mention the fifteen minute long faux intermission, where they kept you there listening to the orchestra. After this boringness, you would expect that the scene had at least changed while the curtain was closed. Nope. Same exact set as the previous scene, same people in the same places. Can I have my life back now? I know that in all my criticisms I probably sound incredibly spoiled, but I know 20 year-olds who can design better sets and lights and direct better and act better... And the opera theatre in St. Louis has better talent by way of singers and symphony. Sad, sad. And I thought Vienna was known for it's opera. Ballet rules!

As for my bestselling novel, I have worked out a preliminary plot structure and written the back cover. I might start in on it this evening, after the nightly crossword puzzle solving with Sir Matthew.

Current Mood: Pointless