Milan is covered in beans!!!

What a crazy week it has been…

Audry and I had so much fun with Robby and Mark while they were here. We got to show them around Halle and in doing so, Audry and I also learned more about Halle. It is funny how such a small city can keep surprising you every week with new and exciting things. We took the boys shopping, and to the Halloren Schokoladen museum (chocolate museum) which had the history of the chocolate factory in Halle as well as candy sculptures of very famous provocative paintings, it was pretty cool!! We also went and saw the Beatles museum, which was a great experience for me. Since I’m not a huge Beatles fan, I learn a lot more about them from some crazy Beatles fans (Audry, Mark and Robby) and I now have a new found respect for them. We also introduced Mark, Robby and Pablo to the now infamous swamp rats of Halle. These nasty creatures look like cute little beavers, until they scamper onto the bank and you see their nasty rat tails! We also took Robby, Mark, and Pablo to the Burg and showed them the castle and the tower. We fan, I got to all climbed to the top of the tower and signed our names by the window so that we can all come back someday and remember our trip!!



Although we wanted Mark and Robby to see as much of Halle as they could, we all really wanted to travel somewhere none of us had been. We sat down and did some research on the different airlines and hostels to see what city would make the most sense for the time and money. We all decided that we really wanted to go to Italy, so it was just a matter of choosing a city. We narrowed our options down to Rome, Venice, Florence and Milan. Milan was our best option because we would be able to stay there the longest for the least amount of money, and who wouldn’t want to go to Milan?!?!?

We booked our trip on Wednesday and left on Friday morning at 3:30 a.m. to catch a train to Berlin at 4 a.m. We changed trains twice on the way to Berlin, and finally got to the Berlin airport and caught our flight at 9:55 a.m. We flew into Milan and went straight to our hotel. We freshened up and headed out for some lunch and a tour of the city. We went for our first of many pizza experiences in Italia. The lady at the front desk suggested the pizza place next door, and since we were starving we didn’t hesitate. We ate a quick lunch and began to walk through the city. Milan is a huge city, and at first I was a little surprised at how similar it looked to cities in the U.S. but this was not exactly true. Yes, the area around the train station was a bit like the U.S., but after we walked about 2 or 3 blocks it was like a whole different world. Everywhere you look there was gorgeous architecture, designer clothing stores, cafes and Italian men staring.

Later that night, we were all completely exhausted from lack of sleep and a long day of exploring the city, but Robby had phone numbers of family members who lived in Milan that he had never met before. He called his (second??) cousin Andrea who is 27, and he offered to come meet up with us the next day and show us around the city. Robby and Andrea hit it off right away. They had so much in common whether it was music or their love of sleeping! Andrea took us to an area of Milan by the river that was lined with shops and restaurants. We went to a swanky pizza place and ate delicious pizza and drank wine and talked. Andrea introduced Robby and I to Italian coffee, I will never look at coffee the same way again!!!! It was soooooo delicious. After dinner we all walked along the river and then into the city center. There were so many young people out and about, it was like a huge street party. After a lot of walking and talking Andrea took us back to our hotel. We were all so excited about our night we couldn't sleep. Robby kept me up until 5 am talking about how excited he was about his family.

The next day, we took the subway to the edge of the city where Andrea picked us up and took us to his parents house for lunch. They were so amazing. His mother was the sweetest thing! She had a traditional Italian meal all ready for us when we got there. We had lunch with Andrea, his mother and father, and his sister Catarina. The "traditional" part also included the 2 1/2 hours it took to serve and eat all 5 courses and drink all 3 types of alcohol and coffee. it was really an incredible experience.

After lunch Robby and Andrea played piano and guitar and we all jammed out to some Beatles tunes. It was pretty amazing.


Andrea took us to the town he lives in called Pavia which is right outside of Milan. It was a quaint little town with a lot of history. Italia is an amazing place that I will be going back to in the next few years!!

Car pics for Dad and Matty

Yots and Yots of Trains.....

Peugot Store in Berlin





The Ferrari Store in Berlin... it was closed, so unfortunately I couldn't go in to take pictures. Oh yeah.... there is a Bentley Store across the street with a car that goes something like 260km an hour .

Berlin (the sequel)

There have been a lot of exciting things going on in Germany this past week. As Audry and I were lounging about in her flat on Tuesday we heard a knock at her door. It was Christian, Audry’s neighbor from above. He introduced us to his friend, Pablo, from Las Angeles. Pablo is staying in Halle for the summer, and hopes to find a job. He has citizenship here because his father is from Austria, so he finds a job he may decide to stay in Germany for good. Christian and Pablo invited us to go to dinner with them, we had already eaten, but we went along anyway to get to know them a little better. Christian had a lot to show us in Halle that Audry and I hadn’t yet seen. He showed us the House that Handel was born and grew up in, and the oldest building in Halle. It was built during the Renaissance but was a very different style for its time period because it had such large windows in a time when it was very expensive to heat buildings.





After an intense "flat-cleaning" session on Thursday, my roommates and I decided that it was time that we all have a nice meal together. Friday evening, Audry, Sebastian and I cooked a delicious lasagna. My three roommates, Sebastian, Christian, and Anna were there as well as Christian's girlfriend Maria and a few of their friends. It was great to enjoy a nice meal and drink some wine together.


Audry and I took the train to Berlin with Pablo, Christian and his girlfriend the next morning. We had to pick up Audry’s friends from the airport there, and the others just wanted to get out of Halle for a day or two. The 2 and 1/2 hour train ride was filled with post card writing and games of MASH that brought back memories of elementary school!! When we got to Berlin we saw many of the same things we had seen on our previous trip, but Christian was able to tell us a lot of things that we didn't learn the first time we were in Berlin.

We got to see the Holocaust Memorial this time, which was incredible. It was slab after slab of concrete stretched over an entire city block in the middle of Berlin. It was very interesting to walk through the memorial, the ground rolled like waves, so as you walked through it you would go up and down and the
large concrete slabs got taller as you got to the center. I really enjoyed how all of your different senses were utilized in the piece. As I walked through, I ran my hands along the pieces, and depending on the where the sun was, some parts were very hot and some parts were very cold. I thought this was a very interesting contrast. For me, this was an interesting metaphor for the lives of the victims of the Holocaust whose lives were taken so quickly.



On a lighter note, we hopped a train to pick up Audry’s friends from the airport. Robby and Mark are Audry’s friends from Tennessee. They were in London and France for a week and a half before they arrived in Berlin. After we got them from the airport we took them back through Berlin so they could see some of the city. We took our time walking back through the city so the boys could take in the sights. As we got to the train station we discovered that the most recent train had just left and we had to wait until after midnight to catch the last train of the night. We ended up not getting back to Halle until 2:30 am. Robby and Mark are going to be staying at Audry’s flat for the next 10 days. We are trying to plan a trip for the upcoming weekend so we can all go somewhere we haven’t been yet, but before we do that we are going to show them a good time in Halle! We have begun by taking them for a paddleboat ride on the Saale, and making them try the amazing hot schokolade in the Marketplace.

Sunset from my roof


The top of the Brandenburg Gate

A PINK TRABI!!!

Jump on it....


The diagonal line through the road is where the Berlin wall used to be

SOOO Big

ICH LIEBE DRESDEN

On Friday as Audry and I moseyed into the studio at our usual time we noticed there wasn’t anyone there. This isn’t too unusual for a Friday morning, but there really wasn’t ANYONE there. Susan, one of the professors came out of her office and told us that we really shouldn’t be in the studio because Dana was doing a luster firing and the fumes were very toxic. We were a little disappointed because we had already completed our 25 minute walk to the studio and now we had to go all the way back home. As we were contemplating what to do with the rest of our day Audry had the bright idea to take a last minute trip to Dresden. Bella, who had been staying with Audry and on her way back to Berlin, helped us find a train ticket before she left and we booked a hostel for Friday night. Somehow EVERYTHING worked out perfectly.

We got to Dresden and immediately started exploring the city. We began by hopping on a tram that we were trying to take to our hostel, but since Audry is not the best navigator we got a bit lost and somehow wound up on a bridge over the Elbe in the biggest wind storm I have ever experienced in my life! I thought I was going to blow off the bridge, literally. But the view was incredible. The bridge overlooked the old historic part of the city that survived the bombings of WWII, even though many of the buildings had to be rebuilt. We made our way through this historic part section of the city and took TONS of pictures. There was the royal palace, churches, art schools and an opera house.




We decided to try and find our hostel and get ready for a night on the town. When we got to our hostel we tried to find out if we could stay another night because we knew we wouldn’t be satisfied with only one or two days of Dresden. The hostel was full due to a local Dixie Land Festival…didn’t think that one was coming. Anyway, the nice guy at the front desk was very helpful and found us another hostel on Saturday night that was right around the corner. We went out to a cool, little jazz bar and had a few drinks and listened to a really interesting band. We met some really nice people who told us about a great little Turkish restaurant down the street that we soon discovered was AMAZING.

Saturday we woke up early and set out to Pillnitz, a castle in the outskirts of Dresden. The castle, which was more like a palace, was set in a large green space filled with flowers, fountains, HUGE trees, and even crazy little red squirrels with pointy ears. After our adventures in Pillnitz we lugged our tired selves to our new hostel to check in. After check in we hopped another tram and made our way to the Zwinger, and saw the Dresden Porcelain Collection.


This consisted of Augustus the Strong’s collection of “oriental” porcelain. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. We spent another night out on Saturday night and decided to check out some of the pubs in the Neustadt of Dresden. As we walked through the streets trying to decide on a pub we ran into a large group of young men wearing lederhosen and singing very loudly. They stopped us and in very broken English asked us to join them in trying to find a discoteche. We politely declined and found a bar where we did a little drinking and dancing for the rest of the night.
Sunday when we woke up, we decided to hit up the Volkswagon factory in Dresden that produces the new Phaeton, the luxury car. Besides the factory, there was also a lot of information about Volkswagon and all of the commercials from the beginning when the bug came out until the most recent commercials. I’m sure my dad would be jealous!!



After the VW factory we decided we had time for one more museum before we caught our train back to Halle. I somehow convinced Audry that it would be a great idea to go to the German Hygiene Museum. Audry is a bit squeamish and she was a little hesitant to go to the museum but she knew that I would love it so she agreed to suck it up and see what it was all about. It was actually very interesting and she was pleasantly surprised. There was a very interesting exhibit on WWII and Hitler’s quest to cleanse the population to create a “perfect race”. The main component of the museum was about the human body. There was information about everything like conception, nutrition, movement, and sex. It was definitely an interesting museum to see and was definitely worth it. We sadly left Dresden right after the Hygiene Museum and headed back to Halle. Dresden was amazing, I can’t wait to go back!!!