You Always Find Your Way Back Home

90 days, 8 countries, 18 cities, 15 planes and 9 trains later I'm back on my old stomping grounds. I started my 24 hour travel day at 5 am in Dublin, Ireland and ended around 12 am in Greensboro, NC. Leaving Europe was one of the hardest things I have had to do to date, and flying into the Miami ariport did not make it any easier. After a 9 hour flight nothing says "Welcome home to the USA!" quite like Miami customs. I thought I had flown to a different country, one in which I was not a natural born citizen. When I finally made it to the GSO airport and saw my mom and my brother waiting at the end of the terminal I just about lost it. Reality set in and I knew it was over. I'm pretty sure my first words were "I want to go back" not " I missed you Mom."

Traveling home was very sad. Unlike a lot of people I was not excited about coming home. I hadn't been traveling long enough to get tried of it which worked to my advantage. I am not at all embarrassed to own up to the fact that I cried in the Dublin airport, London airport, Miami airport, GSO airport and all of the flights in between. I was that girl. I'm pretty sure people thought that I was parting with some great lover like in a Hollywood movie, and truth be told, I kind of was. I love traveling, and Europe and the Italians. Especially the Italians, but would I ever date one...no, at least not the one's I met. Anyway, when I realized that I no longer had to say "Ciao!" to people I got kind of depressed. They really inspired me to become fluent in their language because they spoke with so much passion. When American's say "Hello" to each other you might as well be throwing a dead fish at the other person's face at the same time (those are wise words from an Italian shop owner that I met). When an Italian says Ciao you would think that they are going to scoop you up and hug you as if you've known each other for years.

It's hard for me to say what I learned while I was over there or what my favorite place was. Each place is so much its own and it is almost not fair to compare it to the next city.The Irish are the nicest people, the Italian's have an unparalleled passion for life, the French...ehhh they are what you would expect but they have a lovely country, the Spaniards are CrAZy, Berlin is a little dark, Amsterdam is a trip, and all of the other places in between are all just so perfect in their own way!

However, I think that the great state of North Carolina still takes the top spot on the list of my favorite places in the world. My sense of NC pride, not so much American pride, increased twofold. I am so proud of where I am from and how I was raised and because of that, it gave me the courage to go out and do what I did this past semester. I might not have been to thrilled about leaving Europe but I sure was happy to be coming home to such a great place. As the Italians say-chi si volta, e chi si gira, sempre a casa va finire!

Now that I have rambled on and on about my European adventure for 24 blog posts I'd say it's time to wrap it up. I love being able to say, "Oh I've been there!" or look at a picture and say "I've seen that up close!" It's an amazing feeling.I know I will go back, and I like to believe that I will live and work there one day too? But, don't you think now is the time to travel while we are still young?

Land of the Potatoes and Home of the Guinness

I've made it to my final destination on my European adventure and boy am I happy to be here! From the moment I got off the plane people were already being so nice and helpful toward me. I was pretty exhausted when I got to the hostel around 3 and Callie and Caroline weren't due back from the Guinness for another 45 minutes so I took a nap, it was well deserved. Then we decided to go get a late lunch/early dinner and despite all of the good food Ireland has to offer we got burgers. It was a good burger and I have no regrets. After walking around for a while we decided to go out for drinks. Out of all the pubs in Dublin I'd say we chose a good one. The bar tender was hilarious and had us playing silly games for an hour while he ragged on us Americans with his typical Irish humor. A guy named Fred shared his lode story with us, he is a head hunter, and told us all of the places we needed to visit. Actually, he go the whole bar involved in planning our itinerary. It was actually really fun! After a couple of hours we decided on a late dinner of nachos before meeting up with the last of the CIMBA crowd left in Dublin. We all went out to about 4 different bars and had the best time. One was clearly not for the younger crowd but we showed up in there and as soon as the guys started dancing to the Irish music we had the eye of everyone in the bar! At 3am when Callie, Caroline and I said goodbye to everyone it was once again back to "Bye, see you when I see you."

Thursday was our last day in Dublin and my first full day! The other CIMBA group went on the P.s. I Love You tour but we were instructed to go see the old Viking area and the jail. It rained all day so we were advised against seeing the Cliffs of Moher because the tour leaves at 7am and doesn't return until 8pm and half of that time you are on a bus. No thank you. We walked to the Viking area and saw the old city walls which were cool and we searched high and low for the castle but couldn't find it. How do you hide a castle!? We ended up near the college area before deciding to give up our search and go straight to jail, do not collect $200 if you pass go. Here I am on my last full day in Europe and I am going to jail, dang it! In all reality it was actually really cool. We've been in all of the churches and museums known to man kind but not yet a jail. It was a little uncomfortable but he history associated with it was pretty neat. During a normal year about 800-900 people would come through the jail but during the famine 9000 people were coming through the jail during the year. This is because people were committing crimes on purpose to be put there in order to get a place to sleep and have 3 meals a day, that's desperation. The key players in Irish revolution were also held and executed in the jail so there's a fun fact for you.

After we finished up our jail tour it was raining and we were a 30 minute walk from the hostel and main city area so we opted for a taxi. The taxi driver was quite a proud Irish mad who gave us a history and political lesson during our short 10 minute ride over the the Temple Bar area. It was very informative and actually really interesting. He was rattling off dates and facts like it was part of his job. When we got to the Temple Bar area it was raining pretty heavily and we were cold and fading fast so we got a Bailey's and coffee as a pick-me-up. It was really good! Hours of packing ensued shortly after before we decided on dinner. The guy working behind the desk at the hostel suggested a restaurant near Temple Bar where we could finally get some good Irish food. For appetizers we had these pancake balls and the main course was a corn and beef pot-pie type of dish. Desert was a Bailey's cheese cake. I still feel full just thinking about dinner! We decided to walk over to the actual Temple Bar for one last legal European drink before I headed home. Temple Bar is basically awesome and the live band was really good. They even sang Wagon Wheel but Caroline, Callie and I were the only three in the entire bar who were singing along, I didn't think anyone had ever hear it before. It was as if the band knew we were headed home and they were trying to send us off! Needless to say we stayed out way past our designated bed time of 10pm. Caroline and Callie left at 4am to catch their flight to Venice and I left at 5:30 to get my flight to London. Finally I had said the last of my CIMBA goodbyes and now it was time for one final goodbye to Europe.

Unaccompanied Minors

Okay, so maybe the title doesn't apply to me, but the situation is about the same. I was supposed to have a flight out of VIE at 12 to Dublin where I would meet up with more CIMBA people. I left the hostel at 9, got the the airport by 10. Waited in line for and hour to check in and check my bag, met a nice Australian man who told some cool stories from his travels only to find out that my flight reservation has been lost. Well I have already paid for this flight and I have traveled through Europe for 3 months without problems so for a seasoned pro like me this came as quite a shock. I ended up talking to supervisors for 2 hours and missed the flight. Luckily the VIE airport has free wifi everywhere so I was able to message Callie and Caroline who were flying to Dunlin from Nice to meet me. Well, after some time later I was issued a new ticket for 12pm the next day. Yep 24 hours from now was the next flight to Dunlin on any airline. I looked for all other alternatives but it was much too expensive and complicated. So, guess who is sleeping in the airport...THIS GIRL! Just kidding, did you really think I was going to sleep in an airport? Ha! I got a hotel and 24 hours later, 50 games of solitaire, a finished book and a 4 hour viewing of Gone With the Wind...here I am...in the Vienna airport...waiting for my last flight in Europe before I fly home...Oh amd then the next day i had to pay 4€ for a cappuccino, in Italy it is 1.50€ at most and the guy at security strip searched my carry on while I got patted down because he mistook my tweezers for scissors. Oh Vienna, how you spoil me so! On the bright side, I got my second passport stamp! This whole time I have been asking people at airports for passport stamps and I finally go one because I am flying out of the Schengen area. I wish I would have gone to Dublin sooner so I could have more stamps!!

It's a Sip of Wine, It's Summertime

Happy First Day of Summer!!! As previously mentioned, the semester is now over and I am on what is commonly referred to as SUMMER VACATION! I have never been this cold on my first day of summer vacation but then again, I have never spent my first night of vacation in my beloved Venice, Italy. Our plan for "travel week 3" is Venice for a night, then a train to Vienna, fly to Dublin then the inevitable flight home.

Venice on Saturday night was a struggle. Can you imagine going from 5 exams in 3 days, and packing 3 months of your life up and then traveling to a different city? We all struggled a little bit but we were happy to see everyone and say goodbye over one last drink. Although I knew I would see some of the people the next day and in Dublin so I didn't feel as bad about wanting to go to sleep early. Sunday we got up and went back onto the island to walk around. I love Venice in the day light! We got a cappuccino and panini for breakfast and then walked lazily along the canal and thought the streets toward the Rialto bridge and St. Mark's square. Venice is beautiful. It is small and a little sad though. You really don't need to spend more than a day in the city. We took pictures, watched the gondolas glide under the bridges, watched the tourist, had gelato one last time, ran into the other CIMBA students, went mask shopping and bought some Murano glass gifts for the family. Time seemed to move so slowly and our train didn't leave until much later. We sat in St. Mark's square and just watched people and chased pigeons before the clouds came out and we decided to head back over to Mestre. We had our final Italian dinner near our hostel before walking to the station and getting on our train to Vienna.

The train was an overnight train so we wouldn't be getting to Vienna until 8:08 Monday morning. I swear, people just want to see how I long can function on only a few hours of sleep post-exams. Normally at home after my two week exam period ends I crash for a straight week and here I am 48 hours our from my three day exam period sleeping on a train traveling to Austria. It was not until about 4am that we realized that the chairs in our six person cabin could be pulled put to make a huge pallet so the four of us who were traveling together got really close and finally got some sleep. When we arrived in Vienna it didn't take us long to get to the hostel so we were there by 9am. However, our room wasn't going to be ready until 2pm we dropped off our luggage, ate some breakfast and headed out to walk around the city. I don't know a whole lot about Vienna but they sure are proud of Mozart! We saw some cool buildings, the Spanish riding school, old Roman ruins, and more churches! They are all starting to look a like. We even walked into the University of Vienna and lounged in their court yard for a bit. For lunch, at 3pm...,we had traditional Viennese food, I had soup which was really good considering my developing cold/sinus infection. The guy who owned the restaurant insisted upon taking a group picture of us and with us, he then proceeded to bring us complementary desert cocktails. It was a good lunch! We went back to the hostel after to check in and shower because we were all exhausted and quite frankly, we didn't smell too nice. We were slow movers and had planned to go to an opera/ballet at 7:30 so when it came time for dinner we needed something quick. We weren't too interested in eating traditional food, so we had Chinese. This was my first time having Chinese food since January, Walk to Wok in Amsterdam doesn't count. Sweet and sour chicken never tasted soooooo good. It's a shame that they didn't have sesame chicken on the menu though. At 7:30 we went to the show which was nice, it was all Mozart of course. After it was over went to the bar for a drink before heading to bed because we were all still exhausted, plus I had a flight to Dublin to catch the next day...

The Final Count Down

Arrivederla my sweet Italia! Only three more days of class and then 3 days of exams before I say goodbye for now to Italy. Monday we didn't have class because it was still part of Easter Holiday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning were our last day of classes and then Thursday afternoon through Saturday morning we had our final exams. Then it's the start of summer vacation for me!

Tuesday night was our last formal dinner and I thought the food was by far the best. During the dinner there was a slide show running recapping all of our CIMBA travels. After the dinner we had a mini CIMBA prom with a DJ which was really fun. Guys were taking their dress shirts off and crowd surfing, a few of the professors showed us some moves and I shagged the night away. Good thing first thing Wednesday morning I had a final presentation to give for two of my professors who were at the dinner. It went very smooth though, no worries. I even booked my flight home! Yep, I waited until almost 2 weeks before I needed to be home to book my flight. I was trying to delay the inevitable because I refused to accept reality.

Now onto the ever dreaded Thursday...I had two classes in the morning and then my first exam at 5:15 that afternoon, plus I had to finish planning my post-program travels. Friday I had two exams plus packing and then Saturday I had two more exams, mote packing and we had to be checked out by 2pm. After our last meal of pasta with red sauce Saturday afternoon we all rushed to finish packing and say goodbye because the first two buses were leaving for the airport at 1:00 and 1:45. Most people were staying after to travel for about a week, a good number of us planned to spend our fist night of summer vacation in Venice before we all split and the rest were going straight home.

83 days later there we were all standing outside in sleepy little Paderno Del Grappa saying goodbye. Of course it is another over cast day so Mt. Grappa was no where to be seen. Typical. It almost felt like the last day of summer camp accept there was no "see you next summer!" being yelled out. For some people it was "see you at home," or "see you in the fall," but for me it was "I'll see you when I see you." Of course I will see a good number of people as we all finish traveling around Europe but for the majority of the people there that will be the last time I ever see them. For me it wasn't a sad goodbye at all. It was more of a "thanks for the memories, it was fun" type of moment.

At 4 my travel group and I headed off to Venice for the night. Back to the city where it all started. I had never actually seen the city in the daylight and our train to Vienna didn't leave until 9:05pm Sunday so I was very excited to get going despite the end of the semester

Chasing the Sun

Yay 4 day weekend! As excited as I am about a 4 day weekend I am also really sad that it is our last weekend before the semester ends. For our bitter sweet celebration we chased the sun down to the Amalfi Coast on Thursday. When we got there Thursday night we put our stuff down at the hostel and headed straight out toward city center. At some point we turned down a side street and found an empty pizzeria, so we went in. The two guys working there were young Italian guys who were eager to show some Americans a good time. Pasquale, the 19 year old waiter started making drinks for us mixing gin and beer, corona and tequila, beer and vodka, etc. They also made us some fried eggplant and mozzarella along with deep fried grilled cheese. Yum! So basically that we our first night in Sorrento.

Friday we had a private boat tour planned leaving from Sorrento, where we were staying, to Capri and back. It left at 9:30, stopped at Capri for about 2 hours before heading back to the harbor around 5. A cab picked us up from the hostel and took us down to the harbor where we met our Captain and Bruno, the first mate. It was a beautiful 40' boat just big enough for our crowd of 7 plus 5 other girls who are studying in Barcelona. It was already warming up nicely when we headed out to Caprie which was nice because all 7 of us wore our bathing suits. Finally my bathing suit got to see a little sunshine and salt water!!! Even though there was rain in the forecast we still managed to all get a little color. We cruised around the Sorrento coast line toward Capri and stopped in a few places so we could see the many grottos between the rocks. From the boat we also had a really great view of Mt. Vesuvius!! At one point, near the ruins of an old Roman aqueduct we decided to swim. We jumped off the back of the boat and into the ice cold water. I only went in twice simply to say that I swam in the Mediterranean. I needed to lay in the sun for a good while to bring up my body temperature. We cruised around the island of Capri near these famous rocks. One has an arch way under it so naturally we went through it. At one point we anchored the boat to swim but I was too content laying in the sun to even move far enough to take pictures. I have learned that sometimes you just have to put down the camera and take it all in for yourself because no matter how hard you try a camera can't capture the moment as well as a memory can. We also made our way over the the famous Blue Grotto which, as luck would have it, was closed due to the high tide. The only way to get in was to swim through so there went everyone but me, swimming into the grotto. I do not like cold water and the swim was far to long for me to pretend to grin and bear it the whole way there. I do not regret my decision to say in the boat. About the time the 6 of them made it to the entrance a tourist boat came by and everyone started taking pictures of the silly Americans who were swimming as well as the 6 of us who were on the boat. It was kind of comical!

We made it to Capri around 2 and got off to walk around the city. It's pretty small but very exciting. I was surprised by the amount of high-end retail shops that were there. The number of tourist however was no real surprise. We got some gelato, took pictures, met Americans and then went back to the boat at 4:30 to finish the cruise. On the way back I asked Bruno if I could take the wheel for a bit and he had no problem handing it over. He told me where to go and left me to it for about 15 minutes. I was loving it!!! When we got back to the harbor in Sorrento a can was waiting for us to take us back to the hostel. We hated to leave especially after such an awesome day but we were all getting a little burned and hungry so back to the main land we went. For dinner Julia, Ross and I found a restaurant near the main square and had a great pizza and tiramisu. Of course, when in Southern Italy, we got complementary limoncello shots with the check. At 8:30 in the street Sorrento has two processions for Easter. There was one Thursday night, the Procession of Our Lady of Sorrows and then Friday, the Procession of the Crucified Christ. It went all the way around the city and then finished back at the church around 11. It was very cool to see and a nice Italian man explained the history and significance of the procession. We watched it leave from the church, grabbed a few drinks and then watched it come back into the city and enter the church before heading back to the hostel.

Saturday we took the bus from Sorrento to the town of Amalfi for a few hours. The road to Amalfi is carved out of the side of the cliffs and its a straight drop down into the water so that part was kind of scary. There is not much to do or see in Amalifi on a rainy day other than a cool church. We all bought some bottles of limoncello and looked at some tiles that are native to the region. Julia and I had our afternoon glass of vino rosso before going back to Sorrento. Dinner was probably the best part of the day because we went to a mozzarella bar and had a mozzarella platter and focaccia bread for dinner. It was SO GOOD and actually pretty filling. The night ended back at Pasquale's pizzeria, he actually closed early just so he could hang out with us so that was nice.

Sunday was a lot more exciting and had better weather. Despite it being Easter Sunday there were actually a lot of people out and shops open when Julia and I left for Pompeii! I was really hoping to have the chance to go to Rome for Easter or at least go to mass but obviously neither one of those worked in my favor. That's alright, I'll have something to come back for! Anyway, Pompeii was awesome. We walked through the ruins for about 3 hours and enjoyed the last bit of sunshine we will see before going back to Northern Italy. It was cool to see everything I had learned about in my high school laying class. I knew I would get something out of 4 years of Cober's lessons! Some of the mosaics and frescoes were actually very well preserved but I was surprised by the lack of "restrictions" in Pompeii. The only think that separated me from the ruins was a worn down piece of caution tape or a rickety wooden gate. I could have easily stepped over and there was no once there to enforce the rules, but I still obeyed them. Toward the end of the day we headed to the Napoli airport for our flight back to Venice. The trains had stopped running by the time we landed and the cab rides that were outside were so expensive so we called our Italian Dad who is also the owner of the Pizzeria to come pick us up. It was a long weekend and I was happy to come home a day early and have all day Monday to study for exams. I also needed that Monday to book a flight home to the USofA and make my travel plans in between....

Il mio giornata molto Italiano

So today I realized how short my time left in Italy is and how much there is still left to do in my town. My 10:20 class was canceled for whatever reason so I decided that instead of sitting in my room and doing homework I would go to Alpina which is a café 3 minutes from campus. I ordered a cappuccino and a breakfast pastry and worked on homework up until lunch. It was so nice to just sit in an Italian café for a while and I cannot believe that I had never taken advantage of it before.

The rest of my day when on like usual until 3 pm. Anthony and I had decided to walk to the next town over which is about a 15 minute walk. There we got some gelato despite the now freezing temperature. The sun has consistently failed to shine this week and will do so throughout all of Italy during out Easter weekend… But we still enjoyed it and as usual I got nutella flavored gelato because it is easily my favorite. Tiramisu is a close second though, followed by a strawberry and lemon mix. After gelato we walked the next street over to the wine bar. There are a lot of vineyards in Northern Italy near campus so many of them will open up smaller stores or bars in town where you can actually by the bottles. At this particular one you can bring an empty plastic bottle, like a water bottle, and they will fill it up for you. It is usually about 1.70€ for a liter and a half where as a bottle with their label can go from 5€ to 9.50 €! Between Anthony and me, we got 3 bottles for tonight because it is our last night out at the pizzeria before the program ends. Around 4:30 Anthony went to get a haircut and I headed back to campus because team Let’s Get Weird had our last LEAP coaching session followed by dinner at 5. Dinner is the next part of my very Italian day…

There is a hotel, Hotel Monte Grappa, about a 3 minute drive from campus. They are known for having great pasta because, of course, it is handmade. So that is where the 9 of us went for dinner. The pasta was SO good, much better than the boxed stuff that we get on campus. I’m not even really sure what mine was but it is quite possibly one of the best pasta dishes I have ever had! While we were eating dinner a group of professors came in for dinner, one of which was my marketing teacher who is the best teacher I have ever had. When we were leaving he came up to us and asked him to help him with a prank he wanted to pull on the class. He had heard that everyone was going to the Pizzeria and so he asked us to spread the word when we went that he was going to give a pop quiz in class the next morning at 8:25. Obviously he was kidding but boy was it a good prank! People were panicking and some people even tried to study for it, but we have been giving presentations for the past 3 days so what they tried to study exactly, I don’t know….

Next and final part of my day: Al Sole. Like I said before, it was the last night that we really had the chance to go to Al Sole before the end of the program. Thursday night we would all be gone for Easter and wouldn't be back until Monday. Tuesday night we have our 3^rd formal dinner and exams start on Thursday and go until Saturday so Wednesday night we will all be studying. I got there around 9 and there were all ready a good number of people there but the place really got packed around 10. Out of the 126 of us in the program I would argue that about 100 of us were packed in there along with some random Italian students, some of the MBA student and a few professors here and there. Basically it was awesome. We all had so much fun hanging out, socializing, drinking, playing cards, and basically just celebrating the semester. The whole night was like one big toast to the Pizzeria! After Wednesday night though it’s probably a good thing we don’t have time to go back, at least, I cannot imagine them wanting us to come back….