Ciao! These last two weeks have been a lot of fun, but also busy. I traveled to 2 new countries, wrote over 4500 words in various papers, studied for an Italian final, plus did my internship on top of all that. Because of that it has taken me a while to post, but here we go!
Last week I visited the Italian Stock Exchange, Borsa Italiana. The outside of the building can be seen above, and it's beautiful (look behind the distracting statue, also seen below). My boss and his class visited the exchange as part of the summer school, and I was able to come with. We were given a tour of part of the building and then learned more about private equity investments, stocks, and the exchange. It was fascinating. In addition, the build is beautiful inside and out. There are beautiful paintings from the 40's inside and the main meeting area/stage inside is very nice. It took me by surprise, though, because when we entered the main room just past the lobby, contemporary Christian music was playing on the speakers. I'm so used to the US, where the stock exchanges are extremely secular and twisted (Wall of Wall Street anyone?), so seeing such a blend of religious and secular was neat. The blend is actually fairly defining in Italy, and the two biggest things in Milan are religion and banking. In fact, the two tallest building in the city are the Duomo and a bank's tower. Another interesting fact about Borsa Italiana? It's built on top of a roman amphitheater, part of which you can see under a glass floor near the conference rooms.
The statue here is of a rather self-explanatory concept. An artist created this temporary piece aimed at Borsa Italiana, but it became so popular with the people that it's now a permanent feature.
In addition to visiting Borsa Italiana, my seminar class at IES visited SKY, a major private broadcasting company in Italy and other countries in Europe. We were able to see several areas where shows were streamed, broadcast and monitored. In addition, we saw two different live new casts being filmed. These sets are completed automated now, so while there are people in a separate control room, the only person that needs to be in the actual room is the newscaster. We ended up seeing a financial report and a sportscast, both of which were neat. I definitely enjoyed that visit. I even have the badge as a souvenir!
This past weekend I went to Munich, Germany and Salzburg, Austria. To get myself into the mindset of the trip, and to refresh my memory, I watched The Sound of Music on my computer the night before I left.
Here is a view of the Swiss Alps from my bus going to Munich. The ride was about 9 hours, but the scenery are beautiful!
The first place I visited in Munich was St. Peter's Church. It's a beautiful cathedral with a tall bell tower that you can climb to the top of for only 1EUR if you're a student. It also has the best view of the city, and it had been recommended to me by several friends at IES who have been to Munich earlier in the summer. This first picture, however, is my view on the way up. There were over 400 stairs going up around 14 flights of stairs. I'm glad the view was worth it, and that I brought water and a snack, because I felt like passing out at the top. Not fun, but worth it.
Here's one of the pictures I took from the top of the tower, to give you an idea of how much you could see from up there.
Another thing that I did in Munich was visited the Hofbrauhaus. Special show out to Mr. Barnsback who recommended going to Hofbrauhaus. I had planned on going to a beer hall, but this was definitely a great one to go to, and packed. Life music, rowdy singing, drinks flowing. Very entertaining!
After Hofbrauhaus, I ended my evening on a more sedate note. During the first half of the afternoon I did typically tourist thing, beer hall, church, Marienplatz, Viktualienmarkt, and eating sausages with mustard (picture below), but one of my highlights was the evening. While walking towards Hofbrau, I had heard American music playing. I passed by again walking back to the center and wandered into a wine culture event with a live band playing an interesting mix of bluegrass, Elvis, and other American classics. The wine was fantastic, second only to my Tuscany Chanti's, and the glass was full. The only downside? The pretzel was aweful (day old and most of a pretzel crisp) =( Overall, it was a delightful evening and one of my highlights in Munich.
The next day I arrived in Salzburg just in time for lunch. I stayed in an AirBnB place, and check in was at 2 pm, so I wandered around Salzburg near Mirabell Gardens then ate at MyIndigo, a restaurant advertised as having healthy and delicious food. I had a fantastic curry, a wonderful Rooibos tea, and a seat in a lovely restaurant with AC.
For my unusual and unexpected tangent of the post, Austria has had the most beautiful restrooms I've seen yet in Europe. The restaurant I had lunch at had this bathroom. There's incense! Public restrooms were clean and had mosaic tiling, and another restaurant restroom had wood paneling and the window (in the stall) had beautiful curtains. It was a nice surprise at each location, but not what I was expecting after Italy and the land of squatters (or at least one or two).
Here is a picture from Mirabell Gardens. You may recognize the statue here from the Sound of Music since it's where Maria and the children ran around singing Do-Re-Mi. I myself didn't sing it there, but I hummed loudly!
Random graffiti on a planter outside of Mirabell. I just had to share it!
On the one night that I was in Salzburg, I went to a dinner and show called 'The Sound of Salzburg'. The dinner provided was a traditional Austria meal, shown in the three photos above. I had a soup whose name I couldn't pronounce that had bread with cheese (I think?) in it that was delicious, The main course was pork loin, cabbage, and dumplings. All of it was great, if not slightly over cooked. It's not the chefs fault, though. The show was canceled at one point, our money returned and everything. There was about 30 people signed up originally and a tour of 18 people canceled at the last moment. Fortunately another group of Chinese (you know you're getting used to Italy when... I first spelled Chinese the Italian way, 'cinese') tourists appeared just then with a group of 10, so we were able to enjoy dinner and a show anyways.
Here is a picture of the singers in the show. They're performing a piece from an operetta about the crazy weather in Salzburg, and particularly the rain. This is pretty true to form, since the next night it randomly started pouring.
At two points during the show, people were pulled from the audience to dance. I was chosen/ I volunteered each time to dance. I picked up the steps to the first traditional dance very easily, but the second was a bit more difficult. I don't have a picture of my dancing, but I danced with Santiago (above) both times. The couple sitting across from me ended up taking a few pictures that included me, so that said they would send me them later in August when they finished their vacation.
Another pretty picture of Mirabell. I ended up going 4 times since it was less than 2 blocks from where I was staying.
The next day I went to the fortress in Salzburg. It's considered to be a symbol of the city since you can see it from literally everywhere. Construction started in the mid-1000's!
Here's a picture of me and a my view from the top viewing area of the fortress where artillary used to sit. It's the top of the old gunnery tower. If you knew what you were seeing, you could point out the Residentz, Mirabell Salzburg Congress and a few other things from this picture alone.
The last thing I saw in Salzburg was Hellbrun Palace, home of the trick fountains. The first fountain we saw on the tour was a drinking table. The center of the table used to be filled with wine, and unsuspecting guests would sit to enjoy a cup of chilled wine only to get soaked. If I got completely soaked and took awhile to dry in my cloths, I couldn't imagine being a renaissance woman in several layers! After that I learned my lesson and learned how to avoid the more serious spurts of water. They didn't warn you about exactly how wet you got, so I had my backpack with me, containing my phone, passport, a sweater, and other things which shouldn't be getting soaked. Needless to say, I left looking like I'ld been to Water Country USA without a swim suit, and had to change once I got to my suitcase again.
My bus got back to Milan at 6:30am and I got to my apartment at 7. Even still, I went to my 9am class the same morning, running on less than 4.5 hours of sleep and no espresso. I'm glad I went, because we went to an art and food exhibit at Triennale, a design museum in Milan. I took quite a few pictures, but I'm showing this one because of what the bottle says. The almost 3 story tall blow-up ketchup bottle says "Daddies tomato sauce".
On Wednesday there was a baking competition between the two beginning Italian classes and my intermediate Italian class. We watched an Italian comedy movie called "Benvenuti al Nord" ("Welcome to the North") and ate the various desserts, and one or two breakfast foods, that people brought in. At the end we were all given a sheet of paper to write our favorite dish on. I don't know when they will announce the winner, but who knows? I may have a shot at winning. My peach and blueberry cobbler disappeared very quickly. I was worried I may have made to much, since everyone was bringing in desserts, but it wasn't an issue...at all. I also apparently introduced a few of the IES staff members to cobbler, since a few were asking what it was and had not had it before.
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And now onto today!
My highlight in my seminar class this morning was my was when my teacher played the piano. He played bits of several famous Italian songs and told us a bit about each. Not only was it interesting, but his playing was fantastic!This is probably the first time I haven't been annoyed that people were late, because part of how he gwas convinced to do this was because several people were late coming in and there was a piano already in the room. So neat!
My other highlight of the day was gelato. There's a little gelataria that has absolutely amazong gelato. I went in today because I wanted a snack and it was hot. Most gelatarias just have the normal flavors (pistacchio, chocolate, strachiatella, strawberry, etc.), but this place noramally has defferent flavors, including the mango one that made me a return customer. I have had coconut, mango, maracuya and other good flavors there before, but this took the cake. It's crema with ginger and orange, for those that don't know Italian, atnd it was honestly the best gelato I have had in my life. AMAZING!!!
Also? It's now 10pm. This is hilarious to me, because yestersay when my mom was reminding me (*cough cough* ) to post to MM, I told her that time is on her side because even if I post at 10pm, she'll have it around 4pm. See? I was right! Enjoy!
