Bad Luck

Well, I have been striking out lately as far as traveling goes. Two weekends ago, I had plans to go to London. The flight was booked, the hostel was booked, and a tour of the Baths, Stonehenge, and Windsor Castle was booked. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as planned. I made sure to pack the day before so I wouldn’t forget anything in the morning, and I thought all was good. We woke up early, caught a 7:00 train to Bremen, and arrived at the airport an hour and a half before our flight, which is perfect timing for flying Ryan Air. As we went to check in, one of the people traveling with me said, “I hope everyone remembered their passports.” Ooops. Right away I knew that I had forgotten all about it. I talked to just about everyone at every desk I could find, and I was pointed in the direction of the airport police. For a minute, it looked as though things would be ok. I was told that the police could make me a temporary passport, which was accepted by nearly every airline. That is, of course, except Ryan Air. Go figure. So, instead of going to London, I had to take a 3 hour trip home. And, the flight was nonrefundable. At least I will never do that again! I’m sure I will get to London soon anyways.

The following weekend, three of us made travel arrangements to head to Croatia from Saturday to Wednesday. We planned on flying out of Dortmund to Split, and spending a night there. Then, we had arrangements to island hop on the ferry all the way down to Dubrovnik, before taking a bus up to Zagreb, where we would fly back out of. Unfortunately, the few days prior to our departure, problems arose in nearby Serbia and Kosovo. While Croatia is independent from the others, we heard that there was a chance that problems could occur, since the countries border one another. So, we decided that it was better to be safe than sorry, and we cancelled our trip. So, that’s 2 strikes on the last 2 travel attempts. Hopefully the next one will work better!

Instead of Croatia, we just ended up hanging around Braunschweig for the weekend. But, we did also take a quick train ride into Wolfsburg for a motorcycle convention as well, and it was pretty neat. I definitely missed the trips, but the weekends still always turn out fun!

Braunschweig Carnival

Last Sunday was Carnival in Braunschweig, and I had been hearing about how great it was all week. Honestly, I didn’t expect too much from a small city like Braunschweig, yet I was told by numerous people that it was one of the biggest parades in Germany. Well, it lived up to what I had been told, and certainly didn’t disappoint. Sunday morning at 12:00, Ray and I walked a few bahn stops down from where the parade was supposed to begin, as all of the roads had been blocked off. I was surprised right away by the sheer number of people….more people than I have probably ever seen before, as far down the street as was visible. And, this parade route stretched 6 kilometers to the city center, so we were not even in the busiest or most popular area! Still, on every corner, booths were set up selling beer, bratwurst, and kabobs.

The parade was scheduled to start at 12:40, and believe it or not, as soon as my watch said 12:40, the first float was on its way. All of the floats were extremely elaborate….nothing like I have ever seen before other than on TV for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. All together, I heard that there were over 50 bands and 400 floats. The atmosphere was pretty neat, and we were just about the only ones not dressed up. Little kids were running around dressed as Indians, pirates, and super heroes….and even most of the adults were in full costume! Everyone was certainly happy! All of the kids ran around with pillowcase-sized bags, trying to get armfuls of candy and toys. Many of the adults participated as well. The floats weren’t only throwing hard candy like you’d normally see, but full sized candy bars, bags of chips, stuffed animals, T-shirts, calendars, gift certificates, bottles of wine, and toys of all kinds. One float was even handing out small bratwursts, while the baker’s float tossed freshly baked buns. After an hour, almost every kid had a full bag! We ended up staying over 3 hours, until nearly 4:00, but finally decided to head home. Unbelievably, the parade was still going, and it didn’t look like the end was near. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and we had a beautiful day….I’m not jealous of all that snow you guys are having back home!

Later on that night, at about 11:00, a huge group of us all met at Barnaby’s Blues Bar to watch the Superbowl. The owner lived in Chicago for 40 years, and has an American sports channel. It was a great time, but things didn’t turn out how most of us would have liked them. Enough said with that. Oh, well. The Celtics have been on a tear, and the Sox are already reporting to Spring Training. We have a lot to look forward too!

Pisa, Italy

We woke up extremely early on Sunday morning, and attempted to catch the very first bus to the Venice train station. Unfortunately, we went to the wrong bus stop, and had to wait another 45 minutes for the next one. But, we made it to the main station no problem, bought our tickets to Florence, and were on our way. The train to Florence took about 3 hours, but we had some pretty good scenery. Once in Florence, we had only about an hour to look around nearby, before we caught the next train to Pisa. This ride was much shorter, and we were there in no time. As soon as we got to Pisa, we headed towards the famous tower. On the way, we stopped for lunch at a small Italian restaurant (the pasta with lobster was awesome!). As soon as we finished, we continued our walk to the tower, walking past the old walls of Venice along the way. Soon, the Leaning Tower was in view, and it leans much more than I ever imagined! It is really quite a sight! We arrived at the Piazza dei Miracoli, where we got closer looks at the Leaning Tower, the Duomo, the Baptistry of the Cathedral, and the Camposanto. We also made sure to get the overdone picture of each of us holding the tower up….we figured it had to be done. It was actually pretty funny seeing a field full of hundreds of people trying to take the same picture! After the many picture, we stopped at a flea market near the square, then headed back to the station. On the way back, we passed over the Aron River, and we also walked past the Church of San Michele in Borgo. We caught the next train back to Florence and from there to Venice.

Once back in Venice, we spent a couple of hours in a small pub before calling it a night. The streets were very busy due to Carnival, and there were a lot of neat sights. The next morning, we woke up early again, and caught our flight back to Bremen. Italy was an awesome trip, but it was nice to be back, and I slept very well!

Venice, Day Two

We woke up very early Saturday morning, and headed back into the city. It was supposed to be the start of Carnival, but an important citizen of the city died the night before, and the actual start was postponed until the following day. However, thousands and thousands of people were still in the Carnival spirit. In the Piazza San Marco, a large stage had been set up. The square was full of people in full costume, including the famous Carnival masks. After lunch and a boat ride around a few of the islands, we headed towards the crowds of people and found an amusement park, as well as some markets. We walked through a few flea markets, and then found a fish market where a man was filleting dogfish. We watched for a few minutes, before continuing on and seeing the famous gondolas, the Rialto Bridge, San Giorgio Maggiore, the Grand Canal, Doge’s Palace, the Basilica di San Marco, the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, the Accademia Bridge, the Ponte degli Scalzi Bridge, St. Mark’s Clocktower, and the Bridge of Sighs. We found a nice restaurant for supper, and continued to walk the many footroads of the city. Before it got too dark, we each bought a Carnival mask, which were being sold nearly everywhere we looked. Finally, we found another small pub to stop into for a couple of drinks before catching the midnight bus home. This time, we knew what bus to take. However, we ended up missing our stop, and we got dropped off in the middle of nowhere. We thought we might have to wait until 4:00 am for the buses to start back up again, but we got lucky. I had the number of our hotel, and gave them a call. They had one shuttle van left for the night, and it was there within 10 minutes to pick us up. As soon as we got back, we headed straight for bed, knowing that we had Pisa to look forward to in the morning.

Venice, Day One

It had been a few weeks since our last weekend trip, so six of us decided to spend last Friday through Monday in Northern Italy. We headed to Bremen by train early on Friday morning, and made it to the Bremen airport in plenty of time before our 11:30 flight. The flight was right on schedule, and we arrived at the airport an hour outside of Venice. Even from the airport, there was a beautiful view. The snow-covered Alps looked incredible in the distance. Upon arriving, we bought bus tickets to Venice, and had a bite to eat while waiting for the bus to arrive. After about a 45 minute wait, we were able to catch a coach bus into the city of Venice. From there, Ray found us our way to our hotel using the little bit of Italian he knows. Actually, I could pick up on many of the words, as it was very similar to Spanish. So, we usually had at least somewhat of an idea of what people were saying. The ride from the main bus stop in Venice to Hotel Villa Dori took about 40 minutes, and a local was able to point us in the right direction. When we arrived, we were actually surprised at how nice it was for what we had paid. A lot better than most hostels, that’s for sure! We got our room keys, sorted into the 2 rooms, and then headed back into the city. The bus ride into Venice took half the time it did to get to the hotel. We arrived at the bus station, and bought 36 hour tickets for the buses and water taxis. Then, we hopped on a boat and headed off around the many islands. No cars are allowed at all within the city of Venice, so boats and walking were the only form of transportation, which was really neat. Of course, that also means that everything there must be shipped in, and is therefore very expensive. It was already dark, but the city was beautiful all lit up. We got off of the water taxi near Piazza San Marco, and found a restaurant for dinner. After supper, half of the group wanted to head back to the hotel to go to bead, but me, Chris, and Loren decided to stay back and catch the last bus back at midnight. We walked around a couple of the islands, stopped into a few pubs where we met a handful of people from Rome, then finally ended up at a busier bar, where we stopped for a couple pints of Guinness. We managed to find our way through all of the winding alleyways back to the main bus station, but were not sure of which bus to take back to the hotel. Luckily, we bumped into a group of Americans from Temple University who were studying in Rome, and just so happened to be staying at the same hotel as us. We all took the long bus ride back together, then hung out in the hotel restaurant for a few hours before calling it a day.