Stories

I know this is the second post in one day. But I've had a lot of stories from the trip that I don't want to forget. So here are some stories for my own documentation and your (hopefully) enjoyment. Some aren't even that great. They may be little "you had to be there" moments that you'll probably think are dumb. Don't judge. Haha.

"That Doesn't Even Make Any Sense"

When in France there was this restaurant that we ate at called "Flunch." We were going there for dinner. I was with my friend Carol and I made a little joke about how they should have called the restaurant "Flinner" instead. Haha.... hahaha..... ha.... The following conversation followed:

Carol: "What?"
Me: "Flinner! You know, Flunch. Dinner... Flinner!"
Carol: "What are you talking about?"
Me: "If we went there for lunch then it could be Flunch... but we're... um... doing... dinner. So instead of Flunch for lunch it's dinner at.... Flinner?"
Carol: *completely blank expression looking at me like I'm an idiot*
Me: "Never mind...."
Carol: *exasperated* "That doesn't even make any sense"
Me: as Cathryn would put it *facepalm*

Pete and RePete

Also when we were in Paris we attended the Paris ward for church. We didn't really have any hymnbooks. Or a bishopric really. We kind of just made up our own ward in a way. But we did have a keyboard and a girl who knew how to play some songs. So we sang "There Is A Green Hill Far Away" as our sacrament hymn. Except everyone forgot some of the verses. So we sang the same verse a couple of times. So hard not to snicker.


Florence: Homeless Shelter = Fun!

As you may remember Florence was where we stayed in the homeless shelter. We were fed a single roll for breakfast in the morning. One morning we also got a tiny cup of hot chocolate to go with it. But the second morning we were there the machine was broken so no hot chocolate. But we got a roll!

Anyway, what was really funny was Sunday morning. In a coed bathroom. With 44 girls and 6 sinks. You do the math.

Steven came in and there were three rows of girls in front of the sinks doing hair/makeup/the usuals (the front row bent down at the sink as low as she could go brushing teeth or doing her eyes, the second row was a little higher doing other makeup and the back row was usually doing hair). He looked around and his eyes got HUGE. "Holy girls!" he exclaimed. "That's right. We are holy!"


London: "Would I Like Some Vodka With That?"

We were at a restaurant in London one of our first nights in Europe. if you don't know me and my family, we are all BIIIIG water drinkers. Anyway, we went to eat at this place called the Stock Pot. The waiter came to our table of four with two glasses of water. He set one down in front of me and the other in front of Brittany who was sitting right beside me. As he turned away to go grab the other two glasses of water, I took the glass he set in front of me and drained it. The whole thing. I was thirsty, okay? The waiter turned back around and as he set down the other two glasses he looked down at mine. You should have SEEN his face! "Oh my! Did..." *looks at me* (English accent remember) "Woah! If you drink Vodka the way you drink water, take me drinking with you!" I think they told me my face was as red as a tomato. I'm pretty sure we burned all the calories of that whole meal from our laughing fit right there.


38C?

While at the airport in Cincinnati awaiting our flight to London, we were all lazing around with a four hour layover. All of us tired already form the traveling. Remember, I'd woken up around 2am and gotten a full maybe 3 hours sleep the night before. Anyway, one of the boys in our group came up to me and another girl who were just sitting around and asked us a question I thought was really odd:

Him: "Hey. Do either of you two have a 38C?"
Me: *thoroughly surprised* "Uhh..." *look at girl beside me who shakes her head wondering why he wants to know* "No...."
Him: *turning to another girl in the group* "It was 38C, wasn't it?"
Her: "Yeah! Or D."
Him: *looks at us expectantly again.. we both shake our heads, I'm totally flabbergasted that a guy would be asking this!*

He proceeded around the group for a while, getting all nos and I was completely surprised he had the guts to be asking all these girls that question. Until finally I heard a response that made it all make sense.

One of the girls: "No.. let's see... I have 14 F. I'm not sitting anywhere close to them."

Ohhhh, it was seat numbers! Apparently, one of the girls in the group wanted to know who she'd be sitting beside/near. Wow Dianna. Wow. Keep in mind I'm only including this because the people involved will hopefully never ever read this because I would be that embarrassed... Oi! I'm an idiot.


Again in Florence... Feed the Birds

This wasn't so funny as it was weird. Carol and I went to grab lunch one day at a market and then found this small group of benches on a square. There was a tree nearby and about four empty benches. We picked one, sat down, ate our food, and then began just talking feeding out little leftovers to the birds. After a minute or so I noticed this large lady dressed in what seemed like rags and quite frankly reminded me of the pigeon lady from Home Alone come toward us. Since there were three other benches I kind of ignored her. Until she was right up on me. I moved my purse as I saw her getting to sit right beside me. And by "right beside me" I mean there was about a foot and a half of room left on the bench there and she took up all of it. I held my purse tight and made sure I had a close eye on it and that's when the stench hit me. She was so close her side was rubbing me and she proceeded to take her grubby bag and place it in the NOT space in between us making things very crowded and uncomfortable. I looked around at the other three benches and then over at Carol. We both got up and walked away and the lady proceeded to just sit there. Weeeeird.....


Verona: Icky Pig!

We stopped in Verona only for a few hours. But there was this neat little market there. I saw this dead pig and wanted my picture by it. I was trying to act all evil and menacing. Just as my friend was going to take it this man came up behind me and grabbed me. No more evil face. I'm surprised she didn't get my cry of fear right before I tried to laugh it off and keep it cool. Sooo funny, and gross.





Concentration Camp:

We visited Mauthausen Concentration Camp while in Germany. At Mauthausen, the bus let us off at the bottom of the "Stairs of Death." A pile of steep terrible steps. We had to walk up them and along the cliff to get to the Concentration Camp.



We went through and afterwards the teachers told us all to use the bathroom before getting back on the bus. Long story short, one of the girls got lost. No it wasn't her fault at all. Even the teachers realized there was nothing she could have done except have extra batteries for her sister's radio which died (she loaned her radio to her sister and so didn't get the memo that the bus was in a different place). She didn't get in trouble, but she did go back down the steps to go to the bus and slipped on the way. Needless to say after waiting about fifteen tense minutes we were so happy to have her back and she was happy to see us. She thought we'd left without her, even though her identical twin sister was on the bus and would never have let us leave without her. Awww.

When we were in Salzburg they played the movie the Sound of Music every single night we were there. We went to some of the filming sites. This is the one where the kids are jumping up and down on the steps. I made Tessa and Amy do this with me. You can see how happy Tessa was about it. Haha, not sure.... The Salzburg Castle is in the background (yes we walked all the way up there) and just barely below the castle on the left is the Abbey where Maria lived.




French Kiss... For Reals

We stopped for only a few minutes by the Amiens Cathedral on the way to Paris. We got out for a few minutes to look at it. Long story short, one of the girls in our group got a kiss. On the lips. By a French guy she'd met about ten minutes before. You can only imagine how the bus full of 43 other girls acted for the next two hours to Paris. Bahahahahahahaha! Actually, the teacher gave her more flak than anyone.


Mind The What?

One of our teachers had served his mission in Vienna so he was telling us about life there. As we walked around, there were many horse carriages and so came the random blobs of brown goo in the streets. As the group watched a particular horse do it's business the teacher gave us a wise piece of advice.

"In London," he said, "It was mind the gap. But here, the rule is to mind the crap."

Hard Hard Hard!

At the beginning of this semester I was thinking "Yay! No tests! This won't be too bad. Just a pile of research papers to work on after Europe. I'll have an entire week and a half and I even like research papers. If I can just get a few done each day then I'll have it done two days early! This'll be fine. Man, what a great deal."

Not so.

The papers are horrible enough to make up for the fact that there are no tests. First, there's about a million of them. Second, it's not just "find information and write down what you learned." It's "find information, study it, think about it, crack your brain open thinking about it, and then come up with a ton of your own genius ideas and write what you've learned, how it affects life today, how it affected life back then AND (the kicker) bring everything together into one huge paper summing up how the world has changed starting in the Renaissance and continuing all the way into today."

Just to make things "nicer" though, the teachers put no limits on these papers. "Do we need a works cited?" "Use your own judgment." "How long does this paper have to be?" "Use your own judgment." "How will this be graded?" "Oh, we'll know how hard you tried." "How do you want it turned in?" "Oh it doesn't matter, just get it to us somehow." "What style? APA or MLA?" "Whatever you want."

Cuz that makes things a lot easier. In case you can't tell I'm kinda freaking out. I've spent all week sitting in front of this silly computer screen, breaking my butt (no really, my butt hurts. You try sitting on a couch all day!) and snapping my brain in half trying to write these papers and bring everything together. I think I prefer tests actually. Cuz then at least I know what material to go over. I'm given the material. I don't have to spend hours searching for contradicting information to write a paper that says something along the lines of "Some people believe this about this painting, but others disagree. Many think it was meant to be like this but other critiques find this other interpretation to be accurate. In summary, no one really knows the answer to this question."

Okay. So things really aren't that bad. I try to take a break every day to go outside and exercise somehow. And food breaks are always happy. And I'm learning a lot and feeling really accomplished every time I finish a paper. I've also been getting distracted. Hence why I'm here. Plus the weather's been beyond amazing this whole time! Love it! Totally love it! Now all I have to do is get back to those papers... anyone know how to "discuss the tensions between church and state as evidenced by Henry VIIIs formation of the Church of England?"

Relax in Hot Springs? Oh No, Feel the Rush!

We went to the hot springs yesterday!

Well, it wasn't exactly what it sounds like. They built a pool over the hot springs so we went swimming in naturally hot water. And then there was the super hot water. And just for fun they put in this tiny ice cold pool. So cute to watch the little kids running and jumping in the tiny pool (it was only big enough really for maybe three little kids at a time and only one adult) and then get into the hot one and then back to the cold. So funny. I did it once. I got into the hot pool. Warmed up to it. Got into the ice cold one. I fully submerged and then jumped back into the hot one. Ohhhh, the burn! Ahhhhh.

So fun!

Picture Overload!

I really was trying to figure out the significance of this painting....




They tell me this little dude's famous so I took a picture. It's TINY! Like, about the size of my fist. I always thought he was bigger.



Bros Anderson and Stephenson, some of the greatest professors I know. We were supposed to have four, but things happened and halfway through the trip we were down to two. They took it very well though. :) This is at Madam Butterfly in the Austria Opera House. They got to sit!



I had to stand but got a pretty good view anyway.



Inside Maria's Abbey in Salzburg. We watched their evening Mass thingy too. But I felt weird taking pictures in there.




Why hello Mr. Mozart!





We had half an hour. That's a LOT farther than it seems. But yes, I ran all the way up there. I just had to!




The view was worth it. (Amy and I)



I wasn't the only one! It started to rain while we were up there too. You can see one of the amazing teachers too. He's one of the only ones prepared with an umbrella.




We went inside this church that had scaffolding all on the inside of it. It kind of bummed me out until I saw this elevator in the middle of the scaffolding. Apparently, we were allowed to take the elevator that was inside the scaffolding inside the church all the way to the top so we could touch the top of the dome from the inside. Super scary... trust me. It kept moving!



Carol and I in front of the Arch of Constantine, right beside the Coloseum in Rome.



Go up five flights of escalators in Siena and this is what you get! Gorgeous!



Playing Foosball at the homeless shelter in Florence.



Check out my huge calzone! Too bad half of it was air..... It was supposed to have spinach in it too but I think I counted three whole spinach leaves. Or maybe it was one torn into three pieces.




I think this dude was having a bad day when he was sculpted....



These statues reminded me a lot of those Barbies I used to play with at my friend Felicia's house as a kid.




Her brothers would strip them and then break off their heads so we had a pile of naked headless bodies to play with....



My mom never bought me Barbies... I wonder why.


I'm pretty sure this painting is famous. Yep. Pretty sure.



Same with this one.




This was on my shirt that I got in Rome. I kept wondering why there were these two guys drinking from a weird looking cow. Then we saw this statue and I remembered learning about it in Hum 201 that I took last semester. It's a she-wolf and those two guys are Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.



All the dead composer guys in Vienna. We put flowers on their graves. Thanks for your amazing works!




My first inter-European plane ride. No wait... I had that one from England to Brussels. Okay, so this is my second..... France to Italy.





These are the stairs that never end..... Chateau de Vincennes. Yes, I know these pics are out of order. Sorry....



Our room at the convent in Rome. A real convent with real cute little nuns! Awesome!




The Pantheon in Rome. This is how big the pillars were. Wow!




Okay, so it's not the REAL Last Supper. It's just a replica. Mosaic. Pretty cool though, especially for a mosaic!



This one just makes me laugh. Really really hard. Bahahahaha!





Guess what the hotel in Vienna gave us to drink while we were outside waiting to check in?







Yep, apple juice.

How many people can you fit in a telephone booth in Vienna? Eight.

Tons of Pictures... But I Still Have so Many!

Beethoven. Dead. Sad day! All the other big composers in this cemetary are buried right around here.




Gates of Paradise in Florence





Super duper BEYOND gorgeous views in Italy... I don't even remember what city this was... Verona maybe? I don't know, it was the hotel where we had a balcony and I left my towel by accident.




Stylin' in my 200 euro pure leather jacket. No parents, I didn't buy it. Haha, but most of the girls in our group DID buy jackets from this place. Crazy!




Our rows of rooms at the prison... I mean... storage units... I mean... homeless shelter. We had to come out of these, go down some stairs, go through the lobby, sown a big flight of stairs and then through a small hallway to get to the coed bathrooms.




My tiny room and roommates at the homeless shelter. (L to R) Amy, Carol and Erica.



What are Erica and I touching?



you tell what I'm in front of now?



The COLOSEUM!




Fountains in Rome are safe to drink from AND they're everywhere! LOVE it!




If you think I'm short...



"The Creation" in the Sistine Chapel was actually pretty anti-climatic. No pictures were technically allowed, but everyone was doing it anyway. And then this guard guy came up to us because my friend was taking pictures (really, it wasn't me, honest!) and he told her "NO FLASH! You can take pictures, but NO FLASH!" So I took pictures with NO FLASH!




My first gelato in Rome! Mmmmmmmm.




Alps!







Louvre





I'm kinda bored of uploading these and I have tons of other stuff to do now. So I'll put up more later if/when I feel like it. Kay? Kay.