Rome 4

Ok, finally...I'm Vaticanized.

I got up and waited for 2 hours in the Vatican line...rough...but well. really? worth it. The Vatican museums are fantabulous, so much stuff (a lot of general periodic trash, but some very fine pieces). However, a lot of beautiful sculptures (which are my favorite), and well, once you realize what the Sistine Chapel really entails...magnitude and the work that it must have taken...wow.

Post-Vatican, Vivian (aussie girl I met the night before) and I went down to middle Rome to get some lunch (delicious carbonara and veal), and headed down to the one island in the Tiber, over to the Trastavere and walked back by the Aventine Hill, to the Pyramid (which she hadn't seen and is by a metro). We grabbed the metro, got me a ticket to Venice, some groceries and then chilled back at the rooms. Dinner was amazing, I decided to try Lasagne and Roast Lamb. oh god good. Rome is nice. veeeeery nice.

Rome 3

Oh man. Talk about sore feet, day three tried me the hardest. The idea was to hit up in this order:

St. Peter in Chains (the chains and a Michaelangelo sculpture of Moses)
Pyramid (yes, in Rome, a ridiculously rich man decided he wanted one for his tomb)
Via Appia and the Catacombs
National Museum of Rome

It went as planned for the first two steps, taking the metro out to successive monumental awesomeness. However, after the Pyramid I went the wrong direction on a street with a shockingly similar name to the right direction :) In short, I decided not so much that I was lost that I was about to turn around and head back when I saw San Paolo's Basilica. Sweet. So I went in had picture time and then caught the metro back up to the pyramid and then went the proper direction (on foot of course)...about half an hour later I decided I should be about "there" and got off of the highway (and sidewalk) to check out where I was (this was all off of the free map of central rome). Let's just say that the Via Appia is no longer pedestrian friendly...no sidewalk. at all. the catacombs were about a mile and a half south of where I joined the deathroad.

The catacombs were fantastic, no bones to handle though. oh...and I definitely took the bus back. reduced the suckage immensely. I accidentally found another huge basilica (at the san giovanni metro stop), very cool. Then off to the museum as planned, except well, the branch I wanted to go to at the Diocletian baths is only open from 9-2. wtf mate!?

I then went back to the hostel and had to just relax. Three days of hard hoofing around Rome can take it out of you so I just crashed and talked with an Aussie girl for a while, had dinner in and just chilled...and wished I had an ice bath for my feet.

Rome Day 2

Ok wow. Observation one: my feet hurt.
Observation two: always visit Rome the week after easter, it's culture week and the museums/monuments are all free

Day 2: I started out heading straight for the coliseum at 8:30 to hop in line. Apparently the metal detectors were broken, so nobody got in until 9:30, but I was in within 10 minutes since a bunch of tour groups gave up in the 10 minutes before things started working again. Impressive...certainly not what I expect to be a place that seats 50,000. I mean, it's huge, but not in comparison to the stadiums of today. Next up, the Palatino and Forum, both fabulous...I think I saw the whole thing through my camera (I took 332 pictures yesterday). Now it was about 12:30, and I wanted to hit up the Pantheon before the lunch crowd got back out. I felt a little gypped. I had no idea that it had been turned into a basilica for christian martyrs. But, you could still see the eight sided nature of the interior and know it was at one point pagantastic. Following that it was definitely lunch time...wait. I lied...it was time to go see the Trevi Fountain...and yes, it was ridiculously beautiful. ok, by now I was starving and looking for a place to eat, so I headed back towards my hotel, snapped a photo of Triton, rolled on, found a corner of the Diocletian baths that had been turned into yet another huge and impressive church, took more photos and then finally found a place for lunch :) I decided to go for the Spaghetti alla Carbonara because I love making it and I wanted to see what changes I might want to make to my recipe...less cream, more egg, fresher parmesan cheese...and they use black pepper, but I'm going to stick with white pepper 'cause you can't see it. Anyhow, next up, a walk on the tiber and visiting a castle! The tiber is dirty, the castle Sant' Angelo was fabulous...I got a lot of good pics from the top. After this, I walked up into the Vatican main square, looked around, and then decided since the lockout at the hostel was over, it was time to go chill. All in all I had walked around Rome for about 8 hours and was tired. met some people at the hostel, chilled, had some wine, walked out to grab a quick dinner, managed my pics and then retired.

Barcelona, Rome v.1

The night out in Barcelona was pretty cool. I was hanging out watching basketball and having a couple beers in the hostel when a couple youngish looking girls asked me what I was up to later, so I decided to go clubbing, you know...why not. Over the next couple hours, we learned exactly how old each other were...yeah. I don't look 27, but they didn't look 18 either.

*awkward silence*

It was still fun, but we had to cut the night short when my hip broke.

Sunday in Barcelona was cooler than anticipated. I got up at noon and started the "I hate bus tours walking tour", I walked up the big hill south of the city, took photos...Then walked to the beach and stuck my hand in the Mediterranean. From there I decided to walk back towards the hostel, stopped to photograph some breakdancers. I like the entire category of "stupid human tricks". Knowing I was looking at a ridiculously early morning I decided that I would try and take it easy...I debated going to the Maritime museum, or perhaps the Barcelona FC game, but back at the hostel I got the news that both Messi and Ronaldinho weren't playing...and while Henri and the rest are definitely stars in their own right...they were playing a crap team. So after a brief siesta (which was in the plan either way, I didn't skip the game to sleep...) I ended up taking another walk hunting for dinner...I did get distracted by the Arsenal vs. Chelsea match at an Irish pub. But ended up with a pretty good and relatively cheap paella. I figured I should have it once at least...

The evening consisted of hanging out, watching more basketball and chatting with people back at the hostel. good stuff, fun times and I accidentally stayed up til 2 talking. Got up at 5 this morning, on a plane by 7:20, in Rome proper at 11:15. Booyah. I dropped my bag off at the hostel (locked and such, it was the lock-out hours from 11-4), I'm ok with that...I plan on doing nearly everything anyhow. So yeah, today I took the metro to the coliseum, and walked from there around the forum (I didn't feel like lines) and up to the piazza de popolo. I'm planning on a early morning tomorrow to go into the coliseum and forum, also St. Peter in Chains, then over to the Pantheon as well. That should last most of the lockout and such...I need to check out the existence of a Da Vinci museum here.

yeah. so. having a blast! oh, and Vatican on Thursday I expect. Wednesday would be cool to see the pope, but I presume that everyone else thinks that too.

Picasso, Wandering, Barcelona by Train

So here's the short of it: Every museum is TINY after the Louvre. I mean, I love Picasso and all, but his museum in paris seemed like it was about 2 rooms with 3 paintings each after cruising the Louvre for 5 hours.

I then wandered around Paris for...a while. I walked from Picasso to the Bastille circle and then over to the Arc d'Ican'tspellfrenchthingsTrioooomph again. Got better pics, saw a lot more of the city than in the rain before and really enjoyed the walk. I had Indian for dinner, again, and well, why? I just really like Indian food more than anything else...

The train was a little painful. 3 people in my room snored...hell, I may have too, but I don't think I slept enough in a row to get to snore-depth sleep. fuckers. Barcelona has been great though. That is, if you like reconstructive work on monuments. Cathedral? refurbishing. Crazy neo-baroque church? refurbishing. but I got to walk around a lot today, but a sweet puma eurojacket for southern europe (I felt like a d-bag walking around in a full jacket all evening). I've eaten my meals substantially later than usual and am now ready to head out on the town!

Cataclosed!

yep. Catacombs were closed today. terrible. Especially because I thought it would be interesting to walk there...sigh. instead I took the metro close to Bastille and am going to go to the Picasso museum as soon as I finish my tea.

Paris!

So, I finally got into town yesterday (they delayed my flight in the morning too!), I promptly got a new SIM card so I could call my hostel and find out where they were (and also to call an old friend from Hopkins who lives in Paris now). They gave my room away, even though I emailed them asking them to save the room and just charge me for the night I was missing anyhow. Turns out there was no charging at all but they just gave it to someone else. poops.

So I found another hostel about 2 blocks from where I got off the metro (to go to the first one). Nice enough. So I dropped most of my stuff and decided to go to Notre Dame, up the towers first of course, then inside for a peek around. I liked the towers :) I then started wandering with the intention of ending up at the bigass arch, but weather hates me and it started raining (even though it had been wonderfully sunny all day thus far). So I wussed out and hopped on the metro instead, called Meredith, and met her at the Arch and then we decided to have dinner. Ridiculously good french food as it turned out, she said she like the sound of the side of beef with pepper sauce for two...and who was I to argue!

Then I headed back up to Montmartre to cruise around my hostel's area. Stopped in for a beer at a place with a soccer match on. Marseilles vs. Some Punk Team. Why SPT? Marseilles plays in the 1st league, the SPT in the 4th or 5th league in France. SPT won. Looked at the Moulin Rouge, the Sacre Coeur, and some other interesting streets and buildings. Then, time for bed so I could be as Louvre-ish as I wanted today. Made it in by 10 and left well after 2. Then I wandered around the left bank and such just taking it all in. Found a hotel in the Sarbonne area, and well, that's up to date now!

BRRRRNT

No going to Paris for me on Tuesday night. My flight got canceled and I was shuffled off to the Radisson SAS Arlanda...sigh. 8:45am tomorrow to paris though!

Oh, and fun times at the airport version 43. I think the button on my jeans made the metal detector beep, so the lady at the gate had to pat me down...she totally copped a feel!

áthas Lá Fhéile Pádraig!

Theoretically that means Happy St. Patrick's Day! I've got my UCD (Dublin's business school) Rugby Jersey on...rocking the 1/4 Irish for all it is worth today!

I had an absolutely thrilling Sunday, I studied all day for my exam today. whee. it's at 2, may last 3 hours, but I somehow doubt it. This afternoon I will begin packing everything as I fly to Paris tomorrow...

Tonight I celebrate finishing my MBA as well as being Irish!

Chinese Challenge Seminar, Halmstad

So the Chinese Challenge seminar was a big hit. 13 students came in from Bergen's economics program who had been taking the same class to give presentations as well. The deal here is that there's a management program in europe called CEMS (community of euro. mgmt. schools) and because I worked with one of them I got to participate in a cooler seminar than the regular students...woot.

Very fun, the papers were all pretty interesting (I don't really like Banking, there were four papers on it). Emrick (my partner for the Luxury Goods Market paper) said some people had complimented him on our presentation. Also, we rocked out an Oxford Debate on the issue of "will Chinese involvement in Africa lead to sustainable economic development". I think the four of us who spoke for the Stockholm School of Economics dominated...Emrick took a 30 second clip of me trashing China's "aid" programs to Africa. I started a little slow but started hammering home the issues pretty well. Ratana was a machine until the last 30 seconds, and Tanzawa was a 5 minute political commercial (FACT! followed by unhappy chinese involvement stories).

As soon as I could (after Emrick and I delivered our critique on a paper regarding the Three Gorges Dam) I left to drive to Halmstad. It was pretty fun driving through Sweden...we'll see if the rumor of speed cameras was as horrible as I may have been led to believe (I followed other speeders and slowed down when they did). I met Jan-Åke, my uncle who lives between Slöinge and Getinge (both north of Halmstad) talked a lot, looked at pictures. On Saturday we visited Halmstad, walked around some and I got to see some of the places where my dad used to live/work. Very fun....and pictures! I also got to meet my cousin Susan (my dad's little sister's daughter) and her kids. All in all a very fun end to last week and start to the weekend. Time to study for my last final! Ever.

København, Finally...

Ok, so here goes...my last post was the day that I left, which was as I said then, frantic.

I finished my laundry, packed my bag, made it to the metro as fast as possible, 3 minutes to spare. Got to T-Centralen and booked over to the Arlanda Express, thinking it left at 6 (this is at 5:50), thankfully, it departed at 6:05, I had 8 minutes to spare. Got to the airport and to check-in with 10 minutes to spare, through security to the gate with the same 10 minutes left before boarding. Stressful...I usually like to be places early. Flight was good, I napped. Upon arrival in Copenhagen, I hopped on the train to town, wandered a little in downtown (I think people take down all of the street signs around the train station so they can watch tourists go in circles), found a tourist information place that was closed...with no maps outside. jerks. I broke down and asked eventually then almost ran to the hotel 'cause Brian and John were waiting to have dinner until I got there (it's now about 10pm). We headed out shortly thereafter, taking a cab up to a recommended neighborhood (they wanted to check out a place called Rust), nothing was really open for dinner, but we found a Kebab shop (not the usual definition of kebab really, comes in a pita or similar things) but turns out it was the best Kebab I've seen so far in Europe. Rust was ok...maybe we were there early, but 11:30-12:30 seemed like things should liven up in there somewhere. it wasn't too crowded inside and the line outside when we left was huge. I hate the weak dollar.

We then hopped in a cab and went to Christiania. Went to a bar, fun music, not really the crowd that Brian and John were looking for I think...I was cool with it. We saw the remnants of the drug market, it's now more of a regular market...mostly. We decided to move on after walking around a bunch, getting a good a feel as possible for the place, might've been fun to come back in the daytime. So we jetted back to downtown, wandered around for a while and decided that a late night snack was in order. Ask me about the BK incident. it was funny.

Saturday: Up bright and early and out the door by 10:30...this is where my photo album starts, walking through nearly all of Copenhagen's main city section until nearly 4pm when we headed back to the hotel. Shopping district, cool church, some govt. buildings, a really cool stone dragon, the little mermaid and the opera house. It looks better in the album. really. After a nap, 'cause we're old, it was time to pregame and find dinner. We found a highly recommended Indian restaurant, did take-away because it was reservation only...delicious...and so was the pregaming. We decided to head out to yet another party area of the town, to a club called Vega. very nice place, very cool...and we were there before they started charging a cover and stayed until things started picking up quite a bit. We left to hit up the red light district...which was cool. I guess. it's where I got the pic of the needle depository!

Sunday: we slept in, decided since it was lunch time that we may as well have lunch. Indian buffet...not the best idea. that meal fought back for hours. We wandered the town some more, everything was closed closed closed. boooo. got more pictures, said goodbye to Brian as he went to catch a train, wandered more into Fredriksberg, and eventually stopped at a bar/cafe called Obelix for a beer and to just rest our feet. Then it was finally time for me to start the long trip home...

Thoughts: great city, low buildings, old buildings, wide streets, a lot of parks and plazas, clean, fun, nice people. Copenhagen gets an A- (minus for everything being closed on sunday!)

Delayed København Update

Sorry blognation, I'm writing a paper for Cross-cultural Management on the Ivory trade in southern Africa...the Cope-Town report will be made in full ASAP. Also, pictures!

Frantic Friday

Wheeeeee....8:30-12, class and a presentation on our paper (done by me of our 6. gooo native english speaking power!), lunch at japanese restaurant, then class 1:15-3, with another presentation (all three of us did that one, and the girls from singapore both speak english fluently). next?
laundry 'cause the machines here shut off at 10pm. wtf?!
hurry to the airport and fly to København (Copenhagen).

woo!

Papers

Applied Industrial Organization....check.
Cross-Cultural Management...check.
No class until friday...check.
wednesday night at allhuset...soon.

I've only got 2 weeks left in stockholm, but 5 in europe...so yeah, almost done with phase one, vacation phase is getting set.

Lapptastic!

Ok, so this is going to be another massive post much like the London trip.

Friday: 4pm I arrived at T-Centralen, decided that some quick Thai food would do for dinner and then met up with the gang and waited around for the train at 5:13. I started out the trip superlame, editing a paper for Applied Industrial Organization. Eventually, I got a little bored and decided that I'd join in on the party that was happening...oh yeah, Stockholm to Kiruna = 17 hours on the train. All evening, overnight, and then arrival at 11...should have been 10, but we had to stop the train for a while later in the evening. However, by this point, I was well into a sharing of a bottle of Explorer Vodka with a cabin full of people (I found it funny to buy Explorer as I was taking my first trip to Lappland). So yeah, we got tipsy on a train, the french started smoking inside and we almost got booted...

Saturday: Noonish we arrive at the Ice Hotel near Kiruna, we did a tour and then had a while to walk around the hotel and take pictures of the Art/Design Rooms and the entire structure in general. We also got to watch a guy slip and fall on his ass...and then watch his friend do the exact same thing while trying to help him up. Tragic, but funny. Drinks at the icebar were a cool 105 crowns (exchange rate is currently the worst it has ever been for the ol' US of A...6.2 crowns per dollar...you do the math and figure out why I didn't have anything there but some more pictures). Kasia and I tried to visit as many rooms as possible and get a bunch of silly pictures, and we were pretty successful.

Next was lunch, not very thrilling but certainly filling. Thankfully I was able to buy a new bottle opener, with the opening portion a smiling moose head and the handle made of reindeer antler. Very silly, but I don't own a bottle opener, so not too frivolous. After lunch we headed over to the worst place ever for claustrophobic people...the LKAB Iron Mine. We ended up going to 540m below ground (about 1k beneath the peak of the mountain) to tour around, learn how they mine iron, look at the huge machines they do it with, and learn about the history of the world's purest iron deposit.

Afterwards, we had to bus it down to Tärendö. There, we had a delicious dinner, a few drinks, and ended up hanging out in the woodfired sauna for a couple hours. Afterwards, I established my dominance at darts while others played pool, werewolf, or just hung out.

Sunday: Oh man Sunday...Sunday was a good day. First off, wonderful Swedish style breakfast. 2nd, Dog Sledding for an hour. Those little guys are powerful...and they love to work. I mean, it was like they only live to drag around that sled, every other moment they were just wanting to go go go go go. I shared the sled with Eva Maria (yeah, only one actual person who knew what they were doing there with 10 n00bs on the 5 other sleds). She called me Steve, I cried a little. But at least the dogs liked me :) I got a lot of really good sled perspective pictures of dogs' butts. Good times. After that I had a little break, anxiously awaiting my 2 hours of snowmobiling. Now, I didn't know exactly what to expect, of course I've jet skied a number of times, and have comfortably hit about 60mph on those...but that's on water, without those DeathSticks all around you (trees). However, we had to share the ride w/ another person, so I only ended up driving for an hour. I was a passenger at the start, ended up getting tossed off the snowmobile when he tried to corner a little too hard w/out enough weight redistribution. My turn came eventually and it was amazing. short learning curve I felt, and pretty soon I was breaking the speed limit (60kph) by hanging back from the group and getting up space to make some good runs. The snowmobile was pretty big, and rather heavy, but I'm confident that I managed to get it airborne a couple times with no death or injury involved (or falling off at all, again). The best part was when we got back to the long straightaway on the river and we could really open it up. We peaked at 95kph (about 60, just a touch under) and I really wanted to go faster but didn't leave myself enough room to be completely safe.

Sunday dinner was salmon, salmon and more salmon. Sweeeeet. Sunday after dinner was getting into a 44 degree Celsius hot tub, jumping in the snow, jumping in the sauna, jumping in the snow...and eventually just being too hot and heading back inside to shower and start the party. I had a previously made darts challenge, defended my title once, then lost later...Gergely and I were up until 4 finishing that last game and getting ridiculously hammered. He ended up sleeping on the couch downstairs, I actually found my bed.

Monday: last day :( it would have been fun to have a breathalyzer at breakfast...then I napped again before suiting up to be the Snice Sculpture photographer. Then some snow soccer, more picture taking, reuniting with the Reindeer farm gang (they didn't rave about how fantastic it was, so maybe it wasn't?), and taking lunch and looking at souvenirs. I ended up getting a knife (I hope it makes it to the states), the most practical one they had, ideally I'll actually use it as a fishing knife or something...it was the only one with a good, medium sized blade. We then had to pile on the bus at 3:30 and drive down to Luleå, stop at Max for dinner (whee. hamburgers, but far better than McDonald's), and get to the airport to catch a plane home to Stockholm's Arlanda airport. I slept despite two crying babies...then we made a triumphant return to Stora Lappkärsberget (Lappis, my dorm complex) in a van packed with 10 exhausted Arctic Circle Veterans.

Next...Copenhagen.