Heading to Rome

Heading to Rome tomorrow afternoon to catch an early flight Wednesday morning back to Ct!! Thanks guys for traveling with me, reading my blog, sending me messages full of positive energy and encouragement! I really appreciated it :-) until my next trip (I'm thinking central and south America? or maybe cross country USA ?)

stay well,
See you guys soon! <3 <3

Pisa

I went to Pisa on a day trip with a friend of a friend, I didn't expect much from Pisa because so many had told me .. that it was pretty much just the plaza where the leaning tower was... and I think they were just about right... I mean other than the leaning tower.. and the tourist vendors... Pisa looks like.. any other small town in Italy... but the leaning tower was nice.. we took a few typical tourist pics of the tower and size illusions :) lol got check out the pics.



Info on the leaning tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa

Back to Perugia

It felt to nice to be back, back to people that knew me a bit, back to my old apartment...back to seeing people I studied with throughout my time here in Perugia. I took it easy, hing out with a few friends, took care of some paper work for school ( official documents and such) and then made a couple day trips out (Pisa and Assisi)
if your looking for a more "Perugia is like this" type of post, please look back at my "Lorriana In Italia" blog for post in the month of October...and all around there..



Some pics are up as always in my new photobucket! under EurotripII > Back to Perugia

Verona

As soon as the train crossed the Italian borders, it was no longer rainy outside.. the sun had come out over the mountain range…

Italy is a very beautiful country, Its definitely worth checking out just fir the scenery . Once the train stopped at the Verona station I jumped to my feet after the 6 hour ride from Munich ( going through all of Austria ) and step outside into the sunshine! ( after seven days or soo of pure rainy whether… I was glad just to be in the sunshine again) Oriented myself real quick, found the hostel I was staying it.. and then I was of to explore the city.. map-less… thus I was asking every other tourist that I saw if I could see there map for a minute so that I could figure out my next destination… ( lol I know I could of just bought a map.. but this was more fun ! I got to meet a whole bunch of other people this way! ) Verona beautiful, but.. it does look.. like.. um… a tipical Italian city ? lol there’s an old Roman Anfi-theater here which is the 3rd largest left standing in Italy .. ( the first one being the Colosuem I think.. and the 2nd one being the one in Pompei I climb the walls of …) soo umm the 3rd one.. wasn’t all that different.. nor exciting.. but I still went inside of it to check it out ! I also went to Juliet’s house and and did the cliché thing.. and leave a message underneath Juliets window like a million other tourist did…


( which was my main reason for wanting to come and check out Verona.. cheesy.. I know.. I know…. But im happy I did it.! ) I went to a a few other plaza, and churches…

Until next time readers ! I’ m heading back to Perugia! Only a week or soo before im back in the North American Continent! Leave me comments ! xoxo

Munich

Munich was a great destination. A medium size town… that like many in Germany was completely destroyed during world war two. However Munich, being one of the major Nazi Government points knew they were going to get destroyed and they were quick enough to save all the blue prints and plans of the city. Now a days walking through it, one get the impression that they are walking to an “ancient” city.. ( and ancient in parenthesis, because in Europe almost every place is “ancient” lol Here are some of the places I went to visit:

Marien Platz: Which is pretty much the center of the city, there’s a castle looking building that has a very elaborate clock, and every day at noon it rings, all at the little ( or not so little.. they must of look like three or four feet high from the ground , where I was standing ) figurines.

oh and the Justiz Palast ( palace of justice ) was right near there too.. so I went and checked it out 

Spiezeus Museun: Which is a Toy museum, how exciting does that sound ? lol So I had to check it out… a bit disappointing by the size of it… I was thinking it was going to be as big as like a toy factory… but no.. it was just five room, with old teddy bears, barbies, trains, mini toy soldiers , and metal toys behind glass… Nevertheless it was interesting to see the involvements of teddy and Barbie throughout the years!


Viktualien Market : yep ! you’ve guessed it.. it a market place, held out in the fresh air, everyday except Sunday all summer long, There you can find everything from the latest cheese , sausage, beer, seafood, and local artisans good.
Asamkirche: A Roccocco style church, I’m actually not sure if it went in the right one.. but the one I went it was beautiful, filled with pastel colored marble.

Garther Platz: which was suppose to be were the hopping gay scene of Munich is..but I guess Germans a a bit more conservative.. about their villages.. Then lets say.. Paris, NYC or Montreal is… It didn’t strike me as any different as a regular neighborhood in Munich.

Dachau ( 1st Concentration Camp ): Dachau was the first official concentration camp that was founded right after Hitler was elected in power. The government claimed that it was a work camp, and that its occupants were just lazy Germans that needed to learn how to work properly and then they would be released back into society as better citizens. We now of course know better… in the ten plus years the camp was open , over 200,000 prisoners were registered there.

At first it was political prisoners, communist , then came the homosexual prisoners, the law breakers , and then the Jews. But I was told Dachau was mostly filled with political prisoners… communist… that weren’t necessarily Jews.. To be there was emotionally draining… depressing… filled with negative energy… i was told that over 40,000 ( a lot more died out of that 200,000 but they were shipped to other concentration camps to be terminated.. or to work.. but even then… lots died during the commute) prisoners had died on the grounds I was walking on… some from starvation, some from torture, some were just shot in the back for what seems to me.. as no apparent good reason.. etc .. I spend a good five , six hours walking around …reading all the signs…and expositions.. visiting model “dorms” that showed the different living situations the prisoners were put in.. throughout the years.. and as it got more and more crowded … I could go on and on.. but I won’t let me know if you want to know more.. here's the website of the camp and Definitely go check out the pictures under the NEW photobuket Login: eirelav103 Pass: lorriana under EurotripII > Munich

And to end this post on a more positive note… In Munich I stayed with Phillip , Anna & their kitten lily ! They ‘re a really chilled couple. They took me out to a typical German restaurant one of the nights I was there.. and Yes Simon.. I did the ticky tacky thing lol ! they laughed at the fact that it was known in the states…. But ..apparently its not a all that comment thing to do in Munich… I mean.. oh I almost forgot to mention… Munich is where Oktober Fest ( international Beer festival ) happened every year! Very popular tourist attraction…. But it was no surprised that the local aren’t that fond of it anymore…. Since lots of the tourist can’t actually handle their alcohol and it just becomes a type of drunk fest.. There.. That’s a bit more positive … lol

Frankfurt

ever slept 24 hours strait ? I have :)

Frankfurt wasn't a planed place to visit... and i didn't have any particular points I wanted to see.. so I slept... or welll I should say... I stayed up probably 36 hours stair before I crashed... You would of too if you were in the hotel room I ended up staying in.. I guess that's why they say booking online isn't always the safes way to go.... I ended up in the shabby part of town ( red light district style ) and the hotel room was so dirty.. that i chose to stay up all night and stay alert of my surroundings. However the next day as soon as I walked into the beautiful, clean hostel I slept for 24 hours strait.. and for most of the remaining time i spent in Frankfurt... I did manage however to go walk around a bit go check out the view right out side my hostel.

Berlin

This has been a quieter stop on my travels, with it rainy hard and or extremely cloudy ( thunder clouds type of weather ) almost every day I haven’t really felt motivated to go out and explore.. and since I’m on my own here, I’ve felt the language barrier. I mean yes, most people have a base in English, and will try their best to direct you where you’re going .. but I haven’t exactly struck a deep intriguing type of conversation with any local… However these are the sites I did check out:

The Brandenburg gate: Which was one of the point that separated east and west berlin, at one point it’s also one of the sides of the Paris Square which was named that way out of revenge.. well let me explain the statue story before I getting to ahead of myself. The Quadriga statue was originally a peace gift from France with the lady of peace riding in the carriage, later napoleon came by Berlin while he was out conquering ever place .. and when he saw it and decided to bring it back to his private museum ( the louvre ) as a nice “little” souvenir the German didn’t like that very much… and later after they had defeated the French in some war… they rightfully took it back and placed it on top of the Brandenburg gate again, renaming the lady, Victoria, the roman goddess of victory and then they named the square that it looked upon Paris square as a reminded to the French that the victory of the German will always be looking down upon the French. Ironically enough the French embassy is located there along with the American and the Québec embassy oh and the infamous hotel where Michael Jackson held his baby that had a sheet over its head, over the balcony.


The Holocaust Memorial: this it’s an interesting site…

beautifully design by Peter Eisenman… it felt very peaceful, and yet full of energy walking thought it… the block vary in sizes so at one point I was in the middle of the memorial , surrounded by blocked that were two and a half times taller than me.. and it made me feel over powered… lost in a sense.. in this “labyrinth” of big rectangular stones… its unrealistic to me the amount of victims wars create….

The location of the Hitler Bunker : where they say he his wife, the dog, and the rest of his close family committed suicide toward the end of the war.. When the Soviet soldiers were taking over the city and Hitler knew he had lost. – this site is not at all indicated, if it wasn’t for a tour guide telling me this I would of walked by it, without never knowing. The Germans want it that way… they don’t want Hitler’s Bunker to be a tourist destination.

Checkpoint Charlie: which is a completely fake tourist site… that represent where once was an actual check point/gate between west and east Berlin called checkpoint Charlie. Where the people of the west and diplomats could show the appropriate paper work and come in and out of east Germany… I said it was fake.. because the real check point Charlie was completely destroyed after the wall came down…. It was only by popular tourist demands that they re-constructed this little booth where a guard stands…and there’s a pictured of an American soldier looking over the east side and a soviet soldier looking over the west side…


The Berlin wall: the first part of the wall that I saw was a section that was in very poor shape, damaged of course from when the wall came down in 1989 after 28 years of existence, and then from tourist who would come to Berlin and chip of a piece of the Berlin wall… as a souvenir to take home.

(the common sense some tourist have.. I honestly don’t get… they use to do this to the coliseum too, the pyramids of Egypt.. and a bunch of other historical monuments… it didn’t come across their mind.. That they were destroying it? Disrespecting a piece of our human history ? ) here are some pic of the remains of the wall. The 2nd part of the wall I came to visit was the East side gallery which is infamous for being the most well kept..and longest piece of the wall that remained! I thought it was beautiful. It almost completely covered in “gratifies” art really by artists from all around the world. :)



Tiergarten: Which is just a very green natural garden which was nice to relax in.. its pretty big, like the 1/6 of the center of berlin maybe

The Humboldt University Square: I’m sure its not called like that.. but its where the Humboldt University is and where around 25,000 books were burn in one day …by students, by professors, book that had been listed as against the Nazi government… book that were to liberal , that were written by Jews , by homosexual, by non communist authors… can you imagine ..Students burning their source of knowledge… out of fear ( I think) if the government.. out of fear of being killed themselves if they didn’t..within that square there’s also the Berlin Opera House which looks like the Roman Pantheon. Funny thing is.. in Berlin all the “old “ building were reconstructed after the war.. and made to look old .. a good example of that is the Berlin Dom

which was built in 1901 and design to look like it was build in the 1800 .. 1600 hundreds… actually.. it a clash of different types of architectures … they even made it look dirty.. Its located in

Museum Island :( they call it.. I don’t know why.. its not an island… ) which is the next place I went to visit… there there’s the Altes Museum, Alte Gallery Museum , Berlin Dom, Lust Garden and they are rebuilding the Royal palace ( for tourist purposes.. and also to re-balance the look of the square )


OH GUYS MY PHOTOBUCKET ACCOUNT WAS FULL SO NOW ALL NEW PICTURES STARTING WITH BERLIN ARE AT www.photobecket.com login eirelav103 password lorriana

thanks! leave me comments of what you think ... oh also my travel plans have changed again.. I'm going to Frankfurt on the 15th until the 17th then Munich 17th-20th then Verona...and then.. well I'm making my way back to perugia! just thought I'd keep ya'll updated! xoxox