goodbye, rome.

After spring break I had very little motivation. At that point it was simply getting through the final two weeks before being able to return home. Took the history final, and have come to realize that even though that was definitely my worst class here as far as grades are concerned, I don't even care. I lived in Rome for four months. I traveled to Barcelona and throughout Eastern Europe. All of that for a less than perfect academic semester -- I'll take it. And from then until now our lives revolved around getting the most of out Rome in our final days and finishing studio. Studio here was definitely less intense than studio in Rome, mostly because they were more considerate of the fact that we actually have lives. They would move deadlines when they knew we had more strict deadlines in other classes, and they wanted us to enjoy Rome as much as possible while we were there. Even though I didn't really enjoy the design project this semester, I did enjoy the class and the professor. I will miss having Cinzia around. I think the final review went well. It isn't nearly as intense as they have been in the past, just as most things in Europe aren't nearly as intense as they are in America. Professors in America, and architects in America, should seriously consider removing the sticks from their butts, haha. Not that all Italians are very easy to deal with either. We had our design exhibition, our final dinner, and now it's time for departure. Rather than bussing us to the airport as they did when we arrived, we have to get to the airport on our own. I'm not a fan of paying for taxis. I'm also not a fan of our flight change -- it went from about 1:30 in the afternoon to about 6:30 am. That means none of us are going to sleep tonight, just going to head to the airport around 3:30 am, then be absolutely exhausted when we get Boston. Leaving Rome has me feeling both sad and excited. If I was actually going home to Florida and not just to Boston for summer school the excited part of me would probably be outweighing the sadness part. Right now they're closer to equal.

Goodbye, Rome. Hello, Boston.

the best spring break ever.

Nothing will ever top Spring Break 2009, at least as far as spring breaks are concerned. I have never been the type to do spring break as one big college drinking fest, and this spring break was no exception to that. I found that the best way, and equally the most frustrating way, to explore Europe is by train.

First stop: Vienna. Even though our time in Vienna was very short, really only one full day, it was still amazing. We walked through the city and saw the architecture we wanted to see, then made our way to their version of a theme park, which being from Orlando, their theme park is much more on a carnival level. Still fun nonetheless, and it included the added bonus of the most pork and beer I have ever seen or eating in one sitting.

Second stop: Budapest. Before going to Budapest, I heard a lot of hype about it. While the city was beautiful, it wasn't quite at the level of all its praise. The best thing about Budapest -- its lemonade. We stumbled upon this one restaurant where one guy there made his own lemonade, and apparently made this recipe when he worked in Daytona Beach. Small world, and delicious lemonade. Part of the reason it may have been so delicious was that we had been deprived of lemonade for about three months. Europeans need to jump on the lemonade train. Another not-so-cultural experience we had while in Budapest was dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was surprisingly good, and quite amusing when a table near us had to get instructions on how to put together a fajita. The most memorable part about Budapest, however, has to be the mountain/hill across the river. A trend with many major European cities -- a river and elevation of some sort. There was a beautiful church that was inside the mountain, more literally a cave made into a church. And once on top of the mountain we could see the entire city -- and this part reminded me of how remarkable Barcelona was. Oh how I miss Barcelona.

Third stop: Prague. This was my favorite city from spring break. I was able to see Frank Gehry's "Dancing House," which while I am not a fan of this structure or Gehry in general, I was still happy to see it so I could add it to the list of Gehry buildings I have seen to prove my point on how horrible he is. That opinion of mine will never change. Getting around Prague was fairly easy with our map, and we chose to skip out on the metro system as much as possible. Our first trip on the metro we apparently bought the wrong tickets and were fined. Like we knew how to read Czech to make sure we had the proper tickets. There shouldn't be ten choices of metro tickets anyways. Besides that, Prague was a very pleasant city. Full of malls, which I did not expect, but it was kind of comforting to see a little bit more of American culture infused into European cultures. We also found waffles by our hotel. We went there for breakfast, then realized that these were really dessert waffles, topped with ice cream and all kinds of other goodies. Our hotel was awesome. It's luxury made up for it being outside of the city center. We were on the 14th or 16th floor and paid about $50 a night for it. When we arrived at the hotel the price on the board listed was over 200 Euro. Thank you, hotels.com.

Fourth stop: Stuttgart. On the way to Stuttgart we stopped in Frankfurt and stumbled upon a new mall by Fuksas, which was amazing -- and I was not happy when I realized I left my camera in a locker in the train station. I do hope my memory serves me well on that one. While Stuttgart wasn't my favorite city from spring break, it was my favorite time during spring break. I really didn't see the city itself because we stayed with Marc's aunt and her family outside of the city. It was so nice to be in a home and have real beds and that general homey feeling we had been without for so long. They had the most amazing bakery right down the street with the best cinnamon roll and cheese danish I have ever had. We did venture closer to the city and saw the Porsche museum -- I was in awe by all the cars while Marc only cared about the building. I do have a soft spot for beautiful cars. We also some Corbusier buildings, oh Corb. Our time in Stuttgart also happened to be Easter weekend, and during our "layover" in Frankfurt we saw a big parade for Good Friday -- a parade without all the craziness and celebration though. It really just seemed like a giant cross leading a bunch of robots. Did not look like much fun. And on Easter Sunday we went to mass with Marc's aunt and her family, which was actually fun. Even though I couldn't understand a word they were saying, just being there was nice and the music was beautiful. Even without knowing what the words mean, music to me is still a universal language. 

Appendix: Eurrail. While Eurrail was very helpful, it was also sometimes a pain. From Budapest to Prague we had to pay an extra fee because the train we needed to take went through Slovakia, in the middle of the night, and that country was not on our ticket. The last leg of the trip, getting back to Rome, was also not so fun. We went from Stuttgart to Munich, then Munich to some small city in northern Italy. And from there to Rome we weren't able to reserve seats ahead of time and the train was full, so we had to wait for a train that went overnight to Rome, which added on another fee, and we got into Rome at about 5 am and had class at 9 am. Even though that part was kind of a mess, I still wouldn't trade it for anything. Eastern Europe, I miss you and your wonderful exchange rates.

final week of real classes.

Our schedule here is pretty amazing. Two weeks of classes, one week of travel, two weeks of classes, etc. This week was our last week of classes. Now it's just Spring Break and design. Unfortunately something went funny with the schedule and our history final is after Spring Break -- kind of a downer, but I don't really care right now because I'm leaving for Vienna tomorrrow! 

This week was pretty good -- we had our last two walks for history, one that included the beautiful Villa Torlonia and another to Garbatella. Villa Torlonia is a 19th century villa that was also the home of Mussolini and his family. There was an adorable cottage on the property that is now a stained glass museum -- some of the most beautiful stained glass I have ever seen. It was nice to be able to look at the glass and have a few minutes break from everything architecture. Garbatella was also a nice change. Also from Mussolini's reign, it was built as Mussolini was tearing apart Rome and people were moving out of the city center. A wonderful, idyllic, garden neighborhood.

I also had my Italian exam this morning, and it was even easier than expected. I've never understood how people have trouble in foreign language classes. I've always found them very easy. Now I need to finish packing for my amazing Eastern Europe tour. Ciao!