Italy Part 1: Verona

After we left Liechtenstein, we drove southeast through the Alps to Italy. Our first official stop was Verona, but we took the scenic route through Südtirol (Sudtirolo in Italian, South Tyrol in English. Just to keep it confusing). 

 Südtirol is the northernmost province of Italy, which actually speaks German because they were part of the Austria-Hungarian empire until 1915 when it was basically traded to England in exchange for their participation in WWI. Italy annexed it in 1919, Mussolini tried to Italianize it, and now it's in an interesting semi-autonomous state where it keeps 90% of its own taxes but puts a little Italian translation under the German names on street signs. In true Alps style, there's a native-type language that nobody but twelve people in this one valley can understand. Also, it's where pretty much every apple in Europe is grown! Which is probably why people wanted it so much. Regardless of all that, it's a very scenic drive.

 

They dammed a river to make a lake, which--as it usually does--put a town underwater. 

Since the church was all historic, they just left it! Now it sticks out of the water. 

I simultaneously want to learn how to scuba dive and want to NEVER GET IN THE WATER.

When we got to Verona, we experienced our very first old-style Italian metropolis! We decided to really experience it by following Google's directions and making Martin drive our big VW van (modern, don't start thinking Mystery Machine thoughts) straight into the narrow-streeted heart of the city. Where we're pretty sure we weren't allowed to be anyway. After the city's one-way streets, pedestrian-only plazas, and mirror-foldingly narrow "streets" released us, we found parking across the river and, reformed, walked to our accommodations.

 

Verona! Not for driving.

We stayed in an apartment-turned-B&B smack in the heart of the city next to Juliet's house. Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, and Two Gentlemen of Verona in the city, so a few hundred years ago they decided to cash in and create tourist attractions based on the fictional characters. It's all a little murky, though, because a tourist attraction set up in the 17th century and made out of the Capulets' actual house (built in the 1200s), a balcony that they themselves added (purportedly fashioned from an old stone sarcophagus!) and covered in graffitied love notes dating from the publication of the play is historical, but it's all based on a fictional character. So...historical? We stopped there briefly on our way to dinner the first night.

 

Look! A church!

Every city in Italy seems to have its own cuisine, and Verona is no exception. They're not the spaghetti-and-meatballs types, either. Veronese food involves lots of meat (mostly of odd animals like horses, donkeys, and ducks) and some German influences like schnitzel (which, by the way, is veal pounded out so it's giant but flat, then breaded and fried. Think a dinnerplate-sized fishstick made of beef. But not gross like that sounds). We had a delicious and biologically diverse dinner in the restaurant our landlady recommended, then headed home because it was already quite late.

In the morning I went running around the city, then we set out exploring. First stop was the ancient Arena, a coliseum-type structure built by the Romans in the year 30. It seats 30,000 people, and it's mostly intact so it's used today for concerts, plays, and an annual summer-long opera season that always features Romeo and Juliet. It was fun exploring the ancient building, and we only got yelled at a little bit for going places we weren't supposed to be.

The Arena, all set up for opera season.

Part of the ancient wall that surrounded the Arena.

For the rest of the day, we walked all over Verona, checked out every major church, and scoped out the best gelato in town--a mission that would persist throughout the trip. Late in the afternoon we crossed the river and hiked up an interesting set of stairs (gelato in hand) until we found a castle! Gotta love Europe. From there we followed another trail that eventually led between two sets of ancient city walls, aiming for a cool complex of buildings we had seen from the castle. Just as we got about as far as possible from any exit to our path, it started pouring like crazy. Two local women found us and shepherded us down from the hill on the quickest route, then gave us recommendations for the rest of our trip, told us where to eat dinner, and even made our reservation! After we'd changed and dried off, it was delicious.

All of us at the castle, pre-rainstorm.

The next morning I ran back up to the hill and did eventually make it to the buildings we'd wanted to see (a monastery), but the way we got down was definitely faster. 

Next stop: Venice!

Love Katie

Heidelberg with my Parents!

Hello All,

My parents are currently finishing up a three-week trip to Europe on which I got to spend two weeks traveling with them. They flew into Frankfurt, Germany, so we--Martin, his mom, and I--drove up to Martin's grandparents' house in Heidelberg to meet them and show them around that area a little.

 

That's just the entrance to the bridge!

 

Heidelberg wasn't bombed in WWII, so the old town and castle remain historically intact. It's a very pretty city situated on a hillside over a river, and most of the older buildings are made with local red stone, including the super awesome castle.

 

The castle, as viewed from the city below (note that the right-side tower is half blown up, that'll be explained in a moment).

 

Part of the castle's front and main living area. 

 

The castle's inner courtyard. Look at the cool red stone!

 

One time (pre-WWI) they stored some ammunition in one of the towers. It exploded. 

While we were there, there was a fireworks show on the castle and river, and we got to stand really close by and watch the fireworks shoot off of the old bridge, the castle, and even the river itself.

 

Heidelberg is also the home of the oldest funicular in Germany. And the newest! 

PS: a funicular is one of those really steep cable cars. Here's the wikipedia page.

And we rode that funicular!

 

In other important and historic news, Heidelberg has an insanely fabulous playground and lots of rowers! The playground has a whole water area where kids can manipulate the flow of water with dams, water wheels, and this really cool Archimedes screw that brought the water back upstream. In lieu of swings and slides, they had an insane tetter-totter thing, a spinning thingy of death, and other potentially deadly members of the "thing" family.

 

It spins and goes up and down!

 

Future hydroengineers. 

We had a great time exploring Heidelberg, thanks to Martin's mom and her parents who hosted us and made sure we always had plenty of cake at teatime. After Heidelberg, we traveled back to Liechtenstein for a quick repack before going on our road trip through Italy!

 

A sample of our delicious Heidelberg food. This pretzel is the size of a large pizza and each part has a different sandwich filling. Especially important because the bread in Italy wasn't nearly as good as it was in Germany.

School Starts Tomorrow!

Hi All!

I'm back from exploring Italy with my parents, and I'm starting school tomorrow!! I'm definitely mostly excited, I'm just not sure what I'm doing. There's this thing where I've never been a PhD student before. But neither has anyone else, so it doesn't count much.

What I'm really really excited about, though, are my classes. I only have to take about six seminars over the entire course of my program since I'm on the already-has-a-Master's-and-a-bit-of-a-plan track (I sincerely hope they're right), then I need two Master's level courses since I've never studied Economics before. I have plenty of flexibility to not take many courses if I don't want to, but all the courses look so interesting! Right now I'm signed up for seven, so I'll probably be dropping a few as we go. But they're so interesting!

My biggest hurdle this week will be figuring out where all my dang classes are. When I signed up for classes (which in itself was a bit of a process) I got course websites from three of my classes, but the others refuse to tell me anything about themselves. And most of the University information is in German. Which I'll be learning for real once the semester starts! So this week should be interesting. And I'll make lots of new friends asking random people what I'm supposed to be doing.

In the meantime, though, I'll share as much as I can about our fabulous road trip through Northern Italy. With Martin and my parents (who are visiting!), we explored Heidelberg, Germany; then Verona, Venice, Florence (and Tuscany), the Cinque Terre, and Milan. It was my first time in Italy and it was fabulous!

I'll be busy!

Love Katie

9 Hours of Alp Exploring

Yesterday Martin and I went on our hike through Liechtenstein and we had a wonderful time! I don't have very much time because we are about to go to Heidelberg so we can pick up my parents tomorrow (YAY!!!), but here's a couple of pictures.

Love Katie

Hiking in Liechtenstein Tomorrow!

Hi All!

We're in Liechtenstein right now, and Martin and I are getting ready to go on a hike tomorrow that's supposed to be really beautiful and challenging and dangerous. How exciting! It's called the  Fürstensteig (Princely Trail, after the Prince of Liechtenstein), and it traverses the ridge atop the Three Sisters mountains which form the border between Liechtenstein and Austria. 

 

It's very dramatic-looking, isn't it?

Since the Alps are a very old mountain range, they've had lots of time to erode, meaning that they're very rocky and pointy on the top. Anyone who's gone hiking in the Rockies or the Sierra Nevada--both comparatively younger mountain ranges--can identify the feeling of being on the summit but not really feeling like they're really on top. Those mountains are more of a hump, whereas the Alps are more jagged peaks. That means you actually get to walk along narrow ridges with the mountain dropping off on either side. It feels like you're walking on the edge of the world, but it's really not for those with a fear of heights. 

 

Tomorrow these pictures will include Martin and me. Yay!

The Fürstensteig will be my second major hike in Liechtenstein--we've already done some hiking up in Mauren--but I'm told this will be a much more demanding experience. There are apparently places where you literally climb ladders embedded in the rock, and areas where the ridge trail is so narrow and the dropoffs on either side so steep that there is a cable to hold onto to prevent falling. There are also apparently areas where we will wish there was a cable. I'm hoping that handling the cables at Halfdome with Cal Crew will mean I can handle this, but I'll find out tomorrow! 

 

If you look really closely you can see the trail cutting through the middle of that picture.

Martin's mom says that she spent most of their hike on this trail worrying about her three boys rather than enjoying the view, in much the way I think my mom experienced the Grand Canyon when we were kids. I'm glad I've been running up hills, I think I'll appreciate every minute I've done! I will be taking lots of pictures, because it seems like the views are going to be amazing. 

 

So pretty!

I'll let you know how it goes! 

Update: here's a video of the mountain!

Love Katie  

I'm a Legal Resident!

Hello all, so sorry it's been so long!

Along with exploring Zurich and other fun activities, I've been working on getting my residence in Switzerland figured out. I finally did!

First I had to get my visa--a process that started well before I left the USA, but which only ended a couple of weeks ago when I went to Munich to finally pick it up and have my passport stamped. What a relief! Waiting for something important is really hard when there's nothing you can do to speed up the process. 

Swiss consulate in Munich. Can you tell this is the Google StreetView photo I used to make sure I could find it? I really love screenshots for navigating without a data plan.

The bonus of having to leave the country to get my visa, though, was that I got to spend some more time wandering around Munich, which Kira and Laurel and I had visited on our travels. I hit the daily farmer's-type market for lunch and train snacks, and had a lovely time wandering and picking up little things to munch on the train ride home.

 

I love farmer's markets. Markets of any kind. It's my favorite thing to see when I'm traveling!

Once I had the visa, I had to go to the Kreisbüro (the city of Zurich is divided into units called Kreis..es. I'm not sure how to cross-lingually pluralize that) to give them things like my rental contract and a passport photo and lots of personal information. After that, I was given an appointment at the Cantonal office (Cantons are like Swiss states) here in Zurich to have my fingerprints, photo, and retina scans taken. Seriously, retina scans. There's a reason James Bond villains choose Switzerland beyond the scenery. They promised to mail my permit, and I was back to waiting.

Yesterday I had a certified mail slip in our box, and today on my run I went by the post office and picked it up. I am now a legal resident of Switzerland! This means I can get a cell phone contract, and bank account--no more fees for changing money to Swiss Francs!--and can use my American driver's license to get a Swiss one! I feel like a real person!

Hopefully all of those places are open on Saturday...somehow I don't think they will be.

Love Katie

Getting Stuck in Innsbruck

After I left Kira in Munich, I took the train back to Zurich via Innsbruck (since I have a free train pass in Austria). My train pass in Switzerland is only free after 7pm, so the plan was to spend a little while in Innsbruck before hopping on the express to Zurich. I figured that meant I could explore until 7, so I wandered out into Innsbruck and saw the golden roof (secretly tiny, but in a nice oldtown area) and got a glimpse of the ski jump left over from when the winter Olympics were held there.

Innsbruck! Very pretty, very Alpine.

After exploring, I headed back to the train station and looked at the departure board for my train.

No train.

I went to the information counter to ask when my train was coming, and was informed that it had left at 5:45. It didn't cross into Switzerland until after 7pm, which was why that train worked with my pass, but I hadn't checked because I was sure I couldn't take any train unless it started after 7. Oops.

Bigger problem: no more trains to Zurich that night.

I found free wifi in the station and texted Martin in a panic, desperate to get to Zurich that night. Even though I was convinced that if I just wanted a train badly enough it would appear, it really was impossible. Martin called his wonderful parents and told me to get on the next train to Feldkirch (near Liechtenstein).

I was mortified: it was going to be the middle of the night by the time I got to that station, and I'm really not good at screwing up. Not that I'm not good at making mistakes (obviously that happens all the time), I just prefer to quietly sweep up my own mess and move right along. When it turns out I really need help, it's an ugly little learning experience every time.  I was also just exhausted enough for this to seem like a much bigger deal than it really was.

Still, I have rarely been so happy to see someone as I was to see Martin's mom waiting on the platform in Feldkirch (at midnight, let's not forget). I spent the night at their house and took an evening train to Zurich the next day. Everything worked out, but I am so glad I'm not alone here! And now I check the schedule about a million times before I leave the station.

Love Katie