J'adore Paris!

Paris in the spring certainly did not disappoint!  The weather was beautiful, the city was blooming, and the sites were spectacular :)  I traveled with my friend Anne, and we had a great "romantic" weekend spending so much time together!

On Friday, after a grueling 7 a.m. flight, we arrived in sunny Paris and immediately figured out the city's incredibly extensive and traveler-friendly metro system.  Since we couldn't check into our hotel for a few hours, we walked around the area of Montmartre for awhile, and climbed the hill in the area - the highest point in Paris and home to the Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart?) basilica and some great views.  We hung out on the steps of the hill for a while, singing along to a guitar player with hundreds of people from literally all over the world.  It was so fun, so European!  We checked-in and then explored the Arc de Triomphe (a bit premature, Napoleon?) and then waited in line to climb the Eiffel Tour!  We decided to tough it out (and save some cash) and headed for the stairs rather than the elevator.  It all seemed like a great idea until my fear of heights set in, so we only made it to the first level, with poor Anne practically holding my hand the whole way.  However, the views were spectacular and unforgettable.

Sacre Coeur

singing on the steps

the statue sang along...

Arc de Triomphe

climbing the tower (after I stopped shaking!)

Saturday, we decided to make a trip to Versailles.  Upon arriving at the palace, all I have to say is that it's easy to understand why the French revolted during the Revolution - the chateau is ornate beyond belief, and every surface possible seemed to be dripping in gold.  My favorite part was certainly the hall of mirrors, and it was so fascinating to see the bedrooms where Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette lived and entertained.  After we took the train back to Paris, we strolled along beautiful gardens on the Champs Elysees, and then packed a picnic dinner of baguettes with salami and cheese, strawberries, and cookies, all for under 7 euro from the market!  We took our dinner to the Eiffel, where we met Cara and her roommates and waited for the light show, which was so amazing! It was probably one of the most memorable parts of the trip!  We had dinner #2 in a nearby Chinese restaurant, where we were hilariously stalked by eager Asian tourists photographing our dinner, and then grabbed a bottle of champagne to celebrate a wonderful weekend!

Versailles

hall of mirrors

Cara and I

light show!

Sunday, we went to mass at (where else?) Notre Dame!  Gothic churches are usually not my style, but ND was beautiful, from the massive stained glass windows to the impressive chandeliers.  We stumbled upon the holocaust memorial, which was incredibly moving.  It's always strange and powerful to remember how the actions of a few changed the history of an entire continent forever.  After lunch at Subway (!), Anne and I headed to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa and ... not much else.  We were exhausted from a trip, and museums are not completely our thing, plus the Louvre was just so overwhelming.  We hit up a few souvenir shops, grabbed our bags, and headed back to the airport, saying Au Revoir to a spectacular city!

The Louvre

All in all, I can't believe I once considered not visiting Paris while in Europe!  I can't recommend it highly enough, and it was truly an unforgettable experience for me!

Buona Pasqua!

Probably one of the staples of studying in Europe in the spring semester is going to Rome for Easter Mass at the Vatican.  Since I'm lucky enough to actually be studying here, I got to enjoy the mass Notre Dame invasion of Rome and see some friends, without being burdened by the stress of traveling on an incredibly touristy and rainy weekend.  Although mass in St. Peter's square was certainly unforgettable, the fact that it downpoured literally the entire time that we were there (and we were there for about four hours total) put a bit of a damper on the day (high point: they had a marching band!).  By the end, after I was soaking wet and freezing cold, with a battered umbrella that had literally been used as a sword to fight through the crowds, I was missing my small familiar Easter mass at MSW and brunch with my family.  However, we brought some of our ND friends back to our apartment and some of my roommates cooked a simple but delicious brunch for them.  It was good to see some of my band friends!

The Thursday before, Cara took me out to dinner at Tony's in Trastevere for a late birthday present with some of her roommates.  The food (penne alla vodka) was so delicious and the atmosphere (sitting at tables outside at night watching people pack through the small ancient streets) was awesome.  Thanks again, girl!  I spent the rest of the weekend relaxing, afraid to venture into the mob of tourists that started overtaking Rome on Easter and have been lingering ever since.  I can't complain too much though, I'm still basically a tourist myself! 

battling the elements

Papal blessing

piccolos on Easter!

Spring Break 2: Eating Our Way Through Istanbul

Back to spring break posts!

After returning from Sicily, Anne, Laura, and I took a one-day breather in Rome, and then headed to Istanbul, Turkey for the rest of our spring break.  Istanbul was beautiful, crazy, eye-opening, impossible to navigate (where are the street signs? nowhere), overwhelming, and definitely a culture shock.  Turkey is such a unique mix of Europe and Asia, and additionally is a predominantly Muslim nation (although not in an overtly religious sense).  Since we were there for five days, I'll try to give the cliff notes version of our trip:

Day 1: Flew into the airport on the Asian side of the city and arrived to a forebodingly cloudy sky.  We were immediately stricken by the sheer number of mosques we could see as our plane landed - so many spires pointing skyward.  I still maintain that they seem a bit sinister-looking, especially compared to the church steeples and domes that I'm used to in the US and Rome, but I guess that's just culture shock for me.  We took an hour-and-a-half shuttle through impenetrable nighttime traffic and arrived at our very fun and friendly hostel, where we were greeted with a free glass of wine and a delicious lamb kebab.  Seriously, we tried multiple kebabs throughout our trip (eating cheaply, yay!), and the hostel topped them all.  Who knew?

Day 2: Major tourist day.  Woken up at 5 am by the call to prayer - "We're not in Kansas anymore...", but it was something I would definitely get used to by the end of the trip.  First we visited the Topkapi Palace, which was home to the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire.  It houses precious jewels, and irreplaceable artifacts such as the sword of David, rod of Moses, arm of St. John the Baptist (I think?), and multiple items belonging to the prophet Muhammad.  We also toured the Harem, which is filled with immaculate rooms, and is where the Sultans and princes would live with their family and concubines.  Next stop was the Blue Mosque (or Sultanahmet Mosque), which is the predominant mosque in the city.  We slipped off our shoes, put on our headscarves, and walked through the beautiful building, lit up with chandeliers.  Our final tourist stop for the day was the Basilica Cisterns, an ancient underground water source whose significance escapes me right now...BUT it was still really cool.  We had a free dinner at the hostel, and I tried Turkey's traditional drink - a licorice-flavored alcohol called Raki.  Since I'm such a licorice fan (save me those black jelly beans), I figured I'd love it, but it was so-so.  The hostel manager then recommended us his favorite dessert place in town (Cigdem Pastanesi), and I had my first taste of baklava, and let me tell you, I'm hooked, and I've craved it every day since we got back.  Throughout our time in Turkey, Anne and I became infamous as "the baklava girls".

Topkapi palace

Hagia Sofia, a church-turned-Mosque-turned-museum

Blue Mosque

Basilica Cisterns

Day 3: Bosphorus cruise.  We boarded a city ferry for a cruise down the Bosphorus river, which dumped us off on the Asian side (three continents down, four to go!).  Once there, we played in some ruins of a castle at the top of the hill (I feel like climbing to the top of hill was a significant spring break theme), and headed back to complete the 90-minute return trip.  It was a bit blustery that day, and the trip on the ferry was a little long, but there were some spectacular views of Istanbul, which is absolutely massive.

view from the ferry

ruins at the top of the hill

the three of us, overlooking where the Bosphorus empties into the Black Sea

Anne's artsy photo of me

panorama of the view from the ruins - I love my camera!

Day 4: We hit the Grand Bazaar, which is a covered bazaar with thousands (ok, maybe it was hundreds, but it certainly felt like thousands!) of stands selling everything imaginable, from souvenirs, to carpets (of course), beautiful lanterns, and so much more.  There was also a smaller outdoor bazaar closer to our hostel that we explored as well.  Everyone came away with some goodies, including Turkish Delights, which pretty much sums up our eating habits for the entire trip.  In an ill-fated attempt to find one of the only churches in Istanbul to attend Palm Sunday mass (on Saturday night), we ended up in Taksim, one of the more modern areas of the city, which bustled with activity and is lit up with Christmas lights strung between buildings on the crowded streets - literally Christmas lights, complete Santa and Christmas trees, very weird in a Muslim city but fun.  We ended up finding the church but missing mass, eating dinner overlooking the main street, and getting pretty lost as we tried to find our way home.  I was certainly relieved to find the tram finally, and of course, we once again rewarded ourselves with baklava (for probably the fourth time in as many days)!

Day 5: Spent eight hours in the Istanbul airport, thanks to a completely incompetent airline and their incredibly rude staff.  Since when can you just move a flight back half a day and not provide any notice?  Anyway, let's not dwell on that.  Let's just happy to say I was glad to come back home to Rome, which finally seems so much like home (and when Italy seems efficient, you know something's really wrong with where you are...).  It's really a shame that it's taken me this long to feel this comfortable and utterly blissful here, but I am, and I plan on making the most out of my last month here.

Anyway, Turkey was certainly an interesting trip, and one that I know that I'll never forget.  Italy is home though, and I'm very happy with that.  It's also nice not to get catcalls here from every single male on the street - I feel like the only reason Turkish men learned English was to make passing comments at American girls like ourselves.  No harm done, but 4.5 days of that was probably just enough.  It's good to be back! 

I'm heading to Paris in a few hours - our taxi arrives at 4:30 a.m. and flying at terrible hours is just something that I'm used to now.  Actually it's the last flight trip I'll be taking until my flight home - can't believe it's that close now!  My parents are coming on Tuesday and we're all going to the Amalfi Coast next weekend - I'm SO excited :)  Unfortunately, I have a ton of schoolwork that week, and it's sure to be stressful, but I can't wait!

Next post will be Easter, which will come when I get back from Paris.  I can't wait to be caught up with these blogs so I can think in a logical chronological order again!

XOXO

Katie

P.S. It's been a super exciting week for me for two reasons: 1) I received and accepted an internship with Catholic Relief Services as a legislative advocacy intern! And the best part is that it's in Chicago! I loved being in a new place last summer, but after a semester abroad, all I want is to be home! 2) An awesome political science professor at Notre Dame accepted my proposal for a senior honors thesis, and she's going to be my advisor for the project!  So I'll be doing an original research project next year, culminating in a 40-ish page thesis - yikes! But I'm really excited about my topic and about the opportunities it can give me post-grad.  Cheers to a great week!

Go Cubs Go: A Love Story

Disclaimer: My wonderful Sox-fan family members should probably just stop reading right now, this might make you a little nauseous...

sunset from our seats, summer 2009.

I know I promised the continuation of Spring Break, as well as Easter posts, but I couldn't resist.  In a post that has absolutely nothing to do with life in Europe, I feel that it's necessary to go back to my roots for a little bit and remark on how absolutely distraught I am that I'm missing the greatest of all American days - opening day!  I spent about an hour today contemplating whether or not I should invest in a monthly subscription to mlb.tv in order to watch the Cubs games before I get home.  I've tentatively decided to hold out, but could probably be convinced otherwise.  Since I was away from home for most of last summer, I plan on spending as much time as humanly possible this year attending games at the best and most beautiful ballpark in the country (I mean, look at that picture. How can you look at the ivy, and the scoreboard, and the history and tell me there's any better place to watch a game?), or at least watching on television from my very comfortable couch while listening to Pat and Ronnie on the radio ("Brant Brown drops the ball!" "NOOOOOOO!")

Speaking of that, here's the 3-second audio clip that defines us: http://www.northtonorth.com/pages/soundclips/santoohno.mp3

There's just something about Cubs baseball at Wrigley that's almost a religious experience, and I can't wait to sit in the bleachers, with an Old Style (finally!), lots of sunscreen, and my best friends, singing Take Me Out To The Ballgame and Go Cubs Go with thousands of other crazy faithful fans.  I can't even remember my first game, or how I was introduced to the team - they've just been in my life for as long as I can remember, and they are as integral to my life as my house or my school.  The Cubs bring my family together, just as they bring a global network of fans together.  I'm so fiercely loyal to Chicago as the best city in the world, and the Cubs represent the very best of Chicago - sorry Sox fans, you'll just never have that same appeal to me.  I live and die with the Cubs, and they make me cry every year (the Bartman game in 2003 remains one of the worst nights of my life, and I remember my Dad trying to comfort me and saying "You're a true Cubs fan now"), but you can bet that when they win it all, I'll be crying out of happiness and living a dream come true.  

This is the year - PLAY BALL!

Baseball season's underway 
Well you better get ready for a brand new day. 
Hey, Chicago, what do you say? 
The Cubs are gonna win today. 

They're singing...

Go, Cubs, go 

Go, Cubs, go 
Hey, Chicago, what do you say? 
The Cubs are gonna win today. 

Go, Cubs, go 
Go, Cubs, go 
Hey, Chicago, what do you say? 
The Cubs are gonna win today. 

They got the power, they got the speed 
To be the best in the National League 
Well this is the year and Cubs are real 
So come on down to Wrigley Field 

We're singing now ... 
Go, Cubs, go 
Go, Cubs, go 
Hey, Chicago, what do you say?
The Cubs are gonna win today. 

Go, Cubs, go 
Go, Cubs, go 
Hey, Chicago, what do you say?
The Cubs are gonna win today. 

Baseball time is here again 
You can catch it all on WGN 
So stamp you feet and clap your hands 
Chicago Cubs got the greatest fans. 

You're singing now ... 
Go, Cubs, go 
Go, Cubs, go 
Hey, Chicago, what do you say? 
The Cubs are gonna win today. 

Go, Cubs, go 
Go, Cubs, go 
Hey, Chicago, what do you say? 
The Cubs are gonna win today.

Spring Break 1: Sicily

Continuing in my somewhat-futile attempt to get caught up on my blog posts, it's time for the Spring Break post, or at least the first part in a series, depending on how long-winded I decide to be, and how easily I get bored of myself talking.

Anne, Laura, and I (the three piccolo ladies in Rome!) traveled to Sicily for four days, returned to Rome for a day, and then went to Istanbul!  Our trip was a great combination of relaxation (Sicily) and go-go-go sightseeing (Turkey), and although it certainly had it's share of ups and downs - as any ten-day trip would - it was definitely an unforgettable experience.

On Friday morning, we flew into Palermo, the capital of the island of Sicily, and one of the biggest cities in Italy.  It was a unique mix of tropical beauty and metropolitan bustle, and I honestly wasn't the biggest fan, so I don't have a ton to write about it, especially since we only spent one night there, and the hostel was kind of secluded on the edge of town (although in a beautiful location).  We took the bus up to the mountaintop town of Monreale, which had great views of Palermo and the sea, and also had a cathedral, filled with mosaics that illustrated biblical stories, built in a rivalry between Monreale and Palermo. Friday morning, we took the train to Cefalu', a small and very picturesque beach town on the northern coast of the island, where we would be spending the rest of our time in Sicily.  On the train, we met two older women from Toronto who were traveling all over Italy.  After we introduced ourselves, they said the four words that make me love anyone, "Oh, we LOVE Chicago!" Well, me too! Let's be friends!

Our B&B in Cefalu' was amazing - way to go with that booking, Anne! We had a huge room with a couch, immaculate bathroom, and two balconies, plus an ocean-view terrace for our breakfast and an awesome manager who loved that he could speak to us in Italian.  Our first day there, we explored the Duomo, which dominates the main piazza in the small town, ate lunch in the square, and decided to climb La Rocca (literally The Rock), which is this very random, and very tall mountain/hill that dominates Cefalu's landscape (see pictures below).  On our way up, we met one of the Canadian women from the train on her descent, and throughout my struggle up the rock, I had to keep reminding myself that if she could make it, I could too!  La Rocca contains the ruins of ancient fortress walls (seriously, I couldn't think of a better place for a fortress if I tried), churches, a Greek temple, and at the top, a castle.  The first half of the climb had zig-zagging stairs, but once we reached the Temple of Diana, we were literally left to our own devices to climb through vegetation on very steep and barely-existing foot trails.  At points, I was literally on all fours, slipping on rocks, and climbing what seemed like an almost vertical trail.  However, after much huffing and puffing, we finally got to the top! That night, after a fancy dinner (thanks, Mr. Witt!), Anne and I grabbed a well-deserved drink at an Irish pub where a bunch of locals were watching a soccer game, and after only one day in the town, we both knew that we had stumbled onto a great choice of vacation spot in Cefalu.

Sunday was beach day! Although not quite warm enough to go swimming, we played in the sand and splashed around in the water, and just enjoyed the wonderful atmosphere and totally relaxed setting.  We strolled through the town, grabbed some gelato, and walked along the boardwalk for some great photo opportunities.  A little later, we sat in the marina along with the whole town (or at least it seemed), and I can honestly say I've never seen a happier place - families and friends mingling and laughing and enjoying the sunset and the simple things in life.  I feel like that really summarizes my time in Cefalu, and it was just my style - relaxing, enjoying the little things, experiencing amazing beauty, and getting in some laughs along the way.  Cefalu was one of the coolest places I've traveled to, and I absolutely could have spent the whole week there.  However, we had big plans for the second half of the week - Turkey!  Since this post is long and rambling and unorganized enough as it is, and since the wine I had with dinner is making me sleepy (sigh), I'll leave that for another entry.

Thanks for reading, everyone! That is, if there's anyone left reading this - if you are, I strongly commend you for making it this far!

Duomo and the Piazza in Cefalu'

some of the ruins while climbing La Rocca

view from the castle at the top!

 

loving Cefalu and the sun!

view of the town - you can see the Duomo to the left of La Rocca.  Please note how high we had to climb (and how steep it was!) to reach the top, and be impressed!

the marina

Playing Catch-Up

Again, big apologies for the major delay - things happen so quickly here it's hard to jot them all down and then suddenly half a month's gone by! I can't believe I only have one month left!

Anyway - to fill out the rest of the "Best Week Ever" series: 

I had a lot of schoolwork for the rest of the week that Tyler and Sam were here, so they explored the city on their own for a few days while I went to classes and studied for a few tests.  On Thursday, we explored Trastevere in the rain, and Tyler and I had a great date night at a restaurant near the architecture school called Aspettando il Pane.  Friday, we hit the Trevi Fountain and tossed in our coins, and saw the Spanish Steps, and wrapped up all the touristy things we still had to do. I was so sad to send them home on Saturday morning, but I'm so happy that I have such amazing people in my life willing to come across the ocean to see me for a week! It was truly one of the happiest weeks I can remember, and so much fun!

Next up: Spring Break posts!

Spanish Steps

Trevi

*Note Tyler with his rainbow-colored umbrella, which he bought from a street vendor for three euro, and battled against for the entire week.  On his way back to the states, he ceremonially buried it in the airport trash.  It was truly a love story.