So it’s been a bit since I posted, so this will cover just over two weeks. Back to solo traveling has slowly pushed me into old habits, namely very rapidly jumping from city to city. I can rip through a city alone and after sitting on buses/trains/planes the last thing I want to do is sit in a random city. So I’ve been a bit busy running around to write a blog post, but I am uncomfortably blasting this one out on a train ride. Without further explanation, our story left off arriving in Vienna.

Like a Storm Cloud Over My Head

So I have been dragging rain clouds with me to each city. Apparently before I arrive and after I leave is beautiful weather, but storms arrive with me. I exit my bus in Vienna in a rain jacket and with my rain fly on my bag. A short walk and I arrive at my hostel, my first time back in a hostel in Europe. I couldn’t check in yet, so I dropped my bag and roamed around for a bit before coming back to check in. Vienna is home to some of famous musicians of the past and is known for its music. I walked around to see all of the amazingly detailed statues throughout the city and feel sad that all of the food options were similar to Berlin but much more expensive. After roaming, I wasn’t feeling very social so I found a local artsy movie theater and saw Stan and Ollie.

The next morning, two people from my room were doing the walking tour so I joined them. Vienna’s history is filled with cool stories and has all the awesome statues to match. I was especially a big fan of all of the Hercules statues on the palace entrances and will be sure to grab some of those when I settle and get a home. The tour guide went over some interesting things about why Viennese coffee comes with a cup of water and Vienna’s very involved history during World War II. After getting the history rundown, the tour dropped us off on one of the most expensive shopping streets in Europe. The group of us snuck away to grab some food and I had an amazing Goulash while an Australia asked me every possible question about living in India and getting yoga certified.

Afterwards, I roamed the city a bit more as there were some sights we didn’t cover in the walking tour and usually most of my time is spent walking. After the long walk, I hid in a little cafe and checked eating an apple strudel in Vienna off my list while writing some code. In the morning, I needed to catch a bus but wanted to grab a schnitzel before I left Vienna, so my roommate and the yoga informed Australian joined me for brunch before I took off.

Everyone Is A Beer Drinker In Munich

Arriving in Munich, I was starving. I was supposed to couchsurf with another volleyball player, but I still wasn’t feeling very social so I paid for a hostel. I got a recommendation on where to eat, a brewery that was super famous in Munich and had been brewing beer for almost two hundred years. I ended up walking past it because it was a large, crowded place and I was just trying to eat alone. I found a little place where I could grab another schnitzel and spetzl and popped in. I asked for a table for one before realizing the tables were set family style and was sat in the middle of a group.

The group already had liter steins of beer, and I don’t like beer, but after a short discussion, we all agreed I was in Munich and needed one. The group ended up being three guys from Southern California so we chatted while I ate. I intended to see the brewery after eating, and they were looking to continue drinking, so they joined me. The brewery was awesome. Casks and casks of beers flew out of a back room and the bartender hammered a tap into them. The bartender took no money and served nothing but beers. For the almost three hours we were there, he was consistently pouring beers. Munich turned out exactly as I imagined it.

The next day, I roamed around Munich, checking out the glockenspiel and various churches. Roaming Europe is a bit less exciting than Asia as it mostly ends up being what churches you can see and what statues are where. I ended up sitting in a park with a giant pretzel and just people watching for a bit before I decided it was time to take off.

Sir, You Can’t Afford To Breath Here

A short bus ride later and I arrived in Zurich. Maria, the awesome photographer who took care of Ryan and I our first time in Koh Phangan, was gracious enough to let me take over her apartment for over a week. I got off the bus and made the fifteen minute walk to her apartment, stubbornly refusing to take the tram so I could see the surrounding area. Upon arrival, I took a shower and did some laundry before she asked if I wanted to watch a movie. My favorite question in the world. I hadn’t laid down and watched a movie on a television since that night in the Vietnamese hotel in the middle of nowhere over two months prior.

The following day, she had to go to work, so I explored the area and found that Zurich is at least twice as expensive as anywhere else I had been in Europe and I was still used to Asian prices. A Swiss Franc is almost equivalent to the US dollar and a fast food burger meal cost almost twenty Swiss Francs. I knew this week would be rough on the wallet. Luckily, Maria left me her gym pass so I did some yoga before heading to the gym for a workout. My first time lifting weights in over two months and I had to make sure not to get too excited and hurt myself so I could go again the rest of the week.

Hitting a nearby grocery store to let me afford eating, this was the first time I had cooked my own food since I left besides during cooking classes. My cooking skills have never been as intricate as I would like, but I have my usual stuff down to a tee. Maria showed me around Old Town and to some chocolate shops and I finally got a chance to relax with nothing planned to do. Most of my week was yoga, gym and movies, and anyone who knows me knows that that isn’t something I was upset about.

A scoop of gelato was four Francs, so I didn’t eat any gelato while I was there out of principle, as it was two Euros for two scoops in the rest of Europe and I would be in Italy next. Otherwise, Zurich was a great pitstop. On my last full day in Zurich, Maria won some tickets to an orchestra and I remembered how much I enjoy watching people perform such intricate music in perfect harmony. This wasn’t my final full day in Switzerland though.

The next day was a Swiss holiday, so Maria didn’t have work and we took the train to Interlaken, a city between two lakes (thus the name) that was in the Alps. We hiked up to the top of Harder Klum and I got to take in the breathtaking views of the Alps behind the lakes. I am eternally baffled that people grow up in places so beautiful. After the hike, we came down and I had to get some fondue in its birthplace and got to try to rosti. A train ride stopping in Lucerne and then back in Zurich.

Most of me visiting people on this trip has involved me disappearing while they are at work, and this was no different. I left at 9am, so unfortunately another instance of taking off unnoticed.

You Think You’re Too Good For Your Home?

Everyone always assumes I have been to Italy, as that is what most of my heritage is. I have held travel to Italy on this high pedastal, always saying that if I go to Italy, I have to go for a while and see everything. I decided that excuse doesn’t make sense and I should at least hit one Italian city, but you know me by now, and sitting still isn’t my M.O. My bus went from Zurich to Milan and then I had a train to Pisa.

Arriving at the Italian border, I was excited to mark Italy as my twentieth country visited since I first left the U.S. less than three years ago. As we reached the border, our bus was stopped. The first time a train or a bus had ever been stopped at a border for me while traveling in Europe. Police came on and checked everyone’s passports. I immediately realized that my Spanish knowledge wasn’t helping much with Italian. I speak all of these languages and can’t understand the language of the place my bloodline is from. This was embarassing. The police brought on a dog and it found marijuanain someone’s bag. We waited while they were processed and then we got to Milan.

Upon getting to Milan, I took a tram to the train station and searched for food. I got a giant calzone and some gelato. Italy already topped the list of places on the trip. A few more hours on a train and I was in Pisa. Worried about missing my stop because Pisa wasn’t the last stop for that train, I ended up hopping off a stop in advance. My hostel was a twenty five minute walk away with all of my stuff, but the route took me past the Leaning Tower. I’m not sure how many direction lists include turning right at famous monuments, but these ones did.

I got to the hostel around ten and the only things open were pizzerias, so I grabbed a big pizza for only five euros and then got some sleep. The next day I roamed around and hit all the monuments in Pisa, which isn’t too many. Finding a riverside cafe, I grabbed a cannoli dipped in chocolate chips and pistachio, perfection.

A friend told me about an area just west of Pisa where they play volleyball on the beach so I booked a hostel without doing any other research. That bit is necessary because I didn’t realize that there was only one bus per hour that went that direction and it took forty five minutes. As a reference, the city further south than that that also had a beach required a fifteen minute train that came frequently. I hopped on the bus and it broke down halfway, leaving me over an hour walk from the hostel to wait thirty more minutes for the next bus. If you haven’t gotten the memo yet, I have bad travel luck.

I relaxed in the hostel before heading to the beach. The beach was a forty minute walk from my hostel, and since I didn’t catch the bus in time, it was faster to walk than wait for the bus. The beach with the volleyball nets was called “Bagno Del Americani” which means “Bathroom of Americans”, which I am still confused about but was pretty consistent with the other beach names. Upon arriving, I hopped in the water and watched some volleyball. They were only playing fours and there were about seven groups of four waiting to use two courts and with my lack of Italian language knowledge, I ended up just spectating. There was also a Capoiera level test going on near the courts, so I got to watch that which was cool. Capoiera is high on the list of skills to learn. It’s essentially Brazilian breakdance fighting. After having my fill of spectating, I caught a bus back.

I hoped to just grab dinner at my hostel but there was some sort of family reunion going on so I snuck out to a nearby restaurant. For the first time on this trip, I ordered pasta. A carbonara really hit the spot for how hungry I was. Like an idiot, I am always determined to try local delicacies and a local signature of the area I was in, Livorno, is the Ponce. The Ponce is a variation of an Espresso Corretto, which is espresso and whiskey, but with rum replacing the whiskey. I don’t like rum or espresso, and the drink is served piping hot in a shot glass. I did my best to finish it quickly, as is custom, and ended up burning my tongue.

A Quick Blast of History

The following morning I woke up at 6am and caught the long 7am bus back over to Pisa. Getting to my 8:30am train early, I found the platform heading to Florence and waited. I hopped on and wrote some code for an hour before checking my GPS to see how close I was. I was very far. I had gotten on the train in the opposite direction. The sign had said where the train was departing from , not where it was headed. I was now two hours from Florence and was immediately sick of traveling. I just wanted to lay on the ground until it was time to fly to Madrid. A thirty minute wait and then a two hour train ride and I was finally in Florence.

Exiting the train station, I found a place to drop my bag not far from Santa Maria Cathedral. The cathedral is huge and awe inspiring, and was entirely wrapped in a line to get inside. This would be a common sight in Florence. Next, I hit Galleria Accademia, where the original David statue lives. Again, the building was wrapped in a line and even if you waited, entry cost thirty Euros. I have been traveling long enough that I am good on paying a lot or waiting a lot to see inanimate objects. I headed back to the cathedral to grab some gelato and people watch. I decided it was a good idea to eat before gelato so I grabbed a porchetta panini from a little shop. A group of Chinese tourists were having trouble ordering so I did my best to bridge the gap between the Chinese group and the Italian staff with my very limited Italian knowledge. Luckily, they were asking about sugar and I know that word from ordering Coke Zero. Next stop, Edoardo’s for gelato. It was suggested by several people, so I actually waited in line for this.

Next up, I went to see the statue of Dante Alighieri, author of Dante’s Inferno and the Basilica of Santa Croce, burial place of Galileo and Machiavelli. A walk along the river and I hit some museums with even more huge lines. I began to wonder how much time on average a Florence tourist spends just standing in lines. Next stop was Ponte Vecchio, a bridge with shops built into its walls that sells mostly gold and jewelry. Off to my favorite spot, Piazza del Signoria.

Piazza del Signoria is an open plaza filled with statues surrounding a church. Here you can find replicas of famous statues, including a replica of Michelangelo’s David, that statue people were paying thirty Euros and waiting hours to go see a few blocks away. Amongst many others, this plaza houses a statue of Perseus holding Medusa’s severed head with an insane amount of detail and more of the Hercules statues like in Vienna.

After this, I needed some food so I hit up another suggestion, All’antico Vinaio. I was told this was a really good sandwich shop, what I wasn’t told is that there were five of them all next to each other and all of them had an insane line. So far, I had only waited in line for gelato and food, not mad.

After eating, I roamed the city a bit more, in search of a bathroom, which is much harder than it should be. I found the Fontana del Porcellino, or the Piglet Fountain, where you rub its snout and put a coin in its mouth and if it falls into the grate below, it means good luck. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the good luck and I accept my fate and didn’t grab my coin again for another try, like many of the other tourists. Back to my bag and I hit the train station to go to La Spezia.

I Expected Italian To Come Out When You Opened Your Mouth

The train arrives and I make the walk through La Spezia to my hostel. The hostel was a converted modern apartment, and it provided a very homey feel making it very easy to make friends. I grabbed a soda and found some information about hiking the Cinque Terre, five seaside towns on the western coast of Italy separated by trails.

Up early and ready to go, I grabbed breakfast and made a battle plan for hiking the Cinque Terre. Some of the friends I had made were also doing the hike, so I made plans to meet up with them in the cities. Over the course of this trip, I have learned that all the Spartan training made the speed I like to hike at significantly faster than a comfortable speed for normal humans and normal human hiking speed now makes my brain want to explode from boredom. I started in the middle city, Corniglia, and hiked off to Vernazza. A one and a half hour hike knocked out in forty minutes and I grabbed myself a panini and some gelato while I waited for my friends.

After we spent some time relaxing in Vernazza, we went to start the hike to Monterosso. The person checking tickets at the beginning of the hike saw my Tevas and said I needed closed toe shoes, even though I had just done a full hike and the shoes offered more support than most of the shoes other people were wearing. No go. I contemplated taking the train to Monterosso and hiking the other way, but there was a chance I would be stopped there too. I grabbed the train back to La Spezia, ran to the hostel to switch shoes and came back, then a train back to Monterosso. I got there around the time my friends did, so we checked out the beach town and then began another hike. This one reaching a viewpoint that provides the other view of all five cities.

After the hike, we took a quick swim. The water in this area is so clear you can perfectly see your feet while swimming. It mostly looks like a giant pool of blue Powerade that extends to the horizon. A pitstop at a restaurant to eat some lasagna and try some white wine made in the surrounding mountains before eating some gelato and heading to the city of Manarola to watch the sunset with a cannoli in hand before heading home.

Back to the hostel, I made a pit stop for more food. I found a burger place near the hostel and stood there for a minute looking at the menu. When I opened my mouth to order, the cashier looked immediately surprised. “I expected Italian to come out when you opened your mouth.”, he blurted. Maybe next time. My burger and I returned to the hostel where the common room and the kitchen were packed with people. I found a corner seat and began eating. The preface this part, I had told my new friends that in over five months of traveling, the only nationality that ever had anything to say about me being American was Canadians. A girl asked where everyone was from. She was unphased when she was told the Netherlands and New Zealand, but when I replied, “I am American.” between bites, she began a tirade. Usually, I reply to this question with “The States” or “USA”, because in the past, other countries from North and South America have been a bit displeased with this answer, but “The States” and “USA” bring about their own confusion with non native English speakers. Her immediate response was “Where are you from? You’re not American. Everyone in North and South America are Americans. So where are you from?” In the past, I probably would have gone toe to toe with her, using my intelligence and general lack of caring what people think to brute force her into an apology, but these things are trivial. I have been traveling for months, this is not the first time someone has had a holier than thou response to me being American/from the US. I calmly replied, “Are you Canadian?” To which her look changed to confusion. “Yes, how did you know?” I told her that Canadians always have something to say about America. She continued and I explained to her that in almost every other language, citizens of the US are referred to with some sort of “American” prefix. Americano, Amerikanisch, Amerikanskiy, etc. I didn’t make these languages and it seems like an odd thing to get up in arms about. My burger was gone and I snuck into the kitchen to find other people to chat with.

At 11pm, the common areas closed and we went to a nearby bar to continue chatting. Looking at alcoholic beverages, I saw “The Godfather”, my go to drink in college when I was quitting drinking but wanted to just have one so everyone would leave me alone. Marlon Brando’s Scotch/Amaretto mix seemed like the perfect drink for Italy. We finished up and headed back to sleep.

One Last Stop

The next morning, I hit up Riomaggore, the fifth city, to check them all off the list. I planned to hike to Porto Verene but it would have been six hours, which would have put me all the way up to my train time. I hiked with my friends from the first night for the first hour of their hike and stopped at a viewpoint that gave me a view of some of the other cities, as well as the viewpoint we hiked to the day before. After I left them, I hiked back down to grab some gnocchi. After finishing up, I grabbed the train back to La Spezia and did a little sight seeing there, since I never saw the city I was actually staying in. From there, I grabbed some gelato and got on my train, with a quick stop in Parma before ending up in Milan.

People had given me many warnings about how boring Milan was, but I rip through most cities in a day, so I wasn’t really worried. I paid a bit extra for a more social hostel to hopefully make a friend to see the city with, but when I got there, it was mostly filled with twenty year old Americans. No thanks. I got a recommendation for what area to eat in, took off and came back to watch a movie.

The next morning, I had hoped to play some volleyball, as it had been over two weeks since I had played. Most of the Italian cities had left me empty handed while looking for beach volleyball, but my lack of speaking Italian and their usual lack of speaking English made it not so likely I would stumble up anything. No luck here either. I left the hostel at 9:30am and headed for Bar Luce. Bar Luce is entirely designed by Wes Anderson and is housed in the Fondazione Prada. After chatting with some Americans who had awkwardly asked me for directions in broken Italian, I took off for Bocconi University.

Prior to deciding to quit my job, discard all of my things and roam the Earth, I had considered quitting my job and running away to a top business Master’s school. SDA Bocconi had been my main choice, since it was in the top ten and was located in Italy. I still have hopes of attending that school, and my newfound desire for Italian fluency only pushes that. I stopped by the campus and it felt a bit like a super tiny Ohio State, so future me could definitely do that. A bit of a walk to the famous Duomo and I stopped to grab a bunch of pictures.

The Duomo is overwhelming. It is huge and full of ornate details. For some reason, there is a crazy long necked dinosaur creature right near the main door and I sat for a bit wondering what other crazy things are on this building. A short walk to the shopping area led me to a tile mosaic bull where you’re supposed to spin on your heel on the bull’s balls for good luck and then to a statue of Leonardo Da Vinci. A lucky text from a friend sent me to the San Bernardino alle Ossa, a church with a room filled with human bones and skulls. The history of Christianity is insane and when they ran out of cemetery room, they decorated this room with bones and skulls. A short walk over to the “L.O.V.E.” statue to end my tourism. This statue was of a very details hand, with every finger cut off besides a raised middle finger, apparently meant for the bankers that fill Milan. Back to the Duomo to enjoy some ravioli and try the apertivo “Crodino” and I decided to end my time in Milan.

After walking ten miles for the day, I went back to the hostel to charge my phone and download some movies for the trip. I also found out the trip from hostel to airport would be an hour and a half, so I wanted to leave early to account for any issues. I grabbed some gelato and carried my stuff to the tram, which I took to a bus, that had fifty minutes to drive to the airport. Then I went through the slowest airport security and finally got on my flight to Madrid.

Technically, Madrid should kind of be in this post based on the date but I will save it for next time. Two days in Madrid, then a weekend in New York for the AVP NYC Open and then I am back in Cleveland after over one hundred and fifty days. Ciao!