Italy

June 18, 2010

After the program officially ended Greg and I stayed another day in Berlin before flying to Italy. While we were still in Berlin, we visited the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and the Berlin Aquarium. I thought the Checkpoint Charlie Museum was incredible! It was filled with inventions that people from East Berlin had used to escape through the Berlin Wall into West Berlin, and all of the walls were completely covered with news articles—plus English and French translations—on escapees and other historical events. The Berlin Aquarium is separate from the zoo and has three floors, including reptiles, amphibians, insects, and arachnids in addition to all the fish. We went through the whole entire building; the size of some of the tanks and the diversity of the animals made it a pretty impressive aquarium!
Our trip through Italy began in Rome, where we saw the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Vatican Museum. The Colosseum looks amazing when it is lit up at night, but during the day one can plainly see that years of pollution have turned the stone black. We could also see where visitors had carved names and messages into the stone over the years. I really enjoyed our visit to the Vatican, however, because I was able to see the Sistine Chapel. Next we traveled by train to Pisa, where we saw the leaning tower. Although Pisa is a small town, getting from the train station to our hostel turned out to be quite difficult due to unreliable buses and confusing directions. I liked Pisa though, and after climbing the tower’s slippery, uneven stairs I decided the view from the top was well worth the effort. Our last stop was Venice, where we got lost wandering through the incredibly narrow unmarked streets, each one reaching an inevitable dead-end at a canal. This was entertaining for awhile, but after spending an entire day lost in this maze, which is spread out over multiple islands, I had had enough. Our experience with the transportation system in Venice was no better than in Pisa. On our train-ride back to mainland Venice and the hotel, we were fined fifty euros for not having stamped our tickets due to a machine malfunction. The tickets were worth one euro each.
Overall, I felt that the atmosphere in Italy was surprisingly different from that of Germany, for several reasons. First, everything I had heard about Italy made me think the scenery would be breathtakingly beautiful, but I was disappointed. For me, Rome felt too big, too hectic, and too dirty to really be enjoyable. I think the city in general, including such historical sites as the Colosseum, could be better cared for. I also believe the trains and buses in Italy were not as well run as those in Germany and the other countries we visited. Most of the people we met in Italy seemed tired of dealing with tourists, which is understandable. The places we visited were all swarming with tourists like us, confused and unable to speak Italian. Looking back at the past month, I had a better time in Germany than I did in Italy, but this could be because of the particular places in Italy I saw. There are many other sites in Italy I have yet to see, and I hope I will get the chance to return someday.