So Florence'd

Don't get me wrong, Prague, Dublin, and Switzerland were all awesome, but it was for good reason that Florence was the first trip I booked this semester.  The city is more or less Stonehill's study abroad hub: pretty sure when I looked over the list of everyone abroad this semester every other person was in Florence.  When I was making my final decision on where to go abroad, it actually came down to London and Florence.  And after two weekends in a row sitting around London, I was definitely ready to get out of the city.  So I threw my life into a space bag and was off to Stansted Airport.

*Yet another trip that almost ended for one of us before it started.  Halfway through the busride to the airport, my buddy Drew says, "Guys I forgot my camera...and my passport."  We're all in disbelief, and he starts talking about how he's just gonna get off the bus and head home.  But luckily our other roommate Billy was back in the room and sticking around for Thanksgiving.  I told him he should give him a call, and see if there's any way he could run his passport to the airport.  We waited with Drew until about 7:30 for an 8:30 flight, and then me and my two other friends had to go through security.  About 5 minutes before boarding starts we see Drew come sprinting  down the hall, hands raised triumphantly in the air "Rocky" style. 

*Even better is Billy's story of how he made it to the airport when we got back.  The closest 3 underground stations to us were all closed because it was rush hour, so Billy ran about 25 minutes to another one.  Then a bus, train, and some more running later, he made it just in time.  Billy definitely gets MVP of this trip, regardless of the fact that he didn't even go. 

*First impression of Italy: everyone starts clapping and whistling the second the plane touches down in Pisa.  This can only make me think: are you applauding because the planes dont usually land here?

*So Drew and I get into Florence around 1:45 in the morning, but still had to walk to my friend Alex's apartment.  She gave us directions that were completely dependent on us finding this one sign which just so happened to not be lit up that night.  Luckily at 2 in the morning pretty much everyone out in Florence is an American student.  Thank God for North Face, Uggs, and college snapbacks.

*The next day we decided to climb the Duomo, which all my friends in Florence have described as the North Star of the city.  It's by far the tallest building, and if you can find it you can get yourself anywhere.  This became really useful two nights later when I got lost in the city by myself...but that's besides the point.  So climbing the Duomo showed me two things 1) I'm really out of shape, 463 steps should not be that hard, and 2) people in Italy don't build things for people that are over 6 ft. tall.  Cannot tell you the number of times I hit my head.

Worth all 463 steps.

*Later that night we went over to Katie and Jade's, two girls from Stonehill, apartment for Thanksgiving dinner.  Never would I ever have thought that one of the best Thanksgiving meals I've ever had would come in Florence, but I give the girls all the credit in the world.  Then it was off to the Irish pub we passed on the way there because after 3 months of "football," we wanted to actually watch real football. 

*Signed the Stonehill shirt at the Lion's Fountain...I think.  If someone wants to get me a picture of it to confirm it'd be greatly appreciated. 

*Discovery of the trip: Long Island Iced Teas (yeah I'm a little late....I hear you).  I want to meet the genius who invented it and shake his hand.  I'm sure my liver doesn't feel the same way.  Pretty sure the title of this post was the product of a handful of these. 

*I kept hearing people around the city complaining about Albanians, but I didn't really get what the issue was.  So eventually I asked one of my friends, and he asks me if I've ever been to Central Park.  When I say yes, he goes, "Okay now imagine all the pigeons in Central Park.  That's how many Albanians are in Florence."  Best analogy ever.

*So after getting lost Saturday night I almost got pickpocketed/molested/a combo of the two.  I'm not entirely sure because I thought the guy was just reaching for my wallet, but when I told the story to a friend she told me there's a gay club right on that street. Can't help but laugh looking back on it.


Yeah we made these grand plans to go to Rome and see the Leaning Tower, and we ended up just hanging in Florence for 4 days.  I'll tell my Mom it was the train strike.  But it was great actually having some time to spend in a city other than London.  Our trips usually are 36 hours of straight chaos, so actually having time to walk around was awesome.  Good food and good friends, I don't think I could really ever ask for more.  So thanks Italy, you might've ruined all forms of pasta and pizza for me for the rest of my life, but I had an unreal time.

The Home Stretch

Quick look at the calendar today brought me to the painful realization that there's only 5 weeks left in London. GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE. Really not ready to go back to normal, boring life.  Over here when someone asks me what I did last weekend, typical response is something like "Oh, went to [insert foreign country here] and did [insert life-changing experience here].  No big."  As soon as I get back home that response will quickly change to, "Oh, I went to [insert random Courts party here], and then went to the Hill for chicken fingers."  Perspective.

But don't get me wrong, I want to come home.  At this point my sanity, not to mention my bank account, pretty much need me to.  So when I was bored the other day at work I compiled a list of stuff that I miss.  I'm not talking about the bigs things, like family and friends: yeah, of course those are the things I miss the most but there too obvious.  This is more about the small things that you barely even notice when you have them.  So, in no particular order....


1. ESPN/NESN/Any other sports channel

Stop by our flat on any given Sunday, and you'll see one pretty weird sight.  All of us in the common room, on our computers with earphones in.  We're all watching football usually, except for Billy when NASCAR is on...there's really nothing better than Sunday's back home.  Role out of bed at noon, run to the cafe and get breakfast, come back and shower, and then chill for the rest of the day watching football.  Doesn't exactly work that way here.  Throw on top the fact that our internet sucks most of the time, and all sporting events pretty much become unwatchable.  I'm at the point where I would trade my left arm for ESPN.  And a working TV, our's hasn't worked for over a month now...


2. Commons Food

Yes, you did read that right.  I miss cafe food, a lot.  "But there's no variety, they serve Pastabilities like 4 times a week," you say? Go abroad and then talk to me.  You end up eating the same 5-6 meals all the time.  My roommates and I must eat buttered pasta minimum 4 times a week, but at least at this point we are really fucking good at making it.  One of the first weeks here I got a FB message from a friend back home that they had Buffalo Chicken Penne for lunch, easily my favorite meal at Stonehill.  Which brings up a completely different question: is there a better meal at Stonehill than Buff Chicken Penne? 

Not only is it the food, but the fact that it's made for you, which I constantly take for granted.  It easily takes longer to make a real meal than it is waiting in line at the Commons.  On top of that, when your housing company only gives you one of everything for each person in the flat, you pretty much have to do dishes after every meal...


3. Every System of Measurement We Use in the US

First time I go to order deli meat and the guy behind the counter asks how many grams I want.  Dude I want turkey not weed...gotta love the metric system.  Go the gym and everything is in kilograms.  Might've been helpful to know 4.5 kilos=10 pounds before I tried lifting the first time.  My favorite is the temperature, when I can look outside and see a sign that says 10 degrees.  In my head 10 means bundle the fuck up, then you get outside and it's like 50.  Can't wait to not have to convert things in my head.


4. The Quiet

I guess this comes with the territory of never having lived in the city.  But it's loud more or less all the time.  Especially since I'm a really light sleeper, there's nothing worse than getting woken up by an ambulence/jackass in a Porsche/random group of drunk Europeans.  One of the first things I noticed when we got to Switzerland, even Dublin, was how quiet it was. 


Well, one more weekend in London after this one, then Florence, Paris,  last weekend in London, and finally home.  5 weeks left, you better believe I'm gonna make sure they all count.

The Greatest (and Most Expensive) 55 Seconds of My Life

     So after a solid month and a half of waiting and anticipation, this past weekend finally rolled around.  It was funny how it all really started, with one of my roommates just throwing out the idea of skydiving over the Swiss alps.  A couple weeks and about a 100 Youtube videos later, we were all booked.  It never really hit me though that I was about to jump out of a plane, even through the trip to Interlaken.  Everything changed really quick when the plane door got thrown open: I was the first one to jump out of our group and was sitting on the floor.  The wind starts pouring in and I hear the 30 second warning from my instructor.  Shuffle over to get my feet on the tiny step, and then next thing I know we're backflipping out of the plane. 
     The next 50 ish seconds are more or less a blur, I've watched my video atleast a dozen times since I got back and the whole thing still feels so surreal.  Looking down on all of the mountains and the entire city of Interlaken, I kinda forgot there was a camera in my face the whole time.  Next thing I know the chute came out and we were gliding back down.  It was honestly a once in a lifetime experience, completely worth every dollar/pound/Swiss franc I paid.

Hans and I just hanging out. Hah pun.

     So naturally skydiving was the crown jewel of the trip, but the rest of Switzerland was still amazing.  Except for Bern. Bern sucked.  Here's a couple of highlights from the trip:

*Yet another trip that almost ended before it started.  We went to the wrong bus station, and made the bus to the airport with a minute to spare.  Also realized how completely out of shape I am from the sprint we had to do to make it...

*Not even 5 minutes off the plane in Zurich and I make a complete dick of myself.  Thought all of the signs in the airport were in German, so I turn to my friends and ask if Swiss is even a language.  Apparently I was a little loud, as a couple heads turned and one lady informed me that it was in fact a language and all the signs were Swiss. FML. Note to self for future trips: actually look into the place you're going so you don't end up as that asshole American tourist.

*I guess I should explain why Bern sucked.  So we get off our plane knowing we had about a 2 1/2 hour train ride of to Interlaken.  We head over to the station and ask for a ticket, and the lady tells us we made it just in time for the last train.  What she failed to mention was how much time we'd have to change trains once we got to Bern.  We get off the first train and see on the big board we only had 3 minutes to get on the train to Interlaken, and had no clue where the track was.  I have never ran that fast in my life, hadn't even sat down before the train started moving.  We really lucked out, otherwise that would've been a long six hours in the Bern train station.

*We get into Interlaken around 12:30 am, and the entire city is dead.  No cars, no music, no random drunk people yelling.  Just silence.  Wasn't until we got to the hostel that we found out there's a 10pm noise curfew in Switzerland.  One of the few exceptions to said rule is the bar/club at our hostel, which is underground.  Been to some weird clubs so far this trip, this might've taken the cake.  10 dudes dancing by themselves, people doing the Cotton Eye Joe dance to Party Rock Anthem, guys my dad's age macking on girls probably half their age: I've definitely seen it all now.

*The guys who run the skydiving company are some of the most chill people I've ever met.  On the other hand, they're also some of the biggest nutters I've  met too.  One of the guys who my friends jumped with, Tim, told us during the summer he'd jump 13 times a day.  The guy I jumped with, Hans, said that today was a slow day because he'd only jump three times.  Imagine that conversation: "Yeah had a really bad day at the office, only got to jump out of a plane 3 times..."  Definitely part of the job requirement that you have to be certifiably crazy.

*Don't think it dawned on us until after we jumped how lucky we had been to actually do it.  The guys told us that they had to cancel all the jumps before and after us because of the weather.  We ended up going in the perfect window.  Considering the entire purpose of the trip was to skydive, we got extremely lucky, but our gamble was well worth it.

*So after jumping on Saturday, we needed some kind of adrenaline fix for Sunday before we left.  Renting out mini-cars that can get up to 60 mph and bombing through the mountains seemed like a good idea.  Until my car decided to die, of course.  But once we solved that shit, we managed to get pretty far up.  After two months of skyscrapers in London, Switzerland was abosolutely amazing.  If you ever have the opprotunity try and get to Interlaken, promise it will be well worth your money.

So I managed to survive Switzerland.  The same cannot be said for my bank account though.  But like I said, it was worth every penny, and made all those shitty days at Rite Aid the past 3 summers well worth it.  Now I have a couple weekends in London to catch my breath and get ready for the home stretch. 

DUBLIN

Yeah so I've been slacking on the blog the past couple weeks.  Apparently sometimes you have work when you study abroad.  Never before has a 6 page paper been such a struggle. #Studyabroadproblems

This past weekend me and a bunch of friends went to Dublin.  Halloween weekend it seeemed about right.  Prague set the bar high, and Dublin definitely lived up to it.

*So for our flight we had to be up at 2:45 in the morning.  Naturally the only logical thing to do is stay up all night then.  We tried to make excuses like "oh it's Game 7 of the World Series, we gotta watch it," but do you really think we watched a single pitch?

*My trip to Dublin actually was almost over before it began.  In a move of complete stupidity I forgot to put money on my Oyster Card.  Completely lucked out that my roommate Drew had two of them, otherwise this post would be about shit I did in London all weekend.

*First two places we went to in Dublin were the Jameson and Guinness factories...sure my mom would love to hear that even the tourist stuff I'm doing is drinking related. 

*After being up for about 34 hours straight, first thing I did when we got to our hostel was pass out.  This was the first time I stayed in a hostel, let's just chalk it up as an "interesting" experience.  So I fell asleep and woke up to a bunch of  girls with really broken English.  After deeming them not to be psycho axe murderers, I went down to meet the girls I'd be sharing the room with.  All of them, so fucking weird.  One from Slovenia, one from Slovakia, two from Spain.  I quickly see this turning into a bad EuroTrip esque scene. To be continued...

*So our plan for the night was to wear our baller Halloween costumes and do a pub crawl through Dublin.  We started out according to plan at Probably the Smallest Pub in the World. No seriously, that was the name of the place.  Definitely lived up to the billing, I could hit my head on the ceiling.  But the second place we went to wouldn't let us in because they thought my and my two roommates were a bachelor party, and we weren't dressed appropriately.  It's the Saturday before Halloween in Dublin, C'MON MAN.

*After having our pub crawl route fall apart, we just started walking into any bar we saw.  As a result two things happened: 1) we ended up crashing a 40th birthday party.  Gotta love cougars. And 2) I met a very distant cousin.  Down the line all McCormick's and McCormack's are related, thanks Ellis Island for dividing us.  So that makes us something like 8th cousins probably.

*Our costume was the Harlem Globtrotters, pretty solid.  When we wore them out Friday night in London everyone got it, can't say the same for Dublin.  People kept coming up to us asking if we were the most random shit. Professional soccer players from Liverpool, guys from a commercial that only people in Dublin know?

Just killing it.

*Part two of the hostel room story.  So I get back to the room late and crash, only to be woken up an hour later.  Some girl is shaking me asking if I'm Matt.  I say yes and she tells me that I'm in the wrong bed.  She asks if I can move over to the empty bed a couple feet away.  Ok honey, so you wake me up at 4 in the morning to ask if you can have the bed I've been sleeping in as opposed to a completely clean one? Good logic...then the weird girls come barging in at 5 in the morning and cause all havoc.  Turning lights on and yelling with their annoying broken English.  I'd say I'm staying away from hostels in the future, but I'm staying in one this weekend too.

In all seriousness though Dublin was a great time.  It's more or less Boston with smaller buildings, definitely the best way I've heard to describe it.  After this next weekend though, nothing's going to compare.  Switzerland here we come!

PRAHA

So this past weekend was my first foray out into Europe.  A couple of my roommates and I booked a pretty last minute trip to Prague, or Praha in Czech.  Despite being there for 3 days, this is still probably the only word of Czech I know, so we had to pull the "dumb American tourist" card quite a bit.  Regardless, the plane ticket to Prague was probably one of the greatest buys of my life. 

*Point of note for all future trips: when you have to be up at 3 for your flight, staying up til 1:30 playing Landmines might not  be the best idea.  Quick shout out to Olivia, who ran out to the store at 2 in the morning and made us sandwiches for the trip, which would have been infinitely more painful on an empty stomach.

*Boarding on a discount airline is vicious.  Essentially you're forced to wait around until your gate is posted on the board, and then it's a mad sprint to beat everyone on your flight.  And being first actually matters here, because you get the one row in the plane with extra leg room.  We found out the hard way by coming in second, and my knees were in my chest the entire flight.

*Prague is an interesting city in that it doesn't have a quintessential tourist attraction like a lot of the other cities in Europe, and lacks the one big postcard monument (think Big Ben, Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa status).  Oh you say I'm wrong, well here's a picture of the biggest tourist spot in Prague:

This random thing on the wall is the Astronomical Clock.  And every hour hoards of people stand around to see the clock move. Cool story bro.


*When one of my roommates told his boss that we were going to Prague, his boss said that he probably will be seeing a lot of the inside of a pub.  And yeah he pretty much hit the nail on the head with that one.  But when we actually decided to climb up to Prague Castle, it was well worth it.  Just took three stops at different pubs on the way up....

*On Saturday, the girls we were staying with took us to The Pub. Yeah, creative name I know.  Basically the premise of this place is that they have the tap in the middle of the table, so when you want to fill up your glass you just pick your number on the little touch screen and use the tap.  Plus the touch screen is how your order food, and can pick songs to be added to the playlist.  But what sold me on the place was the giant scoreboard on one of the walls.  It ranked everyone who was in one their different locations by which table had drank the most.  Personal accomplishment of the day...we beat Berlin. Best part: go to pay at the end, and it ends up being less than $12.  For the first time in a month and a half I wasn't getting killed by the conversion rate.  This place needs to be in America and it needed to be there yesterday. So if this whole accounting thing doesn't work out for me, I already found my way to make millions.  Strongly considering dropping out of school and starting my own franchise (KIDDING MOM). 

Seriously, let's make this shit happen people.

And despite not knowing more than a word or two of Czech, we made it back to the airport in one piece.  Prague set the bar REAL high, I hope the rest of Europe (more specifically Ireland, Switzerland, Florence, and Paris) is ready to bring it.

Hey Mama

Indulge me on this one guys....

Over the first 20 years of my life, no one has done more for me than my mom.  I feel incredibly blessed to not only have a mom, but a best friend who and will always be there for me.  Which considering the circumstances is pretty amazing...

See my Mom was diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis) a couple years before I was even born.  I guess I was just too young to notice that my mom walked a little bit differently than most people, and that pretty much the second after she tucked me in when I was little she hit the sack herself.  Even when she told me when I was about 11, all it really meant to me was that we got to skip lines in Disney World and park in handicap spots. 

Despite all of this, my mom is by far the hardest working person I know.  Yeah she has her rough days, but rarely does she ever use it as an excuse.  If I had half of the work ethic and determination she has I would be pulling a 4.0 with ease.  And whenever I think I'm having a rough go of it, thinking of my Mom having to drive with her left foot because she can't move her right one is incredibly grounding.

And so on her birthday, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to my mom.  I know a stupid blog post can hardly do her justice, but at least I'm gonna give it a try.  Maybe I'll actually send her the link to my blog now so she can read this.

Didn't have a title for this blog, and then this song came on shuffle.  Kinda funny how those things work out...

One Wild First Month

Want to live life like your going 1000 mph every hour of every day?  Well, you can go do a ridiculous amount of speed...or take the slightly more legal route and study abroad in Europe.  I literally cannot wrap my head around the fact that a little over a month ago at this time I was in my house back in RI, frantically packing for my flight.  When I look around at my friends here, it's so strange thinking 30 days ago I never knew they existed. 

And even though I probably look like a zombie most of the time (sleeps tends to not happen), I'm having the time of my life and wouldn't change a thing.  Here's just a ESPN highlights version of the first month...

*The first day here I lugged all my stuff up four flights of stairs in search of Flat E...only to reach the top and the door said "D."  Thinking I was in the wrong building, I proceeded to carry everything back downstairs.  As I get back to bottom I hear one of the girls living in D yell to me that they found Flat E.  We have to go through the girls suite and up another flight of stairs to get to our room.  Later that night all the guys I'm living with decided to nickname our flat the Penthouse.  Even though our apartment kinda sucks, we hype it up to everyone.  Our shitty TV that has all of 6 channels (on a good day...) is our "home entertainment system."  The fan becomes a "climate control system."  If you're in London come get the Penthouse tour firsthand. Life changing.

*Never would've thought that after a month here I would've been to more rugby matches than soccer.  Considering I had no idea about most of the rules, have to give credit rugby is an insane sport.  Oh, and that jersey I had a picture of in one of the first posts...guess who's a proud owner of one of those?  Gotta love having a friend who works for the team and the subsequent employee discount.

*One of the first things we noticed at dinner Day 1 was that we only had 5 of everything: plates, knives, cups, and the like.  That was until we went to this one pub that throws everyone out the door at midnight.  Really, do you expect a bunch of poor American kids to stick around and return the glasses?  So needless to say we've "acquired" quite a few glasses...and a hard hat.  Still don't know how I ended up with that one.

*Apparently I give the "drug addict" vibe to people in London, can't tell you the number of guys who have walked up to me and asked if I wanted to buy.  Funny thing is more guys have offered me coke more than anything else.  Read an article a while back that a line is cheaper than a beer in London, it was on Barstool so it must be true.    

*No matter how many times it happens, I still can't help but laugh every time I hear a little kid with a British accent. 

*In one of my poorer decisions, decided to go on a pub crawl with internship the next morning.  By about 12 I was starting to nod off, and I really didn't want to pass out at my desk second week on the job.  Simple solution: go take a nap in the bathroom.

*The amount of people that smoke in this city is sickening.  Even worse, no one really seems to pay attention where they blow their smoke.  If I had 5 pence for every time someone decided to blow smoke right in my face...

*Not having ESPN or any American sports is killing me.  Our suite must be such a sad site on Sunday, each one of us huddled up with our laptops trying to stream football with our shitty internet connection.  On a side, First Row Sports is a godsend.  Pretty much can watch any sports game imaginable.

*Animals here are absolutely fearless.  Squirrels will run right up to you in the park, and if you offer them food they'll sometimes climb up your arm.  And I'm positive before the end of this trip I'm gonna get hit by a pigeon, they dive bomb through crowds with absolutely no regard for their own safety.

And even though I cry every time I see my bank statements (which after I book my last few trips later tonight is going to look even worse...), I wouldn't change a thing about the last month.  One of my friends joked about how you just need to "swipe it and forget it."  You're really only gonna have one chance like this to tear shit up in Europe, you need to make the most of every moment.