Veni Vidi Amavi

Caution: Long Blog Ahead

The past 13 days I have spent time in four countries, six cities, and made countless memories. On top of traveling a little piece of me was also over in the states as a student choreographer for two pieces in UNK's Spring dance concert, Synergy. I will probably never be able to express my full gratitude for this experience, but I will try my hardest to give a glimpse into this wonderful opportunity I've had these last two weeks! 

Vienna

The necessities for a Habsburg coronation 

We started our journey on Tuesday the 12th by venturing to Vienna, Austria. It was the most sophisticated place. Everyone was dressed in business formal attire and I felt so at ease. I'm not sure why men and women dressed so formally makes me feel at home, but it probably explains my love affair with big beautiful cities where everyone looks important and on some important mission(maybe I should change my major to business?) We walked through the city center, visited St. Stephens Cathedral, the royal treasury, Museum of Modern Art, and spent the rest of our time just wandering the city. The royal treasury was incredible. There isn't a way to even put a monetary value on everything stored in this building. The jewels and other irreplaceable items were left by the Habsburg family whey they were forced out of their empire. I could never imagine having that much wealth nor could I imagine leaving it all behind. My other favorite part of Vienna was the Modern Art Museum. Last semester I took a dance composition course where we were assigned to find a piece of art that inspired you to move, and then to choreograph a solo based off the art. I was artistically overwhelmed in the museum as I was visually stimulated but the art was also inspiring me to create movement.  I love when something you use as a creative exercise comes back and affects you later, so thanks Day for making me choreograph off a couple of flowers that were on a piece of paper and turned me into a the crazy American girl dancing in a museum:). Vienna was a place of sophistication and wonder. I'm so happy I had the opportunity to visit. 

Italy

Seafood pasta

We left Vienna early Thursday morning and took a six hour bus ride through the Alps to get o Venice. If you know me I am the worst passenger/copilot  and fall asleep on trips almost instantly.  I did sleep on this very long journey but am so happy to have been awake for the last few hours to see the beauty the Alps had to offer. We arrived in Venice and I immediately felt the cultural shift of being in Southern Europe, but most of all being surrounded by lively Italians. While in Venice we visited San Marco Square, St Marco Cathedral, Academia, two museums, the Dukes Palace, and the top of the tower in San Marcos Square. My favorite part of Venice was wandering around the city, and with a little encouragement from my peers (and a bottle of chardonnay) a few of us wandered in to the grand canal minus our clothing(Sorry Mommy and Kathy). One night we found a cute restaurant somewhere between being and lost and more lost and enjoyed the most delicious dinner. I had seafood pasta, molten chocolate cake with ice cream, tiramisu, and the house white wine. It was refreshing to have someone serve us who cared about how we were doing and how we enjoyed our meal. We left there with happy hearts and even happier bellies. Italians were a nice change in place from how grumpy and quiet the Czech are. Italians areas loud and more than happy to be alive. Once we were done as a class in Venice we were free to leave for our individual spring break adventures.

a little fick in front of the Milan Cathedral

Sami, Molly, and I hopped on a train and headed to the little town of Bergamo outside of Milan.  Bergamo was only a place for us to rest our heads but we were pleasantly surprised with a beautiful town by the mountains and an apartment to ourselves. Gabriel, the man that rented the apartment for our stay was so helpful and told us where to get dinner and how to get to the airport on our last day. We took a day trip to Milan and again I fell in love with another fast paced expensive city. Each street was filled with high end shopping and people walking the streets to match. While in Milan I enjoyed the shopping scene maybe a little too much, but when in Milan right? We also visited the Milan Cathedral and went all the way to the roof which is also referred to as Duomo. The view from the top was beautiful so we sat on the roof for awhile to embrace another Italian City.

London

Part of the Wicked Marquis

We left Bergamo at four am the next morning to head to what is now one of my favorite cities in the world, London. We landed and were immediately welcomed by ENGLISH. Signs were in english, people were speaking english, and we could ask question in... English! The Stansted express train delivered us to the Liverpool stations where we loaded our Oyster cards which would give us access to the tube which is the London underground system as well as any other public transport we would want to take during our stay. The tube took us to our new 'home' stop of Leyton where we checked into our hotel and rested for a little bit before we conquered the city. Later that day we went to the famous department store, Harrods. it was floors upon floors of designers, but we spent most of our time in the Disney section which was as whimsical as ever.  That evening we went to Wicked on the Westend. The show was as beautiful as I remember from the previous times I had seen it (yes that says times). I would go on and on about my thoughts on their particular production but I will keep it short. Our Elphaba was brilliant, Galinda is even funnier and cuter with a British accent, and whom I assumed were the dance captions deserved their job as dancers and were excellent at their craft. The main reason I wanted to come to London was for the 'Broadway' on this side of the pond, but as I have previously stated I fell in love with the city itself immediately. It was as fast paced and beautiful as my wonderful New York, but the people were happier and it almost felt more magical due its history and mixture of the old world and the new. 

Locked up in the Tower of London

New York might be my first stop after Nebraska but I can definitely see myself living in the city of London. The next day we stopped at Ben's Cookies which my dear friend, Ally Young-Price told us to check out and definitely weren't disappointed and then headed to our hop on hop off tour. We saw The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abby, Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Hyde Park, Green Park and Kensington Gardens. The Tower of London was very interesting.We saw the crown jewels as well as other priceless items still being used by the royal family today.  One of the most interesting things to me was the golden baptismal font that all the members of the royal family have been baptized in throughout history. The Tower also provided me with a little more knowledge of my ancestor King Henry and other royalty that my family tree links back to. That night we attend another Westend show, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was a very cute show but I would not run and see it again. One of the coolest things we visited was Shakespeare's Globe. We were there only a few short days before his 400th birthday and the opening of their production of A Midsummers Nights Dream. During our tour we got to sit in on a rehearsal for the production and see the great Emma Rice at work directing.  We left the Globe and headed to our third and final show, Showboat. On the way we stopped in a cool little street market where I got a tattoo. Psych!! Hope you all liked the picture with my cute little star, but my tattoo was airbrushed and sadly is no longer on my body. However, it was fun to pretend I was a badass for a few days. Showboat was in it's last few days of previews and was so unbelievably  breathtaking. At points in the show I found myself smiling from ear to ear read to get up and dance with the cast and other points I was tearing up from the beauty of their portray of slavery and family in the deep of Alabama. It was a gorgeous show to end our last night in London. However, it wasn't Sami and I's last night in London. Due to overhead wiring issues in the train station we missed our flight to Dublin and had to stay one more evening at a Days Inn next to the Stansted Airpot.

Dublin

Hanging off the edge of the mini cliffs

We finally got on a flight the next morning and headed to Dublin, Ireland. My favorite part of Dublin was not being in Dublin, however the Guinness factory was very interesting.  The Cliffs of Moher was the highlight of this stop of our trip. Outside and nature is not my thing but I could have sat and looked at this beautiful natural wonder for hours. The cliffs are exactly 2,000 miles from Canada so if I wanted to take a nice little swim I would have been to North America in a few weeks. While at the cliffs I got one of my favorite souvenirs, my Claddagh ring. Sami had mentioned the ring a few times, but I hadn't thought about getting one before seeing how beautiful they were and understanding the meaning. The ring is made of three parts the heart, crown, and hands. The heart symbolizes love, the crown symbolizes, loyalty and the hands symbolizes friendship. The ring was first created by an irish fisherman who was kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery. He was taken to a goldsmiths shop and worked there, worlds away from the woman he loved.  He created the first Claddagh ring as a romantic symbol of their love. He dreamed of returning to Galway and embracing his love and was finally freed years later and reunited with his one true love. The ring is worn with the heart facing towards you if you are spoken for and away if you are not. Even though I am not the most romantic person or a person that shows her feelings very often I thought this was a beautiful symbol of the power love can have. Overall these last two week were indescribable. I cannot believe my time in Europe is dwindling but am so blessed to be here. I cannot wait to come back stateside to tell you'll about my adventures, until then I hope my blogs will do. See you next time!