Blog two

Hey everyone, sorry for the long time between posts, but internet has been costly in the last couple of cities.  I only have a couple of minutes before I have to go, so I don't really have time for a full update from Florence, Italy (where I am now) but I do have time to copy and paste a word document journal entry that I wrote on the way to Munch, Germany.  Hopefully I'll be able to post another update within a couple of days. 

Im writing this blog entry on a word document sitting on a bus heading to Munich, Germany.  Crossing the German border was an exciting experience for me as it is the first of the countries that I will be seing for the first time while on the trip.  The landscape Im looking at outside is of some of the most beautiful green rolling hills that I have ever seen.  The hills are dotted with giant white wind power generators much like the one’s I remember seing last summer in Ireland. 

While I’m excited to be in this new beautiful country, I am also a bit nervous.  We made a rest stop at a gas station and I ackwardly bought a water bottle without saying a word.  While in France I could get by with the little French I knew, I quickly realized that I don’t even know how to say simple German phrases yet.  I hope to pick up a bit of the language over the next few days that I’m here, and I’m also hopeful that the people of Munich will be as well practiced in English as were the ones in Paris. 

And speaking of Paris, I can’t say enough about the beautiful city!  The last couple of days I had since I made my last post were truly astounding, and I couldn’t have asked for more beautiful weather.  On Friday I got a chance to explore the Musee D’Orsay, which was filled with some great Classical pieces, feturing giant, lifesize paintings that really blow you away (although I still felt they were not on the same level as some of the masterpieces I had viewed the previos day in the Louvre).  After the D’Orsay, a few of the group members and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and take a boat ride for the day down the Sain River (everyone fortunately resisted the urge to bust out into the popular SNL song), which cuts through the heart of Paris.  The boat ride was truly one of the great ways to see the beautiful city.  We saw some sites including the French twin of the statue of Liberty, which I must say was a little bit disappointing compared to her Manhattan counterpart, but nonetheless still pretty cool to see (especially after seeing National Trreasure 2).  The evening was also a special treat as I got to enjoy a performance by a French Jazz quartet.  I enjoyed the atmosphere and the laid back music, although I unfortunately had to watch the show as more of a critic than a spectator as I have a paper due on the performance Tuesday (I’d give the overall show a B-)

Yesterday was highlighted by getting to see Paris’s Grand Opera House, where the legend of the Phantom of the Opera lies.  Interestingly enough, I found that my very own music professor, Dr. Hayden, had played the role of the Phantom with the company that toured through the Fox last year (a few of my colleagues had even seen him perform when he came through).  The Opera house was certainly a spectacle to behold, lavishly decorated with golden statues, marble staircases, and enroumous stone columns.  The other main spectacle of the da didn’t quite fit my taste.  The Pompidou  is France’s very own modern art museum.  While the works we viewed for class were legitimate pieces of art by artists such as Picasso, when it came time to explore the museum on my own I had a hard tome accepting that some of the things I was looking at should be considered “art.”  While the museum certainly housed some interesting creativity, I wasn’t blown away by the majority of the museum’s work. 

Despite my distatste of the Pompidu, I still left Paris truly taken away.  I can only hope the rest of the trip continues to be as exciting .