Vivian Goes to Venice

What an incredible city! I arrived in Venice on Tuesday night and spent all of Wednesday exploring the city. The Grand Canal flows through the entire city and there are many small canals as well. It's pretty awesome how transport is completely done by boat. Even the ambulances are boats. There are no cars allowed on Venice island past the bus depot. I walked everywhere since the city is pretty small. Of course, like everyone else, I was lost most of the time. Maps of Venice do not have every street labeled and a lot of the streets have no street signs. Apparently, Venice is the place where you're supposed to get lost because you end up finding some beautiful place. I visited the famous churches and some monuments. There really is not much to see other than the canals and the churches.

I stayed in a hostel right off the Grand Canal. Unfortunately, finding accommodation in Venice is the biggest pain and it is EXPENSIVE. It is a pretty nice hostel but the biggest problem is the mosquito infestation. I absolutely LOATHE mosquitoes but for some odd reason they can't get enough of me. In two nights, I have acquired at least 20 bites all over my body. Luckily, I read about this beforehand and brought hydrocortisone with me.

Sorry for not labeling the pictures. I don't really know the names of all the churches and whatnot. Just enjoy the sights. :)

Grand Canal

Gondola -- 80-200 Euros for a ride... definitely passed on that

Rialto Bridge

 St. Mark's Basicilla

I saw only one McDonalds in Venice... this is probably why

 

 Santa Maria della Salute

Vivian Goes to Milan

I took a train on Friday morning to Milan and spent the entire day there. I had to walk around the entire city carrying ten kilos (about 22 pounds) of stuff, 2 kilos of which was Swiss chocolate of course. :) I was extremely exhausted and didn't visit much but to be honest, Milan does not have much to offer other than shopping and a few sights. I visited the Milan Duomo (Cathedral), which was absolutely amazing. I cannot describe it with words. You just have to see for yourself. In front of the cathedral, there is a huge plaza with a bunch of low-lives trying to scam tourists. They tried to scam me twice but I wasn't stupid enough to fall for it. Basically, they go up to tourists and try to give them bird feed to feed the pigeons and then ask if you want them to take a picture. This is the part where they try to steal your camera. Luckily, I didn't see anyone dumb enough to give them their camera. I saw a tourist accept the bird feed and after the thief realized he wasn't going to get the camera, he hassled the guy and followed him around until the guy got fed up and just gave him some money. This is all in front of the police. They seriously do a terrible job trying to protect the tourists.

I also visited two more churches, both of which were not nearly as spectacular. One of the church was where The Last Supper painting is, or so I thought but I found out that they put it in a museum next door. Lastly, I visited the Castello Sforzesco, which is a a famous castle that serves as the icon of Milan. Overall, I wouldn't say Milan is a very impressive city. It really doesn't have all that much to offer. I only went because that was the closet place where I found a cheap flight back to Oslo.

By nightfall, I took a bus to Milan-Bergamo airport where I spent the night. It's an airport for cheap airlines so of course the airport was filled with cheap people like me. There was probably over 75 people by midnight. It was really funny because people had their sleeping bags out or inflatable mattresses. Or they were trying to sleep in the uncomfortable metal benches. I, of course, could not sleep so I just spent the night people-watching and watching movies. At 3:30 AM, the guards came strolling down the hallway to wake everyone up, just because they could. Jerks... After spending 11 hours at the airport, an 2.5 hours on a plane with a seat that does not recline, I reach Norway only to see that it is extremely cloudy and the clouds are very thick. The pilot tries to land but he failed because he couldn't see the runway. He circled the airport for half an hour and tried to land again but failed. I was definitely freaking out. We got rerouted to another airport in Oslo and almost weren't able to land as well but luckily the clouds cleared up a bit near the ground. That was a scary experience to say the least.

 Milan Central Station

 Leonardo da Vinci Statue

 Galleria Vittorio Emanuele

 At this intersection, there are four stores: Prada, Louis Vuitton, another high-end fashion store, and last but not least... McDonalds!

 The McDonalds here has a legit McCafe that sells delicious looking cakes and Italian coffee

 Milan Duomo

 Gelato

 Castello Sforezco

This Tuesday, I'll be going on a two-week trip since I have no classes the following week. I'll fly to Venice, spend two days there, two days in Rome, a day in Florence, take an overnight train to Munich and spend a day there, two days in Vienna, two days in Prague, a day in Berlin, and then I'm flying back to Oslo from Berlin on Saturday, October 15th. It's gonna be a very looooooong trip.

Vivian Goes to Lucerne

On Wednesday, I took the train from Bern to Lucerne, a tourist town in central Switzerland. It is a lakeside town surrounded by mountains. It has a nice Old Town with architecture that has something like fresco paintings on the walls. The Old Town is very cool but they had stores like Foot Locker. That was the last store I expected to see. They have this really awesome bridge called the Kapellbrücke that is built from timber and spans the the length of the river. It's like the icon of Lucerne. Another icon is this sculpture of a dying lion on the side of a mountain that is to commemorate the members of the Swiss army who died during the French Revolution. Overall, Lucerne is a pretty cool place to visit, especially if you take a cable car up to any of the surrounding mountains (too expensive for me). Like Bern, it's not very big and you can walk around the city in a few hours.

Kapellbrücke

Kapellbrücke and Water Tower

Old Town

I think this is the biggest church in Lucerne

Lion Monument

Old Medieval Walls

Cuckoo Clocks

Kapellbrücke -- this picture was taken by a random tourist.. I handed him my camera to take the picture but he took several pictures of me with his own camera first... I don't know whether to be creeped out or flattered.