Biking Italy & San Marino

Well today against my better judgment (or perhaps as a result of it) I decided to break my streak of mostly studying on the weekends and go somewhere. I decided I had been in Italy long enough and it was time for a break so I decided to go to the next closest country....San Marino!

I decided that I would like to bike to my destination once again in order to save some money. Although I decided biking the entire 120 km from Bologna to San Marino would be a bit much especially considering the last 15 km (more on those later!). So this morning at around 9:30 (thats right I set an alarm to go somewhere!), I hopped on the train to Rimini which would bring me within 25 km of San Marino.

As I got off the train it was wonderfully sunny in Rimini (it is after all a beach town), and I had glorious fantasies in my head about how I would bike at top speeds to this little country and take in all the grand vistas along the way that everyone talks about.

Well reality proved to be much harsher. Once I was about 5 km outside of town I was enclosed in a low cloud cover that blocked basically everything more than 150 meters away from view. Before going I had looked into the geography of such a ride and I notice that obviously it would be uphill, but I grossly underestimated how tough and long it would be. About 10 km in I reached the point where it began to climb and did not stop for 15 km. This also put me right into the clouds so I could not even see where I was going (not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing...could of been motivating or depressing!). Anyways after the long climb with several stops, cursing every time I got to a curve or out of the clouds only to find out that the road goes further up, and constantly wondering why I was still going up when I was sure there would be nothing to see at the end due to the clouds, I finally made it to San Marino.

Just as I expected I could see absolutely nothing, and I almost turned around right then and there and went back down. I told myself though that I might as well go have a look (if that was possible) at the historic city center, which was of course even further up, but this time I had to walk. I enjoyed walking around the shops and checking out city walls but honestly I was not overly impressed with the place, then something happened.....The clouds we were immersed in decended just enough for the city center and castle to be above the clouds and what a site it was!

I will not say much more (I will let my pictures do the talking) expect that I think this castle is probably one of my favorite three that I have visited along with Carcassonne and Warwick!

The clouds clearing

Love this picture, just eery

This is the main part of Castle (there were three parts including the watch tower)

Inside the main part of the castle

One of the many city walls

If you would like to see more pictures from my day go to the facebook album.

Blogger + Facebook > Blogger

So I have had some fun over the last few days trying to incorporate new elements into my blog. I learned that several elements of facebook could be placed also on my Blog. I now have photo album links to my past major trips and a world map that shows you where I have traveled to, where I have lived, and a few places which are still on the to do lists. I have included the map in the post but otherwise it is just at the very bottom of my blog. Other random parts I have added over the past months include a link to my linkedin profile and a google search option for searching my blog. Hope you enjoy the new parts.

Thanksgiving in Italy

Well yesterday we officially celebrated thanksgiving here in Italy. It was quite the event with around 130 students, faculty, staff, & family members in attendance. What also made it enjoyable was sharing the experience with many Europeans who had never experienced a thanksgiving before!

As such we had to introduce them to all the important traditions such as stuffing your face with Turkey, saying what you are thankful for, and most importantly covering the history of the Pilgrim's first Thanksgiving in a small skit (ironically put on by mostly Europeans!).

Thanksgiving in Italy was very different from being home with my friends and family (food was not quite as good as well!), but all in all it was a lot of fun. The evening had a non-traditional twist to it as after the big meal Dr. Plumber's band performed in the cafe. Dr. Plumber is a professor here at SAIS who will be going on a two year leave to lead the conclusion of the Doha round of development for the OECD, but he still has time to get a band together, in which he plays the drumbs, guitar, and also sang the lead on "You can't always get what you want". After the band finished many of us went out to a small street bar and then eventually clubbing. I can't say I ever had a evening quite like this one on Thanksgiving before, but it was a lot of fun.

Check out pictures for the evening here at my facebook albumn (you do not need a facebook account).
Italy Pictures

Budget Traveler at it again!

As you may remember from my trip last summer, I discovered that many budget travelers no longer backpack across Europe on trains. Instead many now airport hop from city to city via cheap airlines such as Easyjet and Ryanair. You can literally travel across the continent for just $10 - $50.

While last summer, except for on a couple exceptions, I obviously choose to travel via the rails (after all that is what the romanticized backpacking trip is all about!), this year with time and money even more scarce than last year I have looked to take advantage of such great deals. So with my semester break coming up at the end of January I finally struck on some deals! In addition to flying cheap, I have managed to once again take advantage of free local hospitality and food (like any good student)!

My plan is to finish up finals on the 27th of January and then fly north to England where I will visit the Larkins (very good family friends) for a little less than a week, next I will fly to Krakow Poland for where I will spend two days (great city & exchange rate!) , before heading to Ostrava, Czech Republic to visit Pavala and her family, my final destination will be Vienna! There I will be joining my fellow SAIS students for our very own Venetian Ball in the Hofburg Palace (I saw this palace last year backpacking!).

Hofburg Palace

Somehow I doubt our Ball will be this big of an ordeal, but it still should be very cool!

All in all this trips costs have been minimized while maximizing its fun! Should be quite the experiences! No doubt I several blog posts on it will make its way onto here!

A Wall that Changed the World

Today is a very special day; 20 years ago the Berlin Wall fell. Being only just under 23 years old, I obviously have no recollection of the events that took place up to and on November 9th 1989. What I can attest to is just some of the experiences I have had since the fall of the wall that never would have happened or would be quite different had history played out in a different manor. Some of my memories are more trivial in nature than others but the implications that surround them cannot be understated.


1. Traveling in a united Germany as a sixth grader with my family - one of my most ingrained memories of this trip (other than the endless amounts of brats I ate) was my family’s trip to Dachau. The concentration camp there ingrained itself in the memory of a sixth grader in a way that very few things do, it is hard to imagine the atrocities that were committed there and the innocence that was lost. Obviously WWII is what originally led to the split; the fall of the wall is a reminder of what the Western world went through and the progress that has been made since.

2. Having a Czech sister Pavala! After having Pavala as our summer nanny my family invited her to move in and live with us for over a year while she completed her studies in the United States. My family and Pavala got so close that she is now considered part of our family. Getting to know her and traveling to the Czech Republic to meet her family are things that would have never happened without November 9th 1989.

3. In college my choir, The Wartburg Choir, was invited to sing with the Czech National symphony in Prague for a Christmas benefit concert. Two years later we returned to Europe and had concerts in East Germany and Slovenia. Once again these experiences would not of been possible prior to fall of the Berlin Wall.

4. Backpacking through Europe, was a completely different experience for me than my father when he went on a similar trip 30 years prior, the major difference is the fall of the wall and rise of the EU. As a result I was free to travel into central and Eastern Europe and cross borders without passport checks.

5. Today I am in Bologna Italy studying International Relations. As a TA for Theories of International Relations who spends great amounts of time reading academic papers written over the past century I can see the vast difference in world politics that has taken place since the end of the cold war. While the Bologna Center here in Italy has existed since the 1950s, one can imagine being here prior to 1989 would have made for a very different experience.

Later this evening John McCain will be speaking at the Washington DC SAIS Campus (and via a direct line to Bologna) on the continued importance of freedom today, while I am sure it will not surprise my family members to learn that I did not vote for him a year ago, I still greatly respect him as a war veteran, politician, and fellow human being. I am very much looking forward to hearing his speech on a topic that as you can see has revolutionized the world and my life thus far.

I encourage you to take some time today to think how the world and specifically your life might of been different had the Berlin wall not fallen on November 9th, 1989.