Megan and I caught our train through the Austrian countryside to Munich, and what a beautiful train ride it was! On the ride there I made some conversation with a sweet 80-year-old German woman, who had asked Megan if I was drunk (since my head was down). I heard the old woman and looked up to see a tinge of panic on Megan’s face. She was super old and kept showing us pictures of cute little mountain towns in a magazine that she had.
After arriving in Munich, we only had a couple of hours before we had to meet up with a mitfahr that was going to bring us to Northern Italy! Our path from Austria to Padova is anything but direct, but arranging it this way allowed us to save about $50 each, so it was definitely worth it. Also, it allowed us to take a drive straight through the Alps, which was filled with epic forests and mountains and cliffs on all sides. It was seriously incredible terrain! Our drivers were a couple from near Berlin, and despite knowing some English, they opted to speak German the whole time. Megan was very patient but I still felt bad because I know very intimately how it feels to get cut out of the conversation, as had recently happened regularly in Hungary and the Czech Republic.
We were dropped off in the ghetto of Padova, which really isn’t that ghetto, but we still had no direct contact with the people we were possibly meeting up with in the city. Eventually, despite difficulty making contact due to phone issues and bad directions, we managed to meet up with Gracie, Ryan and Marina, yet more friends from my time at the International House in UCSD. We went to Ryan’s flat to make some pasta before having a little walking tour of downtown Padova, followed by our first taste of the regional drink favorite called a spritz! At the bar that served Spritz, we were ambushed by some obnoxious Americans, and tried our best to dissociate ourselves from them, with limited success.
The next day we made our way through town, which mainly consists of cobbled streets and foot and bicycle traffic, to the University of California study center, which is near the middle of downtown and is there to serve the couple-dozen-or-so study abroad students in the city. We also got involved with some Grom gelato, which is crazy delicious, and found its way into our diet several more times before we left. We made some sandwiches with delish prosciutto, mozza, basil and tomats, and enjoyed them with some vino for our little picnic in the main square of Padova (prato della valle ), which is a really cool place to hang out day or night. We also found our way to bar500 for Ryan’s cute little Italian sweetheart, before heading out with her to some other spots around the city.
Eventually Ryan and I ended up separated from the others, and after calling them we were told a general region of the city, and that they were at a “party.” Armed with next to no Intel, Ryan and I set out, and with help from a few random Italians in the streets of Padova, we found our way to this almost mythical party. To our surprise it was the right party, and we hung out for awhile in a house party that had pretty clearly become dominated by American students.
On the 19th of Sep, (a.k.a. the next day), we woke up late and got involved with our second batch of picnic-style sandwiches. An old cafe in the center of the town, that had originally been really important for the unification of Italy, was busy with some kind of bicycle showcase, that included a number of old-school penny-farthing bikes, among a few other strange contraptions. It even included some old Italian men dressed in the time period of the bikes, and was a pretty cool little experience. We also witnessed a number of Italian students who had recently earned the Doctorates, which is naturally followed by a tradition of public humiliation, including embarassing costumes and general drunkeness.
I also found myself searching for broadcast internet in the streets of Padova, with a need to send a T-Shirt design I made for the group Zion-I and Ninja Neishon. In the process I was scolded by some strange Italian woman who seemed to think I was stealing something, or invading people’s privacy, by using the internet they are broadcasting publicly. After taking my licks, I walked to the next street, and fired off the e-mail I needed to send anyways.
The next day, Ryan, Gracie, Megan and I took a bus to Venice for the day which only cost $3! We ended up walking through the tiny streets and hallways that comprise the entire city for almost the whole day, and it truly is a sight to see. It’s a shame how well known the city is, because even during the middle of the week, and in the off season, it is almost over-run with tourists. We made it back to Padua for some Spritz with Ryan’s home-stay brother, and met up with Marina one last time before Megan and I would leave the next day.
We relaxed the next morning, printed out our boarding passes, and were soon enough airborn on our way to Roma!