Hawk Hunter

When I mentioned my hostel in Roma in my previous post (Napoli), I should have said "campground". That's right, I'm camping in Roma. This place is kind of like an Italian KOA (that's Kampgrounds Of America, for all you non-campers). The tent is provided, complete with a wood floor and a cot. So I'm not exactly roughing it, but neither is the pop-up that my family uses back in the States, either.

My visit to Napoli (Naples) didn't actually start until the evening of the first since I arrived in Napoli in the late afternoon. My first task was to find my hostel, "Giovanni's House". The directions provided by hostelworld were excellent, but I still walked right past the place on my first attempt at finding it. The hostel's front door was on a small, narrow side street (which is quite normal for Napoli) and the inner courtyard was filled with construction materials. I didn't see the buzzer by the front door on my first pass, so I didn't realize that I had to buzz Giovanni in order to find out where to go once I got to his address.

Happy 4th of July, everyone! I've spent the last few days meandering down to Napoli (Naples) and seeing the sights in the area. Since parting ways with Jesse and Steve in Mannheim I've covered a lot of distance and seen some absolutely gorgeous scenery.

I had my last exam yesterday afternoon, and my summer break is finally underway! After this semester I'm going to be very appreciative of being done with spring classes after the first week of May.

These past two weeks have been crazy! My classes ended on June 7th, and I had the next week to study for my first round of finals. Due to the fact that I'm taking classes from both the first and second year programs I ended up with four finals during this past week. Since the course grade is based entirely on the final having four in one week is somewhat ridiculous. But, that's the way my exams were scheduled and I had to roll with it.

My Uncle Al was in Holland this past week for a business trip and he spent is first day in Europe with me in Amsterdam and Delft. I met him at Schipol airport and we first ventured into Amsterdam to see a few sights there that I hadn't been able to see yet.

I returned to Amsterdam this past Friday to spend the day hanging out with several ISU students who are studying in Mannheim, Germany for part of the summer. One of the students, Jesse, is a fellow FarmHouse Fraternity brother.

Let me start off by apologizing for my blogging absence for the past month and a half. During the past few weeks I've covered 8 (count 'em, eight) countries: Holland (obviously), Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, France, Germany, and Ireland. I've got a list of stories to tell, so they'll eventually make their way onto my site. For now I'm going to write a bit about my most recent adventure: Dublin.

In America we ("we" being the stereotypical college student) go south for spring break. So what do Mitch, Rowena, Jasmine, and I do while in Europe? We go north! The four of us spent our week and a half off from classes in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.