Author: michnyc@gmail.com

We stayed in a small town in the Austrian Mountains called Kirchdorff the evening of their “big” summer nacht party! For the entrance of three euros there was a live band who played recognizable hits such as “Achy Breaky Heart”, stands selling fried bread, beer, fried donuts, beer, and lots adolescents. They had a homemade wheel of fortune type game where I won €20 euros, but also spent a good €8-10 on playing before winning. Whenever I lost, the three toothed Austrian man running the game said “bad luck” and offered me a kiss as a consolation prize, wouldn’t that be a prize for him?

Since there were was not a ton to do at the festival, I did what anyone, slightly off their rocker, would do, I took pictures with the locals. Some with leaderhosen, some without. The goal was to get pictures with as many youngsters as possible and in doing so I met the Austrian Harry Potter! He wasn’t really Harry Potter, but his friends sure got a kick out of it when I kept saying “Harry Potter, Harry Potter” with a Spanish accent and snapped a photo.

Is it odd that after visiting other concentration camps, I’m kind of used to them? You read the signs and look at the maps of what was there and how it looked, but it’s sometimes hard to re-imagine, when all you see is empty space. We stopped into Dachau as a break from an 8 hour drive from Austria to Germany, I was still in sleeping mode, but being there just reaffirmed what I already strongly connect to, my Jewish identity. At Dachau they re-created the sleeping barracks and I remember stories from when visiting Sachsenhausen with my AJC trip to Berlin

The Top Deck tour guide gave us an overview of German history and in talking about WW2 he mentioned the gypsies and homosexuals who were brought over to the camps, but hardly mentioned the Jews. It was weird. We are sleeping in a castle in the Rhine valley which is cool, but doors lock at 10pm so it’s kind of a castle/prison.

I remember going to Venus in middle school and taking a gondola ride. As a true character, my father sang italian hits such as “That’s Amore” grabbing the paddle from the ganzer, Italian word for conductor, and paddled us around. I silently vowed never to return to Venus or to take a gondola ride without a romantic partner. Well, I did return, during the peak of tourist season, with 100 degree heat, and without a boyfriend. It was far from romantic, but to maintain my promise to my 13-year old-self, I didn’t participate in the gondola ride. I did manage to take a picture of a “romantic” gondola ride and incidentally captured the expression of the fella next to me whose face exactly mimicked my sentiments. It was a nice day overall and if you ever go,

don’t try the “crema” coffee, but do try the macaroons!

There is a relatively new adventure sport called canyoning that started in France, has spread to all of Europe and I would imagine is also available in Denver and the Rockies. As one who enjoys water activities, (back in the day I won the water skiing award at camp), all the hot male staff worked there, but that was just an added bonus. When I heard of canyoning, I jumped at the chance– no pun intended.

The adventure started with leaping off cliffs to acclimate us to jumping– I presume. I didn’t feel the need to pay €65 to jump off cliffs, but I did appreciate wearing the borrowed jumpsuits as the water was cccc-old. We wore two sets of wet suits fully equipped with hoodies and so when fully dressed we looked like the human sperm in the beginning of Woody Allen’s movie “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex”.

We entered the canyon wearing harnesses and were “abseiling”, a word common in Australia which means propelling downward. With the help of our trusty guides and a harness we “jumped” down the canyon amid a waterfall and landed in a shallow pool of water. Most pools with any decent insurance would never allow jumping at such a depth, think kitty pool with waterfall.

I am accustomed to being propelled downward after an intense rock-climbing excursion, but all we did was drive to the top of the canyon. It felt like cheating, like eating ice cream before dinner or in this case instead of dinner.The only exertion of energy was putting the sperm suits on, which was quite the challenge. As for the “sliding” down rocks, they were not 5 feet high so we didn’t slide for more than 4 seconds. My roommate who didn’t attend had more of an adventurous experience playing on the swing set at our cabin. In describing the experience to her, she accurately connected it to “sexo malo”, bad sex. A lot of preparation for four seconds and done.

Bottom line, canyoning is for chumps— and as a the chumpiest chump of them all, I would choose a water park over ‘can-yawning’ any day of the week. I would like to note, of the 12 “canyoners” I was the only one not impressed, but doesn’t every party need a party pooper?

There is a tradition of throwing three coins into the Fountain of Trevi and wishing to:
1. Return to Rome
2. Love
3. Marriage

Apparently €3000 are collected daily from coins dropped in the fountain.

I slightly adapted the tradition and only threw in two coins:

1. Love & Marriage
2. That the Value of the Dollar Will Increase

I was at a karaoke bar in Florence filled with wedge wearing tourists belting American standards such as “Sex is on Fire”. With no Italian man eye candy in the near or far vicinity, I found solace in ordering alcohol with friends. The waiter delivered the tower of booze with a fire-cracker glistening at the top. One would think we purchased a bottle in a VIP section, but no it was $32 worth of beer at the Brother Jimmy’s of Italy. Needless to say, I didn’t last long at the bar and soon left. Mom, you’ll be pleased to know I hardly drank half a cup of beer. On the way home, I managed to pass by an outdoor production of Roberto Benini (sp) doing an adaption of “Dante’s Inferno”, this at least made me feel like like I managed to squeeze an oz of culture/class into the evening.

Speaking of class and culture, included is a sculpture in Florenzo, a little to true to life if you ask me.

Don’t call me bro, mate. I have breasts, a vagina, and bleed monthly. I have earned the title of woman, ok bro?