The One With the Roller blades

Bolzano Bozen
Saturday April 2, 2011

So this weekend was much more planned out than it may seem, but a series of Roman Transportation Misfortunes led to quite a change in plans.  Thursday during my food and wine class...which by the way, now that the wine tasting is over, has become somewhat less, shall we say, thrilling.  Especially since we were presenting a group project on futuristic foods.  Don't ask.  It's not appetizing at all.  Anyway, our teacher briefly mentioned a 24 hour national transportation strike.  Now, these are very common in Italy, especially Rome.  Usually though, they are regional, so national presented quite the problem.  Of course, our train to Bolzano was canceled.  Bummer.  So Friday rolls around, and we were planning on taking the 10:30 pm train that night.  That way we'd get in around 8am Sat morning and have the whole day.  (Friday ended up being a good day though, see previous post if you are really that interested).  Back to the story.  So we are anxiously awaiting our train.  Then it comes up on the board that it was canceled.  The bus strike was suppose to end at 9pm on Friday night, but our train was originating in Naples, thus leaving before 9pm.  We (Kaitlyn, Andy, and I) waited anyway.  Maybe it was optimistic side coming out (don't act so surprised), but I just had a feeling we'd regret leaving.  Plus, we didn't have a way home since the metros and buses still were not running.  Good News.  Train was only delayed 2 hours and 15 minutes. Well we finally got on it. 

Now for some history on Bolzano-Bozen. Bolzano was originally part of Austria, however after world war II it was anexed into Italy.  (Bozen is the German name.)  All the signs in Bolzano are in Italian and German, nothing in English.  In Rome there's a pretty good chance that someone will speak a few words of English, but in Bolzano you're lucky if they know Italian.  The culture is very Austrian centered, although Italian culture has made it's way in. 

When we arrived, not too much was open, as it was still early.  We walked around to see the outsides of things and see when everything would start opening.  Our first stop was the victory monument after World War I. 

The victory monument was under some construction, but neat nonetheless.

 Then we wandered into a beautiful park. It went for miles, and there's no other way to describe it except that I wish there were parks like this everywhere!  It even had ping pong tables.  But the best part was the trampoline.  Who wouldn't want to jump on the trampoline with the mountains in the background?  Well it was one of the highlights of my day.  Kaitlyn took pictures, while Andy and I jumped to our hearts content...for seven minutes when the buzzer guy buzzed our time away.  Good thing I had tights and shorts on, hopefully the children weren't too scarred. 

Ping Pong Table in the park

We went to a market and saw lovely fresh food, and then near the park there was a flea market.  It was really cool to look around and hear all the people speaking a mixture of German and Italian.  I also enjoyed seeing what they were selling. 

Market

They actually still wear all the traditional outfits!

Near the park there was a castle, but we couldn't go in. 

Castle Marestch

We went to the Duomo. It wasn't the typical look of a church I'm use to seeing in Rome.  It is a mixture of Austrian, German, and Italian design.  My guess is partly Italian because even when it was part of Austria, the location of the city was bordering Italy.  Inside was gorgeous as well, but much simpler and plainer than Roman Churches.

Outside of the Duomo

Next I had a date with a guy who, age wise, is a bit older than me.  But the heart does what the heart wants....

My Date With the Neanderthal

So we headed to the Archeology Museum that housed Otzi, the 5300 year old Ice Man from the copper age.  A German couple were hiking in the alps (between the border of Austria and Italy) when they stumbled across a dead guy.  Naturally they assumed he died recently, as he was still intact and no animals had eaten him yet.  They were kind enough to report him, and when he was discovered, his true identity came out.  Well not right away, because it took many different professionals to finally discover his true age.  Since this all happened rather recently, within the last 15-20 years, I'm sure you remember this, but nonetheless I find it fascinating.

The part that I found really cool was all of the artifacts they found with him.  His bear fur hat, fully intact because it was found in ice underneath him, his clothes (leg warmers, shoes, everything), weapons, even a berry that functioned as a vitamin.  There was even a first aid kit!  It was so amazing, and to display it all they had to keep it in refrigerated areas at the same temperature it was found at.

Upon further investigation, and through looking at the x-rays, it seems that Otzi didn't just die in the mountains, but was murdered.  This makes it the world's first crime scene investigation!  He was about 45 years old and in decent health.  Minus his osteoarthritis, his weak right knee, and the high level of stress right before he died.  I don't know about you or Otzi, but if I was being murdered, I'm sure my stress levels would rise quite a bit.   They also were able to find out more about the copper age through all of the artifacts and through his intestines...they were able to see what his last meal was 5300 years ago!

Now for the crazy part.  There are actually people that have reached a new point of psychologically messed up.  I thought the bone church lady was off her rocker, well just wait until you read about some of these freaks. There are several people that have tried to contact Otzi, you know those people that claim they converse with the dead.  Anyhow, they decided he didn't respond because he was reincarnated.  Maybe their abilities just aren't what they thought, but the reincarnation hypothesis led to even more crazy people claiming they were otzi reincarnated!  Seriously!  The museum had on display multiply letters and articles about people that are sure the were Otzi in another life!  Now if that isn't unnerving enough for you, read the next sentence because it gets even creepier.  A woman (actually after this woman did, then multiple woman were asking for the same thing) offered to have the neanderthal's babies.  No joke.  This is 100percent not a lie, and factual  information.  They wouldn't release the original woman's name, because she was connected to the research of Otzi, but seriously what a total nutcase.  After much contemplation, they decided it would be morally wrong to force this man to have a child.  How about the poor kid that would come of that?  If it would even be a child, it'd probably come out looking like a bear. Hi, kid, you were born, but you're really just a science project and your father died over 5000 years ago.  Somebody alert the psych wards, cause that lady should be carefully looked after.

Now I bet you regret ever thinking you were crazy for talking to yourself, because that is nowhere near as cracked up as this stuff.


Anyway, Otzi was really cool, even if I'm not a fan of dead people. There were cameras so I wasn't able to take pictures, but I found this one online.  I hope I'm not going against some copyright thing, but I didn't take it....I didn't think the museum people coming after me would be worth it. 

This is Otzi.  He's 5300 years old.  Everyone says age difference doesn't matter right?

 Soprabolzano
After my date with Otzi, we were going to take a cable car up the mountain, but it wasn't working, so we took a train instead.  The first town we reached was Soprabolzano.  We were only here briefly before going up to the next town of Klobenstein.

Train to Soprabolzano.

Klobenstein reminded me of Door County.  It was absolutely beautiful.  On the train ride up we went through woods that could have been our backyard in Gill's Rock, except on mountains.  The town was quient and quaint, and it had a gorgeous view.  We went to a pub for a pint, and they only spoke German.  Luckily Andy took German in high school, and was able to spit some sentences out for us.

View of the Dolomites

Another gorgeous view.

We started in Klobenstein, but we walked to Lenmoos...it wasn't far, and we didn't even realize we walked to another town!

Random Facts
1.  When speaking English we say the language is German, when speaking German the language is Deutch, when speaking Italian the language is Tedesco.  Now, all other languages you can see the similarities (english, inglese.  italian, italiano.  spanish, espanol)  But the varieties in German don't make any sense. 

2.  Even though we were at a very high altitude, it was still almost unbearably hot. 

3.  And here it is, for any of you who continued reading/were wondering what the roller blades title was all about.  At the flea market I impulsively spent three euro on a pair of roller blades.  Then dragged them around for the rest of the weekend.  FYI roller blades are heavy to carry all weekend.   But, as much as I love running, I'm used to having multiple different ways of working out, and here I don't have that so it'll be a welcome change of pace.  Also, they were three euro, you can't beat that.  One slight problem...I haven't rollerbladed since maybe third grade...