Wow - I cannot believe 5 months have passed and I am headed to Madrid tomorrow night! This weekend was really fun. I went to Pilar's apartment on Friday night and we just hung out. Saturday night we went to Mae West and stayed until 7 AM! Then we woke up at noon and headed to the beach in Malaga. We brought and umbrella and food with us (like real food - meat and spanish tortilla) which I guess is really common here in the summer. People brought tables and chairs with them and everything! The weather was beautiful and we stayed until around 7:00 PM when the sun started going down. Yesterday Cheryl asked me what I am going to miss the most about Spain...and I got to thinking about all of the things I love about this gorgeous place....
My Friends
What started as an intercambio with Pilar became a great friendship. I talk to her every day, and I love hanging out with all of her friends. She is one of my best friends, and I am going to miss her sooo much! I am really glad we got to travel together and I can't wait until she comes to Chicago!! After I met Pilar, the time started to fly here - I look back and it's like a blur - we have done soo much together in a very short period of time.
Even though I drifted from a lot of the American friends I made initially after I met Pilar, I am still glad to have met them and I look forward to seeing them at ISU and reminiscing about our time here.
The City
Granada is an absolutely amazing place. There is a famous quote by Francisco Alarcon that says, "Dale limosna, mujer, que no hay en la vida nada como la pena de ser ciego en Granada." He said this to a girl that was being approached by a blind beggar. It means "Give him charity, girl, as there is nothing worse in life than being blind in Granada." The city is absolutely gorgeous. With the view of the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada...sometimes when I walk around, I still feel awestruck at the beauty. Granada is a big city, much bigger than what I was expecting...but the center is very small - you can get everywhere you need to go walking. There are a lot of pueblos (suburbs) of Granada where many people live with their families but come to the city to work. There is so much history here. With the Alhambra and Los Reyes Catolicos' bodies preserved in the Cathedral...every day I walk past a gorgeous fountain/statue of Christopher Columbus proposing his plan to Queen Isabel. The streets are so clean, the shopping's amazing, there's a beautiful green park nearby with palm trees and flowers...I am really going to miss the city.
The Food
I have tried more new food in the past 5 months than I have in my entire life! I lucked out with my host family and we have amazing food cooked for us every day! I love the Spanish tortilla, paella, sangria...all of the typical Spanish foods. I even like cured ham on rolls! Although I am not crazy about sea food, I have found a lot of types I like - salmon, dorada, shrimp...Granada's tapas are amazing especially because, unlike the rest of Spain, they are free when you order a drink!! They cost anywhere between 1 and 2 euros which is super cheap because the food is super good! My favorite places are La Bella y La Bestia, Riviera (where I tried fried octopus by the way), and POE. I love just walking around and stopping into different bars for tapas.
The Culture
Although it was hard to adjust to and still is hard to follow, the slow, relaxed pace of life here amazes me. When I walk through the streets, I pass TONS of people and I don't even feel like I am walking fast haha - people just stroll along, enjoying the city, the people they are with, and the weather. In stores and restaurants everything is much more relaxed. If you can't pay today, come back tomorrow. The customer is NOT always right haha. "No Ashley, I have no idea when your midterm is going to be and your final project is due sometime in the next few weeks..." haha - it was really hard for me to adjust to that when ISU has parents' weekend planned for 2015! I had to start leaving my house at the time we arranged to meet because otherwise I'd be waiting for a half an hour. The band goes on at 10:30 really means get here at 11:30! Ryan's flight out of Malaga left at 7 and the check in desk didn't open until 5. The offices didn't open until 6...haha so why did we get there at 4? I used to think I was last minute because I like arriving places right on time...ask Ryan he hates it - but now last minute has a whole new meaning. Also, the closeness of families...Pilar and Ange talk to their moms every day even though they are 25 and 26 years old. The family is very important here and everyone always knows what's going on with each other. The daily schedule is also really different. Lunch time is a time for family conversations and a big nice meal. We eat lunch around 3, take a siesta, and then most people eat dinner between 9 and 10 PM. If we go out at midnight, we are the first people in the bar!! Discos get busy around 3:30 AM and close at 6:30 AM. It took some getting used to, but now I wouldn't want it any other way!
Granada is the perfect place for me. The city is the perfect size, with lots of students and a great night life, and I love the Andalucian culture. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity. I have learned so much and changed a lot. I've been to so many places I never thought I would ever get the chance to see. I have made friends that I'll have forever and memories that I'll never forget.
Monday, May 18, 2009
London
HEY! So I went to London May 8 - 10. I was so sad to be missing Ryan's graduation and birthday!! It was such a great trip though - I went with Pilar, Ange and Susana (all Spanish girls) so being in London was crazyy! They were going, going, going all the time in Spanish way to fast for me to get it all, and I was their translator. Pilar is so good at English, but obviously when you are with Spanish speakers it's much easier to speak your native language. At times it was crazy because of the language thing and because the Spanish are ALWAYS LATE! And I was always ready to go and waiting on them to do their makeup (thanks guys im allergic) and change a million times and everything and I THOUGHT I WAS BAD! lol Being with 3 Spaniards was a lot different than when it is just Pilar and I. I love them all, but I'm just saying it made a lot of cultural things a lot more apparent. There was a bar in the hostel (it was hugeee!!) and so the first night we got there late and had a drink in the bar before it closed. In the morning we went on the free tour that the hostel offered (we chose Spanish lol) so I didn't really get the full effects of the jokes and everything because I was tired and sometimes it's hard to listen to all that historical stuff in English....so meanwhile I was taking all these amazing pictures =) After the tour (we saw Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the London Eye, etc.) we went to this great place for lunch that the guide suggested and I had fish and chips of course which I really really loved. Then we went on a boat cruise along the Thames River which was awesome because it took us past a bunch of stuff we had yet to see and we ended at the London Bridge and the Tower of London which was really really cool. By the time we got back to our hostel, it was 8:00 PM and the bar crawl with the hostel started at 7:30. Then everyone changed and everything and we somehow caught up with them around 9:00. It was a pretty good time, but we were all EXHAUSTED and could barely stand up haha - so we went home around 1:00 AM. The next day we headed to Camden town which is this cute little shopping center with a bunch of little shops. We walked along Oxford St. for a while which is the famous shopping street in London and bought some souvenirs. By the time we were finished, it was time to head back to the hostel to get our stuff and head to the airport! I really liked London, and I'm really glad I got to get a little taste of it. I definitely want to go back because it is such a big city and there was definitely a lot more to see!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Marbella y Dia de las Cruces!
Hey hey hey! So another great weekend has passed, and I can't believe I only have two left in Spain!! I am full of emotions right now - happy and sad at the same time!! It's madness!
Thursday night we went out to Mae West (my favorite discoteca that I am going to miss!!), and Friday afternoon Pilar and I left for Marbella. It was about a 2 hour drive, and before heading to her aunt's house, we went to Puerto Banus which was full of veryyyy rich tourists!! (Jimmy Choo, pink hummers - you know the works) and we walked around and took some cute pics =) We got to her aunt and uncle's house and oh my goodness!!! It was the most adorable place with her paintings decorating the walls (of mostly flowers =)), very modern appliances (a capucchino machine!!), and two of the nicest people I have met while I have been here!! They made us dinner - I TRIED RIBS! and showed us our cute room lined with BOOKS!! Pilar's aunt teaches high school Spanish so it was awesome to talk to her about studying language. We watched TV, played Spanish and English vocab games on Nintendo DS, and Pilar and I watched a movie before going to bed. On Saturday, Pilar and I went to a beautiful beach. It was really windy, but nevertheless packed with people!! Afterwards, we drove to La Cañada which was this hugeee shopping mall and walked around and ate a late lunch at an "American pizza" place (haha it was pretty good but not Beggar's) Then we headed back home and relaxed and had amazing lasagna for dinner made with bechamel which is this white sauce that I LOVE instead of red sauce. It was really late by the time we were finished so after watching TV for a little while, we went to bed. In the morning we had coffee of course and headed back to Granada for Dia de las Cruces!! This was soo fun! We took a bus into the Albaicin and met Ange and a bunch of Pilar's friends. We ordered food and drinks and talked at these outdoor parties that were stationed around crosses made entirely out of flowers!! I am going to research the celebration more actually because I have to write a paper on a festival and this was really interesting. I went home around 8 to get ready for classes Monday. Today is Cinco de Mayo so I'm going out with Americans for Mexican food =)
Thursday night we went out to Mae West (my favorite discoteca that I am going to miss!!), and Friday afternoon Pilar and I left for Marbella. It was about a 2 hour drive, and before heading to her aunt's house, we went to Puerto Banus which was full of veryyyy rich tourists!! (Jimmy Choo, pink hummers - you know the works) and we walked around and took some cute pics =) We got to her aunt and uncle's house and oh my goodness!!! It was the most adorable place with her paintings decorating the walls (of mostly flowers =)), very modern appliances (a capucchino machine!!), and two of the nicest people I have met while I have been here!! They made us dinner - I TRIED RIBS! and showed us our cute room lined with BOOKS!! Pilar's aunt teaches high school Spanish so it was awesome to talk to her about studying language. We watched TV, played Spanish and English vocab games on Nintendo DS, and Pilar and I watched a movie before going to bed. On Saturday, Pilar and I went to a beautiful beach. It was really windy, but nevertheless packed with people!! Afterwards, we drove to La Cañada which was this hugeee shopping mall and walked around and ate a late lunch at an "American pizza" place (haha it was pretty good but not Beggar's) Then we headed back home and relaxed and had amazing lasagna for dinner made with bechamel which is this white sauce that I LOVE instead of red sauce. It was really late by the time we were finished so after watching TV for a little while, we went to bed. In the morning we had coffee of course and headed back to Granada for Dia de las Cruces!! This was soo fun! We took a bus into the Albaicin and met Ange and a bunch of Pilar's friends. We ordered food and drinks and talked at these outdoor parties that were stationed around crosses made entirely out of flowers!! I am going to research the celebration more actually because I have to write a paper on a festival and this was really interesting. I went home around 8 to get ready for classes Monday. Today is Cinco de Mayo so I'm going out with Americans for Mexican food =)
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Dublin, Ireland
Hey!! I went to Dublin this weekend with Pilar and her friend Ange. It was amazing and I would definitley love to see more of Ireland in the future! We were only there from Friday night to Sunday but we still managed to take almost 300 pictures?! lol
Friday, April 24
When we got to the airport in Dublin, I had to stand in this long line because I was a non-EU citizen and they asked me how long I was staying, where I was staying, why I was there, and who I was with - it was so weird!! We got out around midnight and found our hostel in the Temple Bar area pretty easily. We were really lucky that Pilar studied abroad in Dublin for a month last semester so she knew where everything was!! We dropped our stuff off and went to Temple Bar until it closed around 2:30. Then we got some food (along with everyone else haha the party just seemed to move to the street even though it was raining) and headed home to get some sleep for our long Saturday.
Saturday, April 25
We woke up, ate breakfast in the hostel and headed towards the tourism office (which was inside a beautiful church!!) to get some maps and buy some souvenirs. On our way there we crossed Ha'penny brigde which was the first bridge to be built in Dublin in 1816 and was really cute lol. We almost died a few times because they drive on the other side of the road!! Which made crossing the street kind of a process haha - we probably looked ridiculous! Pilar told us that because all the doors and doorways look the same, they paint them all different colors so they can find home at night coming back from the bar!! haha it really was like St. Patrick's Day every night - it was crazyy! Then we saw the Molly Malone statue which is really famous in Dublin - she is the theme of "Dublin's National Anthem." We also went to Trinity College which was gorgeous!! (tons of famous people went here like Oscar Wilde) It is the oldest college in Ireland and it was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth. The buildings were all huge and amazing and the Book of Kells is housed here (a super ancient celtic book from 800 AD) We didn't pay to see it, but we saw the exact replica in the Bank of Ireland which was also amazing!! It was the first custom-built parliament house in the world built in 1739!! And inside was amazing. It is now a restaurant/bar, and it has all these old war tapestries and a huge 18th century chandelier on the ceiling. After the Bank of Ireland we stopped in Starbucks because I almost had a panic attack when I saw it (there is no Starbucks in Granada) and the 2 Starbucks virgins I was with wanted to see why I was freaking out. Haha they thought it was amazing of course and took a little photo shoot inside. Then we headed down Grafton Street which is this huge amazing street lined with the best shopping in Dublin (Chanel, Brown Thomas etc etc.) and right when we got to the end of the street and we were about to go into St. Stephen's Green, it started to rain - so we headed into the Stephen's Green shopping center to wait it out for a little bit. This mall was really pretty inside (and there was a TK MAXX haha)!! By the time we used the bathroom and bought some candy, the rain had stopped and we went into the 22 acre St. Stephen's Green Park which was beautiful!!! There were flowers everywhere, this pretty pond with little kids feeding ducks, and lots of green grass. After walking around for a while, we bought sandwhiches and took the bus to the Guinness Factory which was one of my favorite parts of the trip! It was absolutely huge and it had all this info about the history and how it is made and everything. I loved it. Half way through, you get a sample and the workers teach you how to drink it to get the full effect. When we got to the top of the factory (2 1/2 hours later) there was a gorgeous view of the entire city, and we got a pint of guinness with our ticket. After leaving, we headed back to the hostel to pick up our luggage and took the Dart (train) into Harmonstown which was a residential area where Pilar's old host family lived. Being there made me feel really homesick because it was the first time in 4 months I have actually seen houses in a neighborhood, and it reminded me a lot of home. Pilar's host family was awesome! Her mom, Sara, was 28 and her dad is from Lybia so she didn't look very Irish - but her dad, Declan, was 33 and had loads of freckles and orange hair!! He had a really strong Irish accent too haha it was really funny. She also had a Spanish "brother" Ricardo who was still living there since last semester. We all talked for a while and then Sara made us dinner - chicken curry yumm! And we got ready to go out. We took a cab back to the Temple Bar area and met a lot of Pilar's old friends she had made while she was studying here and her cousin who lives permanently in Dublin. It was a lot of fun, and we were exhausted by the time the night was over!
Sunday, April 26
We woke up to the smell of real breakfast which was amazing since I have toast every morning. They had made us eggs and sausage (seriously soo nice) and Declan drove us to Howth (a suburb of Dublin) so we could get a little taste of the country too. He drove us up to the summit and showed us the path we should take to get back into town. All of the green hills and cliffs were amazing and there was a lighthouse in the distance and we could see all of Dublin - it was soo pretty!! But we ended up going the wrong way and heading down by all the fisherman (which was very muddy) haha it was an adventure. After we finally saw someone and asked them the direction to town, we found a road and walked for about another hour and a 1/2 before realizing we were in Sutton instead of Howth...so we found the Dart station and took it back to Harmonstown. We got home, had sandwiches and talked to Sara and Declan before they drove us to the airport. We got back to Malaga around 9 and Pilar's brother picked us up from the airport. It was a really cool experience, but it was too short! We were so lucky to be able to stay with Pilar's old host family and see too really different parts of Dublin.
Friday, April 24
When we got to the airport in Dublin, I had to stand in this long line because I was a non-EU citizen and they asked me how long I was staying, where I was staying, why I was there, and who I was with - it was so weird!! We got out around midnight and found our hostel in the Temple Bar area pretty easily. We were really lucky that Pilar studied abroad in Dublin for a month last semester so she knew where everything was!! We dropped our stuff off and went to Temple Bar until it closed around 2:30. Then we got some food (along with everyone else haha the party just seemed to move to the street even though it was raining) and headed home to get some sleep for our long Saturday.
Saturday, April 25
We woke up, ate breakfast in the hostel and headed towards the tourism office (which was inside a beautiful church!!) to get some maps and buy some souvenirs. On our way there we crossed Ha'penny brigde which was the first bridge to be built in Dublin in 1816 and was really cute lol. We almost died a few times because they drive on the other side of the road!! Which made crossing the street kind of a process haha - we probably looked ridiculous! Pilar told us that because all the doors and doorways look the same, they paint them all different colors so they can find home at night coming back from the bar!! haha it really was like St. Patrick's Day every night - it was crazyy! Then we saw the Molly Malone statue which is really famous in Dublin - she is the theme of "Dublin's National Anthem." We also went to Trinity College which was gorgeous!! (tons of famous people went here like Oscar Wilde) It is the oldest college in Ireland and it was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth. The buildings were all huge and amazing and the Book of Kells is housed here (a super ancient celtic book from 800 AD) We didn't pay to see it, but we saw the exact replica in the Bank of Ireland which was also amazing!! It was the first custom-built parliament house in the world built in 1739!! And inside was amazing. It is now a restaurant/bar, and it has all these old war tapestries and a huge 18th century chandelier on the ceiling. After the Bank of Ireland we stopped in Starbucks because I almost had a panic attack when I saw it (there is no Starbucks in Granada) and the 2 Starbucks virgins I was with wanted to see why I was freaking out. Haha they thought it was amazing of course and took a little photo shoot inside. Then we headed down Grafton Street which is this huge amazing street lined with the best shopping in Dublin (Chanel, Brown Thomas etc etc.) and right when we got to the end of the street and we were about to go into St. Stephen's Green, it started to rain - so we headed into the Stephen's Green shopping center to wait it out for a little bit. This mall was really pretty inside (and there was a TK MAXX haha)!! By the time we used the bathroom and bought some candy, the rain had stopped and we went into the 22 acre St. Stephen's Green Park which was beautiful!!! There were flowers everywhere, this pretty pond with little kids feeding ducks, and lots of green grass. After walking around for a while, we bought sandwhiches and took the bus to the Guinness Factory which was one of my favorite parts of the trip! It was absolutely huge and it had all this info about the history and how it is made and everything. I loved it. Half way through, you get a sample and the workers teach you how to drink it to get the full effect. When we got to the top of the factory (2 1/2 hours later) there was a gorgeous view of the entire city, and we got a pint of guinness with our ticket. After leaving, we headed back to the hostel to pick up our luggage and took the Dart (train) into Harmonstown which was a residential area where Pilar's old host family lived. Being there made me feel really homesick because it was the first time in 4 months I have actually seen houses in a neighborhood, and it reminded me a lot of home. Pilar's host family was awesome! Her mom, Sara, was 28 and her dad is from Lybia so she didn't look very Irish - but her dad, Declan, was 33 and had loads of freckles and orange hair!! He had a really strong Irish accent too haha it was really funny. She also had a Spanish "brother" Ricardo who was still living there since last semester. We all talked for a while and then Sara made us dinner - chicken curry yumm! And we got ready to go out. We took a cab back to the Temple Bar area and met a lot of Pilar's old friends she had made while she was studying here and her cousin who lives permanently in Dublin. It was a lot of fun, and we were exhausted by the time the night was over!
Sunday, April 26
We woke up to the smell of real breakfast which was amazing since I have toast every morning. They had made us eggs and sausage (seriously soo nice) and Declan drove us to Howth (a suburb of Dublin) so we could get a little taste of the country too. He drove us up to the summit and showed us the path we should take to get back into town. All of the green hills and cliffs were amazing and there was a lighthouse in the distance and we could see all of Dublin - it was soo pretty!! But we ended up going the wrong way and heading down by all the fisherman (which was very muddy) haha it was an adventure. After we finally saw someone and asked them the direction to town, we found a road and walked for about another hour and a 1/2 before realizing we were in Sutton instead of Howth...so we found the Dart station and took it back to Harmonstown. We got home, had sandwiches and talked to Sara and Declan before they drove us to the airport. We got back to Malaga around 9 and Pilar's brother picked us up from the airport. It was a really cool experience, but it was too short! We were so lucky to be able to stay with Pilar's old host family and see too really different parts of Dublin.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Portugal Spring Break!!
Hey!! So after Ryan left, we had midterms...which went ok haha and then I headed off to Portugal with my friend Heather for Spring Break!! It was basically amazing!!!!!!!!!! lol so you should read about it ;)
LISBOA
We "couch surfed" with a couple here that showed us so much of Lisbon that we probably never would have seen. Heather is from the US, but fell in love at first sight and married a Portugese man named Victor who grew up in South Africa....yeah I know right? They have the craziest stories and have been all over the world. I will you all about her later, but I'm sure you wanna find out what we have been up to! ;)
Saturday, April 4
On Friday when we arrived, Heather picked us up from the bus station!! (She was so nice!!!) and brought us to Mcdonalds because it was really late and we were really hungry! lol We had our own room in her house and were free to use the computer/TV/kitchen whenever we wanted. She was full of stories and hospitality. It was such a great experience! In the morning, she drove us up the beautiful coast to Casa da Guia in Cascais where we had our 2nd breakfast of the day. It is very common for Portuguese to eat breakfast at home and then go out for a second breakfast...we tried a pastel de nata which was really good and walked around the shopping center that was right on the coast and absolutely gorgeous! Then we drove up to Guincho where we may have been in a movie haha - this guy asked us to move our car because they were filming. We watched kite surfers on the beach which seriously looked crazy. The waves were the biggest I have ever seen and when the kites were caught by the crazy wind, the surfers would literally float in the air with their surfboards attached to their feet. It was so windy that sand was blowing in through the car windows! Then we drove to Don Quixote which was an amazing restaurant with a huge windmill building. We tried white sangria for the first time which was awesome. We couldn't use credit cards, and we didnt know if we had enough cash so we asked the waiter if there was an ATM nearby. He told us no, but we could wash dishes or come back and pay tomorrow so not to worry about it. haha :) they are so laid back here. I love Europe!! Then we drove to Cabo da Roca which is the western-most point of Europe (so I was the closest to you guys that I will get until May 20!!) It was so cool to look out into the ocean and know that the next thing we would see would be the US =) Then we drove back home to Carcavelos and went grocery shopping to make dinner. Heather worked as a chef for several years on cruise ships and she made us this awesome appetizer that I am going to show you, an amazing codfish dish and her magic salad. We also tried green wine which is only found in Portugal! You drink it cold, and it is pretty sweet so I really liked it. We forgot parmesian cheese, so we went for a walk to find some and ended up witnessing an accident and giving a toy chicken to a giant rotweiler. Then Heather (Curtin - my friend) and I discovered that Portugal was an hour behind Spain haha so we had woken up at 7 AM instead of 8 (no wonder why we were exhausted!) After dinner we pretty much crashed!
Sunday, April 5
Heather Curtin and I went to the Carcavelos beach early in the morning to watch the surfers before going to an international church service. It was a really nice church with people from everywhere!! And we met the director of topgun and his family there because he was stationed in Lisbon with NATO. After church, we went to this awesome pizza place with a great view of the water! AND I TRIED ANCHOVIES!! Yikes they were pretty gross haha Then we met couch surfing Heather's family, and her daughter in law is a celebrity of Portugal! She was on their cover of Maxim this month - so that was pretty crazy! Then we drove downtown and took a bus tour of the city which was really cool because we saw everything! In Lisbon, they have the same bridge as San Francisco designed by the same architect and everything! Driving through the city on the tour bus was so surreal - the street cars coming up the hills down narrow alleys and the clotheslines off of balconies and all of the pretty colors and flowers and people everywhere...it was really amazing to see. After Lisbon, we drove into Sintra which was absolutely gorgeous!!! We shopped in the cutest stores, ate these amazing pastries called travesseiros, and bought roasted chestnuts from street vendors! I absolutely loved this little town. There was a toy museum and a palace and everything haha it was like I was dreaming. The smell of eucalyptus was so strong here as we drove up the winding road to the palace, it is something I will always remember from Lisbon! =) That night we hung out and packed so we would be ready to head to Faro in the morning. We watched some TV - IN ENGLISH lol and called it a night.
FARO
Monday, April 6
We woke up and watched the surfers again (lol it was addicting it was so cool!) and came back so Victor could walk us to the Metro. Saying goodbye was hard because they were so nice to us and everything! I felt like I had known them for a really long time. Then we took a four hour train ride to Faro to our next couch surfer host...which turned out to be not so pleasant!!! We got there and found a bus to take us to the island where he lived, stopping at a supermarket along the way because he told us in advance that there would be nowhere to grocery shop on the island. By the time we were done, it was dark and we sat at the bus stop for about an hour and a half before finding someone to ask about the bus schedule. A girl told us that at night, the bus drivers don't stop at their stops unless they are flagged down!!!!!! How stupid is that?! So we missed the last bus because we didn't flag them down while standing at the bus stop...grr lol and Heather tried to hitchhike for about 5 minutes before we saw a taxi and finally got to the island. We called Bruno to tell him we were there and he arrived barefoot and a little tipsy in his friend's car. In the car he told us he had a few people over and they had cooked dinner for us. A few minutes later, we are lugging our stuff into a hut on the beach full of about 30 hippies dancing to Bob Marley and drinking sangria out of an open cooler....we smiled as he pulled back a curtain to reveal a matress where we could put our stuff. In the "closet" with the matress we tried locking all of our valuables in one suitcase while everyone stared at us! We were so uncomfortable and everyone knew it. So he told us to introduce ourselves to everyone, laughed about not really knowing where we were going to sleep, and left us alone for the rest of the night...we were just standing there like oh my goodness this is insane!! haha now that i think about it it's pretty hilarious. Then this big tan guy came up to us and offered us food (which ended up being really good) and we sat outside for a while even though it was cold to get away from the awkwardness...then some guy came outside and said everyone had to come inside for one a one song dance party...some guy with crazy dreds came up to us and told us not to worry - they weren't pirates or anything...so we went inside but I sat down on a chair (I was sooo tired!!) and finally Bruno came up to us and said - you guys look tired, and I am going to give the bed to the Australian couple I have staying with me, so do you want to sleep at my neighbor's house? We were like sure, yes, perfect...So we get there and they are two Germans...they were really nice, and the guy let us sleep in his bed. There was just one little problem...He took all of his sheets and blankets with him to the couch. So we pulled out our beach towels and tried to sleep (we probably slept for a total of 2 hours) and in the morning, we were sore from shivering!!
LAGOS
Tuesday, April 7
We got up and went back to Bruno's to get our groceries but found most of them gone (damn pirates!) and Bruno was in his bed while the Australians were sleeping outside!!! We just wanted to get the heck out of there so we headed to the bus station to get to Lagos (our next destination). We called the hostel to see if we could come two nights early, and she said they were full, but she would try to fit us in...we were like ok? haha so a few hours later, we got to the Rising Cock (the symbol of Portugal is a rooster) and met Momma (the woman we spoke to on the phone) who was AWESOME!! And she told us not to worry she would find a place for us and everything. We dropped our stuff off, walked around the cute town for a while and came back and cooked some of our groceries in the kitchen. Then we went into the lounge and watched Old School and used the community computers (lol coolest hostel ever!) We ended up seeing Heather's roommate Dorothy and her friend there. So we talked to them and ended up going out together that night with a lot of other people from the hostel (mostly Americans studying in Spain who were there for Semana Santa too). The hostel was so full that Heather and I shared a twin top bunk that night...but it had blankets so we slept great! haha
Wednesday, April 8
We woke up and went to the kitchen to try Momma's famous crepes and lemon tea - which were amazing =) then we went to Camilo Beach - which was a little bit of a walk but sooo worth it. You have to see the pictures because I cannot describe how beautiful it was! We got back to the hostel around 5, took a nap, cooked dinner, hung out in the lounge with everyone, and then headed out with the hostel again! We were like a little community - it was so cool. That night we had our own beds and lockers and everything.
Thursday, April 9
We woke up for crepes again, headed to a smaller beach closer to our hostel, and said bye to some of the people who were leaving that day. Then Heather and I went to this little shop and signed up to kayak...which was sooo awesome!! It was about 3 1/2 hours long through all of the grottos along the coast. We went into all of these little caves that boats could not fit into, and it was soo beautiful and just amazing to see. We stopped in the middle of the trip at a small beach that could only be accessed by land if you rock climbed down a rope...lol and we attempted to snorkel but the water was freezing and I kept submerging my entire snorkel into the water! haha There were a total of 6 kayaks on the trip. Heather and I, a couple from California that we met in the hostel and invited with us, two australian girls, their guy friend and a dad from australia, his son and daughter, and then the tour guide and his son. After we made it back to the beach, we headed back to the hostel to make lunch...and checked to see if Pilar, Ester, and Ange had checked in. Momma told us they were at the beach...she called them the primitas espanolitas (spanish cousins in Portuguese haha) So we took a nap until they got home. It was sooo nice to see them!! We went out to a really good dinner with them at "The Blue Doors" (haha that is not really the name of the place, but no one can pronounce it so we call it that because of the blue paint!) It had really amazing seafood and I ordered salmon and loved it!! They also had great dessert, but we ordered right after the chocolate cake ran out :( We went out for a little while after, but we were all really tired!!
Friday, April 10
Heather and I originally planned to take the 1:45 bus back to Granada today, but the girls convinced us to stay with them, and Momma moved us into their room. We tried going to the beach, but it was pretty chilly out, so we took a little road trip to Cabo do San Vincente in Sangres. This is the most southern point of Europe haha we were loving the points on this trip. It was reallllyyy windy, but we did some souvenir shopping and drove into town where we ate lunch on the beach. We got back to the hostel and took a nap before heading to dinner at NahNahBah's which was right across the road from our hostel and highly recommended by everyone there. lol Heather and I loved it (we got GIANT hamburgers) but the girls weren't too crazy about it - it was pretty American...our waitress ended up being our 6th roommate from Canada - so it was interesting to talk to her, and this spanish guy from Sevilla talked to us for a while and suggested we go to Joe's Garage afterwards. We did and it was not very impressive...lol his job was basically the program coordinator of "Discover Sevilla" and he brought Americans studying there to Lagos for Semana Santa - the entire bar was full of drunk Americans and it was not a very good time...so we headed somewhere else that was a little more fun. (The nightlife was not very impressive to the girls because nothing beats Granada!!)
Saturday, April 11
The weather was better, so we brought the girls to Camilo Beach and ended up staying there until 5! Afterwards, we went to this cute little seafood restaurant that was really good - except that I didn't get my food until everyone else was done because the waitress forgot!! We had a big discussion about customer service - because it is VERY different here than in the US. Here the customer is not always right, and the waiters and waitresses are paid salaries so it is not necessary to tip...therefore the service is not very good. We went shopping for a while, went home to get ready and then headed to dinner at a pretty fancy restaurant which was again really good! lol I feel like all we did was eat ;) After dinner, we went back and hung out in the lounge with the night watch guy because everyone else was out. At around 1 when people started coming home, we went out for a while and the girls played pool with some guys from London. I got a cold that day and Justin Timberlake was playing every other song haha so I left early and talked to Ryan online for the first time in 9 days! =)
Sunday, April 12
We woke up to a guy leaving the Canadian girl's bunk...awkward!!!! and ate crepes and lemon tea for one last time with Momma :( checkout was sad because she was soo nice!! We stayed at the Rising Cock for 5 nights instead of the one night we reserved!! After somehow cramming all of the luggage into the car haha we drove to Camilo again and laid out until 2 when we started our journey back to Granada. We stopped in Faro on the way back to eat lunch (which was somewhere we never wanted to go again! haha) and we ate at this vitamin place that was awesome! After lunch we had our last galao (latte-like coffee that they don't have in Spain) in portugal and got back in the car. After driving a little on the highway, we realized we were almost out of gas, and Ange told us to roll the windows up! haha there were no gas stops for what seemed like forever - so we were crammed in this car, sweating and crossing our fingers that we would find somewhere soon! We finally made it to the Spain border and got gas haha. We ended up getting back to Granada around 10 and all of the streets were all still blocked off for the processions and stuff - it was crazy! Coming home felt so nice after the long trip, but it was seriously amazing, and I wouldn't have changed a thing about it =)
LISBOA
We "couch surfed" with a couple here that showed us so much of Lisbon that we probably never would have seen. Heather is from the US, but fell in love at first sight and married a Portugese man named Victor who grew up in South Africa....yeah I know right? They have the craziest stories and have been all over the world. I will you all about her later, but I'm sure you wanna find out what we have been up to! ;)
Saturday, April 4
On Friday when we arrived, Heather picked us up from the bus station!! (She was so nice!!!) and brought us to Mcdonalds because it was really late and we were really hungry! lol We had our own room in her house and were free to use the computer/TV/kitchen whenever we wanted. She was full of stories and hospitality. It was such a great experience! In the morning, she drove us up the beautiful coast to Casa da Guia in Cascais where we had our 2nd breakfast of the day. It is very common for Portuguese to eat breakfast at home and then go out for a second breakfast...we tried a pastel de nata which was really good and walked around the shopping center that was right on the coast and absolutely gorgeous! Then we drove up to Guincho where we may have been in a movie haha - this guy asked us to move our car because they were filming. We watched kite surfers on the beach which seriously looked crazy. The waves were the biggest I have ever seen and when the kites were caught by the crazy wind, the surfers would literally float in the air with their surfboards attached to their feet. It was so windy that sand was blowing in through the car windows! Then we drove to Don Quixote which was an amazing restaurant with a huge windmill building. We tried white sangria for the first time which was awesome. We couldn't use credit cards, and we didnt know if we had enough cash so we asked the waiter if there was an ATM nearby. He told us no, but we could wash dishes or come back and pay tomorrow so not to worry about it. haha :) they are so laid back here. I love Europe!! Then we drove to Cabo da Roca which is the western-most point of Europe (so I was the closest to you guys that I will get until May 20!!) It was so cool to look out into the ocean and know that the next thing we would see would be the US =) Then we drove back home to Carcavelos and went grocery shopping to make dinner. Heather worked as a chef for several years on cruise ships and she made us this awesome appetizer that I am going to show you, an amazing codfish dish and her magic salad. We also tried green wine which is only found in Portugal! You drink it cold, and it is pretty sweet so I really liked it. We forgot parmesian cheese, so we went for a walk to find some and ended up witnessing an accident and giving a toy chicken to a giant rotweiler. Then Heather (Curtin - my friend) and I discovered that Portugal was an hour behind Spain haha so we had woken up at 7 AM instead of 8 (no wonder why we were exhausted!) After dinner we pretty much crashed!
Sunday, April 5
Heather Curtin and I went to the Carcavelos beach early in the morning to watch the surfers before going to an international church service. It was a really nice church with people from everywhere!! And we met the director of topgun and his family there because he was stationed in Lisbon with NATO. After church, we went to this awesome pizza place with a great view of the water! AND I TRIED ANCHOVIES!! Yikes they were pretty gross haha Then we met couch surfing Heather's family, and her daughter in law is a celebrity of Portugal! She was on their cover of Maxim this month - so that was pretty crazy! Then we drove downtown and took a bus tour of the city which was really cool because we saw everything! In Lisbon, they have the same bridge as San Francisco designed by the same architect and everything! Driving through the city on the tour bus was so surreal - the street cars coming up the hills down narrow alleys and the clotheslines off of balconies and all of the pretty colors and flowers and people everywhere...it was really amazing to see. After Lisbon, we drove into Sintra which was absolutely gorgeous!!! We shopped in the cutest stores, ate these amazing pastries called travesseiros, and bought roasted chestnuts from street vendors! I absolutely loved this little town. There was a toy museum and a palace and everything haha it was like I was dreaming. The smell of eucalyptus was so strong here as we drove up the winding road to the palace, it is something I will always remember from Lisbon! =) That night we hung out and packed so we would be ready to head to Faro in the morning. We watched some TV - IN ENGLISH lol and called it a night.
FARO
Monday, April 6
We woke up and watched the surfers again (lol it was addicting it was so cool!) and came back so Victor could walk us to the Metro. Saying goodbye was hard because they were so nice to us and everything! I felt like I had known them for a really long time. Then we took a four hour train ride to Faro to our next couch surfer host...which turned out to be not so pleasant!!! We got there and found a bus to take us to the island where he lived, stopping at a supermarket along the way because he told us in advance that there would be nowhere to grocery shop on the island. By the time we were done, it was dark and we sat at the bus stop for about an hour and a half before finding someone to ask about the bus schedule. A girl told us that at night, the bus drivers don't stop at their stops unless they are flagged down!!!!!! How stupid is that?! So we missed the last bus because we didn't flag them down while standing at the bus stop...grr lol and Heather tried to hitchhike for about 5 minutes before we saw a taxi and finally got to the island. We called Bruno to tell him we were there and he arrived barefoot and a little tipsy in his friend's car. In the car he told us he had a few people over and they had cooked dinner for us. A few minutes later, we are lugging our stuff into a hut on the beach full of about 30 hippies dancing to Bob Marley and drinking sangria out of an open cooler....we smiled as he pulled back a curtain to reveal a matress where we could put our stuff. In the "closet" with the matress we tried locking all of our valuables in one suitcase while everyone stared at us! We were so uncomfortable and everyone knew it. So he told us to introduce ourselves to everyone, laughed about not really knowing where we were going to sleep, and left us alone for the rest of the night...we were just standing there like oh my goodness this is insane!! haha now that i think about it it's pretty hilarious. Then this big tan guy came up to us and offered us food (which ended up being really good) and we sat outside for a while even though it was cold to get away from the awkwardness...then some guy came outside and said everyone had to come inside for one a one song dance party...some guy with crazy dreds came up to us and told us not to worry - they weren't pirates or anything...so we went inside but I sat down on a chair (I was sooo tired!!) and finally Bruno came up to us and said - you guys look tired, and I am going to give the bed to the Australian couple I have staying with me, so do you want to sleep at my neighbor's house? We were like sure, yes, perfect...So we get there and they are two Germans...they were really nice, and the guy let us sleep in his bed. There was just one little problem...He took all of his sheets and blankets with him to the couch. So we pulled out our beach towels and tried to sleep (we probably slept for a total of 2 hours) and in the morning, we were sore from shivering!!
LAGOS
Tuesday, April 7
We got up and went back to Bruno's to get our groceries but found most of them gone (damn pirates!) and Bruno was in his bed while the Australians were sleeping outside!!! We just wanted to get the heck out of there so we headed to the bus station to get to Lagos (our next destination). We called the hostel to see if we could come two nights early, and she said they were full, but she would try to fit us in...we were like ok? haha so a few hours later, we got to the Rising Cock (the symbol of Portugal is a rooster) and met Momma (the woman we spoke to on the phone) who was AWESOME!! And she told us not to worry she would find a place for us and everything. We dropped our stuff off, walked around the cute town for a while and came back and cooked some of our groceries in the kitchen. Then we went into the lounge and watched Old School and used the community computers (lol coolest hostel ever!) We ended up seeing Heather's roommate Dorothy and her friend there. So we talked to them and ended up going out together that night with a lot of other people from the hostel (mostly Americans studying in Spain who were there for Semana Santa too). The hostel was so full that Heather and I shared a twin top bunk that night...but it had blankets so we slept great! haha
Wednesday, April 8
We woke up and went to the kitchen to try Momma's famous crepes and lemon tea - which were amazing =) then we went to Camilo Beach - which was a little bit of a walk but sooo worth it. You have to see the pictures because I cannot describe how beautiful it was! We got back to the hostel around 5, took a nap, cooked dinner, hung out in the lounge with everyone, and then headed out with the hostel again! We were like a little community - it was so cool. That night we had our own beds and lockers and everything.
Thursday, April 9
We woke up for crepes again, headed to a smaller beach closer to our hostel, and said bye to some of the people who were leaving that day. Then Heather and I went to this little shop and signed up to kayak...which was sooo awesome!! It was about 3 1/2 hours long through all of the grottos along the coast. We went into all of these little caves that boats could not fit into, and it was soo beautiful and just amazing to see. We stopped in the middle of the trip at a small beach that could only be accessed by land if you rock climbed down a rope...lol and we attempted to snorkel but the water was freezing and I kept submerging my entire snorkel into the water! haha There were a total of 6 kayaks on the trip. Heather and I, a couple from California that we met in the hostel and invited with us, two australian girls, their guy friend and a dad from australia, his son and daughter, and then the tour guide and his son. After we made it back to the beach, we headed back to the hostel to make lunch...and checked to see if Pilar, Ester, and Ange had checked in. Momma told us they were at the beach...she called them the primitas espanolitas (spanish cousins in Portuguese haha) So we took a nap until they got home. It was sooo nice to see them!! We went out to a really good dinner with them at "The Blue Doors" (haha that is not really the name of the place, but no one can pronounce it so we call it that because of the blue paint!) It had really amazing seafood and I ordered salmon and loved it!! They also had great dessert, but we ordered right after the chocolate cake ran out :( We went out for a little while after, but we were all really tired!!
Friday, April 10
Heather and I originally planned to take the 1:45 bus back to Granada today, but the girls convinced us to stay with them, and Momma moved us into their room. We tried going to the beach, but it was pretty chilly out, so we took a little road trip to Cabo do San Vincente in Sangres. This is the most southern point of Europe haha we were loving the points on this trip. It was reallllyyy windy, but we did some souvenir shopping and drove into town where we ate lunch on the beach. We got back to the hostel and took a nap before heading to dinner at NahNahBah's which was right across the road from our hostel and highly recommended by everyone there. lol Heather and I loved it (we got GIANT hamburgers) but the girls weren't too crazy about it - it was pretty American...our waitress ended up being our 6th roommate from Canada - so it was interesting to talk to her, and this spanish guy from Sevilla talked to us for a while and suggested we go to Joe's Garage afterwards. We did and it was not very impressive...lol his job was basically the program coordinator of "Discover Sevilla" and he brought Americans studying there to Lagos for Semana Santa - the entire bar was full of drunk Americans and it was not a very good time...so we headed somewhere else that was a little more fun. (The nightlife was not very impressive to the girls because nothing beats Granada!!)
Saturday, April 11
The weather was better, so we brought the girls to Camilo Beach and ended up staying there until 5! Afterwards, we went to this cute little seafood restaurant that was really good - except that I didn't get my food until everyone else was done because the waitress forgot!! We had a big discussion about customer service - because it is VERY different here than in the US. Here the customer is not always right, and the waiters and waitresses are paid salaries so it is not necessary to tip...therefore the service is not very good. We went shopping for a while, went home to get ready and then headed to dinner at a pretty fancy restaurant which was again really good! lol I feel like all we did was eat ;) After dinner, we went back and hung out in the lounge with the night watch guy because everyone else was out. At around 1 when people started coming home, we went out for a while and the girls played pool with some guys from London. I got a cold that day and Justin Timberlake was playing every other song haha so I left early and talked to Ryan online for the first time in 9 days! =)
Sunday, April 12
We woke up to a guy leaving the Canadian girl's bunk...awkward!!!! and ate crepes and lemon tea for one last time with Momma :( checkout was sad because she was soo nice!! We stayed at the Rising Cock for 5 nights instead of the one night we reserved!! After somehow cramming all of the luggage into the car haha we drove to Camilo again and laid out until 2 when we started our journey back to Granada. We stopped in Faro on the way back to eat lunch (which was somewhere we never wanted to go again! haha) and we ate at this vitamin place that was awesome! After lunch we had our last galao (latte-like coffee that they don't have in Spain) in portugal and got back in the car. After driving a little on the highway, we realized we were almost out of gas, and Ange told us to roll the windows up! haha there were no gas stops for what seemed like forever - so we were crammed in this car, sweating and crossing our fingers that we would find somewhere soon! We finally made it to the Spain border and got gas haha. We ended up getting back to Granada around 10 and all of the streets were all still blocked off for the processions and stuff - it was crazy! Coming home felt so nice after the long trip, but it was seriously amazing, and I wouldn't have changed a thing about it =)
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Ryan's Viaje a Espana
Hey! So Ryan just left a few hours ago =( But let me give you a little rundown of our week.
Madrid (Sat - Mon)
Even though Ryan was not thrilled about the 6 hour bus ride after his lonnngg flight, the Jason Mraz concert was awesome!! The venue was very similar to the House of Blues, and he was a great performer. We got there a little late because the guy at the door needed to see my ID (to confirm that I was 18!!!!!!!!) before letting me in. But we met up with my friends afterwards and ate at a pretty nice restaurant before heading to the hostel to get some sleep! This hostel was ok - the building was kinda old, but we had our own bathroom and the owner was really nice. Sunday we walked around the city and ate outside in Plaza Mayor (beautiful!!) before heading to the bull fight. The Plaza de Toros was really big and the entire experience was very cool. We really had no idea what was going on most of the time, but we cheered when everyone else did. haha I think the killing of the bull would have bothered me a little more if I would have worn my glasses, but for the most part, the atmosphere was very similar to a baseball game. The last bullfighter got knocked over by the bull a few times, and a different bull knocked over a guy on a horse, but other than that it was pretty routine. After the bullfight, it was already getting dark and we walked around the city a little more. We went to Parque Retiro and there was a huge celebration going on inside. It would have been cool to see but Ryan got nervous when he heard the music and saw people peeing in the bushes! haha like I said before - very different environment than what we are used to. On Monday, we left early to get to Granada.
Granada (Mon - Fri)
We got to Granada around 12:30 on Monday, and the hostel owner was not there! So I dropped off Ryan's suitcase at my apartment and we went for lunch. Ryan tried Paella at this restaurant for the first time (traditional Spanish rice dish) and I thought it was really good. We sat outside, and 5 minutes after talking about TJ and Christina (Katie's brother and girlfriend), we see them walking down the street towards us! haha their hostel was on the same street we were having lunch. Then we headed back to the hostel which ended up being very cute! The owner was really nice and there was a gorgeous terrace on the roof that I wish we spent more time on. The only down side was that we didnt have our own bathroom and we had to go up a few flights of stairs...so I brought all of my shower stuff home and got ready at my house every day since it was so close. After showering and unpacking and everything, we went to the Hammam (arabian baths) in the Albaicin. Oh my gosh this was amazing! It was one of the highlights of the trip for me. We went in kind of nervous, changed into our bathing suits in the locker rooms and then walked out to the cold room that had a small pool of cold water. Then we went into the hot room which was like a shallow hot tub and a cute sitting area with heated floors! And then the warm room was the biggest and had fountains and stairs and it was really like a pool we could swim in. We went back and forth throughout the rooms before our numbers were called for our massages. The whole environment was just so calm and awesome. There was music playing and signs in the rooms saying to speak in low voices. It was really cool. After the massages we drank arabian tea (which I really liked haha) and went through the rooms a few more times. We also spent a few minutes in the sauna which was really hot! It was just a cool experience. Afterwards, we went to Plaza Nueva to meet Katie, TJ, and Christina. We went for tapas at some of my favorite places, went to a shot bar, and then to a discoteca which was virtually empty because it was Monday night! Before going home, me and Ryan got kebabs for the first time of many throughout the week!
Tuesday
We went to the Alhambra with Katie, TJ, and Christina. It was my first time there and it was really amazing!! Before going into the palaces, we ate lunch in a restaurant up there which was interesting. I got chicken gizzards when I ordered chicken =( but the sangria was great! We saw so many amazing things - you will have to look at the pictures to check it out. We met up with Pilar around 8 for tapas and went out with Katie, TJ, and Christina later on that night. We tried going to a tapper bar, but by the time we got there it was closed! We went to a few bars and played this awesome arcade memory game before heading home.
Wednesday
I showed Ryan more of the city. We saw my school and ate lunch in Plaza Nueva (this crazy pizza that was really good haha) and then met Pilar at El Parque de las Ciencias which is a science museum that Granada is famous for. (If I have sent you a postcard, it is probably on the stamp) It was really really cool. I wish we had more time to spend there, but we did not know it closed at 7:00. We saw an owl show, a butterfly garden, a robot that talked on command! haha and a lot more science stuff. It was very hands on and I really liked it. They also have a huge tower where you can go to the top and get a good view of the city. After the museum, we went with Pilar for tapas and went to a Granada futbol (soccer) game. It was really cool and there were a lot of people there, but the game ended with a 0 -0 tie...haha - It was still really fun. After the futbol game, we went home and changed and went to a discoteca with Katie, TJ, and Christina. It was ladies night and there were male gogo dancers - haha hilarious!! There were a lot of people there and it was really fun. Ryan and I and TJ and Christina even danced on little stages! haha (Ryan also danced on the stage by himself for a while =))
Thursday
We ate lunch on El Paseo de los Tristes (a really pretty terrace with a great view of the Alhambra) and ended up seeing my friend Dorothy there. I got a Spanish tortilla and Ryan ordered "salmonettes" which we thought would be salmon and ended up being full fried fish - haha they were really good though. Afterwards, we went with Dorothy and her two friends who were visiting to the Albaicin. It is the hill facing the Alhambra and it has a lot of Arabian influence. There is also a famous plaza with an amazing view of the Alhambra and the city there where we got some pretty pictures. After the Albaicin, we headed to Sacromonte (yet another hill) which ended up being a hike to the caves. A lot of people live in caves built into this hill and there is a museum right below giving information about the lifestyle and everything else. It was my first time and it was very interesting, but I definitely did not wear my hiking shoes! and afterwards, we were exhausted. But we made it to the Capilla Real to see the tombs of Los Reyes Catolicos (and I got some pics this time!) Then we headed to the famous Frederico Garcia Lorca Park and walked around and Ryan played on the trampolines for a while in the kids section haha. That night, we went to a flamenco show in a cave which was awesome!!! It was much different from my first experience because it was such a small area and the music was so close and loud. Afterwards, we went to Hannigans with Katie, TJ, and Christina and got kebabs at the end of the night one last time. Granada was my favorite of course ;)
Malaga (Fri - Sun)
Although Malaga was really fun, I cannot say that I like the city itself very much. Right now there is TONS of construction going on and it just doesn't compare to Granada where everything is lit up and the main streets are very wide and populated. Being there at night was not nearly as fun as it was in Granada. We also stayed in an actual hostel in Malaga which was not fun either since there were 12 English guys staying in the room next to us and it was very hard to sleep (and the bathroom was gross lol) but on Friday, we went to the Picasso Museum which was AWESOME! I could not take any pictures but it was seriously so cool to see his real works and read about them and learn about his life. Then we walked around the main strip of stores, and there were a bunch of statues along the entire strip (which was not a street for cars) and I really liked that. The weather was pretty nice and we ended up eating dinner at this AMAZING restaurant called Vino Mio. I loved it so much that we went back the next night too! haha - On Saturday, we took an early bus to Nerja (a town in Malaga that makes up part of the Costa del Sol) There were a TON of old people on the bus - it kind of reminds me of Florida only 20 times better, and I think a lot of people retire and vacation there when they are older. We ended up accidentally missing the beach stop and taking the bus up to Las Cuevas de Nerja (The caves of Nerja) and I am so glad because they were awesome!!! We walked through the caves, which were discovered accidentally by 5 teenage boys and are now a historical monument, until around 12:30. After they discovered it, a lot of prehistoric information was found (tools, human remains, paintings, etc.) and it was seriously really cool to see and read about - but we were not supposed to use flash on our camera so there are not that many great pics. There is a column in one of the main rooms of the cave, and it is in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the largest in the world!! Afterwards, we took the bus back to the center of town and went to the beach which was absolutely gorgeous!! The water was too cold to swim in, but we ate lunch at this cool place that Katie went to a few days before and ended up staying on the beach until about 5 when we went to catch the bus back to Malaga. When we got back, it was raining! So good thing we went to Nerja =) and then we had to pack everything up and prepare for the next morning which turned out to be a disaster!
Apparently Ryan's booking from Malaga to Madrid was cancelled because of some mistake the travel agency made with his ticket number which left him ticketless. We got to the airport at 4 AM and the check in desk did not open until 5! haha so then we get up there and find out it is cancelled and we are sent to the ticket office which did not open until 6! Then we were with the wrong carrier and we had to go back and forth talking to people and he was supposed to be on the plane by 6:50! We were really stressed out and they could not figure out what to do so he was put on a waiting list for his ORIGINAL flight that he was supposed to be on which he did not make because the plane was full....so then we went back to the ticket office and he was put on another waiting list for the 9:30 flight to Madrid...they told us that there was a small chance and that he had priority but that the flight was already overbooked. So we sat around until around 9 when they told him he could go on and I THINK he is flying first class right now =) so everything worked out fine in the end. I got home around 12 - I know - rough morning - and now I have to cram for my midterms tomorrow and read an entire novel!!!!!! But it was so worth it. It was a great week!!
Madrid (Sat - Mon)
Even though Ryan was not thrilled about the 6 hour bus ride after his lonnngg flight, the Jason Mraz concert was awesome!! The venue was very similar to the House of Blues, and he was a great performer. We got there a little late because the guy at the door needed to see my ID (to confirm that I was 18!!!!!!!!) before letting me in. But we met up with my friends afterwards and ate at a pretty nice restaurant before heading to the hostel to get some sleep! This hostel was ok - the building was kinda old, but we had our own bathroom and the owner was really nice. Sunday we walked around the city and ate outside in Plaza Mayor (beautiful!!) before heading to the bull fight. The Plaza de Toros was really big and the entire experience was very cool. We really had no idea what was going on most of the time, but we cheered when everyone else did. haha I think the killing of the bull would have bothered me a little more if I would have worn my glasses, but for the most part, the atmosphere was very similar to a baseball game. The last bullfighter got knocked over by the bull a few times, and a different bull knocked over a guy on a horse, but other than that it was pretty routine. After the bullfight, it was already getting dark and we walked around the city a little more. We went to Parque Retiro and there was a huge celebration going on inside. It would have been cool to see but Ryan got nervous when he heard the music and saw people peeing in the bushes! haha like I said before - very different environment than what we are used to. On Monday, we left early to get to Granada.
Granada (Mon - Fri)
We got to Granada around 12:30 on Monday, and the hostel owner was not there! So I dropped off Ryan's suitcase at my apartment and we went for lunch. Ryan tried Paella at this restaurant for the first time (traditional Spanish rice dish) and I thought it was really good. We sat outside, and 5 minutes after talking about TJ and Christina (Katie's brother and girlfriend), we see them walking down the street towards us! haha their hostel was on the same street we were having lunch. Then we headed back to the hostel which ended up being very cute! The owner was really nice and there was a gorgeous terrace on the roof that I wish we spent more time on. The only down side was that we didnt have our own bathroom and we had to go up a few flights of stairs...so I brought all of my shower stuff home and got ready at my house every day since it was so close. After showering and unpacking and everything, we went to the Hammam (arabian baths) in the Albaicin. Oh my gosh this was amazing! It was one of the highlights of the trip for me. We went in kind of nervous, changed into our bathing suits in the locker rooms and then walked out to the cold room that had a small pool of cold water. Then we went into the hot room which was like a shallow hot tub and a cute sitting area with heated floors! And then the warm room was the biggest and had fountains and stairs and it was really like a pool we could swim in. We went back and forth throughout the rooms before our numbers were called for our massages. The whole environment was just so calm and awesome. There was music playing and signs in the rooms saying to speak in low voices. It was really cool. After the massages we drank arabian tea (which I really liked haha) and went through the rooms a few more times. We also spent a few minutes in the sauna which was really hot! It was just a cool experience. Afterwards, we went to Plaza Nueva to meet Katie, TJ, and Christina. We went for tapas at some of my favorite places, went to a shot bar, and then to a discoteca which was virtually empty because it was Monday night! Before going home, me and Ryan got kebabs for the first time of many throughout the week!
Tuesday
We went to the Alhambra with Katie, TJ, and Christina. It was my first time there and it was really amazing!! Before going into the palaces, we ate lunch in a restaurant up there which was interesting. I got chicken gizzards when I ordered chicken =( but the sangria was great! We saw so many amazing things - you will have to look at the pictures to check it out. We met up with Pilar around 8 for tapas and went out with Katie, TJ, and Christina later on that night. We tried going to a tapper bar, but by the time we got there it was closed! We went to a few bars and played this awesome arcade memory game before heading home.
Wednesday
I showed Ryan more of the city. We saw my school and ate lunch in Plaza Nueva (this crazy pizza that was really good haha) and then met Pilar at El Parque de las Ciencias which is a science museum that Granada is famous for. (If I have sent you a postcard, it is probably on the stamp) It was really really cool. I wish we had more time to spend there, but we did not know it closed at 7:00. We saw an owl show, a butterfly garden, a robot that talked on command! haha and a lot more science stuff. It was very hands on and I really liked it. They also have a huge tower where you can go to the top and get a good view of the city. After the museum, we went with Pilar for tapas and went to a Granada futbol (soccer) game. It was really cool and there were a lot of people there, but the game ended with a 0 -0 tie...haha - It was still really fun. After the futbol game, we went home and changed and went to a discoteca with Katie, TJ, and Christina. It was ladies night and there were male gogo dancers - haha hilarious!! There were a lot of people there and it was really fun. Ryan and I and TJ and Christina even danced on little stages! haha (Ryan also danced on the stage by himself for a while =))
Thursday
We ate lunch on El Paseo de los Tristes (a really pretty terrace with a great view of the Alhambra) and ended up seeing my friend Dorothy there. I got a Spanish tortilla and Ryan ordered "salmonettes" which we thought would be salmon and ended up being full fried fish - haha they were really good though. Afterwards, we went with Dorothy and her two friends who were visiting to the Albaicin. It is the hill facing the Alhambra and it has a lot of Arabian influence. There is also a famous plaza with an amazing view of the Alhambra and the city there where we got some pretty pictures. After the Albaicin, we headed to Sacromonte (yet another hill) which ended up being a hike to the caves. A lot of people live in caves built into this hill and there is a museum right below giving information about the lifestyle and everything else. It was my first time and it was very interesting, but I definitely did not wear my hiking shoes! and afterwards, we were exhausted. But we made it to the Capilla Real to see the tombs of Los Reyes Catolicos (and I got some pics this time!) Then we headed to the famous Frederico Garcia Lorca Park and walked around and Ryan played on the trampolines for a while in the kids section haha. That night, we went to a flamenco show in a cave which was awesome!!! It was much different from my first experience because it was such a small area and the music was so close and loud. Afterwards, we went to Hannigans with Katie, TJ, and Christina and got kebabs at the end of the night one last time. Granada was my favorite of course ;)
Malaga (Fri - Sun)
Although Malaga was really fun, I cannot say that I like the city itself very much. Right now there is TONS of construction going on and it just doesn't compare to Granada where everything is lit up and the main streets are very wide and populated. Being there at night was not nearly as fun as it was in Granada. We also stayed in an actual hostel in Malaga which was not fun either since there were 12 English guys staying in the room next to us and it was very hard to sleep (and the bathroom was gross lol) but on Friday, we went to the Picasso Museum which was AWESOME! I could not take any pictures but it was seriously so cool to see his real works and read about them and learn about his life. Then we walked around the main strip of stores, and there were a bunch of statues along the entire strip (which was not a street for cars) and I really liked that. The weather was pretty nice and we ended up eating dinner at this AMAZING restaurant called Vino Mio. I loved it so much that we went back the next night too! haha - On Saturday, we took an early bus to Nerja (a town in Malaga that makes up part of the Costa del Sol) There were a TON of old people on the bus - it kind of reminds me of Florida only 20 times better, and I think a lot of people retire and vacation there when they are older. We ended up accidentally missing the beach stop and taking the bus up to Las Cuevas de Nerja (The caves of Nerja) and I am so glad because they were awesome!!! We walked through the caves, which were discovered accidentally by 5 teenage boys and are now a historical monument, until around 12:30. After they discovered it, a lot of prehistoric information was found (tools, human remains, paintings, etc.) and it was seriously really cool to see and read about - but we were not supposed to use flash on our camera so there are not that many great pics. There is a column in one of the main rooms of the cave, and it is in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the largest in the world!! Afterwards, we took the bus back to the center of town and went to the beach which was absolutely gorgeous!! The water was too cold to swim in, but we ate lunch at this cool place that Katie went to a few days before and ended up staying on the beach until about 5 when we went to catch the bus back to Malaga. When we got back, it was raining! So good thing we went to Nerja =) and then we had to pack everything up and prepare for the next morning which turned out to be a disaster!
Apparently Ryan's booking from Malaga to Madrid was cancelled because of some mistake the travel agency made with his ticket number which left him ticketless. We got to the airport at 4 AM and the check in desk did not open until 5! haha so then we get up there and find out it is cancelled and we are sent to the ticket office which did not open until 6! Then we were with the wrong carrier and we had to go back and forth talking to people and he was supposed to be on the plane by 6:50! We were really stressed out and they could not figure out what to do so he was put on a waiting list for his ORIGINAL flight that he was supposed to be on which he did not make because the plane was full....so then we went back to the ticket office and he was put on another waiting list for the 9:30 flight to Madrid...they told us that there was a small chance and that he had priority but that the flight was already overbooked. So we sat around until around 9 when they told him he could go on and I THINK he is flying first class right now =) so everything worked out fine in the end. I got home around 12 - I know - rough morning - and now I have to cram for my midterms tomorrow and read an entire novel!!!!!! But it was so worth it. It was a great week!!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Alhama with Pilar!
Hey! Ok so I know I have been majorly slacking so lo siento mucho, but I just got home from Alhama today and oh my gosh it was amazing!! But first let me catch up with you guys ;) Ryan is coming in 5 days, and I have to get a lottt of work done before hand so that I will be prepared for midterms! :/ Me and the girls have been spending a lot of time at the park and just walking around Granada because the weather has been amazing!! Last weekend, I went to the beach in Malaga and it was absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, I don't have any pics because my camera was dead, but I will work on getting some from Heather. This weekend I went with Pilar to Alhama which is her pueblo 1 hour from the center of Granada. Five of us stayed in her cottage last night which was absolutely gorgeous! She grew up in Alhama and her parents have land 5 minutes from her house in the center of town where they go on the weekends and during the summer. They have tons of olive trees and chickens!!! (which means really really fresh eggs!) And the house is absolutely gorgeous. Outside is all hills and olive and almond trees. The drive there is down a dirt path with little stone walls surrounding the masses of beautiful almond trees. (I felt like I was dreaming) They have gardens with EVERYTHING growing literally - every fruit and vegetable ever. When we got there, we walked around the town a little, met her parents (SOOO NICE!! =)), toured the cottage, and played Party - haha thats a Spanish board game that mixes pictionary, sharades, and trivia. Then we watched some Friends in Spanish and they made this salad with oranges, tuna, green olives, onion, eggs and olive oil which was really really good and Pilar's dad made us a Spanish tortilla with asparagus. We started watching Babel (the movie with Brad Pitt) in Spanish, but stopped half way through to go swimming in the banos. OK people this was absolutely amazing! The river in Alhama passes through a volcano or something like that so the water in the river is hot! So we went to this 100% natural river at 1:30 in the morning and chilled in a natural hottub for 2 hours! There were TONS of people all along the river - it was so cool. Then we came home and finished the movie. In the morning (or afternoon I should say haha) we went for a little hike through the valley of Alhama. It was absolutely beautiful. You have to check out the pics even though they could not capture how beautiful it was. Then we got some tapas in town and went back to the cottage to eat paella which was super good! =) I feel so lucky that I met Pilar because she is sooo sweet and her friends are all great and this was such an amazing experience!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Morocco!
Hey everyone! Let me just start by saying that my trip to Africa was the best trip I have ever taken in my entire life!! It has truly changed my outlook on life and what I want to do with mine. Ok - now we will start the story telling and get to the life altering parts ;)
Thursday, Feb. 26
We stayed in a hostel in Algeciras, Spain (southern coast) on Wednesday night so we could catch the ferry to Morocco at 8 AM on Thursday. The wind ended up being so bad that day that all of the ferrys were cancelled and we ended up taking a slow boat which we were on for about 3 hours!! We got to Tangier very late, but when we arrived at the DARNA women's center, they were very excited to talk to us and show us around! DARNA in arabic means "our home" and it is a place where girls and women can go to learn different trades. It was a beautiful place with plenty of classrooms and sewing equipment and we ended up eating an amazing lunch there of chicken tagine and really good Moroccan desserts! At lunch we talked to a few Moroccan students who spoke very good English (which is not common in Morocco because the language of business is French). We talked about the U.S. and also about daily life in Morocco. It was very interesting to hear about their views on the U.S. They continued to stress that the American people are not viewed in the same way as our government, and that they had met so many nice Americans. After leaving the center, we drove to Asilah along the Atlantic Coast, and we stopped along the way to ride camels on a beach at sunset!! It was sooo fun and the workers were so nice to us! We then walked through the Medina (old town) of Asilah and learned about the different colors on the buildings. Blue is the color of Judiasm, and the town at one point had a large Jewish population so you will see a lot of blue in my pictures. Green is the color of Islam, so whenever we saw a Mosque, it would have a green door and a minaret (tower) that could be seen from a distance. We also went to the coast and took beautiful pictures, but we didn't stay for long because of our very late start. We then drove 3 hours to Rabat to meet our home stay families! 3 of us stayed with each family, and the minute we walked in the door we were being hugged and kissed and welcomed. We could not communicate at all because no one in our family spoke English except for the 14 year old daughter who spoke very little. We were offered tea and cookies, and met about 15 people that were in the family or just staying as visitors. Our 23 year old brother came home with a girl from Egypt and a guy from France that he had just met and were invited to stay at his house. They all spoke English, so it was easier to communicate with the family. The bathroom in the house had a turkish toilet (which is a hole in the ground) and the house had no hot water so we could not shower (I will tell you more about that later). Even though we were exhausted, we went for a walk with our brother and his guests to the river and saw a beautiful view of the city lit up at night. Dinner was served in one large round bowl and everyone sat around it and ate the portion nearest to them. Most of them ate with their hands, but we were given spoons. We had lamb and potatoes. Historically the left hand was used in the bathroom because they do not use toilet paper at all, so it is very rude to put your left hand anywhere near the table and it was really hard to remember that! It was such an interesting experience!
Friday, Feb. 27
We woke up early to eat breakfast which was big pita-like bread with jam and more tea. (We drank the traditional Moroccan hot tea for every meal.) Then we met at the Agricultural building of the university with a Moroccan professor to talk about "West and Islamic worlds - Images about each other." It was sooo interesting to hear from her about life in Morocco and again her views on the U.S. I think for the most part she tried to be politically correct, but I certainly learned a lot about Moroccan culture and how progressive it is! She talked to us about women wearing the veil and women's rights and about culture. None of the daughters in the family I was staying with wore the veil, and they were much less conservative than I was expecting. There was a wide variety of degrees of conservatism in the people I met, and I was not expecting that. After the visit with the professor, we went to Chellah or the Roman Ruins and they were absolutely gorgeous!! There were hundreds of storks nesting there which I thought was so cool for some reason! haha and along with the storks there was a fertility pool there where women were feeding hard boiled eggs to the eel in the pool to bring fertility and easy childbirth. A few of us threw eggs in so we can have babies some day ;) There were also TONS AND TONS of stray cats there along with everywhere in Morocco. It was very strange because they were not scared of people at all and they were just everywhere. After the ruins we went to see the most famous Mosque in Rabat and the Mausoleum of King Mohammed V where he and his two sons' tombs reside. I have a million pictures from there because it was so huge and cool. Then we went back to our homestays and ate lunch which was couscous! I really liked it, but I guess it expands in your stomach and I ate a lot! haha After lunch we met with some students in Rabat who studied English and we talked to them about their views about the U.S. Almost all of them were males and we asked one of them about stereotypes they had witnessed in Americans. He said he didn't like to listen to stereotypes and most of the Americans he had met were really nice...then he went on to tell us about how Americans are "closed" and how it is not a stereotype, it is a fact. At first, I was really offended, but as we talked about education systems and culture, I stepped back and looked our similarities and differences on a larger scale and compared our perspectives. I thought about that conversation a lot afterwards, and I think I am still going to continue to think about it as I meet new people and learn new things about them. The cultural exchange that I experienced on this trip seriously changed my outlook on life. I think it is so important to learn about other people and experience new things in their environment. The first-hand experience taught me so much. We went to a pool hall with the students and drank more tea and talked more about culture and language and interests we had. It was truly a learning experience. After we said goodbye to the students, we met in someone's homestay to talk to a peace corps volunteer and a fullbright scholar who was studying in Morocco. After everything that had happened so far, and the cultural awareness I was feeling, I was really able to connect with the peace corps volunteer, and I am now looking into joining the peace corps after I graduate. After the discussion and getting all of my questions answered about peace corps, we went to a public bath called a hammam, and on the way we stopped and saw a celebration for Mohammed's birthday. There was music and people dancing, and everyone looked genuinely moved and happy. =) They have hammams in Granada as well because of all of the moorish influence, and they are kind of like spas (Ryan and I are going to one when he visits!) but this was an actual bath for bathing purposes because most people do not have hot water in their houses in Morocco. This was also a very cultural experience! We had our skin exfoliated by a moroccan woman. (She literally exfoliated our entire bodies - I have never felt so clean! haha) We wore our bathing suits, but we were the only ones who did. At first, I felt really uncomfortable, but by the end I didn't even think about it. Thinking about our reactions to nudity showed an apparent cultural difference and how our perspectives are shaped and formed. After the hammam, I felt greatttt! And we went back to our homestays and ate dinner with our families. It was some kind of noodles with meatballs, but when we asked our mom what kind of meat it was, she started cooing like a pigeon and saying chicken, so I still don't know what kind of bird we were eating! haha After dinner, our sister gave us henna tatoos. She was soooo good at it, and she told us (the Egyptian girl was our translator) that she used to work at the royal palace as a henna artist! Our one year old sister or cousin or something was adorable, and of course she wanted henna too! So she drew a small design on her hands and 10 mintues later she was holding up her hands asking for more, and it was all over her face which will now be orange for a whole month! haha - This was another moment that I stepped back and saw that laughter and kids and art and family are all the same. We all have them and value them in our culture, and despite our differences, we have so many similarities.
Saturday, Feb. 28
We woke up early, had a quick breakfast, said goodbye to our families, and drove up to a village in the Rif Mountains. We were supposed to hike for 30 minutes to meet a family, but the rain made it almost impossible for us. It was so muddy! Little kids with no shoes or socks were running around with goats and chickens. Women were picking vegetables, men were bringing goods to the market to sell on donkeys, and groups of people were standing around talking. I felt like I was in another world. We were invited into another home which housed many families and 3 generations. We went inside and sat down in a kind of living room area where we were accompanied by three men. The translator that we had picked up on the way as well as our tour guide were outside, so we had no way of communicating with these people. All of a sudden one of the men (who was grinning at us the entire time) starts asking us if we speak French and saying any English words he knows, and before we know what is going on he is teaching us how to count to ten in Arabic. It was absolutley hilarious! We were all repeating him in unison, and then we taught him 1-10 in English. (There were 9 of us girls) It was a great icebreaker! haha Once the translator and tour guide came in, (The translator was a second cousin of the two brothers who owned the house and land and our tour guide was a 24 year old from Atlanta who is studying in Granada as well) we started talking about our time in Morocco and about their jobs and daily life in the village. They told us about farming and the funny guy told us about how his father was a musician and about being a soldier (he was retired). They all seemed genuinely happy with the simplicity of life and they all said they were happy to live in their village. We asked them about economic challenges and they told us that everyone helps everyone else out. We asked them about marriages and they talked about how a guy has to ask a girl's parents to talk to her, but parents will rarely force their daughter to see someone she does not want to date. We asked them about education and the translator told us about how hard it is to go to college even though it is free, it is almost impossible to pay for living expenses (because there is obviously no university in the mountains). He was the first person in the family to get his degree and he was extremely intelligent. We talked to him about his masters thesis which was on the U.S. war on terror and about peace corps and other organizations. He was not for peace corps or any organization that has someone telling you what to do, so it was good to hear both sides of the spectrum even though I still think it is an absolutley amazing organization. We ate couscous and sandwhiches for lunch which were delicious, and we ended up talking to the family for 3 hours! Our tour guide told us it was the longest and most successful talk he had ever had because they usually last 45 min to an hour before people run out of things to say. The family was soo nice and welcoming and they even asked us to stay with them. The hospitality that I experienced throughout the whole trip was like nothing else I have ever seen or experienced. After saying goodbye to the family, we drove to Chefchaouen which was absolutely GORGEOUS! It was a very touristy area and many people spoke Spanish and English as well as Arabic. We went to our hostel and then went souvenir shopping before going to a nice dinner where I had a chicken shishkebab which was awesome and very different from the kebabs we have in granada! After dinner, we went back to our hostel and had a reflection time where we shared our favorite experiences and talked about where to go from here and what we can do to make a difference. We talked about not getting offended by the things people say to us about the U.S. and looking at things from different perspectives. One of the girls said something that I really liked and kept with me. She said something along the lines of, "We can't expect to get answers right now, or today or even tomorrow. We have to just swallow it and think about it and come back to it as life hands us new experiences." I totally agree with her, and I now know how much more there is to do and see and experience before settling down in the U.S.
Sunday, Feb. 29
In the morning we were supposed to go on a hike to see a view of the city, but it was pouring when we woke up so we just walked to the van and started driving to Ceuta which is an autonomous city of Spain located on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar which seperates it from Spain. It was really pretty and we had to cross the border on foot here in order to take the ferry back to Algeciras. We talked a little bit about immigration and compared it to the U.S. The disparity in income is the greatest in the world at the Spanish-Moroccan border. Many people die trying to get to Europe on rafts or boats. Every minute of this trip was eye-opening for me. I learned so much about another culture who already knew so much about mine. It truly amazes me how little I know about the rest of the world but how much the rest of the world knows about me. I feel like I have so much to learn, and there are so many ways that I can help people and make a difference, and this trip made that such a reality.
Thursday, Feb. 26
We stayed in a hostel in Algeciras, Spain (southern coast) on Wednesday night so we could catch the ferry to Morocco at 8 AM on Thursday. The wind ended up being so bad that day that all of the ferrys were cancelled and we ended up taking a slow boat which we were on for about 3 hours!! We got to Tangier very late, but when we arrived at the DARNA women's center, they were very excited to talk to us and show us around! DARNA in arabic means "our home" and it is a place where girls and women can go to learn different trades. It was a beautiful place with plenty of classrooms and sewing equipment and we ended up eating an amazing lunch there of chicken tagine and really good Moroccan desserts! At lunch we talked to a few Moroccan students who spoke very good English (which is not common in Morocco because the language of business is French). We talked about the U.S. and also about daily life in Morocco. It was very interesting to hear about their views on the U.S. They continued to stress that the American people are not viewed in the same way as our government, and that they had met so many nice Americans. After leaving the center, we drove to Asilah along the Atlantic Coast, and we stopped along the way to ride camels on a beach at sunset!! It was sooo fun and the workers were so nice to us! We then walked through the Medina (old town) of Asilah and learned about the different colors on the buildings. Blue is the color of Judiasm, and the town at one point had a large Jewish population so you will see a lot of blue in my pictures. Green is the color of Islam, so whenever we saw a Mosque, it would have a green door and a minaret (tower) that could be seen from a distance. We also went to the coast and took beautiful pictures, but we didn't stay for long because of our very late start. We then drove 3 hours to Rabat to meet our home stay families! 3 of us stayed with each family, and the minute we walked in the door we were being hugged and kissed and welcomed. We could not communicate at all because no one in our family spoke English except for the 14 year old daughter who spoke very little. We were offered tea and cookies, and met about 15 people that were in the family or just staying as visitors. Our 23 year old brother came home with a girl from Egypt and a guy from France that he had just met and were invited to stay at his house. They all spoke English, so it was easier to communicate with the family. The bathroom in the house had a turkish toilet (which is a hole in the ground) and the house had no hot water so we could not shower (I will tell you more about that later). Even though we were exhausted, we went for a walk with our brother and his guests to the river and saw a beautiful view of the city lit up at night. Dinner was served in one large round bowl and everyone sat around it and ate the portion nearest to them. Most of them ate with their hands, but we were given spoons. We had lamb and potatoes. Historically the left hand was used in the bathroom because they do not use toilet paper at all, so it is very rude to put your left hand anywhere near the table and it was really hard to remember that! It was such an interesting experience!
Friday, Feb. 27
We woke up early to eat breakfast which was big pita-like bread with jam and more tea. (We drank the traditional Moroccan hot tea for every meal.) Then we met at the Agricultural building of the university with a Moroccan professor to talk about "West and Islamic worlds - Images about each other." It was sooo interesting to hear from her about life in Morocco and again her views on the U.S. I think for the most part she tried to be politically correct, but I certainly learned a lot about Moroccan culture and how progressive it is! She talked to us about women wearing the veil and women's rights and about culture. None of the daughters in the family I was staying with wore the veil, and they were much less conservative than I was expecting. There was a wide variety of degrees of conservatism in the people I met, and I was not expecting that. After the visit with the professor, we went to Chellah or the Roman Ruins and they were absolutely gorgeous!! There were hundreds of storks nesting there which I thought was so cool for some reason! haha and along with the storks there was a fertility pool there where women were feeding hard boiled eggs to the eel in the pool to bring fertility and easy childbirth. A few of us threw eggs in so we can have babies some day ;) There were also TONS AND TONS of stray cats there along with everywhere in Morocco. It was very strange because they were not scared of people at all and they were just everywhere. After the ruins we went to see the most famous Mosque in Rabat and the Mausoleum of King Mohammed V where he and his two sons' tombs reside. I have a million pictures from there because it was so huge and cool. Then we went back to our homestays and ate lunch which was couscous! I really liked it, but I guess it expands in your stomach and I ate a lot! haha After lunch we met with some students in Rabat who studied English and we talked to them about their views about the U.S. Almost all of them were males and we asked one of them about stereotypes they had witnessed in Americans. He said he didn't like to listen to stereotypes and most of the Americans he had met were really nice...then he went on to tell us about how Americans are "closed" and how it is not a stereotype, it is a fact. At first, I was really offended, but as we talked about education systems and culture, I stepped back and looked our similarities and differences on a larger scale and compared our perspectives. I thought about that conversation a lot afterwards, and I think I am still going to continue to think about it as I meet new people and learn new things about them. The cultural exchange that I experienced on this trip seriously changed my outlook on life. I think it is so important to learn about other people and experience new things in their environment. The first-hand experience taught me so much. We went to a pool hall with the students and drank more tea and talked more about culture and language and interests we had. It was truly a learning experience. After we said goodbye to the students, we met in someone's homestay to talk to a peace corps volunteer and a fullbright scholar who was studying in Morocco. After everything that had happened so far, and the cultural awareness I was feeling, I was really able to connect with the peace corps volunteer, and I am now looking into joining the peace corps after I graduate. After the discussion and getting all of my questions answered about peace corps, we went to a public bath called a hammam, and on the way we stopped and saw a celebration for Mohammed's birthday. There was music and people dancing, and everyone looked genuinely moved and happy. =) They have hammams in Granada as well because of all of the moorish influence, and they are kind of like spas (Ryan and I are going to one when he visits!) but this was an actual bath for bathing purposes because most people do not have hot water in their houses in Morocco. This was also a very cultural experience! We had our skin exfoliated by a moroccan woman. (She literally exfoliated our entire bodies - I have never felt so clean! haha) We wore our bathing suits, but we were the only ones who did. At first, I felt really uncomfortable, but by the end I didn't even think about it. Thinking about our reactions to nudity showed an apparent cultural difference and how our perspectives are shaped and formed. After the hammam, I felt greatttt! And we went back to our homestays and ate dinner with our families. It was some kind of noodles with meatballs, but when we asked our mom what kind of meat it was, she started cooing like a pigeon and saying chicken, so I still don't know what kind of bird we were eating! haha After dinner, our sister gave us henna tatoos. She was soooo good at it, and she told us (the Egyptian girl was our translator) that she used to work at the royal palace as a henna artist! Our one year old sister or cousin or something was adorable, and of course she wanted henna too! So she drew a small design on her hands and 10 mintues later she was holding up her hands asking for more, and it was all over her face which will now be orange for a whole month! haha - This was another moment that I stepped back and saw that laughter and kids and art and family are all the same. We all have them and value them in our culture, and despite our differences, we have so many similarities.
Saturday, Feb. 28
We woke up early, had a quick breakfast, said goodbye to our families, and drove up to a village in the Rif Mountains. We were supposed to hike for 30 minutes to meet a family, but the rain made it almost impossible for us. It was so muddy! Little kids with no shoes or socks were running around with goats and chickens. Women were picking vegetables, men were bringing goods to the market to sell on donkeys, and groups of people were standing around talking. I felt like I was in another world. We were invited into another home which housed many families and 3 generations. We went inside and sat down in a kind of living room area where we were accompanied by three men. The translator that we had picked up on the way as well as our tour guide were outside, so we had no way of communicating with these people. All of a sudden one of the men (who was grinning at us the entire time) starts asking us if we speak French and saying any English words he knows, and before we know what is going on he is teaching us how to count to ten in Arabic. It was absolutley hilarious! We were all repeating him in unison, and then we taught him 1-10 in English. (There were 9 of us girls) It was a great icebreaker! haha Once the translator and tour guide came in, (The translator was a second cousin of the two brothers who owned the house and land and our tour guide was a 24 year old from Atlanta who is studying in Granada as well) we started talking about our time in Morocco and about their jobs and daily life in the village. They told us about farming and the funny guy told us about how his father was a musician and about being a soldier (he was retired). They all seemed genuinely happy with the simplicity of life and they all said they were happy to live in their village. We asked them about economic challenges and they told us that everyone helps everyone else out. We asked them about marriages and they talked about how a guy has to ask a girl's parents to talk to her, but parents will rarely force their daughter to see someone she does not want to date. We asked them about education and the translator told us about how hard it is to go to college even though it is free, it is almost impossible to pay for living expenses (because there is obviously no university in the mountains). He was the first person in the family to get his degree and he was extremely intelligent. We talked to him about his masters thesis which was on the U.S. war on terror and about peace corps and other organizations. He was not for peace corps or any organization that has someone telling you what to do, so it was good to hear both sides of the spectrum even though I still think it is an absolutley amazing organization. We ate couscous and sandwhiches for lunch which were delicious, and we ended up talking to the family for 3 hours! Our tour guide told us it was the longest and most successful talk he had ever had because they usually last 45 min to an hour before people run out of things to say. The family was soo nice and welcoming and they even asked us to stay with them. The hospitality that I experienced throughout the whole trip was like nothing else I have ever seen or experienced. After saying goodbye to the family, we drove to Chefchaouen which was absolutely GORGEOUS! It was a very touristy area and many people spoke Spanish and English as well as Arabic. We went to our hostel and then went souvenir shopping before going to a nice dinner where I had a chicken shishkebab which was awesome and very different from the kebabs we have in granada! After dinner, we went back to our hostel and had a reflection time where we shared our favorite experiences and talked about where to go from here and what we can do to make a difference. We talked about not getting offended by the things people say to us about the U.S. and looking at things from different perspectives. One of the girls said something that I really liked and kept with me. She said something along the lines of, "We can't expect to get answers right now, or today or even tomorrow. We have to just swallow it and think about it and come back to it as life hands us new experiences." I totally agree with her, and I now know how much more there is to do and see and experience before settling down in the U.S.
Sunday, Feb. 29
In the morning we were supposed to go on a hike to see a view of the city, but it was pouring when we woke up so we just walked to the van and started driving to Ceuta which is an autonomous city of Spain located on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar which seperates it from Spain. It was really pretty and we had to cross the border on foot here in order to take the ferry back to Algeciras. We talked a little bit about immigration and compared it to the U.S. The disparity in income is the greatest in the world at the Spanish-Moroccan border. Many people die trying to get to Europe on rafts or boats. Every minute of this trip was eye-opening for me. I learned so much about another culture who already knew so much about mine. It truly amazes me how little I know about the rest of the world but how much the rest of the world knows about me. I feel like I have so much to learn, and there are so many ways that I can help people and make a difference, and this trip made that such a reality.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Cadiz
Hey!!! So yesterday about 11 of us went to Cadiz for Carnival. It was quite an experience!!! Carnival is a big celebration in Spain and other countries that is similar to our Halloween but for adults and like 12 million times bigger. There are people dressed up in extravangant costumes EVERYWHERE (literally) and people come from all over Spain to go to Cadiz. It lasts all week long, and there are parades and music contests and lots of fun!!! Cadiz is near Portugal on the southern coast of Spain, and we left Granada at noon yesterday and arrived in Cadiz around 7:00 PM. There were 500 people going with the program we were with (which included just the bus ride for 20 euros! lol) We were dropped off right by the Atlantic Ocean and we watched the sunset on the beach - absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Then the nightlong party began!! We basically just walked around the city watching live bands, eating baked potatoes, and having a good time :) Some people slept on the beach and others (like myself) enjoyed Cadiz for a full 12 hours before reboarding the bus at 7:00 AM. This festival was so unlike anything else I have ever experienced. People are just so laid back and there to have a good time. I didn't see one police officer until we were walking back to the bus, nor were they needed! It was really amazing to be a part of something so different than what I am used to. You guys should totally check out our sweet masks in the pictures! haha we were probably the most underdressed people there!! And today, Katie's parents arrived in Granada!! So even though I am exhausted, I went out to dinner with them and talked about their travel and our life here in Spain :) It is soooo nice to see people from home!! Mr. Szafranski tipped the waiter almost 6 euros and the guy was so happy that he shook all of our hands (which they dont do here haha) and gave us a round of shots! (Waiters/waitresses are paid salaries here and a 20 cent tip if anything is sufficient in Granada) Then they went back to their hotel to try and adjust to the time change so they can enjoy the city for a couple of days before heading to Poland. I myself am headed to Morocco on Wednesday night, so my next post will probably be next Sunday when I get home! Miss you guys!
Friday, February 20, 2009
La Alpujarra
Hey everyone!! Sorry the posts are coming slower now...School is taking a lot more energy than I expected because I ended up taking 5 classes so I will be coming home with 18 credit hours!! The overachiever in me couldn't resist taking advantage of the lower tuition and more liberal class settings :) I also am pleased to announce that I have an intercambio!!! (which means I meet with a Spanish speaker and we practice our Spanish and English with each other) And she is soo fun, and I have been spending quite a bit of time with her. Also, this week I have been fighting a nasty cold...Katie went to Ireland with only hoodies (and it was snowing!) and she got me sick :( but I am feeling better today. I ended up having my second pharmacy disaster this week - the cold medicine I bought is prescription strength and it makes me very drowsy and what not - and apparently I am allergic to something in it - so my face is itchy and red like it gets when I wear makeuppp!!! Haha i am seriously having no luck with European pharmacies. But on to happier things - I went to La Alpujarra last weekend and it was amazing!!! It is a district of granada in the mountains right next to the Sierra Nevada. We traveled through the three white villages Pampaneira, Bubion and Capileira, and we ate lunch at a traditional Alpujarran restaurant in the last village. I ordered a vegetarian plate because every dish had ham in it....apparently they are famous for their ham - whoo hoo! ;) It was really beautiful and interesting to learn about the history on the way there. I guess a lot of famous people have houses here because it is so private and secluded. (Like U2 and Steven Spielberg - P.S. some Indiana Jones scenes were filmed up there bc Steven loves it so much!) We did a little bit of hiking but nothing compared to the mountain hike I did in January. It was very fun and relaxing and beautiful. Take a look at the pictures and see for yourself!! Miss you all dearly! <3
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Roma, Italia
Hey!! This is the last blog from Italy!! If it's the first Italy blog you are reading, you should scroll down and read about Milan, Venice and Florence first!
Friday, Feb. 6 cont.
We had a very hard time finding this hostel because there was no sign anywhere in sight. When we finally did find it, boy were we in for a surprise!! Haha you just have to see the pictures - we walked through a huge wooden door and are welcomed by the smell of mold! - Yuck! Then we got into the hostel, and our "receptionist" was laying on a couch watching music videos. We were sooo confused when he asked us for 132 euros in cash!! After paying him, we put our stuff down and chose our bunks from the 8 beds available. We didn't have sheets - just a matress cover and a small blanket folded up. The paint or paper or whatever it was was falling from the ceiling...and the window was locked shut. We decided to try to relax by taking a shower in the three available bathrooms (one of which has a giant hole in the wall and another has its shower curtain ripped halfway off the pole) and we realized that we don't have towels. We asked him about it and he told us they were 2 euros each and if we wanted a tiny locker to lock up our valuables, he needed a 10 euros deposit....at this point we are HATING this hostel - especially compared to the other 3 cities!! But we finally got settled and met the Polish couple and the 50 year old man from Austrailia who were living in our room...Two beds were still vacant when we went to find something to eat for dinner. We ended up eating at Pizzeria Rocci where I had the absolute best pizza I have ever had in my entire life!!! (salami of course) The waiter did not speak English and ordering was absolutely hilarious - we made sure to leave him a good tip ;)
Sat. February 7
The two vacant beds were filled by two guys from Barcelona sometime during the middle of the night. We woke up early and headed to Piazza Venezia which holds Il Vittoriano, a monument dedicated to king Victor Emmanuel II. The view from the monument was amazing and we saw sooo many important things here (like the Palazzo (palace) Venezia which was used by Benito Mussolini as his headquarters, and he addressed the people from its balcony!) Then we went to the Pantheon! It was really amazing to see something sooo ancient! (125 AD) Until the 20th century, the Pantheon was the largest concrete structure in the world, and Michelangelo studied its dome before starting work on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. It was used for so many things over time and now serves as an active church. A lot of famous people are buried here as well (including the artist Raphael and the first king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II) After the Pantheon, we went to the Colosseum!! This was by far one of my favorite things we saw on our trip. We also went to the Foro Romano which holds the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city. It served as a city square and central hub where people gathered for justice and faith a reallllyy long time ago. We went to Palatino (Palatine Hill) as well and then headed to McDonalds for lunch. We were feeling pretty homesick for Spain as well as the US, and keep in mind that this was the very first time since January 3rd that I had eaten American fast food...We ended up wandering around some more and seeing the Teatro Marcello (ancient theatre built right before the Roman empire) before heading to the grocery store to buy food for dinner. We were allowed to use the kitchen in our hostel - so we cooked some box pasta and ate salad and pasta for dinner to save some money. Since McDonalds, I had not been feeling well at all, and the girls were planning on going on this famous barcrawl from the Spanish steps, so I went to the Pharmacy to find something to calm my stomach - BAD IDEA! haha They don't let you shop for your over the counter medication in Europe...when you go to a pharmacy, you have to talk to the pharmacists and they give you what you need. So here I am in an Italian pharmacy where very little English is spoken trying to tell them that I ate McDonalds for the first time in a month and my stomach was killing me. The guy who spoke the most english gave me a box of pink pills that said Ibuprofen on them....so I asked him if it was pain medication and he said yes...I told him I needed something for digestion to which he responded with a puzzled look....so I told him I ate too much McDonalds (haha) and he smiled and nodded and gave me a different box of pills which I paid for. He said I could take 3 a day (and of course I could not read the directions because they were only in Italian) - so I took one and laid down for an hour. It didn't help at all so I took another one and started to get ready to go out. By the time we were all leaving, I still didn't feel very good and we got about 10 minutes away from the hostel when I decided to turn around and come back. The pills ended up working as a LAXATIVE! and I had taken 2 - so you get the idea! I was stuck in this wierd hostel with the creepy owner and the old man from Australia because everyone else had gone to the barcrawl!! Haha when I think about it now it is pretty funny, but I was not happy then. I took a shower and laid down to read, and I fell asleep with the light on. I woke up to the old man standing a foot from my bed (I was on the top bunk so his head was level with mine) All I saw was his huge fluffy white beard and I screamed and jumped back haha - and he wanted to know if I wanted the light off?? I was so creeped out I couldn't go back to sleep until they all came home from the barcrawl...what a night!!
Sunday, Feb. 8
Dorothy went to meet her friend who was studying in Rome, so Heather and I went to the Piazza del Popolo, The Spanish Steps (The widest staircase in all of Europe - Beautiful!!!), the Villa Borghese (the largest public park in Rome), and the ZOO!!! The zoo was so cool because we were allowed to get so much closer to the animals than at home. They also had a lot of different animals than what we have at home. This was one of my favorite days because it was beautiful weather and we were so relaxed. We met Dorothy at the Fontana di Trevi (The largest Baroque fountain in Rome) The legend holds that if visitors throw a coin in the fountain, they are sure to return to Rome....and you better believe we threw a coin in that fountain! haha - About 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain every day and are collected at night. The money goes to a supermarket for Rome's needy. Then we went to the grocery store and made chicken ceasar salad with penne pasta for lunch/dinner. Then we went for gelato (Yum!) and came back and had a long talk with the Barcelona guys about Spain and poetry and random things haha - We thought one of them didn't speak English very well - but he was just shy at first! When we asked them their ages, they told us they were 27 and 29 and then told us (in english) that men don't get old, they get interesting. I asked them what women get, and he said "No hablo ingles." (I don't speak English!) haha they were hilarious. It was realllly awkward for me and the old man since the previous night, but the girls loved him - he said we reminded him of his daughter - which I thought was creeepppyy! We went to bed early because of our busy day to come.
Monday, Feb. 9
We went to St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican!!! It was absolutely amazing. The dome of St. Peter's was designed by Michelangelo. We saw soo much famous art by Boticelli, Bernini, Raphael and Michelangelo. The Gallery of Maps was one of my favorite parts, as well as the Raphael rooms covered in his frescoes and of course the Sistine Chapel. We were there for the entire morning, and it was this day that I discovered my coffee addiction that has developed over the past month. I was almost falling over when we finally went for lunch and had really good pizza and potato and cheese rolls...haha we thought they were mozzerella sticks! Then we stumbled across an outdoor market and got the best nuts ever!! I don't even know what kind they were, but they had shells. We walked around the Trastavere neighborhood for hours. It was one of Rome's great medieval working-class neighborhoods that spoke its own distinct dialect and had traditional street fairs and poetry, but it became very touristy in the 1990s. We also went to Piazza Mattei/Santa Maria de Trastavere which, according to legend, had a stream of pure oil flow from the earth on the site of the church on the day Christ was born, signifying the coming of grace and God. There is a column next to the altar marking the spot - check it out in the pics! We walked back towards the river when it started getting dark and took a lot of night pictures!! We sat by an ice skating rink and people-watched for a while before going to meet Dorothy's friends in the Piazza Navona (Really pretty fountains) to go eat dinner. Dorothy's friend Kate and 6 of her friends came to eat dinner with us and Dorothy, Heather and I ended up getting appetizers AND a 2 course meal. We were so hungry and exhausted and we knew that it was our last night in Italy, so we ate every bite of it! haha - Then we got MORE gelato and crashed the minute we got back to the hostel.
Tuesday, Feb. 10
We woke up early and set out to find a good view of the city. We walked up to Aventine Hill and attempted to find the "keyhole" view of Rome in Piazza di Cavlierei di Malta. We didn't realize it was an ACTUAL keyhole in a door! haha We walked around some military base for like an hour looking for it - it was realllllly amazing though when we finally asked some guards where it was. And then it was time to get to the airport for our flight. It was such an amazing trip!! I hope you liked reading about it :)
Friday, Feb. 6 cont.
We had a very hard time finding this hostel because there was no sign anywhere in sight. When we finally did find it, boy were we in for a surprise!! Haha you just have to see the pictures - we walked through a huge wooden door and are welcomed by the smell of mold! - Yuck! Then we got into the hostel, and our "receptionist" was laying on a couch watching music videos. We were sooo confused when he asked us for 132 euros in cash!! After paying him, we put our stuff down and chose our bunks from the 8 beds available. We didn't have sheets - just a matress cover and a small blanket folded up. The paint or paper or whatever it was was falling from the ceiling...and the window was locked shut. We decided to try to relax by taking a shower in the three available bathrooms (one of which has a giant hole in the wall and another has its shower curtain ripped halfway off the pole) and we realized that we don't have towels. We asked him about it and he told us they were 2 euros each and if we wanted a tiny locker to lock up our valuables, he needed a 10 euros deposit....at this point we are HATING this hostel - especially compared to the other 3 cities!! But we finally got settled and met the Polish couple and the 50 year old man from Austrailia who were living in our room...Two beds were still vacant when we went to find something to eat for dinner. We ended up eating at Pizzeria Rocci where I had the absolute best pizza I have ever had in my entire life!!! (salami of course) The waiter did not speak English and ordering was absolutely hilarious - we made sure to leave him a good tip ;)
Sat. February 7
The two vacant beds were filled by two guys from Barcelona sometime during the middle of the night. We woke up early and headed to Piazza Venezia which holds Il Vittoriano, a monument dedicated to king Victor Emmanuel II. The view from the monument was amazing and we saw sooo many important things here (like the Palazzo (palace) Venezia which was used by Benito Mussolini as his headquarters, and he addressed the people from its balcony!) Then we went to the Pantheon! It was really amazing to see something sooo ancient! (125 AD) Until the 20th century, the Pantheon was the largest concrete structure in the world, and Michelangelo studied its dome before starting work on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. It was used for so many things over time and now serves as an active church. A lot of famous people are buried here as well (including the artist Raphael and the first king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II) After the Pantheon, we went to the Colosseum!! This was by far one of my favorite things we saw on our trip. We also went to the Foro Romano which holds the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city. It served as a city square and central hub where people gathered for justice and faith a reallllyy long time ago. We went to Palatino (Palatine Hill) as well and then headed to McDonalds for lunch. We were feeling pretty homesick for Spain as well as the US, and keep in mind that this was the very first time since January 3rd that I had eaten American fast food...We ended up wandering around some more and seeing the Teatro Marcello (ancient theatre built right before the Roman empire) before heading to the grocery store to buy food for dinner. We were allowed to use the kitchen in our hostel - so we cooked some box pasta and ate salad and pasta for dinner to save some money. Since McDonalds, I had not been feeling well at all, and the girls were planning on going on this famous barcrawl from the Spanish steps, so I went to the Pharmacy to find something to calm my stomach - BAD IDEA! haha They don't let you shop for your over the counter medication in Europe...when you go to a pharmacy, you have to talk to the pharmacists and they give you what you need. So here I am in an Italian pharmacy where very little English is spoken trying to tell them that I ate McDonalds for the first time in a month and my stomach was killing me. The guy who spoke the most english gave me a box of pink pills that said Ibuprofen on them....so I asked him if it was pain medication and he said yes...I told him I needed something for digestion to which he responded with a puzzled look....so I told him I ate too much McDonalds (haha) and he smiled and nodded and gave me a different box of pills which I paid for. He said I could take 3 a day (and of course I could not read the directions because they were only in Italian) - so I took one and laid down for an hour. It didn't help at all so I took another one and started to get ready to go out. By the time we were all leaving, I still didn't feel very good and we got about 10 minutes away from the hostel when I decided to turn around and come back. The pills ended up working as a LAXATIVE! and I had taken 2 - so you get the idea! I was stuck in this wierd hostel with the creepy owner and the old man from Australia because everyone else had gone to the barcrawl!! Haha when I think about it now it is pretty funny, but I was not happy then. I took a shower and laid down to read, and I fell asleep with the light on. I woke up to the old man standing a foot from my bed (I was on the top bunk so his head was level with mine) All I saw was his huge fluffy white beard and I screamed and jumped back haha - and he wanted to know if I wanted the light off?? I was so creeped out I couldn't go back to sleep until they all came home from the barcrawl...what a night!!
Sunday, Feb. 8
Dorothy went to meet her friend who was studying in Rome, so Heather and I went to the Piazza del Popolo, The Spanish Steps (The widest staircase in all of Europe - Beautiful!!!), the Villa Borghese (the largest public park in Rome), and the ZOO!!! The zoo was so cool because we were allowed to get so much closer to the animals than at home. They also had a lot of different animals than what we have at home. This was one of my favorite days because it was beautiful weather and we were so relaxed. We met Dorothy at the Fontana di Trevi (The largest Baroque fountain in Rome) The legend holds that if visitors throw a coin in the fountain, they are sure to return to Rome....and you better believe we threw a coin in that fountain! haha - About 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain every day and are collected at night. The money goes to a supermarket for Rome's needy. Then we went to the grocery store and made chicken ceasar salad with penne pasta for lunch/dinner. Then we went for gelato (Yum!) and came back and had a long talk with the Barcelona guys about Spain and poetry and random things haha - We thought one of them didn't speak English very well - but he was just shy at first! When we asked them their ages, they told us they were 27 and 29 and then told us (in english) that men don't get old, they get interesting. I asked them what women get, and he said "No hablo ingles." (I don't speak English!) haha they were hilarious. It was realllly awkward for me and the old man since the previous night, but the girls loved him - he said we reminded him of his daughter - which I thought was creeepppyy! We went to bed early because of our busy day to come.
Monday, Feb. 9
We went to St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican!!! It was absolutely amazing. The dome of St. Peter's was designed by Michelangelo. We saw soo much famous art by Boticelli, Bernini, Raphael and Michelangelo. The Gallery of Maps was one of my favorite parts, as well as the Raphael rooms covered in his frescoes and of course the Sistine Chapel. We were there for the entire morning, and it was this day that I discovered my coffee addiction that has developed over the past month. I was almost falling over when we finally went for lunch and had really good pizza and potato and cheese rolls...haha we thought they were mozzerella sticks! Then we stumbled across an outdoor market and got the best nuts ever!! I don't even know what kind they were, but they had shells. We walked around the Trastavere neighborhood for hours. It was one of Rome's great medieval working-class neighborhoods that spoke its own distinct dialect and had traditional street fairs and poetry, but it became very touristy in the 1990s. We also went to Piazza Mattei/Santa Maria de Trastavere which, according to legend, had a stream of pure oil flow from the earth on the site of the church on the day Christ was born, signifying the coming of grace and God. There is a column next to the altar marking the spot - check it out in the pics! We walked back towards the river when it started getting dark and took a lot of night pictures!! We sat by an ice skating rink and people-watched for a while before going to meet Dorothy's friends in the Piazza Navona (Really pretty fountains) to go eat dinner. Dorothy's friend Kate and 6 of her friends came to eat dinner with us and Dorothy, Heather and I ended up getting appetizers AND a 2 course meal. We were so hungry and exhausted and we knew that it was our last night in Italy, so we ate every bite of it! haha - Then we got MORE gelato and crashed the minute we got back to the hostel.
Tuesday, Feb. 10
We woke up early and set out to find a good view of the city. We walked up to Aventine Hill and attempted to find the "keyhole" view of Rome in Piazza di Cavlierei di Malta. We didn't realize it was an ACTUAL keyhole in a door! haha We walked around some military base for like an hour looking for it - it was realllllly amazing though when we finally asked some guards where it was. And then it was time to get to the airport for our flight. It was such an amazing trip!! I hope you liked reading about it :)
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Firenze, Italia
Florence is the third city of our Italian adventure so if you have not read about Milan and Venice yet, you should scroll down. Also, if you are not able to leave me comments, you should scroll even farther down and read my entry titled, "Follow my blog" so you know what to do and we can keep in touch!!
Tuesday, Feb. 3 cont.
Once again, we had a good location very close to the train station and the Duomo in Florence, but it was certainly a very different scene than Venice. This was very city-like, but different than Granada. We arrived at the hostel to find a sign taped to the door saying "call this number when you arrive." We had to wait about a half hour to get in, but once we did it was very nice. Our room was HUGE!! Check out the pics. We were very hungry (like always haha) and we set out to look for a restaurant. We found a place that looked nice and when we tried reading the menu outside, we realized that it was all in Japanese!! We were so confused and about to walk away when we saw a man laughing at us and waving us inside. He said you are not Japanese are you? Then he showed us the menu in English (this was obviously a very touristy place!) and we decided to stay. It was very nice inside, and (like most of Italy during these 10 days) full of Japanese people. We found out that Florence has more tourists than residents living in the city...which just baffles me! The food was really good and our waiter "Dustin" was absolutley hilarious!! He spoke to us with a New Jersey accent and when we asked him where he was from, he said he was from there. Of course 10 minutes later he told us that he was really from Italy and he just liked the New Jersey accent. We asked him how he learned English and he said he just picked it up in this restuarant and through people he met - so you can obviously see how many tourists come there!! He gave us free pizza bread when we were done eating because I think we were entertaining him. haha We got gelato before going home and went to bed exhausted from travelling.
Wed. February 4
We had breakfast in an adorable little nook in the hostel, and then went to The Gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti which houses DAVID!! Michelangelo's David (1504) was one of the best things I saw on the entire trip. He has been in the Gallery since 1873 when they took him from the Piazza della Signoria (Which we also saw) to protect him from the weather. We saw replicas of him around Florence but seeing the real thing was sooooo amazing. I honestly can barely remember the rest of the art gallery - I stared at David for at least an hour. (We totally took illegal pics of him too so check them out haha.) The gallery also has a really cool instrument museum that was begun by the Medici family! We also saw the Duomo which was really cool on the outside and unlike anything else we had seen. Later, we went to the Piazza San Lorenzo which was like a HUGE flea market and walked around for a long time and saw the Medici Chapels where a lot of the Medici family (really important family in Florence from the 13th to 17th century - 3 popes!) is buried. We also went to a large indoor market where I had the best sandwich of my entire life, and all it was was salami and cheese!! It was so fresh - they sliced it right in front of us and it was sooo good! We also got super good almonds here! :) We walked around and window shopped and found out that Italian boys are even more aggressive than Spanish boys! (Which I didn't think was possible) For dinner we went to this amazing restaurant called Il Pirata and we paid 7 euro for an all you could eat buffet! There were a lot of Italians there, and it was very authentic and delicious!! (I discovered I really like pesto sauce?) I took pictures of the food so check it out! ;)
Thursday, Feb. 5
We started at Piazza della Signoria which has a copy of David, a bunch of other famous statues, and a really cool fountain. We took a thousand pictures there and then went to the Piazza/Basilica di Santa Croce (I know, I know - all these stinkin piazzas! You have to look at the pictures and then it will make sense!) which is where Michelangelo and Galileo and a bunch of other famous people are buried. There is a statue of Dante outside in the Piazza, but he is buried somewhere else. Next we went to the Uffizi Gallery which holds the world's most important collection of Renaissance art - oh my goodness it was humongous! There is soooo much art there it was ridiculous and I honestly cannot even remember most of it. We got some illegal pics...but for the most part it was just wandering around looking at art for 4 hours. It was really cool, but afterwards I was all arted out dude - I had no idea what most of it even was I just knew it was famous. A lot of the Medici family art collections and works by Michelangelo, Giotto, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael are here so that was cool. Then we went to Ponte Vecchio which I absolutely loved!! It was Florence's first bridge built in 1345 and it is the only bridge that survived from the Medieval days (all others were destroyed in World War II). It is lined with all these cute shops and the view is just amazing. When we went to find lunch, we discovered that everything closed at like 2 or 3 (or really whenever store owners want to close)...but after an hour of looking, we finally ate at Gusta Pizza because they stayed open for us and closed after we ate :) Then we climbed and climbed until we got to Piazzale Michelangelo which had an AMAZING view of the city and a green bronze copy of David ;) and then we got gelato and climbed even higher to the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte which is a Monastery that sits at one of the highest points of Florence (and obviously has a great view)! There was a huge cemetary there and it was a gorgeous day, so we stayed up there for a couple of hours and enjoyed the scenery. Afterwards, we went to see some friends who are studying in Florence in their apartment. (A presidential scholar and one of my good friends from ESA are studying there and it was so nice to see them!) It was cool to see their living conditions and how different they are from ours!! Even though it was fun and interesting, it made me really appreciate living with a family and living in Granada because it was just so different.
Friday, Feb. 6
We went back to San Lorenzo Market and bought pashminas (scarf like things made in italy out of cashmere and silk -sooo nice) and then window shopped some more and ate lunch at Il Pirata (I got Lasagna and it was amazing!!!) Then we took a 4 hour ghetto train ride (The whole side of the train was full of grafitti and it totally should not have taken 4 hours but it was the cheapest one! haha) And we were off to our fourth and final city!
Tuesday, Feb. 3 cont.
Once again, we had a good location very close to the train station and the Duomo in Florence, but it was certainly a very different scene than Venice. This was very city-like, but different than Granada. We arrived at the hostel to find a sign taped to the door saying "call this number when you arrive." We had to wait about a half hour to get in, but once we did it was very nice. Our room was HUGE!! Check out the pics. We were very hungry (like always haha) and we set out to look for a restaurant. We found a place that looked nice and when we tried reading the menu outside, we realized that it was all in Japanese!! We were so confused and about to walk away when we saw a man laughing at us and waving us inside. He said you are not Japanese are you? Then he showed us the menu in English (this was obviously a very touristy place!) and we decided to stay. It was very nice inside, and (like most of Italy during these 10 days) full of Japanese people. We found out that Florence has more tourists than residents living in the city...which just baffles me! The food was really good and our waiter "Dustin" was absolutley hilarious!! He spoke to us with a New Jersey accent and when we asked him where he was from, he said he was from there. Of course 10 minutes later he told us that he was really from Italy and he just liked the New Jersey accent. We asked him how he learned English and he said he just picked it up in this restuarant and through people he met - so you can obviously see how many tourists come there!! He gave us free pizza bread when we were done eating because I think we were entertaining him. haha We got gelato before going home and went to bed exhausted from travelling.
Wed. February 4
We had breakfast in an adorable little nook in the hostel, and then went to The Gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti which houses DAVID!! Michelangelo's David (1504) was one of the best things I saw on the entire trip. He has been in the Gallery since 1873 when they took him from the Piazza della Signoria (Which we also saw) to protect him from the weather. We saw replicas of him around Florence but seeing the real thing was sooooo amazing. I honestly can barely remember the rest of the art gallery - I stared at David for at least an hour. (We totally took illegal pics of him too so check them out haha.) The gallery also has a really cool instrument museum that was begun by the Medici family! We also saw the Duomo which was really cool on the outside and unlike anything else we had seen. Later, we went to the Piazza San Lorenzo which was like a HUGE flea market and walked around for a long time and saw the Medici Chapels where a lot of the Medici family (really important family in Florence from the 13th to 17th century - 3 popes!) is buried. We also went to a large indoor market where I had the best sandwich of my entire life, and all it was was salami and cheese!! It was so fresh - they sliced it right in front of us and it was sooo good! We also got super good almonds here! :) We walked around and window shopped and found out that Italian boys are even more aggressive than Spanish boys! (Which I didn't think was possible) For dinner we went to this amazing restaurant called Il Pirata and we paid 7 euro for an all you could eat buffet! There were a lot of Italians there, and it was very authentic and delicious!! (I discovered I really like pesto sauce?) I took pictures of the food so check it out! ;)
Thursday, Feb. 5
We started at Piazza della Signoria which has a copy of David, a bunch of other famous statues, and a really cool fountain. We took a thousand pictures there and then went to the Piazza/Basilica di Santa Croce (I know, I know - all these stinkin piazzas! You have to look at the pictures and then it will make sense!) which is where Michelangelo and Galileo and a bunch of other famous people are buried. There is a statue of Dante outside in the Piazza, but he is buried somewhere else. Next we went to the Uffizi Gallery which holds the world's most important collection of Renaissance art - oh my goodness it was humongous! There is soooo much art there it was ridiculous and I honestly cannot even remember most of it. We got some illegal pics...but for the most part it was just wandering around looking at art for 4 hours. It was really cool, but afterwards I was all arted out dude - I had no idea what most of it even was I just knew it was famous. A lot of the Medici family art collections and works by Michelangelo, Giotto, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael are here so that was cool. Then we went to Ponte Vecchio which I absolutely loved!! It was Florence's first bridge built in 1345 and it is the only bridge that survived from the Medieval days (all others were destroyed in World War II). It is lined with all these cute shops and the view is just amazing. When we went to find lunch, we discovered that everything closed at like 2 or 3 (or really whenever store owners want to close)...but after an hour of looking, we finally ate at Gusta Pizza because they stayed open for us and closed after we ate :) Then we climbed and climbed until we got to Piazzale Michelangelo which had an AMAZING view of the city and a green bronze copy of David ;) and then we got gelato and climbed even higher to the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte which is a Monastery that sits at one of the highest points of Florence (and obviously has a great view)! There was a huge cemetary there and it was a gorgeous day, so we stayed up there for a couple of hours and enjoyed the scenery. Afterwards, we went to see some friends who are studying in Florence in their apartment. (A presidential scholar and one of my good friends from ESA are studying there and it was so nice to see them!) It was cool to see their living conditions and how different they are from ours!! Even though it was fun and interesting, it made me really appreciate living with a family and living in Granada because it was just so different.
Friday, Feb. 6
We went back to San Lorenzo Market and bought pashminas (scarf like things made in italy out of cashmere and silk -sooo nice) and then window shopped some more and ate lunch at Il Pirata (I got Lasagna and it was amazing!!!) Then we took a 4 hour ghetto train ride (The whole side of the train was full of grafitti and it totally should not have taken 4 hours but it was the cheapest one! haha) And we were off to our fourth and final city!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Venezia, Italia
Venice was our second city in Italy and my personal favorite. If this is the first Italy blog you are reading you should scroll down and read about Milan first! And if you are not able to leave me comments you should scroll farther down and learn how to follow my blog!! :)
Sunday, Feb. 1 continued
We arrived in Venice and it was raining once again! We found our hostel very easily from the train station, but no one answered when we buzzed the door. So we roamed Venice for 3 hours stopping for pizza by the slice (salamino!! Haha yum) and when we finally got into the hostel, the owner said “Good thing I was here…you are early!!” We didn’t even tell him we had been there for three hours. We tried making small talk and asked him what the weather was supposed to be like for the rest of the week. He replied, “You will know when you wake up.” Haha he wasn’t too friendly, but the place was sooo nice!! We had our own private room and bathroom again and we got breakfast in bed in the morning!!
Monday, Feb. 2
We took a ferry around Venice for an hour. It’s like a bus for the people who live there, but we thought it was amazing and used it to sight see. Unfortunately, the only camera we had died, but we got plenty of pictures later so don’t worry. By the time we were done, we were freezing and I ended up buying 8 euro gloves even though I already had a pair back in Granada. All of the stores were selling decorative masks. They were literally everywhere we turned, and we were very confused. We eventually found out that they were for the festival of Carnival which is in February in Venice. We also saw sooo much Murano glass – it was absolutely gorgeous. They had everything from jewelry to wine stoppers made out of this glass that is found on one of the islands in Venice. It was very expensive and breakable otherwise I would have bought ALL of you something I promise ;) All day we were followed around by Japanese tourists because they thought we knew where we were going!! We ate chicken sandwiches at a small café for lunch and met some Americans from LA. When we heard them speaking English, Heather got really excited and yelled, “They speak American!” And Dorothy and I told her that they could clearly understand us haha. They told us they were studying in the Netherlands and all of us were just so excited to find other people who spoke English. It was so hard to be in a place where we could not communicate with the majority of the people. Then we got 1 euro gelato even though it was freezing cold outside, and we bought sandwiches for dinner and ate them in the hostel. We were literally the ONLY people in the hostel which was kind of creepy!!
Tuesday, Feb. 3
We went to Piazza San Marco - a very famous plaza in Venice where a lot of movie scenes are filmed. For example - Vantage Point was filmed in this plaza!! Take a look at the pics. There were tons of pigeons here too haha and we took pictures of a family that was literally COVERED in them! I laugh so hard when I even think about it! You have to look at the pics! We also went into the church. We also went to the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo which is a small palace with a huge famous outdoor spiral staircase leading to the top that is from the 15th century. It was really pretty and hard to find! AND THEN WE WENT ON A GONDOLA RIDE! We got a "student discount" after we said no to the 80 euro offer and we had the best tour guide ever! He spoke English and he gave us a 35 minute tour. We saw Fondamenta de la Preson which was the first prison in Venice from the 13th century, The post office haha, the first bridge also from the 13th century to be built in Venice, Marco Polo's house, Santa Maria de la Fava which is an old 15th century church, Cassanova's house, and of course, we went under the kissing bridge <3 We learned soo much from our guide!! He told us all about the water levels and the flooding. He told us that people only use the first floor for storage and that not everyone has boats because the city is small enough to walk everywhere. (There were literally no cars here at all in case you didn't know) And we asked him if it was hard to man the gondola and he said "With winds it's very technical." Then I asked him if his arms were really strong (he was wearing a jacket) and he said "Yes" with a huge grin, and that just made his day!! After the ride, we went to the huge Rialto fish market and walked around and ate fresh nuts. We had awesome paninis for lunch. (I have pictures) and italian pastries!! (I had cannoli crema) And then it was time to go to Florence.
Sunday, Feb. 1 continued
We arrived in Venice and it was raining once again! We found our hostel very easily from the train station, but no one answered when we buzzed the door. So we roamed Venice for 3 hours stopping for pizza by the slice (salamino!! Haha yum) and when we finally got into the hostel, the owner said “Good thing I was here…you are early!!” We didn’t even tell him we had been there for three hours. We tried making small talk and asked him what the weather was supposed to be like for the rest of the week. He replied, “You will know when you wake up.” Haha he wasn’t too friendly, but the place was sooo nice!! We had our own private room and bathroom again and we got breakfast in bed in the morning!!
Monday, Feb. 2
We took a ferry around Venice for an hour. It’s like a bus for the people who live there, but we thought it was amazing and used it to sight see. Unfortunately, the only camera we had died, but we got plenty of pictures later so don’t worry. By the time we were done, we were freezing and I ended up buying 8 euro gloves even though I already had a pair back in Granada. All of the stores were selling decorative masks. They were literally everywhere we turned, and we were very confused. We eventually found out that they were for the festival of Carnival which is in February in Venice. We also saw sooo much Murano glass – it was absolutely gorgeous. They had everything from jewelry to wine stoppers made out of this glass that is found on one of the islands in Venice. It was very expensive and breakable otherwise I would have bought ALL of you something I promise ;) All day we were followed around by Japanese tourists because they thought we knew where we were going!! We ate chicken sandwiches at a small café for lunch and met some Americans from LA. When we heard them speaking English, Heather got really excited and yelled, “They speak American!” And Dorothy and I told her that they could clearly understand us haha. They told us they were studying in the Netherlands and all of us were just so excited to find other people who spoke English. It was so hard to be in a place where we could not communicate with the majority of the people. Then we got 1 euro gelato even though it was freezing cold outside, and we bought sandwiches for dinner and ate them in the hostel. We were literally the ONLY people in the hostel which was kind of creepy!!
Tuesday, Feb. 3
We went to Piazza San Marco - a very famous plaza in Venice where a lot of movie scenes are filmed. For example - Vantage Point was filmed in this plaza!! Take a look at the pics. There were tons of pigeons here too haha and we took pictures of a family that was literally COVERED in them! I laugh so hard when I even think about it! You have to look at the pics! We also went into the church. We also went to the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo which is a small palace with a huge famous outdoor spiral staircase leading to the top that is from the 15th century. It was really pretty and hard to find! AND THEN WE WENT ON A GONDOLA RIDE! We got a "student discount" after we said no to the 80 euro offer and we had the best tour guide ever! He spoke English and he gave us a 35 minute tour. We saw Fondamenta de la Preson which was the first prison in Venice from the 13th century, The post office haha, the first bridge also from the 13th century to be built in Venice, Marco Polo's house, Santa Maria de la Fava which is an old 15th century church, Cassanova's house, and of course, we went under the kissing bridge <3 We learned soo much from our guide!! He told us all about the water levels and the flooding. He told us that people only use the first floor for storage and that not everyone has boats because the city is small enough to walk everywhere. (There were literally no cars here at all in case you didn't know) And we asked him if it was hard to man the gondola and he said "With winds it's very technical." Then I asked him if his arms were really strong (he was wearing a jacket) and he said "Yes" with a huge grin, and that just made his day!! After the ride, we went to the huge Rialto fish market and walked around and ate fresh nuts. We had awesome paninis for lunch. (I have pictures) and italian pastries!! (I had cannoli crema) And then it was time to go to Florence.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Milano, Italia
This post begins my 10 day adventure to Italy so get excited!! =) I am going to write 1 for each city, and some will certainly be longer than others, but the pictures I eventually post will tell you the most!
Saturday, Jan. 31
Heather, Dorothy and I arrived at the Granada airport 4 hours early because none of us actually checked the paperwork, and I thought we left at 5:00 PM but we didn't leave until 7:00! So we bought some books and magazines and Kinder chocolate (yum!) and waited it out in high spirits. We arrived in Milan around 10:00 PM and did not realize that the directions to our hostel were from a different Milan airport and we were actually about an hour outside of the city...So we found a shuttle and were dropped off in what we believed to be the middle of nowhere. The streets were nearly deserted. NO ONE spoke English, and whoever said Italian and Spanish were similar was wrong! So we walked around showing people our directions to our hostel and not understanding a word of what people were saying to us. Finally, a very enthusiastic man took our directions and told us that he knew where it was (in very broken English) so we followed him thinking he was going to point us in the right direction. Instead we find ourselves in his "taxi" watching his GPS and taking a 20 minute ride to the hostel while he belted out Italian tunes. Before we left, we asked him how much it was going to be and he said 30 euro total. When we arrived, however, he demanded 30 euro from EACH OF US and when we tried to fight him, he said he would give us a discount of 25 each. We were exhausted, we had all of our passports, credit cards, etc and just decided to pay him and get safely into the hostel which was also virtually in a deserted, middle of nowhere area. So we get into the hostel and encounter the very welcoming staff who were from Romania and spoke English! We recounted our story for them and they laughed and said we got ripped off - it should have costed us around 15 euro total rather than 75. We didn't think it was very funny....but they gave us free bottled water ("with gas" which is like seltzer water and apparently preferred among italians - yuck!) Check-in took about 1/2 an hour because when we gave him our IDs (2 Illinois licenses and a school ID), he wrote down Jesse White, Jesse White, and Curtin Heather - haha, and when he realized it, he had to re-do all of the paperwork. Finally, we put our stuff down and set out to get our first Italian food! We found a nice restaurant, and I ordered pepperoni pizza which in Italian is pizza with red peppers. Nontheless, it was delicious, and I learned to order "salame" or "salamino" in the future. The hostel was very nice inside. We had our own private three-bed room with our own bathroom. It was virtually like a budget hotel. We crashed around 12:30.
Sunday, Feb. 1
We woke up early to a wonderful breakfast - cappuchinos, croissants, and NUTELLA!!! which is a chocolate spread (sort of like butter) for toast. I was in heaven. Then we set out to explore the city. It was freezing and rainy!!! And because of the warm weather in Granada and the limited packing space (check out my backpack for 10 days in the pics), I lacked proper winter attire - especially gloves! But we saw the Duomo (cathedral) and it was by far my favorite one out of all of the cities we went to. It looks like it is made of crystal and from a Disney movie =) And in the piazza (plaza) outside while we took pictures, I was offered bird seed which I thought I was supposed to drop for the masses of birds...but before I could thank the man (who was expecting money in return), I was attacked by a flock of pigeons, and I dropped the seed and ran away screaming!!! HAHA when I think about it, it is hilarious, but I was seriously scared out of my mind. They are nowhere near as bad as cicadas, but I now have a little fear of pigeons after being nearly pecked to death! We walked around the beautiful square for a while where all of the shopping was located - Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. It was fun to window shop for a while, but we ended up wanting to get the heck out of Milan, and we paid extra to take an early train to Venice...and we also had to pay 1 euro to use the public bathrooms in the train station! It was like shopping carts at ALDI, except you didn't get your money back when you left =( and that was our Milan experience - pretty disastrous I know! But keep reading!!
Saturday, Jan. 31
Heather, Dorothy and I arrived at the Granada airport 4 hours early because none of us actually checked the paperwork, and I thought we left at 5:00 PM but we didn't leave until 7:00! So we bought some books and magazines and Kinder chocolate (yum!) and waited it out in high spirits. We arrived in Milan around 10:00 PM and did not realize that the directions to our hostel were from a different Milan airport and we were actually about an hour outside of the city...So we found a shuttle and were dropped off in what we believed to be the middle of nowhere. The streets were nearly deserted. NO ONE spoke English, and whoever said Italian and Spanish were similar was wrong! So we walked around showing people our directions to our hostel and not understanding a word of what people were saying to us. Finally, a very enthusiastic man took our directions and told us that he knew where it was (in very broken English) so we followed him thinking he was going to point us in the right direction. Instead we find ourselves in his "taxi" watching his GPS and taking a 20 minute ride to the hostel while he belted out Italian tunes. Before we left, we asked him how much it was going to be and he said 30 euro total. When we arrived, however, he demanded 30 euro from EACH OF US and when we tried to fight him, he said he would give us a discount of 25 each. We were exhausted, we had all of our passports, credit cards, etc and just decided to pay him and get safely into the hostel which was also virtually in a deserted, middle of nowhere area. So we get into the hostel and encounter the very welcoming staff who were from Romania and spoke English! We recounted our story for them and they laughed and said we got ripped off - it should have costed us around 15 euro total rather than 75. We didn't think it was very funny....but they gave us free bottled water ("with gas" which is like seltzer water and apparently preferred among italians - yuck!) Check-in took about 1/2 an hour because when we gave him our IDs (2 Illinois licenses and a school ID), he wrote down Jesse White, Jesse White, and Curtin Heather - haha, and when he realized it, he had to re-do all of the paperwork. Finally, we put our stuff down and set out to get our first Italian food! We found a nice restaurant, and I ordered pepperoni pizza which in Italian is pizza with red peppers. Nontheless, it was delicious, and I learned to order "salame" or "salamino" in the future. The hostel was very nice inside. We had our own private three-bed room with our own bathroom. It was virtually like a budget hotel. We crashed around 12:30.
Sunday, Feb. 1
We woke up early to a wonderful breakfast - cappuchinos, croissants, and NUTELLA!!! which is a chocolate spread (sort of like butter) for toast. I was in heaven. Then we set out to explore the city. It was freezing and rainy!!! And because of the warm weather in Granada and the limited packing space (check out my backpack for 10 days in the pics), I lacked proper winter attire - especially gloves! But we saw the Duomo (cathedral) and it was by far my favorite one out of all of the cities we went to. It looks like it is made of crystal and from a Disney movie =) And in the piazza (plaza) outside while we took pictures, I was offered bird seed which I thought I was supposed to drop for the masses of birds...but before I could thank the man (who was expecting money in return), I was attacked by a flock of pigeons, and I dropped the seed and ran away screaming!!! HAHA when I think about it, it is hilarious, but I was seriously scared out of my mind. They are nowhere near as bad as cicadas, but I now have a little fear of pigeons after being nearly pecked to death! We walked around the beautiful square for a while where all of the shopping was located - Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. It was fun to window shop for a while, but we ended up wanting to get the heck out of Milan, and we paid extra to take an early train to Venice...and we also had to pay 1 euro to use the public bathrooms in the train station! It was like shopping carts at ALDI, except you didn't get your money back when you left =( and that was our Milan experience - pretty disastrous I know! But keep reading!!
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Friday, January 30, 2009
Hasta Luego!
Hey all! Sorry I haven't written in a while! I took my finals on Wednesday, relaxed yesterday, and tomorrow I leave for Italy until February 10! I will not be bringing my computer =( so if you NEED to get a hold of me, I will have my European cell phone...otherwise I will tell you all about my adventures when I get back!! Love you and miss you!
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Cordoba!
So last night we went to a tango show at school and then out for tapas and chocolate con churros...mmmmm! And today, we went to Cordoba!! The bus ride was a little under 3 hours long. We left at 8 am and we just got back around 8 pm. The weather was amazing!! We saw the ancient ruins of Madinat al-Zahra which was built in the 10th century!! (It was mostly reconstructed using the remains they found after the city was destroyed in a revolution) We also saw an old Mosque that had a Christian sanctuary built inside of it when the Muslim rule ended and the Christians conquered the land. We walked through a festival where people were dressed up in Medieval attire, and kids played gladiator-like games. Then we saw a very old Sinagogue which is important because when Los Reyes Catolicos (Isabel and Ferdinand) came to Granada, they destroyed every Sinagogue and Mosque in order to ensure that Christianity was the only religion. So the one that survived in Cordoba holds a lot of historical importance. I will post all of my pictures so you can get a better look! Yesterday, Katie and I did a little bit of exploring...or actually just stumbled upon something new which happens every day! :) and we went to a supermarket to buy snacks for the bus ride. There was no candy/snack isle in this supermarket!! haha we ended up getting some chips, animal crackers and gourmet chocolate bars, but the difference in this supermarket compared to Jewel was crazy!! After every meal, we eat fruit for dessert...if we eat fruit before dinner, we may spoil it!? Crazy right!! I really like it!!! It's making me eat a little healthier....kind of ;)
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Flamenco, Cuevas, y Iglesias!
Hey all! So Saturday night (after the hike and a lonnng nap haha) we saw a Flamenco show in el Sacromonte up in el Albaicin. It was amazing! It was sort of like an auditorium with a large glass window behind the stage, and when they lifted the curtain, we had a gorgeous view of la Alhambra lit up!! It was amazing. I am posting pictures and a video even though I can never seem to capture how amazing everything is. After the show (around 10) we went for tapas and to a discoteca nearby in the caves! We got there at 1 AM and we were the first ones there! The bouncer literally had to unlock the door so we could come in...I know - CRAZY! There were 2 floors, and the upper level was surrounded by windows and we could see la Alhambra lit up. I don't think I can ever get sick of that view from el Albaicin :) It is gorgeous! Then on Sunday we slept a lot and went to a little coffee shop to plan our trip to Italia! (I felt so European ;) But for lunch Sunday, we had CHICKEN GIZZARDS! And they were the first thing I really could not get down. So ever since then, my senora has been fussing about me not eating anything and making me eat 2 oranges after every meal "so I don't starve." And everytime I tell her I like something, she says I am lying because I didn't eat a lot! haha...Her intentions are good, but I have a constant stomach ache from being so full! Katie and I are all stressed out because we have to make ourselves eat all of the things we like just so she will make them again. She thinks my favorite food is pasta so she made us lasagna tonight. (She said I am a spoon food person and I don't like things I have to eat with a fork and knife?!) haha she is hilarious. But anyways, today we went on a tour of Capilla Real and La Catedral in Granada. (They are both churches) It was amazing. The architecture is so detailed and beautiful both inside and out! Without the tour guide (our profesora), I would have never noticed the details and known the history that went along with it. In Capilla Real (1492-1521) we were not allowed to take pictures, but we went down a flight of stairs below the sanctuary and saw the actual coffins of Los Reyes Catolicos!!!!!!!! (Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand II) I had no idea their bodies were here until the tour, so it was quite exciting!! (For those of you who don't know, they were the Catholic Monarchs of Spain and they funded Christopher Columbus' trip to America!) And their bodies are right here in Granada like 6 minutes from my apartment! I still can't believe it! After walking through the sanctuary, you go into a museum type room that holds one of the queen's crowns and a kind of jewelry box made out of gold and some of their robes, pictures, and other belongings! It was really cool, and I wish I could have taken pictures. One of the small details of the architecture that I loved was that their initials - F and Y - (Fernando and Ysabel) were engraved everywhere! They were in script (which is why I would have never noticed it) on the outside of the buildings and everywhere on the paintings and walls inside. I seriously had chills - the history was so interesting! In la Catedral (1500-1712), which is right next to Capilla Real, we saw a lot of artwork and stain glass and huge organs, and it was just absolutely enormous! We were allowed to take pictures inside so I will post them. On the walk there, we saw a lot of buildings that belong to La Universidad de Granada, and I think it is so interesting how important the university is to the city. They own so many historical monuments and people are so proud of it. I feel really lucky to be going there, and the tours they offer are teaching me so much about Granada and Spain in general. I love it!! After the church tour, we went to an Irish pub called Hannigans and watched Barack's speech. It was packed with Americans, but all of Spain was watching it at home. It is so interesting how people love him here, and they seem to like us more because he is our new president. When people talk about Bush, they actually get really angry. There are books with Obama's face in every book store window and he is all over the covers of magazines. It really makes me feel like I should be more aware of other countries' current events. People always want to talk about U.S. politics with us and what we think about things. People will immediately dish out criticisms (about Bush mostly), but they don't mean to be offensive. They just want to discuss it, and they are very open about their opinions. There is really no such thing as "politically correct" here. It is kind of nice since we are obsessed with it, and we are always scared to say the wrong thing when we have debates or discussions at home. I am learning so much and feeling so lucky to be here!! I still miss everyone so much! <3
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Mountain hike into Los Cahorros
So I went on a 9 mile hike into the mountains on Saturday!!! We started out in the small town of Monachil and we made our way up the mountain. In the beginning there was an actual road we walked on, but it was very steep, and eventually we were just climbing up the actual rocky mountain. When the road ended, I was like ok are we going back down? haha it was quite the experience. We just kept climbing and every time we would stop and look at the view, it would be better than the last time. You can barely tell how high up we are in the pictures. There were literally no people around once we got onto the mountain, and we saw tons of bull tracks on our way up. I guess it's common for bulls to roam the area. When we got to the top, we could see all of Granada, some of Malaga, the snowy Sierra Nevada...everything! My pictures do not even do it justice. When we came back down, there were parts where we had to sit on ledges and scoot our way across with our backs against the wall. We also had to crawl under a cave at one point. 5 hours later, when we returned to the town of Monachil, the people were celebrating the end of winter with a huge pig roast, fireworks, and people singing in the streets. It was such an interesting part of Granada, and I would have never known it existed if not for this hike! It was such an amazing experience, and I'm so glad I did it even if my legs and butt are going to be sore for the rest of the week!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Homesick :(
So I am feeling pretty homesick. I got an email today saying that night classes were cancelled at ISU because of the bad weather and everyone keeps complaining about the cold there! It is supposed to be in the 40s and 50s the rest of this week here, but inside the house its about the same temperature. I sleep in hoodies and I am sooo glad I brought slippers. Taking showers is painful!! My senora did my laundry this week and folded all of my clothes when it was still damp - so I was even colder when I got dressed!! My express jeans don't fit anymore either because they were hung dry so they are huge! Everything is so different. I yearn for all the little things I take for granted (like dryers and heat and water and calling someone on my cell to meet me downstairs). School is a little bit frustrating too because things are taught so differently here because the language is so different. Class is very interactive though, and I like that there are only 9 people so we feel comfortable talking freely in Spanish. I am also already understanding people better because I am more used to the dialect (kind of! lol) The food is still realllly good, except for the fact that my taste buds just really don't like seafood, and they eat it a lot. I tried ham the other day on a toasted bagel with cheese when I went for tapas. I couldn't really taste it at all though so I wouldn't say I like it now! haha Today we had something similar to lasagna for lunch though and it was wonderful. I watched an entire 90 minute futbol (soccer) game today, and I am going to try and get tickets to a game for me and ryan when he comes! People go crazy over it here. I encountered my first credit card problems. After I paid my rent, my account was frozen because they wanted to make sure it was me. This was last week and they just now got back to me to tell me, so my card got declined twice since then and it was very embarrasing! 3 of us booked our flight to Italy today! We are flying into Milan on the 31st, stopping in Venice and Florence as we make our way down to Rome, and flying back to Granada on Feb. 10. The flight roundtrip costed us 90 euro which is about $120 which is a pretty good price. I am excited about everything but still missing everyone and everything at home. I hope everyone is doing well! When you feel fed up with the cold weather, just be thankful you have a house to stay warm in! :)
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