Monday, March 28, 2011

The Grass is Greener on the Other Side! Madrid 2011

Ok, bear with me...so during the Madrid trip, I was trying to think about the title I wanted for my blog. Well for my title, I obviously need an explanation. and every clever title I came up with, Attie admitted that it wasn't clever and I was the only one who liked it :)...so here it goes...

**"the grass is greener on the other side". Madrid may not be better than Sevilla, but is the grass greener there? Yes...literally. lol haha O gosh that one took me awhile.**Now down to story telling business. Maybe by the end of the blog you'll understand my title better...maybe.

Friday: Friday morning, Attie and I took the 6 hour bus ride to Madrid. I was really ready to go on this trip. I didn't have too much success in Barcelona, I was miserably sick two weeks ago, and this past week has been killer with exams, presentations, and papers. Well, luckily for me, Madrid was perfect! The forcast showed it raining every day, but it didn't rain on us once (ok maybe once but that story is later). It was the perfect temperature all weekend too (not too hot, not too cold, all you needed was a light jacket: name that movie!).

We got settle in Madrid and headed off to the Parque del Buen Retiro. This was the prettiest park I have ever seen. Maybe is was just because Sevilla has zero green grass and no big oak trees like in the midwest (Sevilla has dirt/sand and palm trees), but it was so amazingly refreshing seeing so much green all around. I was obsessed! Also, they had the prettiest pond and crystal palace. I was just enamored by the beauty of the park.
me at one of the pretty ponds. the trees just grew out of the water

crystal palace

the main pond. so pretty!
The rest of the night until dinner, we just walked around the city. Madrid is the perfect city. It's a big city, but everything is so close to each other. We didn't have to take the metro to any of the main sights. I also LOVE how it may be a big city, but it still has that Spanish charm. Not quite like Sevilla, but so much more than Barcelona. Barcelona just felt like a random city whereas Madrid felt a lot like Sevilla and even more like a college town with big oak trees lining the streets and pretty brick buidlings. Anyways, we walked to/saw the Plaza Mayor, which is a huge plaza that has lots of street performers, shops, restaurants, etc. We also strolled through Puerta del Sol, which is the main hubub/shopping area. The main shopping street had so many people on it that we literally could not walk down the street!. My favorite favorite thing that we did was go to the San Miguel Market. I am absolutely obsessed with this place! It was like the food market that I described earlier in Sevilla, but was fancier and more like the Taste of Cincinnati except indoors. Its hard to describe but every food area had a bar where people were just standing and eating tapas from each place. They had lots of fish tapas, which is the first time I've seen fish in Spain. They also had a pastry area that had frozen yogurt just like Red Mango! I got yogurt with strawberries and chocolate each day that we were there. I just had to go back!
mercado de san miguel

day 3 with the yogur

obession

Plaza Mayor
For dinner we met up with Attie's intercambio (person she speaks Spanish to). He just moved to Madrid and was so nice! We had dinner at a "cave" bar, which is skinny but goes really far back like a cave would. After dinner, Attie and I really acted like Spanairds. We found a random bar to watch the Spain vs Czech Republic soccer game, which lasted until about midnight (Spain won by the way!).  Well, up at school, you usually go out and are drinking by at least 10. We didn't get to the club that we went to until 1am and even then it wasn't crowded until 2:30-3am. It was so crazy! I usually don't blog about nightlife, but this club needs attention! The club or discoteca that we went to was called Kapital. it cost 18 euro to get in, but you got a free drink (drinks cost 12euro). This place had 7 (yes SEVEN) floors of party, and every floor had its own theme, such as karyoke, mohitos, R&B music, salsa, pop, etc. Well, in the beginning, Attie and I just checked out every floor. The dancing floor wasn't hopping yet so we settled for the mohito floor where we had the best (and strongest!) mohitos and met the best guys EVER! They seriously made our night! They were from England (point for the hot accent), they were pilots (point for the job and having money to buy us 12 euro drinks) and were so nice and super cute (2 points :)). I'm going to London in about a month and am going to meet up with them and they're going to take us to the beach for a day. We didn't leave until 3:45 , when the party was just getting started, but we had a busy day ahead of us so decided to leave and find a Churros con Chocolate place. We didn't realize that it was raining, so we ended up ditching the churros idea and running home. Maybe it was because I had some drinks in more, but I just thought it was so fun running 15 minutes home in the pouring rain without an umbrella. We got to the hostel with our hair soaken and feet aching, but I have to say Friday night was one of the best nights I've had in a long time :)

Saturday : Saturday morning after 4.5 hours of sleep, we woke up and hit Madrid with a vengeance! Before anything though, we hit these watch stores that were all over Madrid. For those of you who don't know, Charming Charlie's got me hooked on watches. I just love love love them! Well these stores literally were lined floor to ceiling with watches! I got a black, grey and purple watch all for 13 euro. It was a great start to my day :).

I love traveling with Attie because we both like to do a lot of walking around the city. I feel like this give you more of a feel for the city rather than just taking the metro to the big museums and not seeing anything. We walked through La Latina and went to go see the Royal palace which looked a lot like Versailles. We didn't go in because the line was crazy long. We then saw 2 churches that were near the palace then hit up a Chinese restaurant for lunch.You can be disappointed that I wasn't tasting the great expensive tapas of Madrid or you can be really excited that this was the second time I've eaten Chinese since January! I know this sounds weird that I can't just call up Happy China or Panda express like in West Lala, but Sevilla isn't an international city like every place in America. Like I have said quite a lot, everyone here has dark hair, olive skin, and a short build. My American friends and I are constantly expressing how out of place and awkward you feel. It's so refreshing going to a city where you can't tell if they're Spanish or not because everyone looks different. Its nice not to stick out and be stared down for a couple of days. that is the one thing I will not miss when I leave: literally feeling self conscious of what I look like and how I stick out. Something I have never felt in my life.

Anyways, after lunch, we headed to the Reina Sofia and Prado Museums, which we got to go into for free. This was good because they were pretty boring. I mean when you go to these famous European cities, you have to go to the big museums, but I'm just not an artsy person at all. half the pictures I saw I didn't have the slighted clue as to why they are famous. It's ridiculous! Take this video for example. This was a video similar to the bajillion ones in the Barcelona museum. Please tell me what is famous about this :)

 I did however get more fill of my green grass and big trees on Saturday. Right by the Prado are Botanical Gardens. They had flowers, trees and different plants from all over the world, which was really neat.

Madrid really reminded me of a big college town. Especially on the street where the Prado was at. I loved seeing the trees lining the streets. It reminded me of good old Purdue :) After the Botanical Gardens, we were on the struggle bus. We had only had 4.5 horus of sleep and had been walking and on our feet for 9 hours. We made it to Plaza de Cibeles  which has a really pretty building, called the Palacio de Comunicaciones. Well some interesting stuff went down while we were there. There was some kind of demonstration going on and these people literally blocked the entire street so cars couldn't pass. People were freaking out and getting so pissed. I took a video! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did. It was pretty crazy.


Sunday: Sunday morning we woke up a lot more refreshed. This is probably because we went to sleep at 11pm. :) Anyways, our day was really relaxed. We only had one thing on our schedule and that was to see the Rastro Market,  which is Europes largest open market and literally takes up a whole neighborhood of streets. This wasn't like the flea market that I talked about in Sevilla where they just had tarps on the ground with random useless things. This market consisted of literally probably around 800 tents spread out in the "La Latina" neighborhood. They sold everything under sun from sunglasses, jewelry, pots and pans, electronics, clothes, sports gear, etc. It was so neat!...

The ride back was eventless, except for the disgusting couple sitting in front of me who made out the whole time. ew! The PDA in Europe drives me crazy! lol
Madrid was an absolutely amazing experience. We had the best luck with the weather, considering it was supposed to rain every day and it only rained once! I loved the Spanish feel in such a big city and was obsessed with the green parks and San Miguel Market which we went to all 3 days. There is a lot to love about the city and I would definitely come back :)

Hasta Luego,

Lauren

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Week 9 with the flu :(

Hello all! I can't believe I've already completed my 9th week here in Spain. It's crazy how fast it has been going. SPOILER ALERT:::Unfortunately, my week wasn't so good. This blog isn't the happiest of blogs.

Wednesday morning both Annie and I woke up with our stomachs feeling very queasy. We thought it had something to do with the large amounts of fried food we have been eating recently. Spain is famosa for their fried food and seriously I feel like everything is fried. It starts to get to you sometimes when all you want is an oven baked chicken or turkey and a salad (which I haven't had yet). Anyways, other than feeling sick, I assumed I was fine and went to my favorite class, Women's Writers, where we got back our midterms from last week and began to discuss the book that we have finished reading (I've read a whole 250 page spanish book!). During class I started feeling hot and faint, so went outside of the classroom for some fresh air. We have to keep the windows closed because construction is going on outside of our building and it's really hard to understand with extra background noise. Anyways, I went to the bathroom thinking I was going to get sick, but luckily didn't. After class I wasn't able to go to my cine class and didn't think I could even walk home, so took the metro home and then, without eating lunch just took a nap. I woke up from the nap feeling better and determined to do so because I had a huge midterm on Thursday. (My 3 cultures history class is very very in depth. Our study guide had 40 possible multiple choice questions and 10 possible essay questions, of which only 3 multiple choice would be on there and 1 essay). After waking up from my nap and watching Glee with Annie, I headed to a local cafe and got tea con leche (my new favorite drink) and sat down to study. Well, while I was studying I once again was overcome with that awful feeling I know you all know what I'm talking about. The hot, faint-like feeling where you don't even want to move. Well, to say the least, I got sick in the bathroom of Cafe Indias, and automatically went home, where I got sick some more.

I went to bed that night without eating at 9pm and didn't wake up the next day until 10am (which the only reason I woke up was because I had to study for my test that I had at 3pm). Once I felt strong enough to go outside, I walked to the farmacia to see if they had any kind of medicine like pepto bismal. Well, after a lot of explaining what was wrong, the farmacista finally gave me some medicine, that made me feel a little better for the test. The test actually went well, and I was able to go to my fonetica y fonologia class as well (which is the most boring class of my life!...I'll write more about that in another blog). I came home from class around 730 feeling much better and Celia made me some soup and gave me an apple (which you have to eat without the skin when you have a stomachache....she kept laughing at me because I obviously don't know how to peel an apple. I told her I never have any practice because my dad always does it for me. I didn't know how to say I am a daddy's girl in Spanish to explain why though :))

Friday I woke up feeling better and ate some bread for breakfast. Since I was sick, I was kind of hoping we'd eat something healthy for lunch. Well we had hotdogs, that are cooked in the ..you guessed it...frying pan, with Spain's overbubbling excess of olive oil. That didn't make me feel the best, but I didn't want to sit in all day, when it had finally stopped raining and I was going to meet my friends to go lay out in the park. After laying out in the sun all day, I came home not feeling so good and tried to bed early since I was going to Cadiz in the early morning. However, I forgot the boilers played at 1230am our time, so I had to watch them win :)

Saturday morning after a measly 5.5 hours of sleep,  I trudged down to the meeting place to go to Cadiz. I wasn't feeling too great, but who would want to pass up a day at the beach when it was supposed to be nice enough to wear your bathing suit?! Cadiz is only an hour away, and our guides were taking us there to learn a little bit about the city (it's the oldest European city) and to enjoy the beach. Here are some pictures that I took of our tour.

The water was as blue as the sky
Cadiz is surrounded on 3 sides by the ocean 

The city had gorgeous parks right on the ocean

One of the many beaches. It's just picture perfect 
Looking out from a tower we climbed up


 Towards the end of our tour, when it started getting hot, and I was able to wear my sundress without my sweater and still be hot, I started feeling awful again. Being sick is the worst when you have no where to go feel better. All I wanted to do was be laying in air conditioning in bed, but I was stuck following our guide around the city. Finally, around 130pm, we were left to go have free time until 430. We went straight to the beach, threw on our bathing suits, and put our toes in the sand.  I figured I'd be fine just laying down and not doing anything, but boy was I wrong. After 5 minutes of laying in the sweltering heat, I thought I was going to pass out and couldn't even get up to go get sick, so I had to get sick in a bag. I know this may be a little too discriptive for those of you with weak stomachs, but I was seriously miserable and so upset. All I wanted to do was lay out in the gorgeous sun and enjoy the day. However, I was being a pain to my friends and had no way to go home right away. I had to go find a cafe by myself and just sip on a sprite for the next 3 hours while my friends enjoyed the day and even got to go seadooing. Its times like those when your inner child comes out and all you want is your mom. All I wanted was my mom to make me healthy food that I liked and take care of my so I could be all better and actually have enjoyed the day that I was so looking forward too. I was very upset because I just felt alone and helpless.

That night when I finally got home, Annie, my roommate made things so much better. After crying on the phone to my mom, and trying to explain through hiccups (in Spanish=dificil!) what was wrong to Laura, it was nice to have an American friend who wasn't a germaphobe, was able to understand what I was going through and could comfort me. It doesn't help that I'm a hypochondriac and was thinking something terrible was wrong with me since I haven't gotten better yet. Saturday night, the family went out and David, Annie and I were left with a pizza menu to order pizza. Well, I knew I couldn't eat pizza, so I asked if I could have a salad. I got a salad with cesaer dressing and it just tasted like heaven being able to eat something healthy with vegetables. Laura doesn't like vegetables, so Annie and I haven't eaten a salad, or broccoli, or carrots or anything in 2 months. It had been way too long.

Well, today is Sunday, and its 3pm and I haven't changed out of my pajamas. Once again, its a stunningly beautiful day, but I don't want to overdo it. Hopefully I'll start feeling better soon, actually crave food, and be able to go outside and enjoy the weather. Sorry for such a depressing blog, it just hasn't been the best week of my trip so far, thats for sure! Hopefully you find me in better health the next blog I post :)

Hasta Luego,

Lauren

Thursday, March 17, 2011

The situation in Sevilla

So I feel like most of my last few blogs have been solely about my weekend trips to all of the places I am so blessed to have the ability to travel to. However, life still goes on in Sevilla! My days in Sevilla have become routine (but in a good way), so I don't have many exciting new things to talk about. However, a couple of weeks ago, I did decide that I had become accustomed to my life here in Sevilla a little too quickly! I was getting into the habit of just going to and from class everyday. I didn't like it. I'm here in a foreign city and need to be experiencing the city! So thanks to exploreseville.com and the help of my host family, I've been trying to try to experience something new in Sevilla at least once a week. Here is an update on those activities and the other things that have been going on :)
Tapas
Sevilla and Spain are famous for their tapas, which a little finger food bites that people eat for dinner all the time. Instead of restaurants in the states with bit plated meals, there are tapas bars where people order 5 or 6 tapas to share with their friends and get a taste of all the different specialties from that restaurant. During the first week, I was able to experience tapas because our tour guides would take us there and order for us. I never knew what I was eating, I just knew it was good. Since then, I hadn't really gone to a tapas bar because I didn't know what things meant and when my Senora cooks for us every night, I didn't really see the point. However, like I said, I felt like I was getting into too much of a routine, so I decided to try a different tapas bar once a week in a different location of the city. We've been to 3 different tapas bars and all of the places that I have gone to have had this thing called Solomillo con Whiskey. I'm pretty sure it's just a type of chicken with whiskey sauce maranade. It is my all time favorite! Its really fun going to the tapas bars because you just ask the waiter what he suggests and then you get the best food from the restaraunt!

Another place that isn't really a traditional tapas bar, but is more like a chain restaraunt is my favorite place to go for quick cheap food. It's called Cien Montaditos (or 100 little sandwiches). The menu is filled with 100 different sandwiches to chose from and the prices range from 1 euro to 2.50 euro, so they are really cheap and really good. I usually get 2 iberian ham with olive oil sandwiches (the ham is to die for in Spain) and then 2 tortillas with some kind of ranch sauce. (the "tortillas" aren't tortillas from Mexico, they are so much better! They are little pie shaped things with potatoes and onion mixed into it. I think they are called Spanish omelets in America, not sure though) Anyways I get those 4 things, and then for dessert a montadito with a chocolate bar and raspberry sauce inside! Its delicious! On Wednesdays, they have beer and tinto de verano (what I always get here, its like wine mixed with fizzy lemonade) for 1 euro, and they are HUGE glasses. Cien Montaditos are always packed on Wednesdays because of this, so it's a lot of fun!
As you can see, this isn't a latin american "tortilla", its not even made with a tortilla, but potatos onions and cheese. Its the best!
The Thursday market on calle Feria
El jueves en Calle Feria offers absolutely everything and absolutely nothing. I had read about this in exploreseville and thought I should check it out, so on a Thursday before class, Attie and I explored the street of Calle feria. It's actually hard to describe what the thursday market it. Its like a mile long garage sale or flea market, but with the weirdest and most random objects you could ever think of. I seriously was befuddled at why anyone would want to buy half of the stuff they had. A lot of the stuff looked like just really old house decorations or things from the 1950's that weren't good anymore. Attie was looking for a white sheet for a decoration and found one. Well, you know it is considered a flea market, so we thought it'd be cheap. Nope, 35 euro for a WHITE SHEET! Maybe it's because we were American's, but I mean, come on, who else is going to buy a white sheet from you lady? I know I'm not describing it well enough, so let's see if these pictures can help!
the entire street is lined with venders selling things like this. Although there wasn't anything I would ever buy, there sure were a lot of people who definitely came and shopped!


Expo of 92
I was able to see a whole new side and area of Sevilla a couple of Fridays ago when I went with my interest group to see the Expo of 92, which was held on an "island" in Sevilla. The expo is a world fair that is held in different cities every year. (There doesn't have to be an expo every year and there can be more than one or none at all. For example, Genoa held one the same year as Sevilla). The expo of 92 was HUGE for Sevilla. More than 20 million people visited (the fair lasted 6 months). They now consider Sevilla as the "before and after" based on 1992 because of all the construction and modernizing the city did to get ready for it.

The theme of the 1992 expo was "Age of Discovery" because it was celebrating 500 years since Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas. Sevilla hosted the Expo of 92 on the Cartuja island because this was really close to where Columbus set sail to go to the Americas. So, for the expo, there were about 100 different countries represented who came in and built their own "pavillon". Basically they could build whatever they wanted to show just how great their country was. There were so many pavillons and so much to do in the pavillons that the tourists usually spent a whole week at the Expo trying to see everything. It's really funny because during the 1990's, the United States was like the only big dog in the world. However, their pavillon was so horrible that it was the first one taken down after the world expo is over (there still remains a few pavillons left for memories sake, which we got to walk by, but not go in). Now the place is used as a business/discovery park and the location for Isla Magica (a theme park that open starting in April!). I didn't bring my camera to this because I didn't know what it was and I didn't think it'd be cool, which really stinks because it was so neat! To make up for it, I've found a few pictures from the internet that I remember from our walk!
Morocco's Pavillon

Thailand's Pavillon 

Japan's Pavillon. 
The Roommate:
You know what I cannot believe?! I don't think I have blogged about my roommate Annie yet! Annie is from Wisconsin but goes to school at Purdue with me. We didn't know each other before hand, but a mutual friend kind of set us up. She is in the business program here in Sevilla (while I'm in the liberal arts), so we started out making different friends and bonds before we even met each other in the house (since I arrived 3 days earlier then she did). I think just like all people that live with each other have to do, Annie and I went through some bumps and bruises to get into a comfortable groove with each other. We would have never had any rough patches if we weren't roommates. Butttt when your two small twin beds literally touch each other and you can't just go into a TV lounge for quiet and alone time, it takes some getting used to. Also, it's hard because, although we have a lot of the same views and beliefs on things, we're two very very different people. She is a night owl for sure, and I am usually in bed by 1230-1am. She also loves to talk no matter what time of day it is. So, it took some adjusting when she was still up at 230-3 in the morning and skyping with her friends and family at home when I was trying to sleep. However, we've both kind of worked on it. I am now really good at sleeping through everything and don't even wake up and she tends to go to bed earlier too. Also, like I said, Annie loves to talk and I like my "me" time and my quiet time. I think Annie realized that because now we can go for quite awhile without talking. Now that we've got into the groove of things, the roommate situation is great! It's so nice to have an English outlet and someone to share a room with. Since the apartment is small, we can literally only be in our rooms or in the combined dinning/living room, where the family always is.


Well, I think that is about it for now. My friends and I have lots more things planned that we're going to try. However, it's been at a pause since we have midterm exams dispersed throughout this whole month, so it has been a lot harder to find a time to get together like before! This weekend is a relaxation weekend with a day trip to Cadiz on Saturday planned! I will write about that later this weekend! Miss you all! (And just would like to say hi to my Grandpa Sam and say thanks for always reading my blogs! love you :))

Hasta Luego,

Lauren

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Bad Luck in Barcelona

Barcelona...what to say? There is so much to say about the city and this past weekend, that I am having a lot of difficulties putting my thoughts into words.Unfortunately, for me, the trip was a little disapointing and frustrating. Although I wasn't in love with the architecture like I was with Paris and Sevilla (j like the old looking buildings, and in Barcelona had old and new and run down and nicely kept all in the same areas, which threw me off a bit), I don't think it was the city's fault. The entire day Saturday, the main sightseeing day, it poured. I have never been that miserable and wet in my life and have never been so mentally and physically exhausted. I know I may tend to exagerate sometimes, but this time I am not. You can ask my travel buddy, Tara from my phonetics class. The entire day Saturday did not let up once with the rain. It wasn't a drizzle. It was a downpour all day. I was fortunate enough to have brought my rainboots, but that didn't stop my jeans from getting soaken and even my hair (since my handy dandy umbrella had a hole in it).Because of all this, it was so hard to appreciate everything Barcelona has to offer. Barcelona has great art all throughout the city in random intersections, but I felt like our heads were down the whole time trying to stay as dry as possible. ...Ok, I know I just went on a debbie downer rant about the weather and how it kind of held us back. I should be glad that Tara and I were such troopers about the weather. Some girls that we talked to just went to the movies and mall. Lame right?!. Although the rain held us back, we were still able to see a lot of things! I'll start with Friday :)
Friday: Tara and I got into barcelona around 4pm on Friday and walked into the hostel, (situated in the perfect location in Barri Gotic) and fell in love! This place was so cool. Everything was so bright and friendly and their hangout room always had people chilling and music going as well.
the chillout/breakfast area. great place to meet new people!
We then went to the Contemporary Art museum. Tara is big into art and I really loved the contemporary art museum in Paris, so I figured why not. Plus, I figured it'd be free since all of the museums in Paris were). Well I was dead wrong on both accounts. The museum was so bad that it's laughable. There were barely any paintings. The rooms were filled with random TVs showing weird video clips. One showed a guy whose face was burnt and him putting creme on it over and over again. It was so unbelievably pitiful and we wasted 10euro for it as well. After that we decided to just stick to the list that my sorority sister, Courtney Guard wrote up for me to do. She studied in BCN last spring and was a lifesaver with her great suggestions.
Tara and I then went to a street that I had been told was a lot like Champ Elysees which is filled with higher end fun looking stores, great eateries and lots of bright lights and character. Las Ramblas in Barcelona was neat because there were so many people there, but it was more a touristy area filled with souvenir vendors and people trying to sell you things. To me, it wasn't really like Champ Elysees in Paris. One of the really cool things on Las Ramblas was the Boqueria which is one of the largest produce markets in the world. It was so neat and had so many different kinds of fruit and vegetables that I had never even heard of. They also had these drinks which were made out of pure fruit juice. I got a coconut and strawberry. It was delish!
Our next stop was the Monument a Colum (Christopher Columbus monument) which is right on the harbor. This was very cool because I loved seeing the ocean. Even though the day was kind of grey and blah, it was still great to see the ocean with mountains in the backdrop :)
The thing I loved about France was that we did a lot of random things that I think helped us get to know the city a little better (such as visit the Catacombs). Well one of our friends from CIEE told us about this cool chocolate museum where you get a chocolate bar as a ticket. How cool right? Well unfortunately, thats about the only cool thing that there was to the museum. The "museum" was a room with a history of how chocolate came to Spain with different sculptures of chocolate to go with it. Once again, we were kind of mad that we wasted our money. however, our anger cannot compare to dinner on Friday! Tara's friend recommended a more non-touristy tapas place, so we went there. They didn't have a menu so the waiter told us he'd bring us a variety. Can you see where I'm going with this? We he brought us out four plates of tapas (which means like  2 samples on each plate, one for each of us). The tapas were very food, but not filling at all. In Sevilla, one plate of tapas at the MOST is 3 euros (normally 2 euros). While we were waiting for our check, we're like cool, now we can be very spanish and go to another tapas bar to try their specialties. We had only been planning on spending 4 euro each, so when the 20euro bill was delivered to our table, we had a heart attack. Tara and I couldn't do much arguing in Spanish, so we just paid and left in frustration.
***I know that I keep talking about money, money and more money, and my dad keeps telling me to stop thinking and worrying about it, but just look at it from my friends and I's point of view. Every student here has already spent thousands of dollars and will be spending more on our little side trips. We're all college students with no money, so everyone is always trying to go the cheapest route. So this is why I mention it, because it is a big deal to not just me, but everyone here. Also, as you can tell, it hasn't held me back at all! We just try to be a little stingy at times. It didn't help when all of the sites that we saw cost an average of 15 euro to go in. I didn't pay for a SINGLE entry in Paris because I'm considered a European Union student. This was a bit of a shocker that we had to pay an arm and a leg for everything***
I am happy to tell you that our night picked up significantly after this. We visited the Arc de Triumf (which looks a lot like the one in Paris), and then visited the Parc de Ciutadella which was soo gorgeous and had a huge pond and stunning fountain called La Cascada.
Since we didn't eat anything after our tapas "snack" we decided to fill up on a gofre. A gofre is a type of waffle looking thing that usually has a really yummy topping. I'll post a picture of some typical gofres. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of ours, but ours were extra special because we got to choose what kind of ice cream we wanted on top. I put caramel ice cream with chocolate syrup and cool whip on top. It was to die for! So delicious! While we were eating, these two girls came up to talk to us. They said they thought we were cool because we were sitting on the ground eating our desserts like "homeless people" (there were no benches anywhere ok?!). Klaudi and Jessica were from Poland and Germany.
Me, Tara, Klaudi and Jessica. 

 You could automatically tell they were great people. I really think they are one of the reasons I enjoyed my trip. They had come to Barcelona through couch surfing, which is where you can literally sleep on someones couch for free, and were staying with a French guy that lived in Barcelona. We decided to all go back to our hostel and get ready for Barcelona Night Life! Like has been tradition since getting here to Spain, we didn't leave the hostel until midnight to go out. However, we had so much fun in the hostel before we left. There was a DJ playing music until 11, and then a random guy started playing the guitar. We joined int with a bunch of people showing everyone different drinking games from the different countries. The thing I loved about this weekend is that I made friends with foreigners, not just acquaintances, but friends with Klaudi and Jessica. We did everything with them this weekend. They were just great and will be visiting the US this summer and I will be meeting up with them for sure. That night, we went out with people from Wales, Australia, Italy, Brazil, and of course Spain. We went to a shot bar and a discoteca (dancing place), but  I had so much more fun at the shot bar! The shot bar probably had more than 200 different shots to choose from and all of them were a lot of fun. For example, we did a Harry Potter one that lit on fire (like the goblet of fire) and then sparkled too! We also did a Boyscout shot which was the best shot I've ever taken! The bartender put a little fire around the shots and then we literally roasted a marshmellow! Here is a video because words don't do it justice!

As you know, Saturday, we woke up to rain, rain and more rain. We hit the famoso Sagrada Familia. For those of you who don't know about it, the Sagrada Familia is this church that the famous Barcelona artist Antoni Gaudi worked on for 40 years of his life before dying in the early 1900's. The church is still being built almost 100 years later and isn't expected to be finished for another 20-30 years. There is so much secret religious and nationalist symbolism to all of the architecture too, which is really neat. After visiting Barcelona and just seeing 2 pieces of Gaudi's work, I definitely would like to go back and see more. Some cool things about the church is that there is a crypt that we were able to go into. Its underground and houses another church that is actually used right now. Also, Gaudi designed the choir area to be able to hold 300 something singers. The last cool thing I can remember is the door that we walked in through. It had writing carved into it. It is the Our Father in some crazy amount of languages (I want to say like 150 languages, but I don't really remember).
Unfinished Sagrada Familia. 
Ok, so I stole this off the internet, but I mean, have you ever seen anything like this?

Everything about this church is just stunning and breathtaking. Look how light it is and remember how rainy I told you it was. The church just brings in nonexistant light lol
The most unique display of Jesus on a cross that I have ever seen.
After our first taste of Gaudi, we had to have more. We then trudged up the steepest and longest hill of my life to get to Park Guell, which was also designed by Gaudi. It reminded me of the Ernst's driveway, but steeper! lol. The architecture was so neat! It reminded me of candy land houses or gingerbread houses. Everything was so cute and looked just like a fairy tale. I took a picture from the top just because I wanted to show a picture of the two cute gingerbread houses. However, I come to find out later that this was supposed to be the best view of the city. I'll show you a comparison...
our view. (still adorable houses though)
A sunny day's view. yes thats the ocean in the distance :(
there were so many gorgeous and intricate mosaic designs. Every little area had a different pattern. I loved it!
Since it took us about an hour to get to Park Guell in the rain, Tara and I were about spent by the end of the park. However, I had been wanting to see Camp Nou (Barcelona's futbol club's stadium). Tara was such a great friend because she wasn't really into it and didn't wanna pay the 20 euro to do the tour, so just hung out for an hour while I did the tour. I am so so glad I did it. It totally made my day. Before you got to tour the stadium you were able to walk around in the museum. I think this was the first museum that I ever stopped to read the stuff that there is to read. The walls of the museum were lined with trophies upon trophies from all their years of success and along side it were old cleats and soccer balls from important games.They also had a lot of interactive touch screens and videos from their most important wins. The museum was so much fun and I learned a lot of cool things about FCB (futbol club Barcelona). For example, did you know that there are supporter clubs for FCB all around the world on every single continent. There's a supporter club in a Russian jail to try and get the younger kids to see good in life with one of the most winningest teams, there are clubs for disabled people, children in the hospital, and so on. Also, for those of you who didn't know, Spain won the world cup this past summer. Spain scored 8 goals during the tournament and every single goal scored was by a Barcelona player.. Pretty cool huh? During the tour we got to see the stadium (would have been able to walk on the field, but it was raining and they didn't want to mess it up), see the media room, press box (that holds over 300 journalists who come from all over the world to report FCB's games) and of course the locker room! 
That night we joined up with Annie and her friends,(my roommate in Sevilla) and went to this really cool fountain/light show


Afterwards I was on my last strand of being in a good mood. Everyone was exhausted and grouchy and since I knew how the metro system worked the best, I fell in charge of leading all 10 of us back to the hostel to find somewhere to eat (its 10pm right now and we hadn't had dinner). Once we finally got back to where we were going, most everyone was walking slow, but i was getting antsy, so me and annie were walking ahead of the group because all I wanted was food and a roof over my head so I could be warm and dry. Welll, we were walking on the sidewalk and like I said, it had been raining all day so there were tons of puddles on the roads. So I'm sure you're guessing what happens next. A car flies by and literally soaks Annie and I head to toe. Luckily Annie was wearing a garbage bag, so just her bottom half got soaken. I literally was soaken wet. I thought I had been wet before from the rain all day, but that wetness was just dampness compared to the drenching we got. It was the tip of the iceberg for me! Erg! lol. Luckily, we found the place we wanted to eat really soon. It was called Bo de B's and was soooo delicious. It was a really really small eatery (they only had 3 tables, so you had to wait outside until your turn to eat), but it was definitely worth the wait. It was probably the cheapest, yet best and most filling food I had in Barcelona all weekend. It kind of reminded me a little bit like a mix between Penn Station and Chipotle. They were sandwich buns where you could chose either chicken, salmon, or beef. Then, you were able to put all these really exotic and random toppings onto the sandwich. They had 4 different kinds of sauces that they put on my sandwich, then I just said I wanted everything on mine (which I usually would never do). But on my sandwich I got olives, rice, lentil beans, lettuce, red peppers, and those purple crunchy things they put on your salad. It was the best sandwich I've ever eaten!
Our new friends enjoying their salad. At the bottom of the picture is my amazing dinner!
 Sunday: We woke up Sunday to the most gorgeous day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Tara and I had to leave at 11:30 in order to catch our plane, but still wanted to see the beach. Although I only got to see a glimpse of Barcelona on Sunday, this is the Barcelona I had heard about. There were so many people outside running and socializing on the beach. There was even a huge parade that we got to see too! It was so neat and I can't wait to go back and experience that kind of Barcelona!
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One last thing I wanted to talk about was the Catalan language. I had been told that people from the Barcelona region speak a different language, but I had always thought it was just a different dialect (like southern dialect in America). NO! it was a completely different language. To me, it kind of looked like a mixture between French and Spanish. I don't know, it was really interesting because at all of the touristy locations, there was Catalan first, Spanish second, then English. The Catalan was hard to read, but I could still communicate with my Spanish, so maybe the people know both, I'm not sure! I took a picture to show you what I'm talking about.
for those of you who know Spanish, you can see what I mean. There are better example, but still, I'm not really sure what this means!
Ok! Well that was my trip to Barca. I had a good time with my friends, and for the sights that I got to see, I really enjoyed myself. The great thing about this trip, although a tad disappointing with the weather, it has definitely made me want to come back for longer, maybe a week. Because I'm studying abroad now and traveling so much, I know in the future I will definitely continue to do so. One of the places I will be revisiting will definitely be Barcelona!

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Some last thoughts about Paris

Ok, ok, I know I just published a book about what I did in Paris, but by the time that I got to the end of my activities, I was too tired to write about my feelings. This'll be short, but I just had to express how much I was in love with Paris!
I was a little tentative going to Paris. I really wanted to go and was excited to, but I figured I wouldn't like it because I had heard all the people were so mean. Well please, if you get one thing out of reading my blog, please erase that stereotype out of your head! The Parisians were the nicest people I have ever met as a whole. The language barrier was no problem because most everyone spoke English and didn't have a problem about speaking English to us. The Parisians went above and beyond their jobs to help us poor hopeless Americans out. For example, the first restaraunt we went to, we kind of communicated our language difficulties with the waiter and he smiled and stepped over to the computer right by us. I was able to see him log onto the computer and go to googletranslate and look up the English words for the French food. It was so so nice! Also, the couple sitting next to us talked our ear off and gave us about 20 different foods ideas to try while in Paris. One day when we were just roaming around the city, we were being the typical tourists and holding the map right in front of our face when a really nice guy who barely spoke any English came up and asked us what street we were looking for. He then proceeded to give us some really choppy, but great directions. I also got 2 free postcards from this like garage sale thing where Attie and Brittany were wanting to buy really cool old postcards. Well I didn't really want any, but before I left he gave me two. It was really cute!
The last thing I want to talk about from the Paris trip was the food! Someone can't go to Paris and not talk about the food. Although everything cost an arm and a leg to eat there, I think it was the best food I've eaten since I've gotten over here. For those of you who don't know, the spicy Mexican tacos and tortillas don't exist in Spain. I like Spain's food a lot and love their tapas, but most of their food is very bland and you only get served a main dish, so there's not much variety. (Just different, not bad!) In America, I'm used to eating a main entrée of meat with then some kind of potatoes and then veggie or fruit. Well, in that aspect, France was a lot similar. All of our meals were "deal meals" where you paid a lump sum of like 20 dollars a meal but you got an appetizer, entrée and delicious dessert! In Paris I had my first steak since I'd been over here, a great french onion soup (although Whiskey's, it had nothing on yours!), quiche, tartiflette (a really good food with bacon, cheese, potatoes and onions), and lots more great food with even better desserts!
All in all, Paris was just a delight! I would definitely travel there again in a heartbeat! I will be in Barcelona this time next weekend! I'm looking forward to seeing the beach there! Pray for good weather so I can put my new bathing suits to use!

Hasta Luego,

Lauren

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Since when is the Eiffel Tower brown?! Paris 2011

Hello friends and family! I just got back from my first trip of many this semester. My friends, Attie and Brittany and I went to Paris from Thursday night until early Tuesday morning. We did so much and I am so proud that we were able to do so many things. I have TON to write about so I am forewarning you that you might have to read it in pieces. I'll break it up and put labels with every subject so you can skip around if you'd like!

Thursday and Friday
The Trip: so Thursday right after my class, my friends and I walked to the Sevilla bus station to take a 6 hour ride to Madrid to catch the plane there. (Everything is cheaper from the bigger, international airport.) Not much happened, except for the fact that I realized I know absolutely nothing of the French language. For example, when I saw the French yes spelled out, "oui", I thought was pronounced oowee, not we. *I didn't know it was the French yes or else I would have known how to pronounce it!* So with that knowledge in mind, just envision my fun in trying to pronounce/comprehend French this past weekend... unsuccessful. :). Anyways, once we got to madrid at 12am, we took a couple of different metros to take us to the airport, then camped out until 615am for our flight. The cheapest company to go through is always Ryanair, but the catch is that your bag must fit into their size requirements. Here is a picture of how small your bag has to be!


The Metro System: The first thing I got to experience in Paris was the metro system, which literally should be considered a "sight". I have NEVER seen anything as sufficient, yet complex in my life. There are 15 lines for the metro that each have around 30 stops. Sevilla was my first time using a metro, which has 1 line and maybe 8 stops (just to give you a picture of how complex this thing is!). There is literally a city underneath Paris filled with metros. It is so cool because once you get the hang out it (which we did), you see how accommodating it is. We took the metro everywhere we went this past weekend. It wasn't even a question if we should walk. It'd have taken forever. usually, to get to the main sights, we'd have to take 2 or 3 metro lines just to get there. Attie was the queen of this. She always knew where we were going and showed Brittany and I how to use it as well. I really liked the metro, except for the dirtiness of it. For those of you who don't know me well, you know that I hate germs. The fact that I had to sit on a dirty seat or hold on to a dirty pole and then smell the dirty smells of the metro was a bit unbearable at times. Other than that, we were always entertained by the different people that played accordions in the metro trying to make some money.

Hostel: Staying in a hostel was another first for me. We stayed in a 6 man room and all shared a bathroom. We had roomates from Poland and Zimbabwe and a girl from the states living in Granada this semester. We didn't see much of the hostel only to sleep, shower and eat our free breakfast. The one thing that grossed me out was showering without flipflops. Unfortunately, those were the one important things that I forgot. Brittany and I (another fellow germaphobe) ended up wrapping our feet in plastic grocery bags and then taking a shower. Lol, it was great. Here are some pictures of our hostel and dining room.


 Basilique du Sacre Coeur:  when we got to our hostel, we still had 3 hours until chek in, so we went to the highest point in Paris (on the butte, which means hill). Our hostel was in Montemart, which is acutally on the butte, so we were able to walk there. We took a bajillion steps, but it was totally worth it. Here are some photos of the church, which we went into to say a little prayer of thanks for our safe travels, and the great view of the city!



The Eiffel Tower: what does every tourist go to Paris for? To see the Eiffel Tower of course! At my first sight of the Eiffel Tower, I was extremely surprised to see that it was brown! Maybe because I've gone to Kings Island all my life and seen the fake tower, but I was totally expecting it to be a steel-bluish grey color. Oh well, the color didn't change how grande it was.We went up to the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower on this scary elevator that I was thinking was for sure going to drop us to our deaths. Well, it didn't and I was able to take some great pictures!

We went up the Eiffel Tower at the perfect time because it was right before the the lights came on and started flashing. Basically every hour on the hour (once it gets dark) the Eiffel Tower flashes. It was so breathtaking and exciting! I hope this video shows just how awesome it was!

After we got back down, I had my first taste of Paris' famous crepes. I got a Nutella and banana crepe with whipped creme. It was seriously the best thing ever! After that we just headed back to the hostel. We had only gotten 3 hours of sleep in the past 36 hours and were wiped!
Saturday:
Versailles: we woke up early Saturday and finagled our way to Versailles, which is the HUGE home of King Louis XIV. Unless you ahve seen it with your own eyes, you really can't fathom the greatness and hugeness of this place. King Louis XIV built his home to show the power of France, and in my eyes it really worked. It's hard to describe, so I'll just show some pictures to help explain:)
Oh..just the king's home.. 
Marie Anoinette's bed
One of the hundreds of rooms in the palace
Versailles does not just include a huge mansion, but miles upon miles of "gardens". There is a huge man made lake that the king kept war ships on, a village and another palace that Marie Anointte would stay in to get away from the royal life, and a huge farm. Here is a picture of the beginning of the gardens. You can't see the rest of them because it took us like a half hour to walk through the gardens just to get to the village.
***The cool thing that we lucked out on that we didn't know before we came to Paris is that with our Spanish visas, we're technically residents in Europe, so were able to get through the museums for free because all of the museums let 18-26year olds in for free. It was so great!

Musee D'Orsay:  this was one of the museums that I had heard great things about from friends that have already gone. however, I found myself quite bored. The museum had lots of older French paintings and sculptures from 1800s-early 1900s, which means a lot of naked pictures of women and men. Unfortunately, there were not pictures allowed, so I couldn't take any to show you what I'm talking about. I'll prove to you later in my blog that I do appreciate art, just more modern art, as I discovered at another museum!

Pont de Arcs: aside from the Eiffel Tower, this was probably my favorite thing taht I did. Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for romantic things like this, but I think everyone would have loved it! Basically it's this bridge with thousands of locks on it with people's initials on the locks. Some have writing about love in different langauges which makes it like the international bridge of love, which I think is the cutest thing ever. We probably stayed on the bridge for an hour with the pouring, freezing, slanting rain drenching our jeans and jackets, but we didn't care, and hardly noticed because we were so mesmerized by the bridge. I totally want to have my initials up there one day!

I looked forever for MandJ (my mom and dad:))
Arc de Triomph and Champ Elsyees:  Saturday night we headed to France's version of Times Square. We walked down Champ Elsyees and window shopped and ate at a little cafe for dinner. (I'm going to pause here  to tell you how expensive everything in the stores were! I've heard that Paris is expensive, but never in my life have I seen a plain looking scarf for 70 euro! Crazyness!) At the end of Champ Elsyees is the worlds largest round about, Place de L'Etoile, and in the middle of that is the Arc de Triomphe, which is where an unkown WWI soldier has been laid to rest since 1920.
Sunday:
Louvre: the Louvre is one of the biggets museums in the world. Our hostel roomate was there for 5 hours one day and said she didn't even see half of it. The only reason we went was to see Mona Lisa and take a picture by the huge glass pyramid.
Notre Dame: we then headed over to the Ile de la Cite (1 of the 2 islands in Paris) and saw the Notre Dame. The inside architecture reminded me a lot of Sevilla's catedral. They were actually having mass while we got to walk around in the church. (I definitely wouldn't like going to church there because it'd be more like a spectacle then a quiet pensive mass session).

Afternoon in the Latin Quarter and Catacombs: For lunch on Saturday we headed into the famous Latin Quarter and grabbed some great lunch. Attie then took us to this famous bookstore that she had read so much about, called Shakespeare and company. It was the cutest place ever and was lined floor to cieling with books. It reminded me something out of the Harry Potter movie from one of the stores in Diagon Alley or something. It was great. After that we headed to something that I had read a lot about in my travel book, called the Catacombs. The catacombs are filled with 6million people's dead bones from the 18th century. Yes, SIX million people's bones. Basically what happened is that the common burial areas in France were so unsanitary and overcrowded that the government had to find another place to put them in. So they built an underground cemetary. It took us about 20 minutes to walk at a downhill slope to get to the bones. It was very claustrophobic ( i couldn't even stick out my arms and the ceiling was sooo low!) Here are some pictures:

Monday:
Pompidou Center: Monday morning before the Pompidou Center, we went and visited this really cool cemetery that we kept passing. We thought that it was the most visited cemetery because we had kept reading about it in our book, but it turns out we went to the wrong one! It was still neat though. We then headed to the Pompidou Center which was so neat! It's a building with it's insides turned out. All of the pipes and even the escalators were on the outside of the building! The actual building held a contemporary art museum inside, which I really enjoyed.

We left Monday afternoon at like 1pm and got back to Sevilla Tuesday morning at 5am. To say the least, I was completely exhausted after spending everyday touring Paris from like 830am-9pm. But it was totally worth it. I had such a good time and would love to go back!