Sevilla

We arrived in Sevilla mid-afternoon. From the bus station, we found our hostel, dropped our bags, and went to try to meet with with the other girls from Burgos to buy tickets for a Flamenco show. The city of Sevilla is full of windy roads.... so what could be a straight show requires the upmost navigation skills to get from one spot to another without venturing out to a main road. After winding our way through the city, we arrived at the 3rd largest cathedral in the world (for being so massive, you sure couldn't see it over all of the other buildings...). 

Hannah and I had only had a pastry and a Coke that morning, so we were beyond starving by this time, so after paying the girls, we found a nice cafe to dine at. We ended up splitting a bottle of wine, appetizers and hanging out for awhile... typical Spanish way of eating... rather than the "stuff your face and sight see" method that we're used to. From there, we moseyed around to all of the shops, before being rejoined by Liliana. She wanted to see the Alcazar, but it had already closed :( We were headed in the general direction of the Flamenco show when we came upon the Plaza de los Toros... so we ventured inside. I first took advantage of the free bathrooms, and when I was exiting, was informed that there was a "show" starting in 4 minutes and the girls had already purchased tickets. I was nervous about seeing a bullfight, but thought when in Spain and went along with it. Turns out, the "show" was really just a tour of the area, so nothing yucky, just a lot of old stuff and information about the history of bullfighting. In the end, we all decided that we'd prefer to never see an actual bullfight.

Afterwards, we stopped by our hostel to get a corkscrew, as nowhere on the Flamenco ticket did it say that it WASN'T a byob event. There was quite the ruckus in the neighborhood, so we decided to investigate. Just the Spanish Halloween celebration... drum line and parade of children, typical Halloween stuff.

We arrived at the show early, and waited outside as tour busses showed up full of people. Apparently, there are people who aren't cheap, and decided to enjoy a fancy dinner during the performance... I bet they did not byo-vino. The dancing was amazing! A full crew of 12 dancers rotated though as singers and band members in the back rocked out! 

After the show, we decided to walk to the Plaza de España, as we had seen amazing postcards of it at night. Apparently, those postcard photographers get special privileges, because after walking 30 minutes, we found ourselves locked OUT of the Plaza. We walked back to the city in search of rabas (calamari), but all of the bars were either closed, or closing... so we settled on the BK meal... again.... it sucks that it's so cheap and always open. It was interesting scoping out all of the costumes of the BK goers at 1:00 AM... A for effort on Halloween Spain!

The next morning, Hannah and I woke up, took our bags to a locker at the bus station and enjoyed the city. We walked back to the cathedral to pay it a proper visit. Being that the day after Halloween is a holy day, it was free to enter (yay!). We moseyed around, snapped some photos, and enjoyed the facades. 

Afterwards, we re-ventured to the Alcazar and had a look around. The gardens there were more impressive than Alhambra.... but the actual palace had nothing on it. For fear of getting lost, we did not venture into the shrub labyrinth, but continued our walk through the gardens until we found a exit. By this point we were starving, and sought a restaurant on the way to Plaza de España. We found a nice one with a great menu del día special and sat down... after twenty minutes of not being served... water... anything... we continued on our trek to the Plaza, hungrier than ever. A stand outside of the Plaza was selling potato chips... a perfectly reasonable meal for those dying of starvation (and anyone in my house knows that chips explode after 10 minutes if they're not eaten... soooo it was more of a civic duty). Bag in hand, we entered the Plaza de España, and took in all of it's glory. A giant fountain. Check. A fake river for row boats. Check. Cute four people bikes. Check. HEAVEN! However, the worst thing happened in this magical place... my camera died. So there are limited photos of the awesomeness. Bummer. 

On the trek back to the bus station, we finally found proper nourishment, a tapas special at an outside cafe that appeared to be owned by the Spanish mafia. It was great food to tide us over for our 6 hour bus ride to Madrid. 

Cordoba

We bussed into Cordoba in the evening time. A two or three hour ride from Granada. Despite missing every sunset at the lookout over the Alhambra, I did get to see a beautiful sunset over a mountainside of olive trees during the trip. Hannah did not appreciate me waking her up to see it, but it inspired me to consider a retirement as an olive orchard owner someday.

We exited the bus, and consulted Hannah's trusty guidebook (We <3 Rick Steves!). Rick recommended two city bus numbers to take to get to the main part of the city. As we walked out of the bus station, #4 was waiting for us, so we eagerly jumped on. After boarding, we realized we weren't real sure what stop to get off at... and the longer the ride went on, the further off the map we ventured. We ended up in the suburbs/ghetto of Cordoba. We did manage to find the Hipercore and Carrefour... two huge markets... just in case we needed them for our less than 24 hour stay. Finally the bus returned us to pretty much where we got off and we hoofed it like we should have done in the first place.

Coming to Cordoba we had no plans... literally NO PLANS. No hostel. No set bus times. NOTHING! (This should be very shocking for those of you who know me... I DO NOT fly by the seat of my pants.) Thus, we were two girls and two backpacks marching through the streets of Cordoba at 9:00 PM hoping for a room anywhere. The first place we went wanted to charge us $100 (USD) to sleep in their room for the night, and the next only had the honeymoon suite available (despite considering this our "second honeymoon" [see Santander post for the 1st], we were not on a honeymooner's budget). Finally we found a place on a side street with a grouchy man running the desk who offered shelter for a reasonable price. SUCCESS!

Rachel H., Liliana, Lizette, and Fran were already in Cordoba, so we met up with them on the magical bridge for a mosey around town.

alter on the bridge 

They had already spent a full day there and were headed to Seville the next morning, so they gave us the rundown on what we should and shouldn't do. We sat on the steps of the mezquita chatting and joking... only typing this do I realize how cool that is! (Ohhh... no big deal, just hung out on the steps of one of the most FAMOUS places in Spain catching up with friends! GOD MY LIFE IS AWESOME!) We parted ways, and Hannah and I found a restaurant to get tapas and wine before turning in for the night.

The next morning we woke up early, ready to go see the mezquita.

It's free to visit on Mondays (and lo and behold Monday we were there), so we were expecting megalines. YEP... we walked up, asked a guard where the line for tickets was, he laughed and just pointed towards a door... we just waltzed on in... no line... no money. YAY! So Cordoba's mezquita is as iconic as the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. It's something I've seen pictures and learned about a bajillion times, and was ELATED to finally see in person. IT'S FRICKIN AWESOME! The only disappointing part is that it was converted from a mosque to a Catholic church when the Reconquista occurred... so there's beautiful Moorish work, then a giant, out of place crucifix. I'm not anti-Catholics... just build your own darn church... stop stealing everyone else's!!!

After the mezquita, we walked around for a little while deciding what to do with our day. After pre-reading about Seville in the guidebook, we decided to grab an earlier bus so we could have more time to enjoy Seville.

Granada

Halloween weekend meant another puente (direct translation: bridge, literal translation: long weekend)... yay for two girls in need of a little traveling. Unfortunately, the trip started out a little rough... with me buying the wrong bus tickets for the day before... ouch! Good thing these pretty, sparkley euros grow on trees. After repurchasing tickets and sleeping like the homeless on a bus station bench in Madrid for a few hours, Hannah and I finally made it to Granada. After taking a city bus downtown from the bus station, we found a miracle with four walls, a palace of a Burger King with 3.30 euro meal deals! So tasty after a long day of traveling, and probably made with much higher quality meat. After our American meal, we hiked up a hill to the Albayzin neighborhood, a historic area of town with a killer view of the Alhambra. After setting down our bags and filling our BK cups with vino, we headed over to the lookout.

The next day, we woke up ready to explore the city. We perused through all of the touristy shops, then hiked over to the neighborhood of a famous graffiti artist. After becoming famous, he came back and decorated his childhood neighborhood. 

The colors were so bright, and each of the of the pieces had thought provoking quotes. Sooo artsy. Afterwards, we found a bar with wifi, wine and free tapas and looked into visiting the Alhambra and emailed home to let loved ones know we weren't dead. Since our hostel had a kitchen, we brainstormed all day walking around about what American meal we could cook for ourselves that night. We settled on chicken, mashed potatoes and salad, inexpensive and easy. While shopping, we realized there are still things we haven't had to do for ourselves here... like purchase meaningful things the in market (i.e. not candy and wine). When we got to the meat counter, we ordered a quarter of a kilogram of chicken, not realizing that was 5 chicken breasts. Improvising, we bought tortillas so we could use the leftover veggies and excessive amounts of chicken to make wraps the next day. The goal was to make dinner and actually see the sun set over the Alhambra, unfortunately, cooking took longer than expected (cooking tools were limited, no veggie pealer, no baking devices) and we ended up hanging in the hostel with the owner for the evening. 

The next morning was our last planned day in Granada. We were told by the landlord to make it to the Alhambra by 8:00 and we'd have no problem getting in (they reserve 1000 tickets to sell each morning, in addition to the ones that were already sold out online). After hiking up a giant hill, we were making impeccable time. It was a little after 8:00 but there was already a mega line. After an hour of waiting, a small commotion erupted in another area, so like a good tourist, I ventured off to check it out. There was another line available to purchase tickets with a credit card, so Hannah stayed in the cash only line and I was the 30th person in the credit card line. Great plan, until we realize that she only has a card and I only had 2 euro left on my card. I reached the machine, used the card, praying for chap overdraft fees as they were announcing that there were only 160 tickets remaining for the entire day. I found Hannah in the other line and we hustled to an ATM to possibly deposit cash and beat the fee. The world's best mother had already transferred my funds the day before, so we did a lot of running and freaking out for nothing. We grabbed coffee and pastries to rest before re-venturing up the hill to explore. The Alhambra is comprised of gardens, palaces and an old castle, all built by the Moors before the Christians not so politely asked them to get the hell out (1300s). Rude, but a completely different story. We explored the gardens and a place built for King Carlos V (1500s) before entering the palace. The detail and immenseness of both the gardens and palace was amazing. I am truly amazed at what people were able to do without any modern technology. 

There's like a bajillion pieces of wood put up there by hand. 

Once we left the palace, we explored the castle before back to make snack wraps and catch the bus to Cordoba. 

Lisbon... that's in Portugal... Europe

A few weekends ago we took advantage of another long weekend, and jetted off to Lisbon. Our plane arrived slightly delayed Thursday night a little after midnight. As directed by the lovely Begoña, we found the city bus stop outside the airport and waited. After sitting at the stop for a few minutes, we realized that there was only one night bus running and that the whole process might be a little more difficult than we originally thought. Despite our doubts, we climbed on the shady looking bus a headed towards the center of the city. They dropped us off at a giant arc around 1:30 and we were left to find our hostel. We then decided it'd be a good idea to fetch a taxi, rather than moseying around in the dead of the night with all of our luggage. After a 90 second taxi ride, a distance of 8 city blocks at the price of 5 euro, we realized it wouldn't have been that bad of a walk after all.

The next morning Aaron, Monica, Sean, Molly and I got up bright and early for a tour given by We Hate Tourism tour group. IT WAS FANTASTIC! We piled into an old German police van and sped away from the city to explore the outskirts of the city. Our first stop was the city of Sintra for coffee and sweets. Afterwards we perused in all of the local shoppes, sampling their local liqueurs... almond flavored, and cherry served in a chocolate shot glass) all before 10:30. We were then carted off to an amazing palace... Palácio da Regaleira to explore for a few hours. This mansion and crazy array of gardens, paths, and underground tunnels was built on almost 10 acres by a family who had far too much money and no real need for it. Next we were carted off to a roadside farmer's market en route to the best surprise of the day. We bought strawberries (THE FRESHEST YUMMIEST ONES EVER) and browsed the rest of the stands before loading back into the van. The surprise was the tastiest sandwhich/calzones (fresh bread baked with chorizo and goat cheese in the center), <3 OLIVES <3 , copious amounts of wine, and the most majestic lunch location:

... oh no big deal... just the Atlantic Ocean!

We settled in for a little while munching, chatting and enjoying the view before hiking a little ways up the road to join the throngs of tourists at the Western Most Point in Continental Europe marker. The last stop was another city with their claim to fame being the world's best ice cream. As a professional ice cream taster, I have to agree that it was great, but no gelato. We took a stroll on the beach and collected raw materials before being returned to the Lisbon proper area. There we saw a ginormous monastery and 

a monument honoring the explorers of Lisbon (where thanks to the wine I was much more interested in the fish in the water nearby than the actual monument).

 

For dinner that night, we joined up with Liliana, Roxana, Amanda, and Lizette for dinner at a restaurant that the tour guide had suggested. Each of us ordered chicken, and were served a CHICKEN... a whole entire chicken, along with french fries and some weird rice. After adventuring all day, we all turned into bed, ready to explore the city the next day.

Sunday morning, we found the local, and FREE art museum. The highlight of the trip was Molly complimenting my on my art critiques. Next we found another restaurant with massive portions and amazing flavors and had a feast for lunch. While we were feasting, a storm rolled in, so we spent the rest of the afternoon in the downtown area shopping and snacking on the famous pastries de nata. Later, we met up with Aaron's host brother Sergio (he's studying abroad for the year in Lisbon) and went to a dive diner for dinner then a bar to hear fado music. The fado music never materialized, but a creepy magician did. After calling him on every magic trick, and him calling Sean Sharon the whole night, we politely left him before he got the idea that we were bff. We all went back to Sergio's apartment, and met the rest of his roomies, from France, Spain and Lithuania and hung out for a little while before another stormy walk home.

Monday morning, we got up, packed up, and explored the historic parts of the city. We caught a cable car to take us up the mountain to the castle region. They're fun to look at, but very uncomfortable to ride in. We took in the views from the top, and enjoyed some local wine, vinho verde, before entering the castle. There were amazing views of the giant bridge (a San Fran knockoff) and the Christ tower (a Rio de Janeiro knock off) as well as the entire city. Before leaving, we found a small restaurant to enjoy one more cheap meal at before heading to the airport. 

Milan

What an amazing city to conclude our Italian tour! We were able to meet some wonderful people, reconnect with the amazing Jacopo Crippa, spend some serious time shopping and actually sleep past 5 AM.

We got to Milan on Friday afternoon, after a FULL night of sleep in Venice. Our bodies were confused as to what we were doing in bed so late. We got kicked out of 1st class (oops) and moved to the commoners area on the train, where it was packed the entire time. We're used to traveling like vampires, so it was strange seeing people awake on a train car. To get to our hostel, we had to take two metros. The first metro was so-so, but the second metro was AMAZING! I would have willingly ate a meal off of the floors of this train. It was so clean, and modern and not disgusting! I'd prefer to sleep there than in some of the hostels we stayed in :) We arrived at our hostel, only to be informed that there was a "small problem" and that our room was given away because it was fashion week.... GREAT! When I asked the clerk why he didn't contact me about the "small problem" he said I "wouldn't understand". In turn, he sent us to a hotel a 15 minute walk away where he reserved us a room that's much nicer than his... It seemed like trouble. Milan is confusing, because unlike the other cities we've been in, there are a LOT of small roads. We were wandering around with luggage and a map speaking English and looking confused when a young guy approached us and ask "Are you speaking English?!?".... why yes sir... we are. Turns out this lad was from Cali and teaching English in the schools there, he said never in his whole year there had he heard someone speaking English in that area of Milan. He nicely walked us to our hotel, because let's be real, it would have taken us another hour to find, and let me use his phone to call Jacopo. Again, GREAT PEOPLE ARE OUT THERE!

After showering and settling into our hotel, which turned out not to be half bad, we realized that we hadn't eating since 10 that morning and it was now 4 o'clock. Jac came and collected us from our hotel and took us to get toast (a glorified grilled cheese and ham) and Coke before taking us back to his apartment so he could get ready for the evening. Jacopo is a friend of mine that came to Plainwell during my junior year of high school. He's a pretty alright guy ... okay, he's amazing... and is the best tour guide we could ever ask for! He's studying medicine at the university in Milan, so after changing, he took us to get aperitivos with his fellow med students. Now this aperitivo thing is the BEST THING IN THE WORLD! You buy a drink, and you get a whole buffet of foods for FREE! This was WELL worth the wait. We also got in over our heads, telling Jacopo's friends to order us something really good, then whining when it was too strong. After gorging on sushi, pizza, dips, crackers, and breads, we left the bar. We snuck into an EMT building to use the restroom (as the bar had a Turkish toilet ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_toilet ... said to be hygienic, I find it g-ross) before heading to their version of a plaza mayor. This plaza has walk up bars, where you order, then meander through the streets sipping on your drink. We found a nice spot to sit on the stairs and people watch. We talked to Jacopo's friends about everything from fashion to politics. They kept apologizing for their English, which was fantastic, so I'm even more jealous of their early language learning! Next, we stopped for crepes. YUMMM!

After that sweet treat, we walked to the main church, and saw some tents set up for fashion week before catching a bus back to our hotel for the night.


The next morning, we checked out of our hotel, and lugged our bags down the street with Jac as our guide until we found breakfast. Chocolate croissants and cappuccino ... I love Italy! We dropped our bags off at Jacopo's apartment for the day, collected his roommate Francesco and headed to lunch. We had wine and pasta (all chosen for us by Jacopo the Decider) and coffee after desert before meeting up with his friends again to visit the church. We didn't think about visiting the church hours earlier when we were dressing ourselves, and thus were denied entry for our spaghetti straps and exposed upper leg area. We were still allowed to climb to the top of the church and see all of Milan. Marta, the girl next to Monica, took some amazing photos on top of the church that she nicely shared with all of us later via facebook! <3 her!

The city is more industrial than any of the other cities we had been in, and thus there's much more smog. They're also preparing for the World Fair in 2015, so lots of new buildings are being built to accommodate that. After the exhausting climb, we stopped for gelato (any excuse to eat it) and Coke. Hannah and I opted to split cannoli filling flavored gelato mixed with berry flavored and a Coke and a fizzy water... the best of all worlds. Nora, another friend, also met up with us for the tasty goodness, then took Monica, Hannah and I shopping while everyone else went home to watch the football (soccer) games. We shopped for hours, buying makeup, accessories, unmentionables, and clothes! The stores were closing, so we finally got kicked out!

We went back to Jac's apartment, watched TV, football, and YouTube videos, ate pizza and got ready to go out to a disco. Our flight wasn't til 7:30 AM and we didn't have a hotel, so we had some time to kill. We made it to a disco, and got to pass right by the line, thanks to the well connected boys we were with. Inside we also got free drink tickets (the drinks were 10 euro ... $13... so they were very appreciated). The music was all American pop, and all of the people we were with we amazed that we knew all of the words to all of the songs... we're pretty darn impressive! The DJ kept trying to sing along, but with her accent it was more humorous than effective. We left the disco at 3:00, and went back to the boys apartment to get out bags. At some point they had decided that they were going to drive us to the airport, so we sat around for a few hours before heading out. They bought us waters, and made sure everything was good with the ticket counter before leaving us to find our terminal.

 Jac and Fran were such great hosts and let us mentally coast on the last leg of our adventure!

Venice

Like crazies, or super stingy students (our train costs 1/3 what the “good time” trains did), we piled on the 4:30 am train to Venice after getting a whopping two hours of sleep the night before. The train ride there was pretty rough, and impossible to sleep. We got into Venice at 10:00 and found a place to eat breakfast and have coffee. I enjoyed so cheese and fruit pastries (mini pies/fruit pizzas),

 while Monica and Hannah ate crepes covered in Nutella. We hopped a bus to our hostel (not on the island), checked in and took a two-hour nap before we regrouped and explored the city. With less than 24 hours to spend in Venice, we made the most of the day. We explored all of the winding streets from one end of the island to the other, stopping for pizza and shopping along the way. In had never realized that Veince was more than just one river winding through the city. It has little waterways that feed into the bigger one, creating entire city reliant on the waterways.  Even UPS has a boat the get their packages around Venice. 

We made it to St. Mark’s Square a.k.a. pigeon central, and soaked up its greatness. 

We tried eating at a few places suggested by the travel guide, but a lot of kitchens in Italy close at 4 pm, so we were told we were welcome to drink, but couldn’t eat. We tried finding a place on our own, before approaching to moms standing outside watching their kids play and asked them a good place to eat. One of the moms walked us to their suggested restaurant on her walk home, and they were quite right, it was a tasty dinner. We enjoyed our pasta dishes (Monica claims God made the meatballs for her spaghetti in the kitchen) with a few glasses of white wine mixed with champagne. We attempted to retrace our steps and get back to the bus stop, but instead found a new way. On our walk, we met two boys from California, on a two-week Eurotrip headed to Rome. As usual, we gave them plenty of advice on the city before parting ways at the bus station. Our train to Milan didn’t leave until 11:00 the next morning, so we were able to get NINE WHOLE HOURS of sleep before having a relaxing breakfast and climbing aboard our next train. 

Cinque Terre

We woke up early the next morning to prepare a pre-hike breakfest: eggs, toast and marmalade, then walked to the train station for our 7:00 train. On the train, we met two girls from Massachusetts that took a semester off to travel Europe before graduation. We swapped bad hostel and creepy Italian stories and gave advice on traveling in other cities (they were headed to Rome next and had just been in Venice). The Cinque Terre is a path on cliffs and mountains between 5 small cities (each with populations less than 2,000 people) that goes along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. We decided to do hike opposite of the norm, and start at the northern most city and work our way south. While normal people hike then end their day by swimming at the beach at the northern-most city. We decided to layout and play on the sand before beginning the trek. 

view from our wine tasting

We’re determined to soak up as much sun as we can before fall comes. In each city, we stopped for pizza, wine, gelato, and more wine before making our way back to the path to continue our trek. We made it to the last city just around sunset, and were able to enjoy an amazing seafood pasta dinner overlooking the sea. So beautiful!

On the train heading back to Florence, we had an hour layover in Pisa. Monica, Hannah and I flagged down a ticket-checker (I’m suure that’s the official title) and asked the logistics of visiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa during that hour. He said it’d be a close call to walk there and back, so we decided to give up on the dream, as we had a 4:30 am train to catch to Venice the next morning, and wouldn’t be getting back to Florence until midnight. While chatting and stretching our sore legs, we began chatting with a man on the train. He had visited the cities of the Cinque Terre with his wife, son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren and was headed back to Florence also. He gave us amazing advice on where to eat and shop in Venice, and the ins and outs of traveling through the city. We mentioned that we had considered making the jaunt over to the Leaning Tower, and he lit up with excitement. When we got off the train, he flagged down two taxis for his WONDERFUL family and us. It was like something out of a movie, piling into Italian taxis with complete strangers, laughing at the randomness the entire time. We had 10 or 20 minutes to snap photos before hustling back to the train station for the last leg of the journey. The last train was spent chatting with them, exchanging stories of adventures (the son and daughter met backpacking in Italy years ago), their life (a family of lawyers from Alabama) and our trip thus far. We are so lucky to have met so many amazing people on all of our adventures! 

Florence

Arriving in Florence was a nice change of pace after spending such a long time in Rome. There is WAY less people: less tourists, less street vendors, less creepers. Florence is also amazing because it’s so walkable.

 After relying on the metro and buses to get around, it was nice to do things on our own schedule and path. We got off the train around 11:00 and strolled the 8 minute walk to our hostel. It wasn’t quite ready for us, but we were able to change our clothes and wash our faces in a bathroom before heading out to explore the city. Monica’s friend spent a semester studying in Florence, so we had the inside information on where to eat on our meager budget. We stared in amazement at the Duomo (which means main church of the city) before our bellies rumbled, reminding us of the amazing sandwich shop we were originally headed for. After meandering through some more windy streets, we arrived at the Oil Shoppe, a sandwich shop, a quarter of the size of any Subway and full of amazing smells. We stood in awe of the giant menu posted out front, made our selection, the changed it 4 or 5 times before actually approaching the counter to order. A sandwich filled with lots of vegetables, prosciutto, and freshly grated cheeses and a can of Coke only cost 4 euro… a god send after 10 and 12 euro lunches in the days past. After inhaling the giant sandwich of greatness while further inspecting the menu, we debated sitting and waiting to be hungry and order again, they were seriously that good. The final decision was to order another one to take with us hiking the next day.

After leaving the sandwich shop, we headed back to the church to actually experience its greatness without interruptions. The outside was made with colored marble, resulting in beautiful patterns that are uncommon in monochromatic churches. The highlight of the church was the family of ginger children sitting on the sidewalk across the street, sketching their own versions... SO PRECIOUS!

Next, we ventured to another church where Galileo and a bunch over other people are buried. We didn’t pay to go inside (trying to spend smart) but ate gelato while we appreciated its beauty from the plaza. After the gelato, we crossed the river and headed to the Garden of Boboli.  This is a gigantic garden full of statues, fountains, ponds, and amazing plants. It also didn’t hurt that there were movie quality views from certain points, overlooking the Tuscan countryside. AWESOME! The parks were a lot hillier than I had expected, which resulted in some sore muscles later.

After a nice low-key day of exploring, we grabbed dinner at another recommended restaurant. The highlight was the panna cotta dessert topped with fresh strawberries. After all of the pasta, it was the perfect after dinner snack. We stopped at a supermarket on our walk home, to buy things for breakfast (the hostel had a kitchen!) and more snacks for the hike the next day, then turned in early for our long day hiking the Cinque Terre!

Rome

Rome was an amazing city and a great first stop on our Italian Adventure. We flew in on Saturday at 9:30 AM, after spending the night sleeping on the airport floor at the Madrid International Airport.  We’ve become accustomed to sleeping anywhere (airports, train stations, buses, you name it, I’ve snoozed there), under any conditions, always with our purses wrapped around us, and our backpacks under our heads. We stopped for brunch outside of the train station, a delicious sandwich with veggies, cheese and red sauce, before searching for the fabled Roma Pass. This pass allowed us three days of unlimited metro and bus use, as well as 2 free entrances into a list of sights. After moseying around between tobacco and newspaper stands in the heart of the city, we finally found one and set off on our metro adventure to our “hostel”. The metro in Rome is waaay deeper below the city than one’s we’ve used in Spain. During one of our visits, it was noted that they used underground tunnels created by the Romans back in the day as tunnels for the metro.

After a short metro ride and hopping a bus, we made it to Camping Village Roma! 

Yes, camping. We weren’t too sure what we were getting into when we booked the reservation, but the reviews were great and the price was cheap. We opted for the “bungalow”, which was a small trailer, divided in two, with 3 beds and a small bathroom occupying each half. There was no room for activities. As we slept on a concrete floor and the most basic airplane I’ve ever seen (no reclining, no SkyMall, no foot rests…) the night before, we decided to bikini up and head to the pool for a short nap before we ventured back down into the main area of the city.

Around 4:00, we set off for the Trevi Fountain, the really huge, famous fountain near the center of the city (featured in the Lizzie McGuire Movie!). 

This place was PACKED. People everywhere, posing for photos, taking photos, pickpocketing people taking photos… it was insane. After throwing in a few coins and taking a few pictures of our own, we headed to Pizzaria da Baffetto, a famous pizza place that was on the top of our guidebooks list of restaurants. The walk getting there was intense, as we kept stumbling on amazing buildings, but had no idea what they were. The line for the pizzeria was out the door and across the alley, so we grabbed a spot in line, then rotated visiting the gelato stand next door to tide us over. My first gelato experience was YUMTASTIC: half chocolate and orange and half chocolate and caramel. When our desert was finished, we got a seat inside the packed restaurant. This place has huge tables, so the three of us were sat with a cute little Asian couple for dinner. We ordered bruschetta, then the house pizza (sausage, peppers, mushrooms, artichoke, and fried egg) along with a margarita pizza, then ate like we were homeless. The combination of flavors seemed strange, but was beyond amazing.

 I will definitely be spicing up my pizzas back home with a little fried egg action. Once our bellies were full, we continued meandering around the city, with a general direction in mind, happening upon beautiful plazas with statues and fountains and street vendors galore. We made our way back to the camping village around 11:00, and missed out on the “toga party” (mostly attended by drunk 16 year olds – legal drinking age here) at the village’s dance club.

The next morning we got up, and ventured back into the city. We grabbed some breakfasty foods at the market the day before, so we threw those in our backpack. We also scored some to go espresso (not a common concept here) and walked a few short blocks back to the Trevi Fountain. We found an unoccupied area (it was WAAAY less crowded than the night before) and set up our little breakfast. The market croissants were so-so, but who can say they’ve had breakfast on the steps of the Trevi?!

We then set out for the Colosseum, were able to bypass the gigantic line (thanks to the handy dandy RomaPass) and get right in. Instead of paying for an audio guide or group tour, we worked stealthily, and eavesdropped on other groups when we were curious about something. Bonus: there were as many Spanish tours as English and French, etc., so we were able to utilize our bilingual-ness to get some free info. The Colosseum was amazing.

 It had amazing views, steep steps and great information on signs (yes Jennie, you would have hated us, we read ALL of the signs). I still can’t imagine watching people get eaten by lions or panthers, or two men trying to kill each other as a source of entertainment, but to each, their own… I’ll stick to Project Runway. Next, we found a nice menu at a restaurant nearby and grabbed a table. After placing our order and noticing our surroundings, we realized that we were in the gay district of the city, which made the restaurant’s name (Coming Out), and rainbow flag make sense. I ordered an iced coffee and gnocchi and was not disappointed.

Afterwards, we headed to the Roman Fourm and Palatine. The Fourm contains ruins from old, old, old structures from the Roman heyday, mostly churches, government buildings and gardens. The Palatine was described by our guidebook as the Beverly Hills of the Romans. Anyone who was somebody during the Roman times lived in this neighborhood. The remains of the houses were still amazing, and featured giant gardens with swimming pool sized fountains… one Emperor even had a private Olympic style stadium built next to his house, you know, for when you want to invite you friends over to play discus or run a decathlon. This two-part adventure took almost 12 hours (including lunch), so we were again in dire need of nutrients. We found a gelato stand (desert is always better first) before finding a small, family ran restaurant with an Italian Napoleon Dynamite as our server. My lasagna was loaded with cheese and yummygoodness, however my drink was a different story. I was under the impression that I was ordering a glass of white wine, but when it was brought to me, it was in a shot glass sized wine glass. I’m still not 100% on what I drank, but I think it was super concentrated white wine, that burned like tequila when I drank it. I waiting until Napoleon wasn’t looking to consume is, as I am under the impression that it’s a drink you’re supposed to sip and enjoy, not take like a shot.

Monday was our last day in Rome. We woke up, but on our church approved best and headed to the Vatican City. We stopped at a bread shop before entering the city, and consumed the most amazing sweet/danish/croissant of flakey goodness filled with gooey dough and chocolate, coated in a layer of sugar. I also had the pleasure of chatting with the owner, who just got back from Colorado, “knows about Michigan” and wished us luck on our adventure. Once we made it to the Vatican wall, we found a mega line waiting for us. After having the line-free experiences everywhere else in Rome, we paid our dues and waited. After an hour, we made it into the Vatican Museum, post metal detection and xraying of the bags. The place was huge… like 16 museums and the Sistine Chapel all in one complex huge. After passing by the audio guide line, we got out into the garden. Even being there was too overwhelming, so we doubled back, sucked it up and spent the money we saved on our student discount on the audio guides. Walking through here felt like the poor Packerland cows… being forced and pushed through hallways, and missing out on chances to see amazing art. Finally I was just over all of the touching, prodding and rudeness, and when we found a shortcut to the Sistine Chapel that allowed you to skip a few museums, we jumped on it. The chapel was amazing, and nothing like I imagined. Michelangelo’s paintings have been cleaned and restored, so they were amazingly bright and way larger than I expected.

 We found a spot to sit in the Sistine Chapel and gawk for a solid 30 minutes before heading out for another meal of fettuccini and salad (sights and food, literally all we do here). We returned to the Vatican for the St. Peter’s Square experience before heading into the basilica. The square was amazing, not so full of tourists and filled with more stuff I’ve seen in movies. So fun! The basilica was another huge, open church, my preference over the dark, depressing cathedrals we’ve seen in some Spanish cities. Michelangelo painted the dome too, so there was some continuity between Vatican sights.

Last we made our way to the Spanish steps and another amazing plaza.

There were tons of teenagers hanging out and drinking on the immense staircase as we gawked at its amazingness. We headed back to the main bus/train station to buy tickets when we encountered metro problems. An entire half of the metro was out of service, so we took the bus tour of the city; we got to see all of the stuff we’ve been missing below the ground. We purchased our train tickets to head for Florence at 6:48 am the next day, grabbed some dinner and headed off to bed. 

Barcelona -- better late than never

A short blurb about Barcelona: our trip here was the weekend before finals (followed by our amazing 10-day vacation in Italy). I’m currently typing this on a train to Milan, but don’t want to put this off any longer.

Hannah, Monica and I took an over night bus that left Burgos at 11:45 on Thursday night and arrived in Barcelona at 8:00 the next morning. We lugged our bags through the streets of Barcelona, until we made it to our hostel right in the middle of all of the Barcelona wonderfulness. The main street in Barcelona is La Rambla, large sidewalks full of street vendors, wonderful shopping and thousands of tourists. Our hostel was a block away from the action, so after setting down our belongings, we ventured out to La Rambla with no real destination in mind. First, we visited La Boqueria, a GIANT market full of fresh fruit, veggies, seafood, meats, nuts, anything you could imagine.

 The colors and smells were wonderful (minus the fish), and we perused the entire place while drinking the freshest of fresh fruit smoothies. We left the market and walked aimlessly some more, before coming upon Gaudi’s Casa Battlo! (DREAM COME TRUE!) There’s not a straight line in the entire house and has elements inspired by the ocean and the human body. There are mosaics everywhere, inside, on the patio, on the rooftop. It’s BEAUTIFUL. We spent the rest of the day exploring the city, walking along the Mediterranean Sea.

The next day, we woke up early to go visit the Sagrada Familia, another Gaudi masterpiece. The line seemed long, but it went fast. The cathedral is huge, and open and bright, very different than the majority of the cathedrals in Spain. There are stained glass windows EVERYWHERE that change the entire feel of the church as the sun moves.

 We even took an elevator to the top of one of the towers where you could see the entire city. After the cathedral, we made our way to the beach (rated one of the top 5 beaches in the world by the Discovery Channel). Hannah is a little mermaid, and spent hours in the water like a little girl. Monica and I layed out on the beach and made our way in when necessary. The water is sparkly, like someone throws a fresh batch of glitter in it every morning. When you leave the water, your skin has gold flecks all over it. After our afternoon at the beach, we walked down the entrance to a cable car that takes you to the top of Mountjuic (literally... Jew Mountain), where there’s a really old castle and the buildings where the 1992 Olympics were held. The cable car line was hot and sweaty, but it was well worth the amazing views. When we were waiting in line, we started talking to the girls behind us; fellow Midwesterners who now live in NYC and San Francisco. We rode the cable car up the mountain, only to realize that you had to pay for another cable car to get you ALL OF THE WAY up the hill. We said, “screw that” and began trekking up the mountain with our new friends. At the top, we taught them about “canas con limon”, Spain’s version of the summer shandy, and watched the sunset and had hours of conversation with these amazing girls! Afterwards, we found a metro train that took us back down to the main part of the city and turned in for the night.

The next day, we explored more Gaudi-ness: Casa Mila and Parc Guell. Casa Mila was kind of a disappointment after Casa Battlo because they wouldn’t let you see a lot of it. We caught a bus up to Parc  Guell and spent hours exploring the Gaudi designed park that incorporated beautiful views, nature and amazing architecture. After spending the better part of an afternoon in the park, we headed back to the beach for an hour or two. Our last stop before heading home was the Picasso Museum. It’s free on Sundays, and the line reflected the price. It was well worth the wait though. We got to see the early works of Picasso as well as his many interpretations of Velazquez’s Las Meninas. We grabbed a quick dinner and headed to the bus station for an overnight bus home. We got back to Burgos at 6:45 on Monday morning and like good little students, made it to class right on time at 9:00. 

Month-iversary In Spain

HOLY COW! I cannot believe that it's already the 5th of September. It seems like just a few days ago I was running around with seven lists in my hand trying to pack the perfect suitcase and yelling at anyone within a 100 yard vicinity (apologies to those who had the bad luck of being near me at those times.)

Today also marks the beginning of my fifth week of classes, which I have yet to even discuss in the blog. This semester only lasts six weeks, so I'm a LOT behind on the information. We meet for class everyday from 9-11:50 and then again from 12:30-2:10. In the morning we have a language/grammar class and after the break we've had a few different seminars varying from movies and history to the European Union and the food and culture of the regions in Spain... a little bit of everything so that when we start our next semester of classes, we're not morons with no concept of the country we live in. I LOVE my morning class and my professor, Ana. She's an adorable 30something woman with red/maroon hair and weighs about as much as one of my legs. Our classes are ran in a very informal manner, and feel like more of a guided discussion than an actual lesson. Somehow she always tricks us into learning something though. I've learned an insane amount of vocab in the time I've been here: agobiada (overwhelmed... from week 1), callejear (to walk to discover a city -- no real purpose but wandering), guiri (the blonde tourists on the beach that ALWAYS get fried), tener pluma (to be flamboyantly gay), chulo (cool, or a pimp, depending on the context)... notice how there is no common theme among any of these words. This class functions like my brain; a random word or phrase sparks another completely different conversation and then all of the sudden you think "hmmm... how did we get here?!?". Our afternoon classes are taught by different professors, depending on the subject. One of our professors is from Burgos, but came to Western to get her doctorate and teach classes, so she can relay things to us on a Kalamazoo level. A few of the students even had her for a class in previous semesters. After these last two weeks of class, we get a 10 day vacation before starting our second semester, which is ten weeks and will end December second (happy birthday Colin Neil!). When put into perspective, I really don't have that much time here.

Last weekend was busy. We had a Mexican fiesta at the house of Tim, a WMU student. Everyone brought or drinks and we worked like Top Chefs to create a super tasty meal! The house has a garden in the back where Tim's madre set up some tables. She had lawn chairs and tall boxes we could use to sit on too. After the meal, both Monica and I had our boxes cave under us... obviously some of us enjoyed the food a little too much. Afterwards a group of us frolicked in the rain to get a glass of wine before heading to bed for the night.

The next morning we had another class trip, this time to Salamanca. Salamanca is near Madrid, and has the oldest university in Spain and a really big cathedral. The city also has beautiful architecture but is definitely more of a college town. Today in class, our professor joked that students who go to Salamanca to study don't learn much Spanish, but they get really good at drinking. The cathedral is huge, and full of ornate paintings, murals and carvings. Very awe inspiring, even when you realize that each room has a few dead people housed in it. We had some free time to explore on our own and buy things before meeting up again for formal tour of the city, then it was a three hour bus ride home to Burgos.

Thursday, Hannah, Monica and I are headed to Barcelona for a long weekend. We're taking the overnight bus and arriving in the city Friday morning to explore. Thanks to a class assignment from P. Fox, I've been obsessed with the artist Antoni Gaudi for a looong time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaud%C3%AD) I've been secretly dreaming of skipping the Park Guell for many, many moons! There will definitely be a mega-post after this epic vacation. Hopefully I don't explode with excitement in the next three days! 

Mi Casa

At the request of my little Brinanner, I am inviting you all into my new home to "ooh and ahh" over how adorable it is. 

Let me preface with a few details. My mom here is a lawyer. She owns the whole floor we live on, which contains her law office and waiting room, and a spare room in the law office that happens to be mine. Connected through a secret door... be patient, it's coming up... is the rest of the house. It's a very odd layout, but it's nice to have my own area.

If you're standing in the office waiting room there are two doors. Left one means you've got some trouble with the law. Right one means you want to sleep, change clothes, or skype with my people back home.

What you see when you choose door #2. A metal shelving unit turned hanging clothes rack, a desk that I  use to put things on (anyone who's lived with me knows I do all of my school work from the comfort of my bed) and my beautiful balcony overlooking the plaza below... a blessing and a curse.

The other desk where I keep my makeup, lotion, contacts, etc. and "hide" my suitcase for the duration. Obviously there's no hiding a hot pink suitcase. 

My bed, I just woke up and my family is out of town for the weekend. I HATE making my bed, so I'm not going to fancy it up for you guys! Also, note the Peanuts painting over my bed. That's custom art (and possibly a copyright infringement) that "Uncle Arturo" made for my sister Laura. And yes that's a trundle bed... perfect for sleepovers!

My room here is about the size of my room on Oakland Drive, maybe a little bigger, and a lot nicer (i.e. nothing living in the walls here, ironic as this building is MUCH older).

 This is the waiting room and the aforementioned secret door leading to the real house. The wall with the door is covered in fabric, to keep things classy. 

Through the secret door to the real house. The doors on the right lead to the tv room. Straight takes you to the rest of the house by way of the dining room.

The living/tv room: Where we eat dinners when mom says it's okay and watch hours and hours of Sex and the City and lots of MTV, all dubbed into Spanish with the lips still in English... verrry tricky for me. Side note: MTV's Punk'd is called Cazados ... Hunted. I guess Punk'd is lost in translation.

Our adorable dining room, with a mirror above the table and lamps I ALWAYS hit my head on standing up. The opening at the right of the photo leads to a hallway that the kitchen is off of, pocket door style like @ Aunt Suie's house.

NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT HAVING A SMALL KITCHEN BACK HOME. This baby is tiny. No more than 2 people can be in here at a time, and even then, someone's always in the way. All of the appliances are a little smaller than back home, and in Celsius, so cooking is a little tricky for me (how hot is too hot?!? I always guess.) For House Hunter International fans (i.e. Maw and Paw and Sister Sara), That little thing in the bottom of the middle picture is the washer. In the cupboard above it is it water heater, hence why hot water in the shower doesn't last too long (luckily that's not a huge problem for me). The bin in front of the washer is for recycling, which is 3 times bigger than the trash can. I get yelled at if I accidently put a yogurt container in the trash... oopps. Lastly, this is the breakfast nook where I eat my cornflakes with chocolate chunks every morning for breakfast, with lukewarm milk. I don't know if the box the milk comes in prevents it from being warm, but I'm looking forward to a chilly glass of Meijer milk when I get back! 

This sitting area is past the kitchen, and behind the partition is my sister Laura's room for when she's home from school. The furniture reminds me of nice patio furniture, but it's where everyone ends up chatting and showing off our purchases after a day of shopping. 

Last, but not least is the bathroom. This is the mater bathroom, as the other one is too small to get a decent picture of. Pretty big, even by my American standards. The only extra thing is the bidet. It's used for freshening up between shower days. Thank goodness or this place would be a whole lot smellier.