The Last Week: Melissa and Nick Visit

Monday, May 9^th, 2011

Yesterday, I packed up everything in my room. It felt empty and a bit depressing, but I couldn’t get down because I was about to embark upon an amazing adventure!  I had a 2-day solo adventure planned in Madrid, a Northern Spain wine tour with my sister and her boyfriend, and finally one last weekend to explore all of Granada. 

This morning, I headed out early and hopped on a 10 a.m. bus to Madrid. This bus lasted 5 or so hours, but there was 2 movies played with a half hour stop at a cafeteria in between. I even cried during one of the movies (and it was in Spanish!)  Once in Madrid, I magically figured out the metro system all by myself and easily found my way to my metro stop. My hostel ended up being only a few minutes walking from there. I checked in and soon discovered how awesome this hostel was! It was called Musas Residence and they were all about the social atmosphere. The hostel sets up plenty of social get-togethers for the hostel-stayers, which was definitely a plus for me, since I was there alone.

Right off the bat, I met 2 of my hostel roommates (I was staying in a 8 bed female dorm) and they invited me to come explore the city with them. These two were from Brazil and didn’t know too much English. Since they spoke Portuguese, it sometimes helped when there was an English block since Portuguese and Spanish are very similar.  We checked out Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, and the Reina Sofia. By the time we got back to Musas Residence, we were so tired!  


I had purchased a tuna sandwich and chips for dinner so I ate that in the cafeteria as I watched some craziness go down in the hostel. I figured, why not go on over and join?  Turns out it was “American Drinking Games” hosted by the hostel. The game was Circle of Death or also known as Kings Cup. We were playing with wine. The person to draw the last king “won,” but before winning could happen, this person needed to chug 4 cups of wine in a row to win free entrance into the Madrid bar crawl… Guess who won?   This girl.  I figured I might as well go out! Pregame- check… free entrance and drinks- ok, no need to beg.   That evening, I met a couple of awesome German boys, some crazy guys from California, some party girls from Korea, and 2 young Canadian travelers. I made it back to the hostel and in my bed around 4.

My new German friends :)

Some of the bar crawlers in Madrid. 

Tuesday, May 10^th, 2011

Couldn’t sleep much last night so I woke up early to shower and I was ready for breakfast by 8 a.m.  I ate some corn flakes with…cream?  Hmm…  My German boys joined me for breakfast a little while later and we hashed over the events of the evening. A lot of good memories from Madrid so far.  That afternoon, I decided to go on the free walking tour hosted by our hostel. It turned out to be 4 hours or so and by the end I was dying of hunger. I learned a ton about the city and we got to see nearly all of the high lights. Back at the hostel around 4 for a late lunch with my California boys.

After a quick nap, I met up with a few new friends from the hostel to walk to the Prado museum. Tonight it was free, even more motivation to look at thousands of old paintings. We met up with the German boys there too. Later on that evening, I went home to shower and I got ready for the tapas bar crawl that was offered by the hostel. It turned out to be a lot of fun! We went to 3 different tapas bars and tried typical food from southern Spain, central Spain, and northern Spain. I really got to know some of the people on the taps bar crawl. I think traveling along was an awesome way to get out there and meet some new people.

Spanish version of blood sausage: delicious!

Meat and cheese: typical spanish tapas. 

Me and the pata de jamon. ;)

I loved the independence and the complete lack of stress.  Everything turned out to be a ton of fun. Later that evening, the Germans and a few others enjoyed some beers together in the hostel. For the second night in a row, I stayed up past 4 a.m., and this time, I needed to be out of the hostel by 6:30 a.m. to meet up with my sister and her boyfriend at the Madrid airport!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

With 2 hours of sleep, I packed everything up and headed out of the best hostel I had ever stayed in my life. It was sad to say goodbye to the people I had met, but who knows, maybe I’ll make another journey back to Europe. I arrived nearly 2 hours to the airport, but better safe than sorry. Their flight had also been delayed. As I sat at the arrival gate, it was difficult to watch loved ones jumping into each other’s arms, hugging and kissing. Some even crying. It was almost a scene out of a movie.

Melissa and Nick FINALLY arrived a little after 9 a.m. and it was great to see them both!  Our first mission was to successfully rent the car. Nick had everything prepared and the women at the desk spoke English, thank god!  That would have been a very difficult translation.

On our way to Northern Spain! Nick was at the wheel; I was in the driver’s seat, and Melissa in the back.  “It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.”  “Hit it.”  Well, not exactly, but close enough.   We had 3 wine tours on the agenda in 2 days. We visited Emilio Moro winery and we were pampered with a private tour and an elaborate wine tasting at the end.  In between the second tour, we ate lunch at a café where I tried the menu del dia for the first time. I never really had the chance to eat out at restaurants for meals since I lived with a senora who made me every meal. It was nice to have a little freedom and try out some other types of Spanish cuisine. 

                                                    Bottling Process at Emilio Moro 
Our second tour was a little tough to stay awake for the two jet-lagged travelers. It was at Protos winery, and the tour was in Spanish! I think I did an ok job translating for them, but it didn’t matter much since neither of them could hold their heads up. When the tour ended, we all were eager to get back in the car to head towards our Castel hotel! Yupppp!  It was a legitimate castle on the top of a mountain and the interior decorating was so beautiful covered in old antiques. On the roof was a beautiful view of the whole city, and not to mention a gorgeous roof top pool!  I was able to enjoy all of the amenities of the hotel while Melissa and Nick literally passed out for 3 hours. I even had the benefit of horning in on a German wine and tapas party. I woke the sleepy heads up for a while, they both showered, and within the hour, we were asleep for the night.

Wine at Emilio Moro

So many barrels of wine!

                                                                   Our Castle Hotel

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Our start to our day was so early that we missed the free breakfast!  Good thing the staff was really nice and made us coffee, orange juice, and gave us some snacks for later.  We were off to our last wine tour at Palacios Remondo in La Rioja. Here, we had another fabulous private tour. This winery only gives tours to clients, and since Nick works for an upper scale restaurant in Boulder, Colorado, we were treated like kings!  Our tour guide drove us (in a Mercedes Benz) nearly 15 minutes out to see the actual vineyards where they grew their wine. We were able to walk right up close to the vines and touch them!  It wasn’t picking season yet, but still very cool to see a vineyard up close. Back at Palacios Remondo, we were given the whole tour of the inside. We saw the interworking of the winery, how it was made, how it was bottled, and then we had a fancy wine tasting at the very end. I purchased a bottle called La Montesa because I loved it so much.

                                         The Vineyards of Palacios Remondo in La Rioja

With our wine packed in the car, we were ready to hit the road and drive the 3 hours or so back to Madrid. We made a lunch stop first and had our try at a second menu del dia. The drive went by quickly (especially because cars rock me to sleep like a baby). Once back in Madrid, we returned our rental car, gathered our things, and hopped on the metro towards the center of Madrid. We hopped off at our stop and soon after found our hostel. Once checked in, we saw our fabulous (joke) room. It was tiny with a double bed and a twin up top like a bunk bed. The bathroom was smelly and extremely small. Not exactly like our castle hotel from yesterday to say the least. 

I encouraged Melissa and Nick to get out of there so we could explore Madrid’s center and get something to eat. We saw all of the most important sites like Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, the market, and more. I took them to the popular tapas street, which was very closely located to our hostel. We ordered a pitcher of sangria, fried calamari, and seafood paella!  Everything was very good!  We enjoyed the nice weather and talked a lot but then we decided to call it a night and go to bed.

Friday, May 13, 2011

This morning, we were up pretty early, but this time, we scored the free breakfast!  With our suitcases, we headed off towards the metro and took the metro to the Madrid bus station where we arrived just in time for our 5 hour bus ride back to Granada, yayy…  We saw 2 movies and had a nice 30-minute break. Here, Melissa ordered a ham and cheese sandwich and I got ham-flavored chips for everyone to try. They were a big hit!  Around 3:30, we arrived to Granada and had to wait for another city bus to get to their hotel. Around 4:30, we finally were able to check into their (gorgeous!) hotel. I left them there to shower and get ready and I lugged my things back to my place (a nice sweaty 30 minute walk with baggage).

That evening, I was back at their hotel to take them out for shopping, tapas, and a flamenco show. Melissa somehow was able to purchase a ton of great pieces… including some sea foam green pants.  (Only Melissa, right?)   We had tapas and a little dinner before heading back to the hotel. We were picked up in a touristy looking bus and were driven up through the Sacromonte (hills with the gypsies). First stop: Mirador de San Nicholas. This is my favorite place in all of Granada because there is a wonderful view of the Alhambra lit up at night as well as a whole panoramic view of Granada.  From there, we were given a little history of the Albaicin and finally arrived to the caves where we were going to see a Flamenco show. We each received a free drink as we watched this spectacular show. Too bad Melissa and Nick were still major sleepy heads!  At the end, we were asked to give our try at Flamenco dancing…good thing I got Melissa’s attempt on tape!

Pose at the Mirador de San Nicholas

Melissa gives Flamenco Dancing a try!

Around 12:30, I met up with some California friends I had met in Madrid earlier that week. Melissa and Nick were tired so the three of us walked the sleepy heads home. I was with my friends, Setu and Sandeep, and we explored the city. They were only visiting and wanted to know the cool places to go out at night, but it was the awkward time in between tapas and the disco, so not too much to show. We had a great time nonetheless and ran into some pretty funny people. We called it a night around 2 a.m.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

I had a lot planned for today! Around 10:30 a.m. I made it to their hotel. Melissa had lollygagged and was still in the shower. We probably left their room around 11 a.m. though. The first stop on the list was the Mercado where every kind of meat was being sold. As we walk in the door, we spot an entire baby lamb hanging upside down in a plastic bag, blood and all. This is very normal for Spain. I excitedly showed them the area where you can purchase any part of the pig; my favorite part: the face of the pig. They really do not like to waste any part of the animal and sell everything... even the feet!  The seafood section was also interesting; especially because of the live snails and clams they were selling. We were those Americans who stood staring, mouths wide open, and pointer fingers outstretched to touch everything!

Our next mission was to find some Arabian coffee for Nick. A lot of the shops only sell tea, but we got lucky with a store alongside the cathedral. They sold teas, coffee, candy, olive oil, and other typical Spanish products.  Nick purchased his strong Arabian coffee and I bought some olive oil as a gift to myself.

Next stop: the mercadillo!  We had a long 40-minute walk, but it was worth it. We had fantastic weather the entire weekend. We even got some color (Melissa got more of a burn…) We took our time through the mercadillo looking through the clothes, shoes, sunglasses, candy, nuts, olives, fruit, vegetables, and more! Nick bought some really tasty green olives, Melissa purchased some jewelry and a cute scarf, and I bought a summery striped tank top.  Around 1:30 or so, we had reached the end of the mercadillo and headed towards Catalina’s. She had agreed to make them paella!  I was very excited to show off my room and the apartment I had been living in for the last 4 and a half months. Catalina had gone above and beyond. With the table beautifully set, pretty china and silverware, large breadbasket, a delicious salad, seafood paella, and tinto de verano!  Everything was delicious and I know Melissa and Nick would say the same. I thought it was worth the extra money to stay there just for this meal.  Originally, I was worried about how this lunch would go, especially with the translating, but everything turned out great! Melissa practiced some of her old Spanish and Nick was very polite as well. The afternoon turned out to be a great success.

Melissa and Nick at my fave cafe: Noche y Dia

Instead of taking a siesta, we decided to tackle the Alhambra right away. With a long trek up the side of the mountain basically, we finally made it to the top. We used our tickets to enter and were quickly struck by the beauty of it all. We had tickets for the Generalife gardens, which was my favorite place by far. I had originally seen the gardens in January, which was before all of the flowers were blooming. Seeing the gardens in May was breathtaking. I think Nick and Melissa really enjoyed seeing it as well.

                                                         Alhambra- Generalife Garden

We walked back down towards their hotel. I decided to go home and shower and get ready for the evening. By the time I got back it was nearly 10 at night. Our plans for the evening were tapas, botellon, and Camborio.  First, we stopped at Café Futbol where Melissa and Nick had dinner and had a tapa with my beer. 


Around 11 p.m. we met up with Setu, one of my California friends, and we actually went to a place called Budinka where they sell the best Mojitos in the world. Nick had two!  Around 12:30, we headed out, picked up a 40 of beer, and met up with some kids from my program at Plaza de los tristes to pregame one last time. We drank our Alhambra beer by the Alhambra. 


Around 1:45 a.m. we made it up to the club, but still pretty empty at that point. Crazy Spanish party hours. Melissa wasn’t feeling very well, so she ordered water. Nick had a beer. I ordered a rum and coke, thinking it would be 2 euro, but apparently only on Thursdays. I paid 6 euro. Yikes.  We explored the club but took it easy mostly. Melissa was glad she saw Camborio but she really just wanted to make the walk back to their hotel. Totally understandable. It was nice to get to Camborio one last time before leaving Granada.  

At Camborio :)

We actually ended up buying a shwarma. I usually wouldn’t have eaten one that late, but I knew it would be my last (or second to last). It was worth it. So yummy! Around 4 a.m. I made it back to my apartment. Catalina knew I had been at a disco and she always leaves the door unlocked.  Here is where our first and only fight happened all semester:


 To my surprise, my key doesn’t work. Apparently, she forgot and put the chain lock over the door. It was obvious!  I wasn’t about to sleep in the hallway that night, so my only choice was to ring the door bell. No answer the first time. I knocked a few times and called out Catalina’s name. After my second ring of the doorbell, I heard her angry footsteps walk towards the door (open the chain) and then proceed to yell at me in fast Spanish. I apologized but also pointed out she had put the chain lock on the door. To this, she grew even more enraged and denied this statement 100%. I walked to my room like a dog in trouble with its tail in between its legs. I hoped that the morning wouldn’t be awkward, especially since I only had one day left in Granada!

Sunday, May 15^th, 2011

After sleeping in and then awkwardly apologizing again to Catalina, I headed out the door with my bocadillo requested earlier that morning. (Chicken and spinach sandwich…)  Anyways, once the three of us were together, we decided to tackle the peacock park first. This is a similar hike to the Alhambra, but on the opposite side. This place is actually called Carmen de los Martires. It took a few tries to find it, but once there, it was so worth it!  We saw plenty of peacocks and the view of the city was beautiful. We even saw a male peacock attempting to woo a female. He spread out his feathers and put on an interesting shaking and vibrating feather performance. The female was not having any of it. It was a bit of a defeat for the male peacock, but I still thought it was “superguay” to see this all right up close. 

Pavo Real (peacock)

Soon, we headed back down to get lunch. We stopped on Calle Navas where there is amazing food and tapas. They ordered mussels, spicy shrimp, and calamari. All very good! I had my sandwich a little earlier and it wasn’t Catalina’s best to say the least.

Anyways, after lunch, we walked around a bit. We took a quick peek inside the Cathedral, but there was a service going on so we couldn’t exactly go inside in our touristy street clothes. Melissa had her mind set on purchasing a small leather over the shoulder purse. Good thing every single Arabic store was open! They sold little gifts and leather purses galore. Melissa bought a really cute one along with a boot shaped key holder.  We took it easy that afternoon and chilled in their hostel for a while and drank some sangria.

Later on, we wanted another Mojito, but our place was closed on Sundays. We went to a place called Pecado (sin) one of my favorite bars and ordered a mojito but it wasn’t quite as good as those from Budinka. Around 8 p.m., we met up with Rachel and Amanda for tapas. We headed back to Calle Navas for some tapas. (This also included breaking my beer glass and spilling it all over Amanda’s lap…sorry Amanda!)  Our last tapa was at Bella y la Bestia with a large mug of cerveza and ham and cheese bagels. Yum!  Nick was super generous and bought us all going away shots! So cute!  He also chipped into our “shwarma fund” since Rachel and I were hanging onto our last 3 euro to get to the airport. The last thing I did in Granada was chill with my friends while eating a shwarma by the reyes catolicos. Win.

Epic group tapa from Bella y la Bestia with grande cerveza!

Farewell Granada shots :(

Melissa and Nick

Last Shwarma :/

Monday, May 16^th, 2011

At the crack of 4:30 a.m., my alarm went off and I was not too happy. Good thing mostly everything was packed and ready to go. I washed my face and got ready for the plane ride. I grabbed some fruit and cleaned my room of every last belonging. I said goodbye to my adorable little room and headed out at 5:15 a.m.  Good thing Granada is a safe city because I walked nearly 40 minutes with 2 large suitcases and a backpack with my life with me. It could have been so easy to rob me of all of my belongings.  One of the best things about Granada was how safe and comfortable it felt. I’m going to miss this. Eventually, I hopped the airport shuttle with Rachel and several other Granada kids. It was sad to ride the bus watching my favorite places pass me by. We had to wait a while for our Granada to Madrid flight, but once on the plane, I was instantly asleep. We were landing and I got confused. I had slept right through take off all the way until landing. Nice!  

Our Madrid to Chicago flight was waiting for all 30 of us as we arrived. The airport held our flight for us as we sprinted through the airport, took the metro within the airport, and sprinted some more. We were all so sweaty as we boarded the plane. Once on, I found out that my seat was right next to Sarah and both Rachels. Score!  I ended up not sleeping a wink on the plane, I think because I wanted to cherish all the time I still had before landing in America… sad I know. I teared up as we hit the runway in Chicago and then balled my eyes out as I left Sarah and Rachel... silly right?  It was just because I was reminiscing on all of the awesome times we had in Granada and now they had come to an end. I’ll always have amazing memories from Granada and I will be back to visit. I guarantee it.

Return Flight to Chicago

The transition back to American life was a bit tricky. The time schedule of course was the hardest. The first night, I went out to dinner with my family and ordered my first legal American drink. I ordered a classic cosmopolitan. Here is a picture:

I somehow stayed up until 11 p.m. Chicago time, which was the equivalent of staying up 25 straight hours. My friends and I took a jager shot at the 24 hour mark too.  It’s nice to be back and to see all of my family and friends, but of course, I’m sorely missing Granada.  


Echo de menos la vida de Granada. Besos!

The Finale Has Arrived; Farewell Dinner

Thursday, May 5, 2011

After finishing the last few presentations and final exams, CEGRI has come to an end. I feel like it was just starting and now it’s already over. I do believe that I have matured a lot through this entire process. Not only has my Spanish improved, but I have become a much more confident and independent person. This whole experience has opened up a world of opportunities for me. Traveling has become one of my absolute favorite things to do, money permitting.

Tonight was the going away party for the entire program of CEGRI. All of the teachers were there to celebrate our accomplishments. The dinner was a fancy several course meal, including 4 different kinds of tapas, the main course, and a dessert. It was definitely a Spanish meal because it came to a point where you didn’t exactly want to ask what you were eating. You just eat it without asking questions, but usually the food is so fresh and amazing that I will try anything!

Salmon, vegetable medley, and mushrooms

At the farewell dinner together :)

After the main course, 2 of the program members stood up with a toast. They finished the toast with superlatives for everyone!  A few were most likely to work at CEGRI, most likely to eat schwarma, most likely to make your day, etc.  Mine was: Most likely to be open…this can be interpreted in a few different ways, but mostly known to my closest friends. After dinner and dessert, everyone mingled with each other, a few cried. It hasn’t hit me yet that I am leaving so soon. 10 days to be exact. I will be the one crying on the way to the airport, probably kicking and screaming the whole way.

After the farewell dinner, we finally came to the conclusion that we were all going out together to Camborio, the discoteca in the caves. All 70 some of us botelloned in the plaza de los tristes near the disco with our 40’s of Alhambra while we looked at the Alhambra J.  Around 1:30 a.m. we made the trek up to the disco and entered before 2 so we didn’t need to pay. To our surprise, since it was the 51^st anniversary of Camborio, everyone received a party-goody bag and a glass of champagne at the door! After taking silly pictures with our party hats and noise makers, we headed inside to dance. There were a few creepers there, but nothing more than the usual. We danced together as a group and had a ton of fun! I ended up staying until 5:30 a.m. and the walk with my friends Stephanie and Erin took me just about an hour. I crawled into bed a bit after 6:30 a.m.  We celebrated the end of our program the real Spanish way. I’m going to miss this place. 

Pregame at Plaza de los Tristes together 

Tequila at Camborio :)

I'm in Ibiza!

Howdyyyyyyy!

This weekend, I am going to Ibiza with Rachel and Amanda!!  I can’t wait to see what all the hype is about. We have a great hostel booked right near the beach. We plan on soaking up the sun [and culture of Ibiza]  the entire weekend.

Also, everything is finally booked for Melissa and Nick’s excursion to Europe!  They will arrive May 11^th and stay with me until I go home May 16^th.  They have another 5 or so days with Nick’s family in [insert European country where they speak German].

Friday, April 29^th, 2011:  IBIZA

This morning, Rachel, Amanda, and I traveled to the Malaga airport to catch our flight to IBIZA!  We arrived in Ibiza around 3 p.m. and also hooked up with our friend Jess, who coincidentally was staying at the same hostel! We shared an expensive cab from the airport to our hostel, checked in, and then marveled at our “hostel” room. We had all of the amenities of a regular hotel, but at hostel price. It was a wide-open room with three beds, a desk, an armoire, and our own private bathroom. There was maid service everyday, free wifi, and free buffet breakfasts each morning. Score! Did I mention we had a pool with an upper deck to layout on? Win.

We decided to do some afternoon drinking on the beach that day. We made our own drinks and found a cute little cove beach. Later that evening, we found out that it was called Ket-cove, which was short for Ketamine: horse tranquilizer drug. Apparently kids would come here to use these drugs?  Que?!?  Anyways, our afternoon was ket-free. We enjoyed the afternoon, even if there wasn’t too much sun.

That night, the three of us had dinner at nearly midnight, even a little too late for a Spanish dinner. We actually ate at a Chinese restaurant. Afterwards, the girls got trapped into a 12 euro drink deal at the bar next door. I wasn’t feeling very good, so I ordered a bottled water. The promoter told me, “We’re in Ibiza, we don’t drink water!” Funny joke..

Afterwards, we ended up going to another bar filled with crazy people in costumes and didn’t get home until after 4 a.m. Oops.

Later that evening, I discovered some bad news: I drank the tap water earlier that day.  At the time, I remember it tasting funny, maybe a little salty. Needless to say, I was sick that entire night! I won’t go into details for your sake, but I learned my lesson. We went out and bought 3 gallons of water the next day.

Saturday, April 30^th, 2011

We had a chill day. I stuck to really plain foods, like bread. Yum. Rachel and Amanda had purchased a volleyball to play with so they peppered back and forth for a while. I tried to get some rest on the beach, but never ended up falling asleep. After a (fancy) schwarma dinner, we got ready and met up with Jess and her two friends. The 6 of us pregamed and eventually left the hostel around 12:30 towards Ibiza town. We made a quick pit stop and then walked a ways to Pacha, the only discoteca open on the entire island. Along the way, Rachel and I joked (more serious than not) that we would rather spend our money on KFC, but we sucked it up at the end and paid our stinkin’ 30 euro to enter the club. Thank god we got one free drink. Such a great deal! (not).

The place was packed. Pacha was a gigantic club with several rooms and different bars. The main room was super crowded. There were disco lights, techno music, ½ naked dancers on stage, and 2 robot men on stilts having a lazer shooting war. Pretty normal, right?

We crawled into bed just before 6 a.m. but our alarms were set for 9:45 for the free breakfast…duh. SOMEHOW, we all managed to crawl out of bed. Still in our p.j.s, the three of us zombies walked on down to breakfast. We probably got some strange looks, but the free breakfast (and lunch and dinner in our purses…) was worth it. What next? We went back to bed until nearly 1 in the afternoon.

Sunday, May 1^st, 2011

Such amazing weather today! It was super sunny and not a cloud in the sky. We layed out at the pool for a long time and enjoyed the distant company of several british men. They were several years older than us, but hey, it’s only the accent we wanted to hear anyways.

After a quick lunch (that we had saved from our breakfast), we gathered our things and set off for the beach. We walked to find a new one, but ended up at the same one from yesterday. That evening was very chill. We had dinner outside and watched the sunset. I think I was in bed and asleep by 11:30 p.m.. I needed those 10 hours for sure after such a crazy sleepless weekend.

Monday, May 2^nd, 2011

I woke up to some strange and overwhelming news today. Osama Bin Ladin had been found and shot. The American troops had his body, but due to the law of his religion, he needed to be buried within 24 hours. I am still confused on the correct information, but I believe he was buried near sea or thrown away at sea. Now, people are going to be asking for evidence, to see his body, etc etc but it will be difficult to do that now. Especially in Spain, there are a lot of pessimistic people that believe in conspiracy theories. My senora even told me her opinion on the fact that the whole situation is a lie. I believe he is dead, but I too would like to see more evidence. 

In a way, the killing of Osama is a bit more closure for the families of the victims of 9/11. Seeing the news in Spain about all of the Americans celebrating his death was an interesting experience. It was a whole new perspective on the issue. I thought about these things as I flew home from Ibiza to Malaga and then on to Granada. I thought about how the first time I heard about 9/11, I was sitting in Mr. Hartman’s 6^th science class. We called him the jolly man because if you did well on a test, he would reward you with a jolly rancher. Today, I was in Ibiza, Spain during my study abroad experience. It is strange to think that these two events are separated by ten years. Time honestly does fly. 

Processions and Easter!

Hi Everyone: Happy Easter!

I hope the Easter bunny treats everyone well...I'm still looking around my room in Spain for my Easter basket, but haven't found it yet.. hmm....

I've been looking for a bunny like this all day...

On my first day with Catalina in Janurary, she brought me to this beautiful church near el centro.  Ever since, I have liked to pop in every now and then and sit in a pew and just think and marvel at the church's beauty. This Easter Sunday, I decided to attend my first mass here in Spain. I got all dressed up and headed off to the church alone. I enjoyed the service and actually found that I understood the majority of what was said at mass. After the service, I exited the church to walk directly into an Easter Procession in the street. It was neat to see that young children were able to get involved in the processions as well. I have several videos of Semana Santa, Easter, and the Easter Processions. Enjoy. Happy Easter everyone :)

Lord's Prayer 

Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos

Santificado sea tu Nombre

Venga tu reino

Hágase tu voluntad

En la tierra como en el cielo

Danos hoy el pan de este día

y perdona nuestras deudas

como nosotros perdonamos nuestros deudores

y no nos dejes caer en al tentación

sino que líbranos del malo.

Amen.

Semana Santa Procession 

Semana Santa Procession

Happy Easter!  I'll be missing you Easter Bunny!

Easter Mass: Such a beautiful church!

Easter Sunday Procession. He has risen!

Celebracion! 

Hopefully the Easter bunny forgot I was studying in Spain this semester and just accidently brought my basket to my house.... Maybe I'll find it when I return home in a few weeks!?

If you see my basket, it should look something like this:

ITALY: Semana Santa (Holy Week)

Friday, April 15, 2011: ITALY!

10 a.m. this morning, I met up with the girls to take the 3 euro airport bus to the Granada airport. It was soooo nice not having to go to the Malaga airport this time!  We ate our lunches in the airport cafeteria and then boarded the plane. I slept mostly the whole way. I woke up on the plane to everyone staring at me. I had been sleeping with my head back, mouth wide open, as well as my eyes! Apparently in that position of sleeping, my eyes don’t fully shut? 

Once we landed in Milan, Italy, we hopped an hour long bus to get to the Milan train station. After a lot of confusion on how to purchase our tickets, we finally were able to figure it out and bought our tickets just in time for our train to Verona!  We had budgeted 30 euro for each train, but this one was only 9 euro! Woo!

Once in Verona, we met  up with Taylor, a boy from our program, that didn’t have any real concrete plans. This included no hostels, in Rome, during holy week before Easter. Yikes.  Thankfully, he had found our hostel earlier that day, because by now, it was dark out and we had no idea what our hostel looked like. We had booked a bed and breakfast, which was really just some guys house. When we got to the door, the only name on the building was teeny-tiny underneath the doorbell…great. We pushed open the old creaky door and it was pitch black inside. In the corner, we saw a pair of old dirty boots and maybe a balled up sweater. Of course, awful ideas raced through our minds: like there was a killer right inside! Taylor wasn’t man enough to check it out, so I grabbed the light from a phone and peeked my head inside to find that it was only old clothes in the corner and the rest of the room was empty. We flipped the light switches on and climbed the creepy old stairs up to the Bed and Breakfast where we were met by a really angry man. Since we had reserved the wrong arrival time, he had already given away one of our 3 rooms. Thank god he lowered the price!  We had to squish 3 girls to one bed, but besides that, it was a fine stay.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

In the morning, we were up pretty early, had a crappy free breakfast of toast chips and jam and then started our day. Since Taylor had been in Verona the day before, he served as our tour guide. We saw all the really important parts of Verona, including: Piazza Erbe with the Venetian glass jewelry market. Next on the list was to visit (for free!) Juliet’s Balcony and Wall. Even though it’s fake and totally a tourist thing to do, I still loved it! It was fun to write a message to Juliet on her wall too.

Juliet's Balcony!

Writing a letter to Juliet.

Verona was a super casual, relaxed trip. One of my favorite things to do while traveling is to simply walk around and get a feel for the city. We walked by the mini coliseum and took pictures with gladiator men, even though we had to give them some change afterwards, totally worth it!

One day in Verona was enough to see all of the touristy sites, but I think I would definitely enjoy it for a longer period of time. Everyone was super chill and very nice. In Verona, we had lunch at a cute little café and afterwards I tried licorice gelato... don’t hate if you haven’t tried it yet.  I also had my first experience with a true “European” bathroom. It looked like a square toilet cover in the ground with a hole in it. Quite the experience I must say. I have  a picture of it too! Overall, Verona was a sweet place to visit.

Yep, I used this.

Off to the train station! We hopped a 6 euro train to Venice!  We arrived to our (3 star) hotel in Venice! I don't even know what town it was in, but totally worth it because we got the hook up! The hotel was beautiful and they even made sure there was an extra bed for Taylor. (He had such amazing luck on this trip!)  Our hotel was 3 different large rooms all connected and we shared a luxurious bathroom. That evening, we went out to the town’s basically only pizzeria, but had excellent food! We came back to the hotel and played drinking games until the family below us yelled to us to be quiet. Buzz kill!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

We had an entire day to explore Venice the next day.  After first getting lost for 2 hours trying to look for the basilica (now a bit of an inside group joke), we asked for directions and discovered we were quite a ways away from it, and actually in the bottom corner of the map. Oops. We hopped a quick gondola ride across the river. This part was hilarious because most of us were too cheap to buy a real gondola ride. We were snapping pictures left and right on this 60 second gondola ride (.50 cents hell yeah). Good times besides the fact that I was so scared we would tip over!

We stopped at a take-away pizzeria for lunch where I had pizza fungji (mushroom). Eventually, we found Piazza di San Marco where the Basilica was. It was so impressive! Since the line was hours long, we decided we had seen too many churches in Europe and opted to keep going. We strolled along streets filled with Gucci and Prada just to window shop. I can’t believe there are people out there that drop 600 euro on a pair of shoes…  que ridiculo!

To end our awesome day in Venice, we chilled at Ponte Rialto, which is a famous, white bridge in a very tourist area. It was nice to sit on the edge of the street and dangle our feet over the water for a while. We lucked out with the weather too. So pretty and sunny!

That evening, all 9 of us (6 girls, 3 boys) visited the same pizza place. I opted to get a salad and grilled vegetables since the trip was filling me up with pizza, pasta, and gelato, I needed some green food in my life. That night, we played some more drinking games but didn’t stay up too late.

At our pizza place!

Monday, April 18, 2011

The next day, we were off to the train station pretty early. At the station, we spontaneously decided to break up our long trip to Rome by stopping in Florence for about 4 hours. On this train station, my eyes were killing me!  They were super sensitive to any light, my eyes were very dialeted, and every part around my pupils was bright red! I took out my contacts and went blind the rest of the day.

In our Harry Potter car on the train, complete with snack cart!

The first thing I purchased in Florence were a pair of sunglasses to protect them from the strong sun. The boys and girls split up, We headed straight for the famous leather market where we spent the majority of our time. I ended up purchasing a small leather cross-body purse. J  Before hopping on our train, we needed to get dinner. Luckily, we stopped in a cute little Italian restaurant, run and ownded my a cute little old lady. She knew we were in a hurry to make our train to Rome, so she whipped up or food so quickly and it was probably one of our best meals in Italy.

The train to Rome was pretty damn long, but worth it! We arrived around midnight and thank god the boys were with us because I have never felt so unsafe in a train station before in my life. Everywhere you looked, there were creepy men lurking around and tons of homeless guys. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Luckily, our hostel was a short 5 minute walk from the station. The receptionist was sooo helpful!  The ONLY cancellation in the whole hostel was one random girl in our hostel room… Taylor got lucky again! The hostel room was so tiny, but it was sufficient enough. The bathroom situation was disgusting, to say the least.

Tuesday-Friday, April 19-22

The three days in Rome were FANTASTIC! Our hostel drew up 3 different routes for us to follow each day. We followed them to a tee basically. We saw nearly the entire city this way, but in a way that I never felt rushed or stressed. We were able to casually enjoy the city.

Some highlights of Rome:

Touring the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. Even though there were nearly 60,000 visitors that day and I felt like I was swimming through the Vatican museums and Sisten chapel, it was such a great experience to be able to see it in person.

                                                                     At Vatican City!

Another highlight: Hearing the Pope speak in Vatican City. It was a once in a lifetime experience and it’s something that I’ll never forget. The pope arrived promptly at 10:30 a.m. in his little pope-mobile with cheesy music and waving at the massive crowd.  Once on stage and seated, the ceremony started. Each cardinal read in a different language. I believe there were 6 or 7 different languages. After each cardinal, the pope would address the different populations of the crowd using the different languages. When he spoke in Spanish, there would be chants and screaming and singing in praise of the Pope. They were so proud and it was great to see all of the support from different communities around the world. At the end of the Pope’s address, the whole crowd read an Italian prayer together. It was such an amazing experience to see this all happen in Vatican City only a short distance away from the Pope!

                                               Pope riding his(Mercedes-Benz)  pope-mobile!
                                                          "Viva el Papa!!  Viva el Papa!"

Another highlight: Roman Forum and Colosseum. We each paid 12 euro for an all access, skip the lines ticket. It was really neat to see the tomb of Julius Caesar as well as the ruins of the old basilica and other governmental meeting places inside this forum. The colosseum was breathtaking. Words can’t describe the feeling you get when you are among such history and beauty. Seeing the Colosseum from the second story was even more powerful too.

                                                           

Other highlights: Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, and Piazza Navona.  Each was interesting in a different way. Trevi fountain was covered in tourists, but the fountain itself was so large and impressive. The thing to do there is to throw a coin over your shoulder if you wish to come back to Rome or throw 2 coins over your shoulder into the fountain if you wish to fall in love in Rome! The pantheon was free to enter and I was blown away at how well kept and pristine it was inside. The Spanish Steps again were covered with tourists and the steps could barely be seen, but the flowers lining the steps were beautiful and actually were a great place to chill and do some people watching (one of my favorite hobbies).  Lastly, Piazza Navona was a gigantic open plaza that was filled with artists trying to sell their works of art as well as other stands that sold sunglasses, watches, purses, etc.  I could have spent an entire day there looking threw the artwork but unfortunately,  time did not permit this desire.

I thought 3 days in Rome was sufficient, but I really do wish I could have been there for a longer time. IT was great being in Rome during holy week too.  Sadly, we had to get on a plane back to Madrid and then take a nearly 6-hour bus ride back to Granada. I made it back in my apartment into my bed at 7:30 a.m.  Yikes.  It was worth it because I had a travel experience of a lifetime. I am so grateful for everything I have been able to do while abroad. I can’t believe it is nearing the end of my adventures abroad, but I have honestly loved every single minute of it. 

Ciao!