Day Seventy-Four

Off to Mallorca Paradise!  well.. after classes that is. but you know.. who really does class here.  We headed out of the Sevilla airport and arrived in Palma, Mallorca at about eleven at night and headed to our hotel.

When we reserved our hotel about a month ago it was 30 euros a night (total, not per person) for a 1-3 person room (but we snuck an extra person in.. shh. dont tell.) And when we checked the price yesterday just for kicks and giggles it was about 150 euros per night.  When we got there, what we got was definitely WAY more than we had expected. We were at a legit hotel/almost resort. Our room had a small kitchen with a fridge, stove, and fully equipped with everything we needed to cook.  It also had a sea view. Like I said. Legit.  It was about a five minute walk to the actual beach, and we were about 50 feet from the nearest market.

When we got into the hotel, we ate snacks, had some drinks, and watched Despicable Me (aka. best movie ever.)

Picture of the day: This is what happens when you're bag doesn't fit in the Ryan air box.  Sometimes it is necessary to put on all of the clothes in your bag in order to make it fit.  Hannah was kind enough to demonstrate this process.  (note the pajama pants over her jeans)  Once we actually witnessed a girl get on the plane wearing pants, pajama pants, a skirt, and about seven shirts (no exaggeration) 

Day Seventy-Three

Interest group cooking class today! Part of our program is to be in an "interest group" which is basically a group of about twenty to twenty five students that do activities and whatnot, so tonight we had a cooking party and learned how to make Tortilla Española! it was delicious.  We also made a lot of other things but nothing quite as interesting as tortilla.

Picture of the day 1: The cooking process. The students actually didn't get to cook, we just cut potatoes and watched 

Picture of the day 2:  We did however get to partake in the feast!

Day Seventy-Two

After a long day in the airport yesterday, today was a very long Tuesday.. basically class and homework all day long.  literally.  However since I found my shortcut between schools, I now walk past the pretty side of the Cathedral everyday and I get constantly reminded that I am legitimately in Spain. Wow.

Picture of the day: walk home from school. Cathedral Style.

Day Seventy-One

So after taking a tylenol pm we ended up spending then night in a Pastaria (not to be confused with a Pasteleria) and then having to move at 6 am to the most uncomfortable benches known to man and sleeping (or attempting to) until about noon.  When we finally got up the countdown really began.  When 6:55 finally rolled around we got on the plane (late as usual) and were on our way home.

When I got home however, Dioni was all concernicus because apparently some man had called her neighbor and told her that I wasn't coming home but that neither Dioni or her neighbor knew who the man was and what had happened.  SO apparently this wierdo guy never even told the neighbor who he was and why in the world he knew we were stuck in Barcelona. good going pal.

Picture of the day 1: our makeshift habitat in the Pastaria

Picture of the day 2: Peace out Barcelona!

Day Seventy

Today we headed out bright and early, so we could get back to the hostel by four, when we had to pick our bags up from the hold closet.  So we grabbed our bocadillos and went to Olympic stadium.. well we tried to. We couldn't actually get in, so instead we ended up hiking up a promising looking mountain.  When we got to the top, we realized we could look out over the entire city, and the sea, and that is where we plopped down to eat our bocadillos. At the top of a cliff, under a gorgeous blue sky, looking out over the mediterranean sea. does it get any better?  


After our bocadillos, we headed towards the Castle that just happened to be at the top of this mountain also. I dont know when it was built, or what it was even used for.. but it was legit.


We headed back down the mountain to pick up our suitcases and go to the beach before our flight out in the evening.  It took us forever to get to the beach.. because as we found out when we got to Barcelona, the beach situation here is not normal. Its like they carved out the beach to make the port, so the beach is actually on a jetty in the middle of the water surrounding the port? Strange I know. But a bit of a jaunt later we got there and put our feet in the sand.. and the water!  I always expected the water to be warm.. yeah not so much. At least not yet. It was almost Pacific Ocean status.. well... not quite. but it was chillytastic.


Then we left to go the airport.  This is where the problems started. We read our tickets wrong. They said our flight was at 18:55.. but instead of reading 6:55pm.. we read it as 8:55pm.. FALSE. SOO we missed our plane.  From there we had two choices 

1. Change the flight to Monday morning at 6am for 90 euro (like 130 dollars)
2. Miss class and change the flight to Monday night at 6:55 for 15 euro

So peace out Luis (our writing teacher) because there was no way we were paying 90 euro just to get home in time for class.  So 15 euro later.. we had to stay in Barcelona, or more correctly the Barcelona airport for 22 consecutive hours.  Technically we could have left, this is true.. however, we both had our suitcases, and we had no where to go.. so through security we went.  

The other problem was that I couldn't get ahold of my Señora Dioni to tell her that I wouldn't be coming home and not to worry, because the phone number that I had didn't work.  SO we tried calling the CIEE emergency number.. it didn't work.  Here's a question. Why is there an emergency number if it doesnt actually work? Is that going to help the emergency? no. I think not.  When we finally got ahold of CIEE we couldn't understand them (much harder to speak a second language when in crisis!) but we told them about the airport situation and about Dioni and asked if they could give me the phone number they had to call Dioni. They gave me two numers. The first one I called worked perfectly fine.. except it wasn't the right phone number. The second phone number was my cell phone.  After about half an hour of the man on the other end of the line (who's name we still dont know) struggling and trying to figure out where I live and why none of the phone numbers worked, he creepily somehow got ahold of Dioni's neighbor.. and told her to go tell Dioni that I wasn't coming home for the night.

Oh, and while sitting in the airport, I found a camera. Not just any camera.. but a nice one and all of its accessories.. probably over $1500 dollars worth of camera.. SO I sat and babysat it until someone called for it.

Picture of the day 1: view from the steps of some sort of palace/museum?

Picture of the day 2: is this where we ate our lunch? why yes. yes it is.

Picture of the day 3: Beach at last!!

Picture of the day 4: babysitting.

Day Sixty-Nine

So we made it down to breakfast today.. which consisted of creepy little pre packaged toast.. the sweetest apple juice I've ever tasted (not in a good way.) and a little ...muffin?  strange.


BUT It could always be worse.

The first thing on the agenda was the Picasso Museum, so after wandering down past the street vendors once again, that is where we headed.  It was an awesome little museum, in the middle of the city, but not in a giant building that stuck out like a sore thumb, it was just part of a neighborhood, and had a little courtyard and was made of stone, very nice.  It was strange though because whenever I think of Picasso, the very first thing that pops into my mind is Guernica, and abstract everything. However, as we learned, the majority of his art was actually not abstract or cubist, he only started those towards the very end of his life/career.

After Picasso, we went up to Park Guell (Also Gaudí).  There are really no words to describe what Park Guell is.. its basically just a big park on the top of a mountain in the city (no. really. we had to take escalators that were in the road because they were so steep), that was designed by Gaudí and at one point was supposed to be a little community, but that never ended up happening. Either way, its full of crazy things like gingerbread looking houses, and curvy benches around a little plaza type area, and EVERYTHING is a mosaic. I think the mosaic aspect is what impresses me the most. If you could see how much tiny broken pieces of color are all over this park, it is absolutely amazing. I cant even imagine how long it took to put it all together.

Park Guell took up a large chunk of time, so we headed home to change clothes (we have to change at night because it is still chilly at night, but hot during the day) and then tried to go to a magic fountain light show.. BUT the website lies, and it was over by the time we got there. SO instead we made an adventure out of it. We saw a giant circular building, and there was noise coming from its roof, but all the downstairs doors were locked, so what did we do? we found the outside stairs and climbed to the roof of this unknown building.  When we got to the top we still had no idea what it was, but there were people wandering around, so it had to have been something good.  We finally found a way inside, and realized that it was some sort of giant weird mall, so we explored! Then we headed home for our last night in Barcelona

Picture of the day 1: oh you know.. just riding the escalator.. up the road.

Picture of the day 2: Park Guell from above, those are all the curvy benches, and when you look at the front of them, they are completely covered in mosaics

Picture of the day 3: is he a lizard? is he a dinosaur? I dont know. but he's famous.

Picture of the day 4: Main entrance to Park Guell

Day Sixty-Eight

Today was the first day I've slept in in ages!  We missed breakfast downstairs in our hostel.. but thats alright because the extra hour of sleep was well worth it.

We got up and ready and headed out.  First we walked down La Rambla towards the water. (Fun fact: if you ask someone which direction "the water" is, they get really confused.. because apparently they dont the word water with the sea) La Rambla is basically a giant popular street in the heart of Barcelona that has millions of street vendors, performers, restaurants, and lots more.  When we reached the end of it, we caught our first glimpse of the Mediterranean sea! (well from ground level.)  Then we backtracked a bit and went into the Mercat de St. Joseph. It was quite overwhelming in there.. its a giant farmers market type place but there are so many people in it that you can't help but bump into everyone all the time.  We ended up wandering around and eventually buying some cute chocolates from a local place's booth.

Once we headed out of the market, something exciting happened! We were just walking around looking at the vendors and performers minding our own business, when we paused to watch about five men doing acrobatics.. THEN all of the sudden we got lured into the middle of the circle by the performers (along with two other people) and were told to stand in a very straight line all together, tilt our heads to the left, and put our arms out.. then one man proceeded to do a running, flying, death defying leap over the heads of all four of us!  They called it "La gran salta de muerte" translated that means "The great jump of death"  It was a blast, and is definitely a great story to tell.. I just wish that I could have actually seen it happen.. the only view I got was of a guy in an orange shirt flying and landing in front of me.

So after that great burst of excitement, we were once again on our way, this time with a mission.  We headed up towards the Gaudi apartments.  If you don't know who Gaudí is (I didn't before coming here) you're missing out.. he was an artist who designed a ton of stuff in Barcelona, and was a large theme in this trip.  The apartments look like waves, or caves, or something.. but their awesome.. and apparently the balconies are supposed to look like the jaws of some creature??

Next was La Sagrada Familia (also Gaudí).  It is a giant SUPER intricate cathedral/basillica that was started in 1882 and still isn't finished being built (I think its supposed to be done sometime around 2026 or something... Anyway, It is massive, and beautiful, and strange.. most everything created by Gaudí is a bit strange, and yet way cooler than most other things. We didn't go inside La Sagrada Familia, but that is definitely on the itinerary for when mom and Heather come to visit!

After La Sagrada Familia, we headed home to our hostel. We wandered past an Arc de Triumf, through a gorgeous park, past the zoo, and saw a couple taking their wedding pictures.  We stopped off at the hostel to change clothes and then went on a mission to find some good paella for dinner... We got seriously ripped off on the paella.. but it was definitely delicious!

Picture of the day 1: First view of the Mediterranean!

Picture of the day 2: These would be the street acrobats that pulled us into their trick. The one in the orange jumped us.

Picture of the day 3: Gaudí apartments

Picture of the day 4: La Sagrada Familia. Its too big to get a picture of it from the top to bottom.. so this will have to do

Day Sixty-Seven

Last midterm, done and done.

and now.. on to Barcelona!

We left our last class a few minutes early in order to run to the bus to get to the airport because our plane was supposed to leave at eight thirty.. However, it was delayed (big surprise there) so we didn't leave until about nine thirty.  We arrived in Barcelona at about eleven and got to the hostel without any problems!  Then we were off to bed to rest up for the next few days!

Sine my plane was delayed today, I feel it is a good time to explain a few things about traveling in Europe. Its chaos.  Planes rarely leave on time, the airports don't post the gate number until about 15 minutes before your plane is scheduled to leave, they make you put your bag in the sizer box about 17 times before you get on the plane, a line begins to form at the departure gate as soon the gate is posted, why do they line up you may ask? its because theres no assigned seating on the planes so its a giant free for all... and then they wonder why they are always running late..

Picture of the day 1: aaannnndddd this is what we call the box struggle.  I'm serious when I say they make you put your bag in the box EVERY single time you get on the plane, and often more than once.

Picture of the day 2: This one is solely for entertainment.  In order to pass the time, Hannah and I tend to make up our own safety instructions on the plane.. seeing as the pictures to the safety instructions are incredibly funny.. 

FOR EXAMPLE: see the three crossed out circles in the bottom left corner? inside those circles are 1. dentures 2. high heels. and 3. glasses 4. jewelry... these are things you are supposed to leave behind?!!

Exhibit B: see the yellow door with the guy looking through the window at fire? the story here goes "if you happen to see fire outside of your window on the plane, please refrain from exiting that window.. choose a different one.."  well.. here's your sign.

Day Sixty-Six

Midterms are almost over!! one tomorrow and a few papers to do and wah lah! So basically today consisted of studying for Literatura y Ciudad: El Caso de Sevilla.. its super fun..

I also found a new secret path from my school to the real university. tricky!

Picture of the day:  Apparently here in Sevilla it is protest season.. I swear everywhere I go there is someone protesting something, with signs, or music, which is all good and well until the most obnoxious of all.. horns. I don't know what these people are protesting, but they are so annoying that I am against it. SO this picture is just one of the daily protests 

Day Sixty-Five

Class class class bocadillo.. oh yeah. and class. That is all that exists on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Picture of the day:  this is actually from yesterday, but Its the view of the sunset from my bedroom window and I love it.

Day Sixty-Four

Monday oh monday.  Hannah and I went to volunteer at a school this morning making kids breakfast.. which is always an interesting experience seeing as we cant understand a word they say.  These kids are mostly a Gitano (Gypsy) Portuguese mix.. which means that they often speak some sort of hybrid spanish-gypsy-portugese language at a million miles and hour leaving it impossible to decipher.  I went home and took a small siesta before heading to class, and spend the afternoon lazing.. something that I havent done in quite a long time!

Picture of the day: Finally got a picture of my host family! Antonio, Dioni, and their daughter Maria (who doesn't live with us, but comes to lunch on Mondays)

Day Sixty-Three

Bright and early morning to catch our bus to the airport.  And just like that (well minus the fact that they confiscated my toothpaste.) we were on the plane and out of  Ireland, on our way back to Sevilla.  We flew back into Faro aka the devil airport, luckily we didn't have to go back through security or anything this time, just though customs and back to our dodgy bus sign.

This time however, it was about one in the afternoon.  It was sunny and gorgeous, and we realized that right behind our scary bus sign that turned out to have an associated station (it was just closed when we were there before) was about twenty feet from the beach.  This time we got out of the cab looking straight into an adorable harbor filled with boats, and blue sky and waves along the beach.

We got on the bus at 2pm and rode the three or so hours home and got back at 6 (there is a time change) and when we arrived back in Sevilla it was still sunny and bright outside and the riverside was packed with people.

The day was completed by drinking a mango smoothie and planning next weekends trip with Hannah.

Picture of the day: A much nicer view of Faro than our first impression

Day Sixty-Two

First thing on the agenda was to buy tickets to tour the Dublin Castle, so right after breakfast we ran over to pick our time (our hostel was about three blocks away).  Then we wandered to Trinity to College, and down a few streets just exploring.  We headed back to the Castle at 1:40 for our tour which was amazing. We walked through a large part of the castle, but its still used as a government building so there were secret parts we werent allowed to see. Apparently the castle used to have a moat and everything. AND

Fun Fact: the castle was the only one that was never conquered because the only way to get into it to conquer it was through a tiny two-ish foot wide staircase that was SUPER steep and at the top you had to give a password to the door, and if the person at the top didn't like your password they would throw the door open which opened towards the stairs so that it hit the person on the stairs and knocked them all the way down the stairs. and let me tell you that I saw those stairs.. and if you fell down them, there's no getting up again.

After the castle we grabbed some lunch and headed to the Guinness Factory!  We walked through the factory and learned how the beer was made and tasted some samples and then got to to up to the Gravity Bar which is a round bar seven stories up, and look out over the city!

Finally it was time to head out and find some dinner, which was easy enough, followed by a scoop of honeycomb and a scoop of sea salt ice cream. delish!!

DUN DUN DUN Irish Pub time.

It was so much fun I words cant even describe it!  Every single person in that pub was just excited to be there, not to mention the live music that included guitar, fiddle, some sort of electric bagpipe, and multiple types of flutes (?) I'll attach videos so you can pretend you were there too.

Picture of the day: Guinness! Fun fact: Arthur Guinness signed a 9000 year lease in 1759.. so it won't be running out anytime soon.

Video 1:

Video 2:

Video 3:

(Video's coming soon when my internet will cooperate to upload them)

Day Sixty-One

Well we made it through the night in the airport, which I consider a success.  Our flight was at 6:30am and since we spent the night in the airport we got up at about 5:30 to head through security.  So continuing with the strangeness of this already dodgy airport, the security here was unlike anything I've ever encountered.

As usual we were required to take out/off any laptops, liquids, boots, and coats however, upon reaching the front of the line (already completely dismantled and prepared to go through the line), the security woman informs us that we have the "wrong" kind of plastic ziplock bag.  I was unaware that there was a "wrong" kind of plastic bag to put my shampoo in.. but according to them my regular gallon size ziplock bag that I've used for ALL of my other flights is not going to work.  Instead they insist that we go buy the special plastic bags from the little store.  SO while Chiarra went to buy the plastic bags I continued through security with all of our stuff.

The reason that this plastic bag fiasco is entertaining is the fact that there are two girls in line in front of us that have the same problem, but are seriously struggling.  They get scolded for not having the right type, then return after buying the right ones, and then are told on the other end of security that they are only allowed one little bag per person.  This presents a drama because the bags are about sandwich sized.. and the girls had way too much stuff to fit and because of this the security guard was literally holding their lotions and potions hostage.  He wouldn't even let them touch their things to choose which ones they wanted to take with them, and just kept yelling "NO ONLY ONE BAG PER PERSON.. NO THAT CANT FIT.. NO YOU CANT SWITCH, THAT ONE WON'T FIT, NO, NO, NO!"  I was fairly certain a brawl was about to break out.

Finally we made it to our plane, where we met a nice Irish woman named Sheila, who (like us) was complaining about the "uneducated little trolls that are given security badges and told they have power"  and who just happens to be the Director at Yellowstone Communications Design in Dublin (we'll return to her later)

Three hours later we reached Dublin!!

We dropped off our stuff and began our journey.  Mostly we just wandered the city, we walked past the Dublin Castle, and St. Patricks Cathedral which we actually went in and was gorgeous, although hard to completely appreciate due to the fact that we've been in the Sevilla Cathedral which is hands down the most amazing cathedral I've ever seen.

Then we headed towards the river and the O2 Convention Center. This is where we return to Sheila.  This morning, she told us that her company had bought about twelve tickets to a large cultural event for tonight, and two of the tickets (about 20 euros each) were never claimed and that if we wanted she would leave them at the call desk for us, so of course we took her up on this offer.  Although we were unsure what we were getting into, we didn't have any other plans and figured that it would be a cool experience.  Little did we know that this event called Dublin Swell was one of the largest cultural events in Ireland..  no.. seriously.. the President of Ireland was there.  It was just a four hour mash up of famous Irish singers, poets, and writers doing their thing. A-MA-ZING.

Then it was home to get some sleep for the next adventure!

Picture of the day 1: beautiful St. Patricks Cathedral

Picture of the day 2: The O2 Convention Center where Dublin Swell was held

Day Sixty

Did I have two tests and three papers due today? why yes, I did.  It was stressful, BUT its all done and we got on our way to Ireland which makes up for it!

Unlike our other trips out of the country, this time we didnt fly out of Madrid, instead we flew out of Faro, Portugal.  Its about a three hour drive from Sevilla (instead of the 6 hours to Madrid) and was cheaper, which seemed perfect when we bought the tickets.

So, as usual we hopped on the bus at about midnight in order to arrive at the airport in the wee hours of the morning. However, upon our arrival to Faro, we were dropped off at the sketchiest place I've ever seen.  When we left Sevilla, we departed from a bus station, equipped with a station, ticket booths, bathrooms.. the works. We were dropped off at a sign "Station 5" at two thirty in the morning. Needless to say, we hightailed it out of there, catching the first cab that we saw.  On our way to the airport, we passed through winding neighborhood streets filled with stucco houses with the paint peeling so much that you couldn't tell which color the paint was.

Ten minutes later we reached the airport... If we thought the bus "station" was sketchy, the airport had reached a new level.  The doors were open, so in we went.  All the lights were off and there was not a soul in sight.  The first stop was the bathroom in which only about one third of the lights were on, half the stalls empty but locked, and one toilet that continually flushed.

This airport could have easily passed as a scene from a horror movie, in which two girls are murdered via zombies (or anything else..).  Around three thirty we finally decided to try to sleep on some benches until our flight at 6:30.  We were fortunate to see that there were three or so people sleeping on benches, and one solitary security guard meandering about.

Picture of the day 1: The bus "station" we were dropped off at, at two thirty in the morning

Picture of the day 2: The deserted Faro airport.  This picture is actually deceivingly bright because we were standing next to the bathrooms. The rest of the airport was not nearly as well lit...

Day Fifty-Nine

One midterm today, two midterms and three papers for tomorrow.. its going to be a hectic night.  However, in spite of all that, two friends and I made it down to the river to study since it was about 75 and sunny here. Gotta love the weather.. except for the humidity. which I hate. BUT I also leave for Ireland tomorrow! yay!

and now the studying must commence.

Picture of the day: just walking home from the river

Day Fifty-Eight

Studying for midterms has officially commenced.  I have about 23497 pages to read in Spanish, three midterms and four papers this week. Well.. wish me luck! I'm going to need it.

Picture of the day:  bring it on midterms. bring it on.

Day Fifty-Seven

Oh midterms, you are so unnecessary in Spain. Its going to be a hectic week, thats for sure. BUT the silver lining is that this weekend for St. Patricks day, I'm going to Ireland! does it get better than that?

Picture of the day: here in Spain, we always joke that the policemen never do anything.. only its not really a joke because really.. they dont do anything. BUT today I saw them do something important! I dont know what it was.. but something was going down.

Day Fifty-Six

Well.. we made it home.  But thats not to say that it wasn't a struggle.

We woke up and were perfectly on time. We made it to the airport without so much as breaking a sweat.. thats when we had to check our bags.  They were allowed to weigh 8 kilos, mine weighed 9, Gabby's weight 12.  Reluctantly we handed over our bags and headed to our terminal.  The flight to Frankfurt went smoothly and we even enjoyed a real frank hotdog and a pretzel in the airport. We made it to Madrid about ten minutes late (at 3:45), which wouldn't have made any sort of difference except for the whole checking of the baggage aspect.  We waited. and we waited. getting more and more restless and nervous about making it to our 5 o'clock bus which is a 30-45 minute metro ride away.  Finally we got our luggage and made a mad dash through the airport to catch the metro.  We sprinted through the metro station when we arrived to reach the bus (no, seriously sometimes the wheels to my suitcase weren't even on the ground. true story.)

BUT

of course we arrived at 5:10.  A small freak out, and an ice cream sunday later, we had tickets to the next bus, which thankfully was at 6:00.. not 11:00 which was the other option.  Gabby's seat dripped cold water on her from the roof the whole way home.. but at least we made it home.

Picture of the day:  I love airplanes.. and airports.. but mostly I love this view.

Day Fifty-Five

Day two of Berlin started off fantastic.  There was no sleeping through alarms, no cold showers, no bed bugs, no obnoxious roommates, and we got free breakfast.  Then we went to the ever famous Berlin Zoo, which I recently learned survived WW2.  We saw the panda, polar bears, hippos, kangaroos.. what a wide variety..

That however was the end of our luck because we got back on the metro to go to the Olympic Stadium (where the 1936 Olympics were held) we got a ticket.  I would you what happened and what we're going to do about it.. except that I dont know. News flash.. I dont speak German. nor do I read it. Gabby and I were in shock, we have no clue what happened or what to do about it.  All we got from the forced conversation was something about a ticket, online, international bank code, and in the literal words of the Germans who gave us these tickets "okay. thats all. goodbye." (say it in a frustrated voice with a german accent and its much more intimidating.) But we finally made it to the Olympic stadium.

It was amazing! but for some reason I had expected it to be bigger. It felt like Autzen stadium to me, but with a half roof, or maybe it just felt smaller since it was completely empty except for the 20 or so tourists looking around.  We were also able to walk around the grounds and see the swimming pools and a few courts.  Most shocking to us was walking past the bell tower and the field below it and then reading that from that exact spot is where Hitler watched the Olympic games.  Then we wandered around to the side of the stadium where the giant bell from the bell tower sits.  Its cracked, rusted, and beautiful.. except for the fact that it has disguised swastikas on it.  So we all learn about world war two and the holocaust in school, and its sad to hear, but its a completely different experience when you are in Berlin and look down and see a real nazi symbol right in front of your face.

While Gabby and I were ecstatic to be spending the weekend in Berlin, we didn't realize how solemn of a trip it would actually be.  This isn't to say that we didn't have a great time, because we did, but we were also faced with the harsh reality that we were literally walking in the birthplace of the second world war, and stood in the same places that Hitler did.

Now on to a less depressing part of the story.  We took a tour through the city on a hop on hop off bus which we never actually hopped off of.. BUT we got to see all the sights in a short amount of time, and we had front row seats which is always fun! Oh, and our bus was a double decker that was painted with zebra stripes.. YESSS!

Then we ate schitzle, yes schnitzle, for dinner and headed towards the TV tower to ride the elevator up to the top of the 203 meter tall tower to look out over the whole city!  It was gorgeous up there, I love getting a view from above and pinpointing where everything is.

Finally, we made our way to a Biergarten, then to a palace, and finally made it home around 1:00 am.

Picture of the day 1: Olympic Stadium

Picture of the day 2: Checkpoint Charlie

Picture of the day 3: Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe

Picture of the day 4: TV Tower! (check out the tiny moon in the corner of the picture :)  )

Day Fifty-Four

Six hours on a bus, a delayed flight, missing the connecting flight, lucky enough to get on the next flight, a metro ride, a hop and a skip and we made it to Berlin!  We arrived at about six in the evening and decided to drop off our stuff and go in search of the Berlin wall!  It was a bit of a struggle, but we found it.

Even though it may appear to be just a cement wall that is about ten feet tall, it is much more than that. It has a long and dreary past, and its purpose was destroyed long ago, but even today you can see the suffering of the people affected by this wall and the other happenings of Germany through its amazing paintings.  Some of these are graffiti, some of them are tourists that want to leave their mark, and some are scenes from the holocaust,  but all of them, regardless of what they are or who put them there, have a meaning.

After staring at the wall in awe for about two and half hours, it was dinner time.  Try as we might, we could not for the life of us find a cute little German restaurant to eat at and instead ended up at some sort of sports bar/restaurant.  However! we did end up with a seriously German meal of Currywurst, chips (fatty french fries), and something that they claim is cole slaw.. oh. and cheesecake.  Then we headed home to get a good nights sleep before the Saturday adventure!

Picture of the day 1: Berlin Wall

Picture of the day 2: Berlin Wall "Many small people in many small places go many small things that can alter the face of the world."

Picture of the day 3: Berlin Wall

Picture of the day 4: Berlin Wall, Gabby and I made our mark

Picture of the day 5: Berliner Currywurst, apparently this is a common thing in Berlin because they are everywhere!  Ours was basically a giant sausage brautwurst type thing.. covered in a sauce that was similar to barbecue.. but not as sweet? sprinkled with curry powder.  Sounds horrific. Tastes delicious.

Day Fifity-Three

I leave for Berlin today!! Gabby and I are getting on a bus at one in the morning and off we will go! Until then, there is just homework and packing, trying to get everything together for the trip and next week!

Picture of the day 1: As I was walking up to school today I looked up and realized that my school is awesome.. and all the flags were flying in sync

Picture of the day 2: Yes.. it used to be a Tobacco Factory

Day Fifty-Two

Midterms next week.. that means a ton of homework and studying.. but there is always a small amount of time set aside for things like.. 100 montaditos. oh yes.

Picture of the day: One Euro Wednesday.. or as hannah likes to call it "one dollar and thirty cents wednesday"

Day Fifty-One

So its been raining here in Sevilla, but before you get excited, you need to realize that "rain" here is generally more like a sprinkle.  Granted, there have been a few times that I even reached for the hood of my coat or on a very rare occasion my umbrella.. but its definitely not rain as I know it.  Contrary to the fact that this rain is barely enough to make your shoes wet.. everyone has their umbrellas out, which would be acceptable and fine if there wasn't a complete lack of umbrella etiquette here.

The sidewalks are literally two or three feet wide, and instead of scooting over or lifting the umbrella in some sort of half-attempting to care about the people around you manner, people just barrel down the street.  Not to mention that people don't use the small umbrellas that are meant for one person, no they decide to use the big umbrellas that parents use when they have to sit in the rain and watch their children play soccer.  I have been poked, prodded, had to duck, cover my eyes, and jump off the sidewalk in order to avoid these people, or decide to stand my ground and lose an eye.

thank you Oregonians for not fussing with umbrellas, we all appreciate it.

Picture of the day: just capturing the umbrella moment.

Day Fifty

Back to the daily grind of school. I've got a week to whip myself into shape because next week is Midterms, for which I am very ill prepared.  On the brighter side, I'm going to Berlin this weekend! And I also started volunteering making breakfast at a local school, it does require me to get up at o'dark thirty, but other than the fact that I cant understand a word that the kids say to me, it was pretty entertaining.

Picture of the day: as my friend Chiarra and I were getting coffee (at about midnight) this group came wandering down the street. We can only assume it was a protest of some sort because these men were carrying this thing down the street in a very solemn manner..

Day Forty-Nine

Today amounted to: sleeping in ridiculously late and buying a bus ticket to Madrid. That is all.

Picture of the day: I did manage to snap this picture on the way home from the bus station, it was right after the rain and I loved the clouds

Day Forty-Eight

costumes
crazy
crowded
candid
catastrophic
careless
chilly
catty
clumsy
colorful
crude
captivating
Cadiz Carnival.

While there are many stories to recount from last night, it is first necessary to set the scene.  We arrived at the bright and early time of 10pm, where we would spend the next five hours.  As we hopped off the bus  already in costume, we were immediately overwhelmed.  As we wandered towards the main plaza there were literally thousands of people in costumes drinking, brawling, screaming, dancing, and doing just about anything else you can imagine.  There were strings of lights hanging in between the buildings and colorful signs everywhere.

As we shoved (literally) our way through the monstrous crowd we saw everything from pirates, to wind up dolls, to herds of chickens and cows, to crossdressers both real and just for costume, to movie characters, to romans, and EVERYTHING in between, many of which shall not be mentioned because of their pure vulgar-ness.

We were ankle deep in plastic bags, broken glass bottles, spilled drinks, Burger King, and who knows what else.  At any given time, you were likely to be touched by something on all sides.  Somehow, through all of this, we managed to have a good time and may or may not have knocked over a moto in the process.. but were definitely ready to hop on that bus when it rolled in at 3am.

Getting back on the bus however, is a completely different event.  We were at the front of the line, ready to get on the first bus of eight-ish to take us home.  As soon as it pulled up chaos broke loose.  About a thousand people all tried to shove onto one sixty person bus.  Until this moment, I had never understood how people could possibly get trampled on occasions such as Black Friday. Now I  Know.  I was being compressed on all sides so tightly that I'm sure that my feet were not even touching the ground, but rather I was being held above the ground by the pressure on my body.

Finally we made it home. I strolled in at 6am, washed my feet and headed to bed.

It was a long, grueling, but fun and interesting night.. and now I can truly say that I've experienced the Cadiz Carnival.

Picture of the day 1: TOGA!! surprisingly, we did not see anyone else in togas

Picture of the day 2: The moto that we may or may not have knocked down in the night.

Picture of the day 3: although its blurry, if you spin around three times and then multiply this picture by a hundred.. it begins to capture what the crowd actually looked like.

Picture of the day 4: There were so many chickens!! WHY!?