Gracias

Well I'm home! So weird/ not real/ refusing to accept it all at the same time.

As a quick summary of how the rest of thigns went, my roommates/ majority of friends from the program left on the 12th of May and I was so lucky to have my best friend Arija come into Madrid.

That weekend we headed off to San Sebastian in the north of Spain only to be greeted by HORRIBLE cold, rainy weather which left us in a bit of a damper. Ari wasn't feeling too hot and I was frozen as always. Needless to say it was a disappointment because it was a beautiful city on the beach that we couldn't fully enjoy. We spent our days locked up drinking tea and eating a lot of gelato in the cafes and even ventured to explore the aquarium. We ended up leaving a day early to head back to Madrid where we were greeted by amazing warm weather and sun!

We moved into a cute little hostel right in the heart of Madrid, Sol, and that following Tuesday my other best friend, Taylor-Grace, came into town and us three troubles were back and reunited. The girls hadn't seen each other for the whole semester as well so needless to say we were all excited to be reunited. I spent the week showing them around Madrid, the Palace, musuems, laying out in the park, drinking tinto verano, sangria, eating tapas, tortilla, paella and living Spanish lifestyle to the fullest. Ari had never been to Spain and Taylor had never been to Europe so it was great share the amazing new lifestyle I'd adjusted to with my two best friends in the world.

  We were lucky to meet amazing people and make new friends at our hostel, some ironically enough from San Diego, and I showed the girls the crazy nightlife of Spaniards. Luckily they managed to survive ;).

That weekend we took off to Barcelona where it was just as sunny and warm and we enjoyed our days walking along the beach and Las Ramblas and gettin on tan on!

The next week we headed back to Madrid as Ari had to leave 2 days before us and we wanted to enjoy some last siestas in the park- a habit I could really get used to. Sadly my little pumpkin left me but I still had my tay tay to finish out my last 2 days in the most amazing place on earth to me. I was lucky enough to also have an other friend in town and on my last night we enjoyed our last jarras of true Sangria in the motherland.
I took off on thursday which ended up being a 30 hour venture due to some irritating weather on the east coast...thanks a lot new york. But I made it home safe and sound to enjoy a much too short weekend in San Diego and I am now back up in LA to work and take summer school.

Thank you to everyone who followed me on this amazing life changing experience that I will never forget. I'll be back to Madrid one day without a doubt and I'll gladly take anyone along with me :). It was the most amazing 5 months of my life and I hope to be able to live just that way again one day in my future, but I have high hopes for myself. I am the luckiest girl in the world and hope you enjoyed my crazy adventures.

hasta luego Madrid...hasta pronto
Besitos!

Sol y Calor

Buenas!
This week has unfortunately been swamped with finals which sadly continue into next week, ew. But we're in the final stretch getting down to the end so sad! Last week was a perfect way to spend one of the lasts in Madrid. The weather was finally starting to get warmer and beautiful with clear blue sunny skies. Friday Kelley, Kelsey and I headed headed to Sol aka downtown Madrid for a day of souvenir shopping. We went to a famous bakey called La Malloquina which has been in the exact same location making mouth watering treats since 1894, I had a little chocolate with peanuts and it was heavenly.

We all had a few good finds and spent the afternoon walking around and enjoying the beautiful weather we'd been missing.

Saturday was an other day spent around Madrid doing the samethings and trying to study not so successfully...We went to a restaurant for a "study break". Its super cheap and has a bunch of little bocadillos, or sandwiches, for 1 euro or so and has large jarras of tinto verano a mix of lemonade and red wine thats perfect on a HOT day like that one. We sat out side and enjoyed the suns rays. We met these two guys from England who had previously lived in Madrid for a year and were visiting for a long weekend. They were super friendly and gave us some inside tips for the last week in Madrid. They also were nice enough to share their table with us since it was so crowded we had been waiting for a while.

Sunday was Mother's Day in Madrid and we made our senora a little card which she loved. She's so cute and even though shes a little weird, I'll miss her. She was our "madre de Espana" as I told her. Kelley, her roommate Caitlin, and I headed down to Madrid's park, Retiro for a beautiful day in the sun. We began with much needed espresso as we watched all the families enjoying the day with their mama's. We walked around, saw the glass palace, which is like a large green house and basically just pretty to look at.

After enjoying all the little turtles that live around there we decided we should try and study so we laid out our blankets to soak up some sun and relax. Sadly this is where the day turns a little sour. As we were laying there someone walked by and manged to take Caitlins whole purse right in front of us. We were all laying looking up and she was resting her feet on it but must of moved them and given someone the perfect opportunity to snatch it up. It's sick how good those theifs are here. Poor thing had her wallet, ipod, camera...basically everything in there. Of course she was distraught so they headed home to cancel her credit cards and such, and I decided to walk back. Sad sad.

As I mentioned earlier this week was beginning of finals and it was torture. I had two hard ones this week but it feels good to have those overwith at least. But one of them was one class I really enjoyed this semester, Renaissance art history. I had the cutest little teacher, she was Spanish with a super heavy accent but she had the kindest heart. She loved talking to us about our experiences in Madrid and was always so kind to everyone. A couple weeks ago she bought our class wine and jamon and taught us how to drink out of a vat that one of the kids in our class had bought. It was hilarious. We all took turns trying not to spill on ourselves as she helped us squirt the wine into our mouths and slowly move it back further. She was a champ and could hold it probably half a foot away from her mouth. She called class "the art of living in Spain" that day and it truly was.

There she is, showing us all how its done. I'll miss her! After the final she gave us all besitos good-bye. She asked if I was coming back next semester and when I said no got a sad look and said she'll miss me. Aw, broke my little heart! I'll miss you too, Curra.

My other final was one that I don't think I've ever been so happy to finish, Spanish Civilization and Culture, with the weird teacher who I'm convinced is an alien or something...no affense to aliens, I love them but not this one. He was just an odd fellow you could say. I studiest my brains out for that and am so relieved its over. It was basically knowing everything about Spain from the beginning of time till now...and then some.

So my roommate Kelsey is also keeping a blog...www.kelseyisinspain.blogspot.com if you wanna check her out! But she posted a sad but true post last week about how her and Danielle head back to the states next Wednesday...ahhh such a bittersweet sadness as they leave and I am so blessed to have my 2 best friends coming. It's such a strong mixture of emotions I can't even begin to describe. I can't even type about it it hurts too much! That'll come later. But this is all of our last weekends in Madrid since the next two I'll be traveling with my best friends around this fabulous country. Till then I'm suffering the cold weather Madrid decided to have this week...not cool! And still have 3 finals to finish up..eek! Never want this experience to end...

Beaches and Beauties

The weather is finally warming up over here in Europe THANK GOD. I literally thought I was just going to be forever cold but nope I am being saved by my best friend the sun- thank god! This past weekend was sadly my last international vacation to Portugal! Happiness and sadness all in one. Tear. But it was a great last hoorah and Portugal is amazing, I'm so blessed to have been able to see so many amazing countries and cultures.

We left on an overnight bus (escaped the volcano of doom!) Thursday night to make our way on a loooong drive. We were first headed to Lagos which is in the Southern coast of Portugal and definitly a farther trek. We were going with a travel agency which I wasn't too excited for mainly because I think their unorganized and very unefficient with time but I knew it'd be fun and my friend, Kelley aka Spring Break partner, wanted to go with them and I hadn't of visited Portugal yet so I signed on too. We luckily had sleeping medicine that we took and I was actually able to sleep a fair amount on the bus. I've become the master at sleeping on all sorts of transportation. We arrived into Lagos at about 845/9 in the morning on Friday and luckily were able to check into our hotel. Unfortunately everything takes forever because there was about 90 other people on the trip. But it was a beautiful hotel with a massive pool in the center of it and the room were super nice with a kitchen and all. By the time we got checked in it was time for siesta #1 del dia.

   That afternoon we headed out on the amazing ocean to a boat cruise to look at these awesome caverns lining the coast. We headed out at about 1pm in the afternoon and it was right as the sun was starting to shine beautifully! Along with Kelley was 2 other girls I knew who go to my school here in Madrid and are also Kelleys roommates. Since I'm always over at her piso I know them pretty well too. We were all having a blast together on the boat with as much sangria (yum) as we wanted. They also were taking out smaller groups on a smaller boat to get a much closer view of the caverns and see how the waves have changed and developed these amazing rocks. Nature is powerful force let me tell ya the things it does is amazing. Along the way we saw fellow boaters and shouted our hellos from afar. The water was as blue as the sky and amazingly clear. Since I'm always cold and didn't have a towel I didn't take the plunge in but I was fine soaking up the sun on deck.

After a day out at sea we were a few shades tanner and exhausted from all the fun! We walked around the little town of Lagos filled with cobblestone streets and gorgeous white buildings for a while before heading back to lay out some more in front of the pool. But we were falling asleep and headed back to the room to siesta yet again and get ready for the noche. After our power nap we were ready to go. We were all headed out to a dinner with what was hopefully going to be typical Portuguese food, well for my friends hopefully, I've given up ever having anything to eat of local cuisine wherever we go. But the place was mainly fishes and meats, shocker, but they did have a vegetable soup that I had that wasn't bad. Portugal's native drink is Vino Verde(green) but it isn't as green looking as I'd hope. It looks more like white wine just a little darker but it tasted delicious- kind of with a sparkley kick to it. After dinner our group had deals with a local bar in town that also hosted our boat earlier in the day so the whole group headed over there for a fun night of dancing.

The next morning we arose quite early for an other bus ride up to Lisboa(Lisbon) which is the capital of Portugal. This city is amazing! It's full of old history, cool buildings and everywhere you look is something different. We started off with a tour straight up the hill to see the grounds where the castle is located and has an amazing view overlooking all of the city. We walked around some of the streets up there which were narrow and windy and adorable, as are most in Europe. From here we headed back down to the city center and caught a tram over down by the coast where we were able to see a bridge that looks just like the Bay Bridge in San Fran and these famous towers. One of them was built way back in the 1500s and had awesome designs full of Gothic inspiration. It reminded me of something Repunzetls tower would look like. I like those princess stories. There was also one with a symbol of their freedom and independence which was awesome. Sadly we didn't make it in time to go up because they close at 5 which is so weird because it literally doesnt get dark until about 945- no joke. But alas what could you do. After that we had some free time so we stopped for some food and mas vino verde.

After our day tour we headed to our hotel to rest up and get ready to go out to dinner with everyone. We didn't end up leaving till pretty late even by my newly adapted Spanish times but we headed into a part of town full of restuarants and places to eat and enjoyed sometime with new people we'd met on the trip as well. The rest of the night was spent walking along the cute little streets and all the Portuguese bars with our group.

The next morning was safly our time to head back. It was definitly a quick trip but we were able to see a lot and I had a good time with my friends and world traveling partners. It was a long allll day bus ride back to Madrid but luckily I came home to AMAZING weather, I'm talking 80 degrees here so this week has been heavenly! It was a great end to world conquest enjoying my favorite, the beach :)

Anne Frank, Pancakes and Wooden Shoes

Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands! Over the weekend of April 9-12th my roomies and I set out on a trip that we had booked probably in one of the first few weeks were together because they had cheap flights. It was our last booked international trip with the 3 of us and we were set out on making it a good one.

Friday morning we had a VERY early flight but all of us were still exhausted from Spring Break and refused to sleep in the airport so we ordered a shuttle service at 4am to take us from our apartment to the airport, I forgot how nice it is to be driven places so quickly. Luckily our flight went smoothly and we were in town before we knew it and had a whole day head of us to explore. Our hostel was location about a 30 minute walk from the city centre or Dam as it's called. Once we got checked in and settled we set out, had some delicious Doner Kebab for lunch, as always. (Side note: Kebabs in Europe are not Shish Kebabs on a stick their usually wraps if you order a Doner or a pita sandwich if you order Kebab. Their everywhere in Europe, cheap, filling, and even offer veggie options of Falafel or just veggies for people like me. Anyone traveling to Europe, you could live off these while you travel.) Then once we were refueled continued to walk into town. Lucky for us it was beautiful weather outside with the sun shining and perfect temperature! On our way in we came across a little street market and took time looking at the random excitement of literally just stuff. It was so random and nothing I'd ever expect to see anywhere. We continued into town, passing tons of "coffeeshops" and really realizing we were in a much different place than the rest of the world. I think Amsterdam is such an amazing city because of its uniqueness. It's so carefree and has such different ways of living than the rest of the world. There's no where else where you can walk along a beautifully canaled city that has perfectly built buildings that literally are stacked right next to each other holding one an other up; then turn a corner into a puff of weed smoke from a street lined with coffeeshops only to turn your head and see windows lined with prositutes giving you the creepiest smiles you've ever seen. I was loving it- it's so weird. I may have gotten a job application to fund the remainder of my trip- just kidding ;). But we were definitly just laughing at the sight of everything we saw. The last time I was in Amsterdam I was definitly too young and ignorant to realize exactly where I was.
  We didn't have very many "strict" places to see, besides of course Anne Frank, while we were here and had a lot of freetime which was a nice change of pace. We took our time walking and of course stopped for an afternoon coffee to refuel all of the walking. Those bicyclists are deadly there and I swear we almost got run over about 204982905 times but somehow made it out alive- I guess it's a good thing they have bells on their bikes. We did some shopping, took some pictures, especially of this huge statue of "I AMSTERDAM" get it? But its right in the city centre and everyone has to take a picture there, we decided it's basically a rule. I wanted to climb on top but my legs couldn't reach and I didn't feel like being lifted by a stranger, who offered, no thanks bud. We also got a good picture inside a ginourmous wooden shoe they had outside a tourist shop- hilarious.
   Before we knew it it was dinner time! We'd been so entranced by all of the sights we didn't even realize how late it'd actually gotten. Amsterdam has amazing food, especially of my favorites: Asian! So many choices, how could we choose? We came across a fun little place called Wok to Walk where you bascially go in and order stir fry in a cute little to-go box. Delicioso. I think the main reason theres so many darn good food places is because of all the pot-heads with the munchies but hey they get their business. After a nice long dinner we had to hike it back to our hostel and by this time it was freeeeeeeezing. It was like the winds of death trying to blow us away- bleck. But we made it back in time and passed out so quickly we were pooped. Luckily we were staying at a really nice hosotel that had great beds I was in heaven.

   Saturday mornign we got up and feasted on the free breakfast- yes!- to fuel our hike into town. Today we were determined to be at Anne Frank house right when it opened, ha, well we somehow all slept through our alarms, aka mine never went off, so we were off to a little bit of a later start but eventually made it, an hour later, only to wait in like for about 40 minutes which really wasn't too bad and went by quite quickly. I'd visited the Anne Frank house before but I was thrilled to have the chance to see it again and relive everything. As I'd mentioned in earlier posts, my sick obsession with the Holocaust is always alive inside me. I was so excite for my roommates to have this oppotunity as well because it's definitly something that needs to be on everyones bucket list.

The Anne Frank hosue is so tiny they've had to make it into a big circle thing so people can walk through it and have room for everyone which is why it takes so long. You begin in the workshop which was where her fathers business was and your introduced with a background video on the warehouse, see some old papers from the workshop, the Jewish star they were forced to wear and some other old time papers. From there you walk up some tiny steps to the offices of her father and the people he worked with and get an aerial view of the house. Unfortunately your not allowed to take pictures inside and theres not furniture in any of the rooms- per request of her father who didn't want to relive his horrific experience. After the office you enter the annex. You begin walking through the bookcase which acted as the door that hid the door that lead to their annex. As soon as you enter you can't help but get chills and are silenced by the overwhelming sights in front of you. The first room is her father, mother and sister's room which was a tight fight just with the 3 of us- you can't help but imagine what it was like with two beds in here in addition to 3 people at anytime. One of the main differences I noticed in these rooms was that the windows are now blacked out- similar to how they were when they lived there- when I first visited they weren't blacked out.

The next room was Anne's and Fritz Pfeffer's room they shared. It's a breathtaking sight as you see all the pictures Anne would take out of magazines and paste on her walls that are still intact. Also on the walls is a measurement of how Anne and her sister grew while they were living in the Annex. Anne's room is even small than her parents. You next move into the bathroom which is just complied of a sink and toliet which they weren't even allowed to flush during the day. As we walk the floors are very creaky, which is an other thing they couldn't do during the day- walk around. Every step in that annex made noise in the floor, I can't imagine the amount of fear they had every day just to even move- the thought of being so confined is horrifying to me. You then go up even a tinier staircase than the one before where you literally have to walk sideways just to make it up these stairs to the upper part of the annex. This is the room of the Van Pels family who also was in hiding with them. It also acted as the kitchen and living room of everyone. All thats left there now is the sink and stove they would use. The walls have old documents and quotes from Anne's diary describing their daily lives. The next room, more like a closet, was where the Val Pels' son Peter lived. This also has a ladder than leads up to the attic which had a skylight and that acted as storage. They had a little paper that was a "menu" of what they'd eat depending on the rations of food they'd be able eat. It was one thing they could do to entertain during the day I suppose since what else could they do?

After the annex part is a little musuem with modern day footage of people who knew the family, shots from the Holocaust, and a section that said where each of them died and at what camp. Everyone but Anne's father, Otto, died. It;s heartbreaking because Anne died literally one month before her camp was liberated. In the video is an interview of one of her friends who knew her from before and while in the camps- and she was saying that after her sister and mother died she had no one else and thought everyone else had died, so she saw no reason to fight to live. It's so heartbreaking to know that if only she'd known about her father she could of made it one more month. It's so sad to think about. This whole experience is so emotion, none of us could even talk while we were in there but it was so evident we all had so much on our minds we were overwhelmed. They also have footage of her father after the war and you can just see the devastation in his face as he talks about Anne. It's such a miracle that Miep Gies found and saved Anne's diary after they were taken prisoners. This diary has given so many peope such a new perspective into this horrendous time and is such a strong symbol of the pain and suffering of the people under persecution during WWII, it's amazing. I could talk forever about this topic but I'll save you the torture.

Unfortunately they are workin on restoring Anne's diary right now so the real one wasn't there to see, but I'd been lucky enough to see it the first time I was there thankfully. My roommate Kelsey bought an amazing "real style" version of the diary that is basically the real thing in hardcover form. Collectors item!

After this depressing morning we headed off to eat some pancakes and make ourselves a little happier. We headed right down the street to the famous Pancake Bakery, where I'd been with the family the first time I'd been in Amsterdam! We all split a delicious banana, nutella pancake and a veggie omellete! So delicious, I love pancakes and have definitly missed these little gems.

After a delicious meal we found an other little market outside filled with tons of cool stuff that kept us amused for a while. An other reason to love Amsterdam was veggie friendliness all over :) After walking around the weather kept being super bi-polar and COLD and windy. So we moved to an other place to get some coffee and warm up. I love Amsterdams streets filled with the randomest things- they have tons of sex shops with the weirdest sorts of things you could imagine. Kept us entertained on the cold walks.

From here Kelsey had some ambitious touristy shopping to do for her her family so we went into a bunch of "Dutch" shops to help her pick it all out. Her dream was wooden clogs that were here size so we had a grand adventure of finding those. It was amazing- she tried on a few before finally settlting on by far the cutest pair. They were white with with beautiful colorful flowers and designs all over them, and the best part is they were life-size. Great find.

After a long day of walking it was dinner time! We of course took full advantage of our many choices and settled on Thai! Something delicious we all missed, it was heavenly. We were dreading the long cold windy walk home but somehow managed to make it, it was freeezing. But we made it back hopped right into bed and sleeeept like little angels.

Sunday funday was upon us now and usually we go home Sundays but it was cheaper to book our flights home on Monday so we had a whole nother day upon us! Sad for me I had a HUGE presentation in Spanish class that Monday right when we got back and I knew I needed to work on it :/. But in the morning we rented bikes! Lucky for us our hostel offered us a great discount on all day bike rentals! It was freezing again but we bundled up and were ready to go. It was so much fun riding around and we found the park with a path to ride around. Before we knew it a couple of hours had passed by and it was time for me, grrr, to go work on my project so I found a cute little cafe to sit in and get some work done. I spent my whole afternoon working on this thing while my roomies had a photoshoot at the wax musuem. Their pictures are hilarious they lived it in there. I wasn't sad I missed out on that because max musuems freakkkk me the f out.

After spending hours perfectly this ghastly presentation I went back to the hostel where my roomies were since it was sunday and everythign was closed. We just ate dinner there, relaxed and went to bed early because we had an early flight out on Monday.

Made it safely and just on time to Spanish class only to discover I didn't even have to go that day for my presentation, of course.

But thank god we weren't traveling anywhere last week because that volcano is ruining the lives of travelers in Europe, let me tell you about 1/3 of school was missing this week because of it. But things seem to be looking up even though I'm secrelty crossing my fingers it doesn't  so all my friends can be stuck here longer :).

Off to Portugal this weekend though ( by bus)!

Spring Break Part 3...last one!

This is the trip that never ends... if only! But we're now in the last leg of this grand adventure and we're moving to Italia!!
I'd never been to Italy before and my Mom and Sister are a little bit beyond obsessed so I could not wait to finally see this glorious place myself, plus feed my obsession with gelato. Oh boy.
   Alrighty so we had to get on this overnight ferry to get there and there had been a storm that day in Split and I was a little worried with how this would go over on the open sea and since I'm react so weird to sleeping pills I was too worried to take dramamine because I wanted to enjoy my time in Italy! Well we get on there and had our own little sleeping room with a little bathroom in there and everything. It was kinda homey! We put our stuff down, walked around to explore the ship a little and we even went up on deck to wave bye but it was so windy we could only stay out there for a few minutes. Then we headed down to our little room to see if we could actually sleep on this thing. Kelley took her dramamine and was doing just fine but as soon as I laid down and started to rock blahhh it was a horrible feeling. So unfortunately that was a horrible night but I managed to get some sleep but by the time morning came, and we saw an Italian sunrise- wahoo!- I was running off that ship. Once off there we hopped on a train to Florence!
    Firenze, so filled with history, art, good food, GELATO. Oh man I was in love. I'm in a Renaissance art history class and we spent so much time learning about this place and all the history it contains I couldn't wait to see it all first all. The medici family knew how to live if you ask me... Well we arrived in Florence and I went to check into my hostel and drop my luggage off .Kelleys parents were flying in and she was staying at the hotel with them so I stayed in a super nice hostel not too far from them! It had a gym, pool, sauna- so legit! So then we moved onto to let Kelley drop her things off at the hotel and then we needed Gelato asap so that was the first stop. Delicious I had chocolate of course and was floating on cloud 9 with happiness. We walked around Florence and started some explorations because we still had a little time before Kelleys parents arrived. We hit up the beautiful Duomo which I didn't know was so pretty and pink! And saw the famous Ghiberti doors, Giottos bell tower, oh man the history! After getting some good pics Kelley headed back to the hotel to wait for her parents so I headed over to my hostel so get a little more settled but I was only in Florence for 2 1/2 days and I can't sit still for 2 minutes so I set out to explore some more! I probably covered every street of that city since I walk faster than a horse and had a few hours to blow. I also got a little distracted by shopping of course.
   Unfortunately Kelleys parents' flight was massively delayed because of the wind that was attacking Florence so they didn't get in until late but when they did it was dinner time! I went over to the hotel to meet them and we started off with happy hour at their hotel, yum. So we definitly had an interesting mix of diets this week. Kelleys mom is gluten free, Kelley is lactose intolerant and I'm vegetarian/ pickiest person ever so it was going to be interesting. But on my walks around Florence that I'd afternoon I'd spotted a gluten free restaurant so we headed there! They had normal italian food and gluten free goodness. Everyone was happy! :) Of course the night wasn't complete without gelato numero dos that I enjoyed as I frolicked back to my hostel for some sleep.
    The next day I got up- took full advantage of my in-hostel gym and got ready to take on Florence day number two. We had tickets in the afternoon to see statue of David so we spent the morning on a "Renaissance Walk" as Kelleys mom had in a book from Rick Stevens- legit. We of course started off with some gelato for power and took off to see a whole bunch of 16th century goodness. I fell in love with all the beauty jewerly on the Ponte Vecchio. All the sparkles were entrancing and Kelley's mom and I were in 7th heaven looking at everything. We stopped for more gelato at the best place I've ever been to in my life- and all the tour books were saying it was number one...Grom. AHHH I can't even begin to describe how amazing the flavors were in this gelato, even though it was freezing and rainy. I had extra dark chocolate heaven mixed with pistachio deliciousness. Oh man- theeee best. We also spent some time exploring the street markets and mercado filled with delicious good foods. I bargained for a beautiful purple pasmina and was so happppy. Our friend Jessica was also in Florence with her mom so for dinner we met up with them at a cute little restaurant where I enjoyed some grilled veggie pizza- minus cheese, ew. It was perfect! I'm not a big pizza or pasta lover but this pizza was delish! For dessert Jess, Kelley and I obviously got gelato, yes number 3 of the day. Jessica also goes to LMU and we'd also met on this trip- more best friends for home :)
   The next morning we had tickets for the Uffizi musuem filled with all of the art from the Renaissance that the Medici family owned, in their old palace. Simply magnif! I obviously had to hit up everythign I've learned about and inform Kelley of all my splendid new knowledge. I have to say, I'm a little burnt out on art. I can't even begin to tell you how much I've seen, along with cathedrals. But this is something special and I was so excited to see it all! It was beautiful, Birth of Venus, Spring, Giotto, Tintoretto, Titian, Leonardo...ahhhh the "masters" as my art teacher says in her precious Spanish accent. After enoying our lovely tour of art it was unfortunately time for me to go. The cheapest/only flight I could get back to Spain was from a tour a couple hours away by train and I was leaving the next day but I needed to take the train today otherwise I wouldn't my flight the next day. Sucky I know but when your tight on money you do what you can. So I hoped on the train and got in a good little nap and relaxed.
  Here's probably the most AWESOME story of this whole trip- no lie. Well I get off the train and the hostel I was staying at had directions on how to get to them. It was nightime and really dark but I thought I had this under control right? Well...I think I got off at the wrong bus stop or took it the wrong way because when I got off where it supposedly said to I was in the ferry port, lost and confused and unsure where to go. So I started walking to where I thought was the exit. I was wrong, I was getting scared and felt soo confused. Anddd of course here come the police. He comes up and burst into tears telling him I had no clue where I was or what to do. I showed him where it was and he was so nice and told me exactly how to get there- phew! Ok well I started walking and he drives away but then 2 minutes later TWO more of them come over, great. I was getting afraid. But, they were my little angels. The one asked me again where my paper was that had the directions. He look at it and goes ok, get on. Um excuse me? Yes, get on my Vespa and we'll take you. I almost died and went to heaven. I had not one but two policia Vespa escorts to my little hostel- one holding me, the other holding my suitcase. I felt like Lizzie McGuire. They took me to my hostal, knocked on the door, talked to the guy and explain my situation and carried my bag up to my room for me. Nicest people in the whole world! Without them I can't even think what would of happened- it was my own little fairytale story for the trip :).
  Next day I fly out and made it safey back to Spain :)

  My roommate Kelsey and I were the only ones home on Easter but she was unfortunately sick from her travels with her family over break but we caught up on our adventures, siesta-ed and I got a good run in to Retiro park and watched all the cute little families enjoying their Pascua (easter).

Spring Break Part 2

Back to it!
So we arrive in Budapest at the weeee hour of 5 am. Sunrise number one! As my dad said "sunrise in Budapest sounds like a song", indeed! Well we get off the bus and the metro is closed so we decided to take a taxi to where we were staying. Luckily Alda, who helped me in Paris and has helped me SO much with all of my travels- she studied abroad last spring- told us to stay in an apartment since it's safer. We did and it cost the same as a hostel so it was definitly worth it! Well this taxi...disaster. We get in, the guy hardly speaks English, no biggie. He takes us to our apartment which was literally only 10 minutes away, so easy! Well, then it comes time to pay. This guy was such a jerk and tried to charge us WAY too much and when we're telling him no he reaches over and takes it right from my wallet- seriously?! Grrr at this point I was getting afraid and there was no one around so I didn't want to do anything and just walked away. Me and Kelley were devastated but too tired to even try and fight this impossible battle. We wobbled up to our little apartment and slept for an other 2ish hours before getting ready to take on Buda and Pest. The city is actually divided, by the river, and the two sides are called Buda and the other Pest. Pest is the side we were on and its much more flat whereas you cross the river to Buda and it's hilly and has the palace and such.
    Once we got up and ready we wanted to make sure to buy our train tickets for the next day to Croatia (stop #3 ;)). It was a long walk but we'd be able to see a lot of the city so we took off cameras in hand. It was about a 45 minute walk to the train station where we somehow were able to manage to buy our tickets from a lady who I'm not sure spoke really an English. From here we kept the walk, which literally turned into a massive loop, around the Pest side. Budapest is known for their Turkish baths aka hot springs! We of course had this planned in the trip and needed to visit the cream of the crop for these baths. This was an other 20 minute walk to a ginormous palace looking building with a whole bunch of steaming pools right in the center!Heavennnnn. We sat and soaked for the next 2 hours in these pools full of old European men wearing tiny little speedos, ew. But it was worth the disturbing views. After relaxing it was time to keep moving and see the rest of the city.

    We made a pit stop at an amazing pita place for some yummus Hummus for some much needed fuel. Then we kept walking and got some beautiful views of the massive Parliament building and across the river of the palace on the Buda side. We walked back along the river and were able to get some good sights Buda too. By this point we were so pooped, we'd literally just walked in a huge circle around the whole city. We headed back to our apartment to rest a little before deciding what to see next. Well this turned into us being so dead we layed down and couldn't get up for a good 2 hours. We were so entranced by Hungarian TV even though we didn't understand a word we were too dead to move. We both ended up falling asleep for a little too but once we woke up we knew we needed to see the Buda side and forced ourselves up to walk across the river. By this time it was a little after the sun had gone down so we had all the lights on the bridges and buildings illuminated along the river. We walked over to Buda, walked along the river and realized we were so dead still and just decided to head back and call it a night since we had to wake up so early the next day to catch our train. We were nervous because this was also the day the time changed in Europe so we were praying our phones would change and the alarms go off on time.
    Lucky for us we were in the clear! Alarms off on time (4am) and at the train station just on time for our 630 departure. We get on the train and luck ducks us ended up getting our own little cabin, this meant SLEEEEP. We were so in need of sleep it wasn't even funny and we spent the whole ride passed out since we had the whole cabin to ourselves. Glorious! It was a long day since we were on a train literally the whole time but it was a nice break from all the walking we'd been doing.
   We got into Split, Croatia at about 8 or 9pm and had directions to walk to our hostel. Split is located right on the ocean and we had a nice little walk to our hostel, only about 10ish minutes. Once we got to our hostel we were welcomed by the nicest person I think I've ever met in my life. This hostel is run by a precious Norweigan lady who goes by the name Ladybird. No, I'm not joking. The door was opened and we are introduced to Ladybird and she announced herself. She's a short little lady with firey red hair, that were in pig tails, she had a fluffy yellow robe with pink flowers all over it and she was wearing huge elephant slippers. Love at first sight. When me and Kelley got settled in our room we both burst out loud laughing at the sight of where we were staying- this was truly a first. All of the walls were decorated with her artwork as she paints a lot and used to be an artist in Norway, more about her life story later. But we were pooped and didnt stay up to socialize and fell asleep right away.

   Next morning we get up ready to conquer as always. We were hoping for some nice weather so we could go to the beach! ahhh so we got dressed and first decided to stay exploring the old town part of Split since this is where Diocletians palace's remains are and we could get a feel for the city. The remains are AMAZING I'm mystified as to how something from the 3rd century could last this long but it's literally all still standing! But it's definitly a maze in there. The streets in the palace, which is basically the downtown part of the city, they literally built shops, restaurants,etc inside of the palace remains- very cool! We walked around, had some espresso for energy (yum), and tried to catch all of the important sights of the palace as noted by our travel guide. For lunch we found a delicious Vegetarian restuarant mmmmm where we feasted. Now that it was the afternoon it was getting nice outisde and we were determind to be on the beach. We went, got some smoothies to cool us down and headed out to la playa! Their beaches are a little different than what we're used to, not a lot of sand, but we posted up our towels and basked in the sun. It really wasn't that warm out but once we were laying there a while with the sun it was perfect! We were soon greeted by a cute little local who was going fishing for octopus. He was hilarious he had a fully body wetsuit and I can't believe he got in the water I felt it and it was COLD. But he jumped right in and soon came back out with a crab, ick. He said "no octopus- but I found crab!" So hilarious he made us hold it and then take pictures of him on his cell phone ha ha. He was funny. Soon it got kind of cold so we headed back to our little hostel to freshen up. When we got back we ended up talking with Ladybird for a while, shes definitly a TALKER. And she told us allllll about her life and the reason shes now working as "hostel mom" as we called her. It was almost heart-breaking because she told us she has a daughter who's all grown up and doesn't need her anymore (awww) so now shes in Split, happier than ever taking care of everyone! It was too cute for words. She thrives off peoples "energies" and thats how she paints too, with a little bit of everyones energy in her work. She was adorable and literally would of sat and talked with you all day if she could. In the morning she did Yoga to "wake up with the sun", she was just so happy and felt like a Mom always checking in on us which is something we've been missing for the past 3 months. We ended up just walking along the beach and grabbing something quick for dinner before heading back to our hostel to talk some more with hostel mom and sleeeeeep.

   Next morning we got up and I made Kelley go for a run with me (hehe) but it was COLD and windy- sun where did you go?! But Kel made it halfway with me- yippie! But I kept going for a while along the ocean- beautiful view! We headed back refueled with some breakfast and had a hilarious discovery. Two of our friends from school here, one being Kelleys apartment mate here, were in Split the same time as us, staying at our same hostel- taking our room that night! Such a small world, but we called them and met up for some coffee on the beach front where we just ended up sitting at for a long time because it was getting nicer out and they have the most comfortable chairs ever! After this we explored a lot of the open air markets, had some delicious fresh fruits. We headed back to our hostel to pack up our things since that night we were taking a ferry to Italy that was overnight. We truly slept on every kind of transportation this trip!

    Of course Ladybird ended up talking to us for a while and she was so sad to see us go- it was heartbreaking! But she of course found us on facebook and had many new peopel to replace us :). When we left she gave me definitly the best hug that I've gotten in the past 3 months since being away and it made me so happy inside. It was one of those hugs where you could tell the person truly meant it with their whole heart and it's one I'll never forget. From here we trekked it over to the ferry port to get ready for our overnight adventure!

Italy is next on the list :)

Spring Break! Part 1...

Oh boy, get ready for a long one! I think this is going to have to be split up into 2, possibly 3 because spring break was amazingggg!! 10 days, 4 countries...get ready for it!


I went on this wild adventure with a new great friend of mine Kelley, who also goes to LMU but we only met here in Spain because of that mutual connection! But we clicked right at the beginning and planned this adventure together!

Lets begin allll the way back to last Wednesday (still march!). Kelley and mine first stop was Prague in the Czech Republic! To get there was a hassle and a half and we first had to fly to London, sleep in the airport- yes my 3rd time- and get up for a 6am flight to Prague! We got in at about 9 am, after a sleepless night, ready to conquer! We knew the next couple days were going to be extremely rushed and we would be lacking in the sleep department but could careless and were ready to see the world! Once we got into Prague we were lost and confused trying to find our way around because Czech is such a different language and the tram system fails at having signs at anystop at all. After walking around the cobblestone streets with rolley suitcases for about 20 minutes we found an information desk who informed us our hostel was 5 minutes down the road, of course. We finally made it to our hostel to drop everything off, get some maps and see the city! we stayed at a great hostel and shared a little flat with 8 other people. It had a really nice kitchen and was split into 3 separate rooms so there was plenty of room for everyone. We got a map and some advice from our hostel and hit the ground running. It was lunch time and we were tired from our night of no sleep so we stopped at Starbucks of course and picked up some snacks to go. The city is divided by a river with one side that has the castle and a hilly area where as the other side is the old town with the church and city centre type are. We stayed on the side where the castle was so we headed over the bridge to see old town! The bridge is really long and filled with people and street vendors. It has a great view of each side of the city and made for some great pics! We made our way through the crowds and began wandering the streets. It was so nice and warm outside we didnt even need our coats or boots! So happy! We didnt have much of a plan and were enjoying seeing the old city. Its filled with cobblestones and old buildings. We wanted to see the cathedral and city centre so we mapped our way over and there in the city square was an Easter festival. It was filled with vendors selling foods, easter eggs, beer, all sorts of normal "czech" things and food. The trees were decorated with bright colored ribbons and there was a stage that was holding various performances throughout the week. This city went all out for its festivities it was awesome. We stopped to look at it all and got some good pictures with giant easter eggs and tons of cute little animals. There were so many desserts it smelled heavenly!

From here we kept walking and came across a chocolate musuem aka heaven. Yes this is my 3rd musuem while being in Europe, im basically on the chocolate tour ofthe world. Kelley also loves chocolate so we were in heaven. We got to watch the worker make hazelnut cream filled delights and got a free sample at the end :) from here we walked back out the city square admiring the Cathedral and large tower at the center. After this we headed back over the bridge to go get a look at the castle. Of course it was a straight walk up a huge flight of stairs but the view was worth the exercise. We got there right as the sun was starting to go down a little and it shimmered over the other side of the bridge and river. Up top of this hill is the whole fortress of the palace and it had a huge Cathedral as well. We walked around, took pictures and also had some more great views of the city from different places up on the hill. They had a few cute little streets with an "old-time" in fluence we got to see. The cathedral was huugeee and they were doing restorations to clean it- it was black with all the exhaust from the boats that have gone on the river. Its very gothic inspired and has a creepy look to it. They also had an old tower that was closed when we got there butif you looked in it was filled with torture devices-eek. By this time we were STARVING wed walked clear across the city basically twice and it was time for a big meal- which is totally afforable since their not on the euro! On our map I'd seen a vegetarian restuarant (!!!!) And since Kelley is lactose intolerant was willingto try some vegan food :) it was a beautiful restuarant decorated in bright colors, cool lighting and funky furniture! I ordered a rice dish with tempeh and kel got a salad with goat cheese and other delights. As soon as our food came it was silence until we finished inhaling about 5 minutes later- so delish! Once we got food in our tummys we were pooped and headed back to our hostel. We didnt care how early it was but we were exhausted from not sleeping the night before. When we got back we met our roommates, students from the US studying in Rome and a british guy traveling around. Ive been so lucky to meet such nice people in all the hostels Ive stayed at. We were out within an hour of getting back and slept like little babies.

The next morning we woke up, got ready and was ready to finish our exploration of Prague! After a necessary starbucks of course. Prague has their own little eiffel tower up on a hill parallel to the palace so we deicded wed start off our morning with a hike up there. An other straight up adventure-this time through the woods. We got up top, saw the random little tower, got in our good pics and kept moving. That afternoon we were going to take a bus to Budapest so we were crunched for time! Pragues tower has this little performance on the clock tower every day @ 12 and everyone goes, stops what their doing and watches so obviously we knew we had to go! We knew it was nothing special but needed to be seen! The square was packed as we all watched a maybe 20 second clock have little robotic priests peep their heads out as they went by. So random but kind of funny. From there it was lunch time and where did we go? Thats right, right back to the veggie restuarant. On the way we passed some markets where we got some delicious apples and admired all their goodies. Markets in Europe are awesome Ive come to love them and everything you can see inside them- minus the meat. We pranced over to have a delicious lunch and ordered the special- pumpkin soup and a rice dish with tofu and mushrooms- heavenly and all that only cost us 4 euro- amazing! After this we headed back over the bridge to see two last random sites before we left. The first were these statues- giant black statues- of babies with their faces smushed in. Sounds really weird I know but their meant to symbolize the affect on communism on the people of Czech they were really interesting. Then after we headed to John Lennon wall- a huge wall covered in graffiti with bright colors and fun designs. Of course we signed our names-bottom right corner if anyone reading this goes to Prague! Now it was time to go so we got our luggage hopped on the tram and metro and booked it out to the bus station.

Well we get there and wed tried to buy our tickets online but the website didnt allow you so we figured wed be ok just showing up. Wrong. We go up to the counter and the man rudely tells us its sold out and basically we were sore outta luck- we had a minor freakout before realizing there were other companies-duh. So we go up to the counter only to discover the next bus doesnt leave until 1030pm aka overnight bus. Mind you its only 3pm right now. But it was our only option and there was nada we could do. We checked our bags into luggage storage and got out our map to assess what we could possibly do on the clear other side of town for 7 hours. We just started aimlessly walking pretty much before finding a large inside mall- always promising. Kelley needed some flats so we were on the hunt for her. after a couple hours of aimless wandering we were exhausted and plopped down outside of a starbucks- and didnt move for about an other 2 hours. Not kidding you we were so tired from our two days of conquering we were happy to sit and not move. Eventually it was getting close for time for us to head back so we got all the strength we could and moved on out only to discovered it was pouring rain outside- with thunder and lightning.