It's something famous!

We made it to Barcelona, and after having such a wonderful time in Madrid, had very high expectations for the city that everyone seems to love. We got a little turned around on our way to Sant Jordi Alberg Hostel, but when we finally got there, were warmly greeted by the awesome people who ran the hostel. We were shown to our 8-bed room and met our roommates, a girl from Bulgaria who was looking to find work in Barcelona, a guy (Harvi) from England on vacation from work, and a girl who was visiting her friend who was studying abroad in the city. They were all really cool, and really fun to talk to and hang out with.

Rachel and I showered up and went to grab some food. We decided on a Chinese restaurant after meandering the streets form a while because we had both had enough of the traditional cuisine, but afterwards wished we had stuck with what we knew. An empty Asian restaurant in Spain is not the best place to get a good bite to eat.

We went back to the hostel, stopping in a grocery store on the way to get something real to eat, and curled up on the couches in the common room. We were soon joined by a group of guys who were spending their last night in the city, and who eventually convinced us to go to a local club on an excursion that was being led by Mauro, the hostel owner. We had so much fun meeting all of the fellow travelers from Canada, the States, Austrailia and England and had a blast dancing in one of the local clubs.

We made our way home and the next morning were looking forward to some great architectural sightseeing. We went directly to the most famous of the Gaudi buildings, the Sagrada Famiglia, stopping at Starbucks on the way. We paid the pricey entrance fee and decided to split the cost of an audio guide—a good cost saving, but not time saving technique. We walked around the amazing church that is still under construction and is not expected to be finished for another 50 to 80 years. It was different from any of the other churches I have seen in Europe and it was amazing to learn about Gaudi's innovative modeling techniques and where he pulled his inspiration from.

It took us about 3 hours to go through the entire thing, sharing the audio guide, and we were really excited to run into some people from my study abroad program outside the gates who were staying in a beach house near to Barcelona. We chatted for a few minutes and made our way to La Pedrera, another famous Gaudi Masterpiece. This time the audio tour was included, and we made our way through a museum dedicate to Gaudi's life and inspiration, before going to the rooftop terrace at sunset to see the amazing views of the city on the oddly shaped roof construction. We continued through the apartment, mocked up to how it would have been to live in Barcelona in the 1920's, and eventually made our way back to Sant Jordi.

We showered, dressed up, and did some research for a restaurant that we knew would not disappoint us. We walked a few blocks to La Flauta, where the lines of locals indicated to us that we had indeed chosen a restaurant that would have a good menu. We split an order of the Tapas del Dia and loved the Calamari, Clams, Friend Peppers, and Potato Croquettes that came with it, but could not stomach the HUGE shrimp that required too much de-shelling work for the nasty-flavored meat that we got out of it. We split a dessert and walked back to the Hostel.

We found out that the guys we had hung out with the night before had missed their early morning flight, and convinced us to join them, our roommates and the friends we had made that day to go out again. We were definitely starting to live the Spanish lifestyle. We called it a fairly early night and wished them luck in actually catching their rescheduled flight the next day.

We got up the next morning and decided to make our way toward the beach. Though we never made it there due to our lack of motivation to go to a beach that would be too cold to spend much time on and fear of pickpockets that we heard numerous accounts of while talking to people at the hostel. Instead we metroed to Park Guell, a park that Gaudi designed and looked exactly like Candy Land. We relaxed there for a while and enjoyed the city views. We left and made our way to the German Pavilion, a famous work that Rachel had learned about in her architecture days, the Font Majic, which was not so magical as it wasn't even running, the Santa Maria del Mar, and the Vuell Marina. It was a leisurely day and we chose to take the metro several times because we had been walking so much the whole week.

We again went back to the hostel to get ready for dinner, where we got a pitcher of Sangria and some pasta, and put our foot down on joining the group for a third evening in a row of going out. We stayed in and enjoyed some of the fellow hostel guests in the common room, before going to bed at a decent hour.

We woke up the next morning and checked out. We were sad to be leaving the amazing hostel that we had such a great time in, and sad to say goodbye to our new friends. We had a few hours to go to Gaudi's Casa Batillo and the Arc de Trionf, before gathering our things and taking the train back to Madrid.

We stayed in a hotel that was supposed to be near the airport for our last night in Torrejon de Ardoz. It was nice to have our own room and bathroom, and we relaxed by watching Spanish TV until we decided to go to bed early so Rachel could get up for her early flight.

We woke up at 7 so she could leave. I was sad to see her go, but was so happy that the trip turned out to be everything I thought it would be and more. I am going to miss her on the rest of my travels!

I flew out on a later flight and arrived back in Lugano Saturday night. I woke up Sunday morning and walked to the Lake, where I enjoyed the beautiful weather and FINALLY caught up on writing my blog!

I will try to stay updated from here on out!

Let's Siesta

I was so excited all week and looking forward to the week-long break, that I could hardly focus on the final for Marketing Research. I think I did pretty well though, so no worries there. Most of the Montarina emptied out Thursday night as people caught their trains for the week. There were only a few of us left behind, mostly the ones who were waiting for friends and family from the States to arrive.

Amanda and I spent Thursday and Friday relaxing and getting a few things organized while we had the free time in Lugano. We went to the grocery store and made fajitas with Christian for dinner, we have all been craving some good Mexican food. I used the time to catch up on few weeks of blogging, clean my room, and pack.

I left Saturday morning to catch my flight to Madrid, where I spent the first night alone so I could meet Rachel early the next morning. I got to the hostel from the airport without a problem, I had been warned that Spanish trains were riddled with pick-pockets. I checked in and found my bed in my hostel but realized an hour later that I couldn't find the credit card I had paid with. I searched everything and finally decided to send an email to my bank to cancel the card. Literally two seconds after I sent the message, I realized I had not flipped through the pages of my passport, where it was hiding...but it was too late. The bank canceled my card and am still waiting for a new one to arrive. Luckily I had a back up plan, so the rest of the week went smoothly.

I walked around the town a bit and ate dinner at a local cafe. I decided to call it an early evening so I could make it to the airport in time to meet Rachel early the next morning. I left 30 mins behind schedule because, although I woke up every hour throughout the night, my worst nightmare had come true and I slept through my alarm. I quickly packed my things and ran out the door to meet her. Luckily, we had made a multi-tiered meeting plan and she was waiting right where we had agreed. I was sooo excited to see her!

We hugged and grabbed a cup of coffee and a pastry at the airport and starting catching up on all the things we had missed for the past two months. My mom sent a small package, and she brought some sour patch kids and Cheez-Its from home. Amazing! I was craving American junk food!

We took the metro to the International Hostal de las Huertas, which was located in a quaint part of town. We stored our baggage in the luggage room, washed up and hit the ground running with the sightseeing. I was proud of Rachel to get enough sleep on the plane to at least give us a decent day of sightseeing, and she adjusted to the time change very well. We had a very busy first day ahead of us!

We started off without any real plan for what we wanted to accomplish and ended up running into a lot of Madrid's most famous sights on accident. Rachel had a really nice guidebook, so we used it and the information inside to guide our visit. We went directly to the Plaza Mayor for lunch, where we ate tapas at one of the outdoor cafes. She had “Albondigas” meatballs, and I ate a Spanish tortilla, which is more like hash browns than a burrito.

We planned to walk toward the Palacio Real, and we stopped to read about the various plazas and statues we passed on our way. We went inside and guided ourselves through the extravagant rooms of the Spanish Royalty, each room getting more regal than the last. We looked at the collection of guns and armor that were housed in the Palicio and look pictures of the huge cathedral next door.

We spent some time trying to find the royal gardens, and decided to take a nap, as we had observed all of the locals doing on the grass and the park benches. We found a spot that looked like it hadn't been frequented by any of the many unleashed dogs and layed down for a 45 minute siesta.

We both felt refreshed when we woke up, and continued on our walking tour of the capital city by making our way through the Jardines Sabitini to a park that overlooked the city outskirts and the Palacio, where the Templo de Debod (a gift from the Egyptian government) was standing. We decided to make our way back toward the Hostel, which we had ventured very far from by that point, and walked down the Gran Via. We stopped at a cafe for a quick snack, and even conjured up enough energy to walk through the Plaza de Sol on the Calle de Preciados and do some window shopping.

We showered up and Rachel took a quick nap before we got dressed for dinner. We ventured the streets near the hostel, which was located in a pretty central and lively part of town and ran in the Hawaaiian themed bar that Katie had recommended to us. We ordered a “smoking” volcano, which came with an array of snacks. The live birds that were perching behind us made quite a raquet, so we decided to finish our drink and go to the “Vinoteca” across the street where we had Sangria and some small tapas. We went back to the hostel and discovered that we were the only ones in our 4 bed room for the night, so we got a nice sleep.

We woke up early the next morning and found out that the Madrid walking tour had been canceled, so we set out for another day of seeing the sights on our own. We started at the Museo de Reina Sofia, the modern art gallery which houses the Guernica, one of Piccasso's most famous paintings. We were astounded at the size and intensity of the work, and enjoyed seeing the exhibit of the sketches and paintings of Picasso that led up to the final piece. We walked through the rest of the museum and decided to get lunch at a cafe in the same plaza where I tried some churizo.

We made our way back through the city and went back to the shopping district, where we actually went in some of the stores. I bought a nice pair of flat black boots for 15euro (a steal!) We eventually worked our way back to the hostel, showered and changed for dinner. Unfortunately, the hostel informed us that the Flamenco show we had been so excited to see was also canceled, so we made our way into the town for dinner. We stopped at a traditional looking restaurant where I got Paella with shrimp that I had to peel myself. We had some issues with the bill, and the waiter tried to rip us off, but I think I handled it well enough, and at least got him to give me some of my money back.

We went back to the hostel where they had organized some people to go to a few local places and a salsa club. We met a really nice Aussie and hung out with some of the people from the hostel the whole night.

The next morning, Alana (the Aussie), Rachel and I met up in the lobby where we checked out, and decided to spend our last half day in Madrid together. We walked all the way to the Parque de Retiro, where we saw some beautiful fountains and statues, and a nice little pond with some people row boating. We noticed it was one of the only cities that didn't manicure their trees to the point of creating knobs on the end of every branch, and enjoyed each other's company and the beautiful weather.

We ate “jamon y huevos” on toast for lunch, said “adios” and made our way to the train station, where we caught the high velocity train to Barcelona. It was one of the nicest trains I have been on in Europe, so Rachel got a skewed perception of my traveling habits thus far. We caught up on sleep and journaling as we made the 3 hour journey to Barcelona!

Oui, Paris!

It was our first four day weekend and we decided to go to Paris. My roommate Cheryl has a friend who lives there, so she, Amanda and I stayed with him and his family during our visit, and enjoyed having a relaxing weekend to enjoy the city without being overly concerned with the sightseeing aspect of it.

We took the train after class on Thursday, and arrived late at night. Quentin, Cheryl's friend, picked us up at the station and took us back to his home on the outskirts of Paris, where we chatted for a while before going to bed.

It was Katie's 21st Birthday, and she convinced us to celebrate with her at Euro Disney. We got student rates and had a lot of fun on all the rides. It was a chilly day, so we were sure there were be no crowds, but we were wrong. Tons of Europeans from all over flocked to the miniature version of Disneyland, so the lines weren't as short as we had hoped, but still were a lot of fun. They had all the best rides that I remember from when I was a kid (Thunder Mountain, the Tea Cups, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Carribean, It's a Small World, etc.)

We were excited to eat bar-b-q and hamburgers in the park that actually tasted like American food, because we had all been craving it for a few weeks. We spent the entire day in Disney Paris riding roller coasters and taking in the Disney experience until Mickey and Mini Mouse lit the castle at night, and went to the village to celebrate Katie's birthday.

The next morning, Cheryl told us that she had come down with the infamous stomach virus that is slowly making its way through the Montarina, and was not feeling well. She pushed through it though and Quentin, Cheryl, Amanda and I drove into the city and walked to the Monmartre and Sacre Cur. We ate French Onion Soup and crepes for lunch and Amanda and I broke off to do some shopping. I bought a purse for 6 euro and a new scarf. I envied the beautiful paintings by the street artisits, but they were a little too expensive fro my budget.

We met back up and continued to the Notre Dame where we walked along the Seine for a while and enjoyed the beautiful weather. We went back to the house and ate dinner before Amanda and I went to grab dessert and wine in the Latin Quarter.

The next morning we woke up and had croissants and coffee in the breakfast room, said “Au Revoir” to the family and went to the train station. Unfortunately the luggage storage facilities were closed on Sundays so we had to meet up with the rest of the group at the Eiffel Tower and carry our stuff with us that day. We wanted to go to the Musee de Orsay, but were not allowed in with our luggage, so we just enjoyed taking in some sights that we could see from the streets.

We went to dinner in the Latin Quarter, where I split some Escargot and Crème Brulee. We had to be at the train station for our overnight train, so we finished early and made our way.

The night train was more comfortable than I thought. The 11 of us filled 2 cabins, and I got a top bunk. We slept pretty soundly until were were awoken at 6AM in Milan. We made it back by 8 Monday morning, in time to shower up, take a quick nap and go to class.

Carnivale in Bellinzona

In our time here in Europe we have learned about how each of the cities celebrate festivals. The largest and most well known being Carnivale in Venice of course, but each country seems to have their own version of the festival.

In the Ticino region of Switzerland, where Lugano is located, the largest celebration occurs in Bellinzona. We all dressed up Tuesday night to see what Rabadan was all about and took the train to the celebration tent in Bellinzona. There were bands, and food vendors, and everyone was dressed in costumes, it was quite an experience.

A few of my friends and I wore masks that we purchased in Florence, and painted our faces for the festivities. It was a fun way to celebrate the holiday:-) Check out our cool pictures!

The Hills are Alive?

We had our Italian final Friday morning, the last Friday class we will have for a while, and I was lucky to be one of the first to be called in to have a 5 minute convo with Magda. I think I did an ok job at stumbling through it and she certainly seemed to enjoy the conversation we had because she laughed a lot...in a positive way. I hope.

We said “Ciao, Grazie!” and got on a train around 2 for what would be a 10 hour journey to Salzburg. The warmer climate in Lugano definitely made it easy to forget that, although we are in Switzerland, we are the only region south of the Alps, and the northern countries were not yet feeling the spring weather. Our expectation of green hills and a lively town were shattered as the snow whizzed past our windows on the train. We had been so focused on studying for our Italian final that no one thought to check the weather, and find out that the “green” hills of Salzburg would be white that weekend. It was still beautiful though, we just weren't prepared for another weekend of slushing through the snow.

We arrived late that evening and booked a Sound of Music tour for the next morning. We got up and boarded a van and had an (almost) private tour of all the scenes in the Sound of Music. We blasted the music and sang along to our favorites as we drove around Salzburg and the surrounding area to see the hills, the “Von Trapp” house, the (then frozen) lake that Maria and the children tipped their boat in, the “I am 16 going on 17” gazebo, and the “Do, Re, Mi” stairs, and the wedding church. We learned about th real history behind the true Von Trapp family, Hollywood's interpretations and secrets, and some history about the town from a tour guide who was a little too into the movie to be normal, but who was very nice.

When the tour ended, we walked around the town for a little while and made our way to the Modern Art Museum, which overlooks the city. We drank some tea in their cafe and enjoyed the view of the snowy Austrian town before making our way down a winding path to the Augustiner beer hall for drinks and dinner.

We had half a day in Salzburg to finish up sightseeing before we had to take the train back to Lugano. We went to Mozart's residence where I took a tour and learned about his relationship with the city, his family, his upbringing, and his music. We ate Apple Strudel and special Mozart candies that were local to the city. We continued slushing through the city and went to a few touristy shops before getting on the train in our own “reclining” sleeper cabins for the long trip home.

San Valentin in Firenze

It was Valentine's Weekend, and after being surprised by roses on our doors from all the boys, 9 girls and I went to one of the most romantic cities in Europe to spend V-day weekend with just us gals.

We arrived at the Hotel Sampaoli late Friday night. The multicolored walls, tall ceilings and the stairs that needed to be climbed to get to the lobby made the building a little awkward, but Catie, Whitney and I got 3 beds in a 4-bed ensuite room when we paid for a 6-bed dorm. The weekend was off to a good start.

We walked around Florence until we found a gelateria where I got a scoop of Niccola Gelato with Nuttel Swirls...I was on Hazelnut overload. We got up the next morning, Valentine's Day, and went straight to the Academia to wait in line to see the David. I remember vaguely seeing the statue when I was 13 traveling Florence with my mom, but had forgotten how amazing the detail was. Michaelangelo carved every vein in his arm, and the expression is so realistic. We continued looking at the other sculptures and paintings in the museum, and noticed how different the perception of beauty was in the time of these artists, the women looked so real.

We continued to the center of Florence where we came upon the Duomo. The architecture and marble work is fascinating on the outside. Compared to other churches we have visited, this one was magnificent on the outside and very plain on the inside, where others have very ornate interiors. We waited in line to spiral our way through the walls of the dome and make it to the top with an amazing view of the entire city. We could not have asked for more perfect weather and we were excited to be able to take off our jackets and enjoy the sun. We took lots of pictures in front of the city backdrop and were psyched that we would have some pictures of us without our coats on.

We walked through the street markets. I bought a few souvenirs for some people back home and a Carnevale mask to wear to Bellinzona Rabadan Carnevale. We dropped our stuff back at the hotel, changed quickly and crossed the Ponte Vecchio to the Piazza Piata for our Valentine's wine tasting. We tasted six wines, sampled cheeses, meats and bruscetta. “Edwardo” taught us what to look for in good wines and taught us a bit about the varieties in Tuscany. I bought a bottle of red wine to bring home.

We stopped to ride the carousel on the way home. Brittany, Katie and I went to the “Fish Bar” but the scene wasn't very good on Valentine's so we had a drink and went back to the hostel. The next morning Catie, Whitney and I got up early to walk to the San Miniato al Monte Church atop a hill on the outskirts of Florence. We got lost and took a right instead of a left and routed ourselves through the neighborhoods. We made it to the church 15 minutes before the service, had the chance to look around the unique split level design, and sat down for mass. The service was entirely in Italian so we only stayed 20 minutes before we left to take pictures and walk to the Piazza Michaelangelo to meet with the rest of our group.

We arrived early and were surprised to run into a crowd of Asian tourists who were on some sort of wedding tour. There were at least 10 brides getting married at the same time, taking cheesy pictures in front of the Duomo views, and throwing confetti on each other. We people watched for a while, met up with our group and grabbed spaghetti at a restaurant with a great overlook of the whole city.

We walked back through the city and caught a 4'oclock train back to Lugano!

In Dublin's Fair City...

So it has again been a pretty long time since I have blogged and I am about to leave for my second 1 week break and figured I would try to catch up on the last one week break I had off and the weekends in between.

We left snowy London and surprisingly made it out on time without any hiccups at the airport. We landed in Dublin that evening, it had been snowing there too so unfortunately all we saw from the plane was a white city vs. the green hills we were expecting. We caught a train to Killarney, which is a small town on the western part of the country.

We got in the train station late at night and had trouble finding the hostel. We immediately noticed the amazing hospitality of the Irish because the several people who we stopped to ask for directions each did the best they could to help us out, even if they didn't really know what they were talking about either.

We checked in to Neptune's hostel and asked the very kind woman at the front desk what there was to do in Killarney, she suggested a shop where we could rent bicycles and we made plans to explore the Irish countryside the next day.

We rented bikes the next morning and attempted to follow the suggested route of the owner, but he didn't know any street names and just gave us landmarks to try and follow. Needless to say we got lost several times, but the whole point of the day was to explore the countryside and that is definitely what we did. We made it to Ross Castle and rode through a golf course along Muckross lake. The green countryside and the views of the lake were just as I pictured Ireland to be. It started to get chilly so we rode back to the town and warmed up with some Irish Coffee and Guinness Stew.

The town is sort of sleepy in the wintertime, and we decided to take advantage of being in an English speaking country and went to the local movie theater. Sarah, Amanda and I went to Slumdog Millionare. I was excited because I had just purchased “Q&A” which was the inspirations for the movie. I loved the movie, and the book was great too...but if you read and watch...don't expect them to be similar. The movie is very loosely based on the book.

The next morning we ate a “Traditional” Irish breakfast at a cafe near the hostel, packed up and left for Dublin. We arrived in the rain and took a taxi from the train station to the hotel. We were all very excited to be staying in a hotel for the next two nights. Amanda and I shared a room with our own bathroom. We freshened up a bit as we drank tea and watched some TV in English. All of the European countries have MTV, whose trashy reality shows give a great impression as to how real Americans lead their lives, no wonder all the Europeans think we are so crazy.

The weather cleared up a bit so we decided to explore our part of town. We were in a fabulous location, right near St. Steven's Green and the Borough St. shopping district. We ate noodles and soup at Wagamama's Asian cuisine restaurant, most of us were starting to get a little sick and worn out so the soup was a nice temporary remedy.

I came down with a fever that night and wasn't feeling very well the rest of our time in Dublin, but I pushed through it because I didn't want to miss anything. We woke up early the next morning and bought tickets for the Hop-on-hop-off (HoHo) bus tour. We listened to the commentary and rode it to Christ Church where we learned about its unique history and toured the crypts below it.

We jumped back on the bus and rode it to the Guinness Storehouse. We learned about the production of beer and the qualities that make Guinness unique. The tour included a pint at the Gravity Bar with a panoramic view of the city. We relaxed for a little while before facing the cold outside to wait for the bus. We rode and listed to the history of Dublin as the bus followed its touristy route back to Temple Bar. We ate dinner at the Bear and Castle pub and walked around for a bit. My fever was starting to make me feel really tired so we went back to the hotel and called it a very early night.

After about 12 hours of sleep I was feeling much better the next morning. We packed our things, put them in the hotel's luggage storage and explored the city by foot. We stopped in the shops on Burough street and picked up some Irish Rugby shirts, the French/Irish rugby match was later that day and we wanted to make sure everyone knew who we were supporting. We walked by the Liffey river and through Temple Bar, making our way to the National Museum of Archeology. The bog body exhibit displayed men who had been preserved for hundreds of years in the rich Irish soil. Everything was still in tact, you could see the pore in their skin, their fingernails and the wrinkles on their hands. It was amazing.

We continued exploring the streets of Dublin and stopped at Burdock's Chipper for some real, newspaper wrapped fish and chips. Yummy! We ate them on the steps of the city hall, which attracted a bunch of pigeons who were bugging us for our leftovers.

We made our way back to Temple Bar for the start of the Rugby match. The pubs were packed and it was very exciting. We met some nice Irish women who explained the game to us and we drank Guinness and Jameson as we cheered Ireland on. We stayed at the pub until midnight, made our way back to the hotel to grab our things and go to the airport. Our flight was at 8 the next morning, so we decided to arrive the night before, save on a night in the hotel and sleep in the airport. I fell asleep on a couch near Starbucks. We checked in to RyanAir at 6 and were on our way back to Lugano!

We had to catch a train from Milan. I used the hole in the ground toilet at the station and somehow broke the lock when I shut the door. I got stuck and had to get the police to let me out. It was simultaneously the scariest and funniest moment of the trip. We made it safely back to the Montarina after that little hiccup. It felt nice to be “home” after a whole week of traveling!