Megan Goes to Spain

We arrived to the train station bright and early to buy our tickets for the 8:30am train.  We found the line for tickets easily; however, we ran into a problem when actually buying them:  they only had standing available.  It was our most expensive ticket and to hear we would have to stand for three hours, well, needless to say, we were not very happy.  I was already looking at my suitcase and thinking, “How bad could it be to sit on top of this for three hours?”

                We accidently boarded the train in first class and awkwardly bumped every seat with our suitcase and I had the pleasure of hearing an 8 year old girl say, “Oh, these seats are so nice!” We got a couple of annoyed glances, it’s like they just knew we were standing, not even good enough for 2^nd class.  Ok, a bit dramatic.  Anyway, so we shifted down into second class where we walked through a dining car that had these huge booths, I eyed them sadly, and then moved on.  We put our suitcases in a holding area and then just stood there.  We had no idea where to stand, seeing that everywhere we did stand; we were somehow in the way.  We stood at this standing table in front of the highly overpriced café.  Great move: three girls, nowhere to sit, and now being tempted by 5 euro croissants.  I finally asked Sarah what she thought about us just sitting in the booths and just seeing what would happen.  She quickly agreed and the three of us sat down on a nice cushioned booth.  And there we sat, for probably five minutes, and we just stared at every single person in there, wondering if we were supposed to be there.  Finally, the moment of truth.  The ticket guy came up to us, hole-punched our tickets and moved on.  Success!  So, to say in short, we paid for standing, and in return, I stretched out on a booth and took a nap.

                We arrived to Venice at about 11:30.  We walked outside and it was the most bizarre feeling of walking out and seeing a huge boat just drift by.  We saw some lines for water taxis and Jess and Sarah looked at me expectantly, waiting for the cue of where to go.  Well, I hadn’t a clue.  I stared at the hotel directions and nowhere did it say, “Hop on a boat.”  So I went back inside the train station to find a map.  As I was buying the map that was the size of an atlas, I asked the woman if she knew where the road where our hotel was.  She stared at me and said, “That’s not in Venice, that on the land.”  I was being taken back to certain moment in the Bahamas and was pushing my mind away from that experience.  I said, “Land side?”  She nodded impatiently and said, “You’ll need to take a bus, have a nice day.”  Good.  So now I had a map, which was apparently worthless, because our hotel wasn’t in Venice, and had no idea how far our hotel was. 

                I told Jess and Sarah that we would have to take the bus, but left out the detail of not being in Venice.  I saw that the bus station was just over a bridge.  As we approached it, we noticed that the majority of the bridge was just made of these wide low steps.  Perfect.  So we hauled our suitcases up and then “thumped” them the way down.  We bought our ticket, found our bus, and then headed off to our hotel.  The bus went over the long bridge that stretched over the ocean, so I guess that’s what she meant by land side.  All of the sudden I saw our hotel and said, “There it is!” And Jess said, “And there it goes.”  Turns out the bus stop is about half a mile from our hotel . . . on the highway.  So we step out, on the highway, there’s not really a sidewalk, unless you count the 1 foot wide path between the rail and the cars zooming past.  So the three of us, with our suitcases, walked by huge eighteen wheelers and cars honking at us, as if we didn’t realize we were walking on a highway.  We got to the “driveway” of the hotel, the non-paved driveway, so our suitcases bounced and tipped over in the lovely gravel dirt road and we finally got to the entrance.  Lord knows what the people at the front desk were thinking as we plunked our way down their driveway.  It was a four star hotel, so probably most people arrive in a taxi, but we have class and know how to make an entrance.

                I walked through the sliding glass doors, missed the half step, and slammed my toe into the cement.  A loud, “Dag-nabit!” rang through the lobby.  I seriously thought I had broken a toe nail.  I limped my way over to the front desk, slicked back a piece of matted sweaty hair from my face and handed him our reservation.

                Our room was amazing.  Plenty of room, gigantic tv, not that we needed it, and a nice bathroom – always a plus to have when three girls are squeezed into one room.  We went back down to the lobby and asked the man how to get back to Venice.  He asked us if we knew of the bus stop of the highway and I started laughing.  I said, “Yea, I think we might know where that is.”  He laughed and then told us there was another stop just right across from it.  Good, more highway walking.

     When we arrived back into Venice, we immediately headed for the water taxi because I wanted us to go down the Grand Canal and end up in the St. Mark’s Square, which pretty much had the majority was what to see and the Grand Canal, itself, is a great tour of Venice.

                I can’t really think of the words to describe our experience on the boat.  To drift through a town that looks as if it is completely floating, it’s as if playing the board game Candy Land a hundred times, like I did when I was little, and then actually realizing that Candy Land exists and that you are currently walking in it.  That’s how I would describe.  I had seen pictures and I had read about how so many poets had been moved and inspired by the beauty of Venice, but to see it first hand was breathtaking.  Jess, Sarah and I just kept looking at each other, as if to say, “Is this real? Or am I just dreaming?”  I’m pretty sure I took a thousand pictures and pointed at every gondola.

                When we arrived to St. Mark’s Square, we first just walked around the piazza, admiring the cool purple clock, the towering Campanile, the bronze horses pulling in the beams of light, and of course, the great St. Mark’s Basilica. Our first stop was to enter the basilica.  The line wasn’t too horrible and the price was probably the cheapest we would ever see (Venice, along with its beauty, is the most expensive place I have ever been to).  We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, so I attempted to get a few shots that would give a hint of what lay inside.  The ceiling was this delicate mosaic of thousands of tiny pieces that looked like gold glittering in the sun – it almost has the effect that Micah has when it shines in the light at Lake Martin.  The museum, itself, was okay.  My favorite part was probably the bronze horses, the replica is on the outside, which Napoleon took and then later had to give back.  Outside on the balcony was my favorite part.  We just sat on a stone bench and watched the people below wander around while soaking up the sun.  We also had a great view of the ocean.  All in all, it was 4 euros well spent.

                Next stop was the Campanile to get the bird’s eye view of Venice.  Once again, the line wasn’t terrible, but the price was a bit steeper.  However, the view . . . man oh man, what a view.  You can see everything!

After the Campanile we had lunch at a pizza place and then wondered some more around the piazza.  We then went to the Bridge of Sighs.  Now I was very excited to see the Bridge of Sighs, mainly because of its history.  It was the bridge that lead from the jail and when a person was about to be executed, they would walk the accused person across the bridge and it would be his last glimpse of the outside world.  Sad, yes, but also very cool story, and I was dying to see it.  We walked past it three times, and even when we saw it, we didn’t even know that that was the bridge.  Why?  Because there was a gigantic billboard advertisement surrounding the entire thing, including both buildings on either side, so you couldn’t even see the jail.  Bahumbug, that’s all I have to say.

                The rest of the day we pretty much just wandered around, hopped in a few shops to admire the glass art work, and happened to come across a sale on bottles of Bellini.  It was a must.  Oh, and at one point we walked by this small garden and I saw and bed of tulips, and Mom, because I know you love them, I told Jess and Sarah that we had to stop and take a picture.  Once it started to get dark, we wandered around for miles trying to find this restaurant that had the cheapest pasta.  We finally came across it and I got some tasty spinach ravioli with lots of “free” bread.  After dinner, we called it a night, got on a boat, then got on a bus, and then had our bottle of Bellini.

                The next morning we got ready and set off for our second day in Venice.  We didn’t really have a plan, except to just start at the train station and work our way back down to St. Mark’s Square.  We passed through some great markets and I gave into the dried apricots that were just calling my name and bought a small bag.  They were delicious.  We walked in this one shop that made soap and make up from natural products.  There was this gigantic piece of “soap,” and it looked like a block of Jell-O, it was pretty cool looking, I’m just not quite sure how well it actually cleans.  At one point we accidently crossed over the other side and then managed to get on the wrong boat, which then lead us way down the canal, a good mile or two from St. Mark’s Square.  We kept looking at each other, wondering if we should get off at the next stop. . .or the next. . .or the next.  Fifteen stops later we finally got off, at which point the boat turned around and headed back in the direction we wanted.  Nice.

                When we finally got back near the train station, we quickly found a pasta place, because at that point we were starving.  We wandered through some more shops and then went to the oldest bar in Venice and each had a nice glass of wine.  Because we had eaten lunch so late, we were only a little bit hungry, so we opted for chocolate and banana crepes, a mini bottle of Bellini, and a sunset by the canal.  We sat there with our little healthy picnic, watching the sun slowly sink into the horizon, and had the pleasure of old men whistling at us.

                We headed back to the hotel and went to bed early to once again prepare us for our early morning train to Milan.

Milan:

Because we were only in Milan for half a day, and that day being Easter, therefore most places were closed, I really didn’t feel the need to make a separate post.

There were two highlights.  One: the cathedral.  I just remember stepping from the metro, wondering where it was, turning around and having a “Whoa” moment.  It is made of this pure white marble, which softens the look of the narrow steeples, resembling daggers, piercing the sky.  There are statues carved throughout the sides and outlining the doorway.  And once again, it was pretty much impossible to capture the entire church in one picture.  When we walked inside there was Easter mass.  So we stayed a while, attempted to follow what he was saying, which was useless, so we each lit a candle and said a prayer.

The second highlight: dinner.  We asked our hotel guy if he knew of any good sushi because we were all craving some international food, other than pasta and any food resembling Spanish food (aka, avoiding ham at all costs).  He told us there was not a sushi place anywhere near us and then recommended us places to go eat a last meal of pasta.  We wondered around, devastated that we couldn’t eat sushi, ended up getting lost, but then being found by, you guessed it, a sushi restaurant.  It was delicious.  I had these great spider rolls, Jess got amazing fired rice and shared with all of us, and Sarah got the same thing as me.  We feasted and left the restaurant with smiling faces.  Oh, and the hotel was right around the corner, so much for hotel people being a reliable source.

That finally completes my posts from Semana Santa.  Sorry they took so long, I just had quite a bit to say, as usual.  I still miss all of you very much BUT I come home in less than 24 hours!  Can’t believe it!  Love you all and see you soon!

     On the train to Florence I spent the majority of the time reading the travel book and making a list of places I wanted to go see. It was a full page of at least 12 things and thought, “Perfect, we will do 6 things each day.” We arrived really early, like 8am early. So we left our luggage at the hostel and headed off to my first item, the church. With my trusty map in hand and travel book at side, I lead Jess and Sarah. Now, for those who know me and know of my “incredible” navigating skills, are probably looking at that last sentence and going, “Whoa, Megan the navigator?” That’s right people, I have changed. I kid you not, Jess and Sarah were calling me Garmin because I pretty much memorized Florence in like a second . . . not that it’s too hard, mainly because 1)Florence is tiny and 2) if you know where you are in reference to the church, you’re golden.

     So as I was saying, I lead Jess and Sarah and we easily found the church because this church is massive! I’m pretty sure we walked half a mile around the church just to see the whole thing. And the coloring of the church is amazing! The marble is stunning. It was a swirly ice cream mixture of pink, green, and black. I walked up to the door where this guard was standing and as I tried to walk past he told me I couldn’t until 9:00am. So I thought, fine, I’ll just take some pictures for 15 minutes. Well, 15 minutes pass and I walk back up to him and he says, sorry, this is not the entrance; you have to walk on the other side. Now, maybe this is just me, but wouldn’t you think that if you told someone that couldn’t enter until 9am, that maybe you would also say, “Oh, ps., this also isn’t the entrance.” So I gave him one of my, “Thanks a lot buddy looks and walked to other side where there was a nice mile long line that was not there when we had first arrived. But I couldn’t let that get to me and I just kept thinking, “I’m in Florence and if the church is this pretty on the outside, I can’t imagine what’s on the inside!” . . . The line went by quickly and we entered. I believe this church is the perfect example of starting out strong and then being like, “Uh, tired, it’s good enough.” The inside was almost completely bare. I think I got a picture of a cool clock and window and that’s about it. But it was free to enter, so at least I didn’t spend money to see stone, so I guess that’s the plus side.

     Next on my list was Orsanmichele, which is a church that I didn’t really want to go on the inside, I just wanted to walk around and look at the statues, or niches, around it – for example, Donatello’s St. George, although they replaced it with a replica, but still neat to see. Anyway, so I look at the map, realize we already on the correct street, and it literally takes us a minute to get there. So we take some pictures, do a lap, and then I move on to my next item: the Piazza Signoria. Well, this one was just off of the street that we were currently on, so it once again only took us a minute or two to get there. The piazza was semi-big and was filled with statues, including the replica of the famous David statue, and a huge fountain.

     Next stop, Ponte Vecchio, which is this bridge that was built in 1345 – crazy old. We arrived to the river in only a few minutes and took some time staring at the rowers in these skinny boats that look like toothpicks and watching some of the local artists capture the West-Side-Story-esque houses hover over the river. Once we were on the bridge we did a speedy window shop because the stores were way out of our range and then stopped to take some pretty pictures in front of the river. I looked down at my list and saw that the next destination was Giardino Boboli, or the Boboli Gardens. I was really excited about this just because it was more nature and the sound of gigantic hedges looming over me sounded very Harry Potter Goblet of Fire to me, so of course I was pumped about it.

     We bought our tickets and headed off into what we thought were the gardens. Well, instead we wound up in the most bizarre museum ever. Seriously, this museum, if one were to attempt to explain it, you would have to envision all these old people staring at probably what are million dollar pieces of art but saying, “No, I don’t think that has a place in my museum.” And each person would think this until finally, one person voices, “I know! We’ll just put all this random expensive junk and make it a museum!” And that my friends, is the story of the birth of this museum. So we pretty much jogged our way through the museum, realized that it only lead to a dead end, and then ran back the other way, smiling politely at the staff who was sitting and staring at three girls who couldn’t give a darn about a huge statue of a tiger, or pig, or something along those lines. Anyway, we made it out and I immediately went up to a staff person and asked them where the gardens were, she pointed to the gigantic sign that said, “Gardens this way.”

     As you enter the gardens you see this huge Egyptian pole, I can’t remember what you call them, I should, because they seem to be everywhere, but anyway, they just look like the Washington Monument, except, half the size, skinnier, and with hieroglyphics on it. Then there are these awesome wide white stairs on either side that make the cool circle look and the two stairs almost end up meeting – you know what I’m talking about, they always appear in movies. Once you reach the top of that, there is another set of stairs that leads to the top of the gardens. The view was amazing – we took some great pictures and then just spent time just staring at the country side. After that we went down the first set of stairs and chose a path leading to the left. As you walk down the semi-steep incline, there’s a creepy Forbidden Forest to your left, and then these huge hedged pathways to your right. We got down to a level area where there were more pathways and a small pond in front of us. I told Jess that I kept expecting to see Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy round the corner, because the garden seemed like a place Jane Austen would imagine- so obviously I loved being there. We did some more walking around, I forced Jess to take a picture in this huge stone tub, and then we left because we were all starving.

     We walked back across the bridge and ate calzones the size of watermelons at this great local restaurant. At the restaurant I looked at my list and realized we had covered half of it in pretty much three hours, I just had had no idea how compact Florence was and that all the sights would literally be five minutes from each other. Not that I’m complaining, it was just unexpected, that’s all. So after lunch we decided to spend time shopping in the local market. This was by far my favorite market I’ve ever been to. Each kiosk I just wanted to stop and buy everything. There were gorgeous scarves, any type of leather good could ask for, belts, purses – needless to say I bought a lot of gifts (family, get excited, because I think they are pretty awesome).

     After shopping for hours we decided it was time to get changed and then get dinner. Sarah had some friends from Clemson studying abroad in Florence, so we met up with them at a cute restaurant that was lit up in white Christmas tree lights and tucked in a nook in a piazza. I had great, cheap seafood pasta that had mussels! Well, there were three, but they were there! So I was a happy Megan. After dinner they wanted to go out to bars but I was pretty tired, to the point that after the restaurant, we stopped at a girl’s apartment for her to get changed, and I fell asleep on the couch. Jess and I called it a night and I’m pretty sure I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

     The next morning we decided to go see the leaning tower of Pisa, since we had seen the majority of the major sights, and then see the Uffizi museum. We stopped at the pastry place where we had eaten breakfast there the first day, bought another round of croissants stuffed with chocolate, and then also got some egg salad sandwiches to have a nice picnic. We hopped on train and arrived to the Pisa in 40 minutes. We immediately sat on the grass and devoured our sandwiches. Mine wasn’t that great to be quite honest because it was drenched in mayonnaise, ew. We then took the lamest pictures of us leaning against the Pisa – they really didn’t even turn out that great, but I’m pretty sure you have to do it. We wanted to go up the Pisa, but it was 15 Euros! So we decided it wasn’t that great anyways, walked around a bit, and then hopped back on the train.

     When we got back, we headed straight for the Uffizi and waited in line for probably 40 minutes. Then we waited another ten minutes for us to let us in the main area, and this was after we had our tickets. I was very annoyed. The Uffizi was much smaller than I anticipated, but I enjoyed it a lot. My favorite was the Primavera by Botticelli – loved it! Not a big fan of the Birth of Venus but overall I really enjoyed the museum. Now our entire day was pretty much planned around one thing, which I somehow forgot to say, which is: happy hour at the ONLY Mexican restaurant in Florence. I think we did a half sprint to the restaurant but we got there with plenty of time. I had the best margarita ever! Oh how I have missed them. We had the saddest looking chips and cheese dip ever – they forgot to bring the chips with the cheese dip, how exactly you do that, I’m not quite sure. But then I had fajitas with grilled veggies and guacamole! Oh, it was to die for! We were all so happy and it was also a nice little break from our non-stop binge of pasta and pizza. We went home and got to bed early because we had another early train to Venice to catch the next day.

It was a tearful goodbye.  I hated to leave Rachel behind as the rest of us went off to Siena, but I guess Rachel had that whole school thing to do and we of course had our own plans to keep up.  We arrived in Siena at around 3:00pm.  I felt pretty prepared because I had the hotel confirmation and our directions.  I opened them up and here is what they said:  Above the main piazza you will see an escalator.  Take the escalator and our hotel is right in front.

So technically they were right.  However, the term “above piazza” also translates to 15 minutes walk away from the piazza – I thought the escalators were in the piazza.  Anyway, an hour later we found our hotel.  We were grumpy, tired, because the previous night was spent dancing until 5am, oh, and we hadn’t had lunch yet.  And anyone who knows me, I am not pleasant to be around when I’m starving to death.   We ate lunch in the piazza, I had a great bowl of ravioli, and we just people watched until the sun began to slowly sink.  It was about 4:00pm when we had lunch. 

When we were walking back from the piazza we kept noticing these great wine/pasta/olive oil shops.  We went into one big one, which later became our favorite store there, and decided to buy a hotel picnic for our dinner that night.  We got brie, gorgonzola, jam, cream cheese, olives, that thin crunchy bread that is kind of like a huge cracker, and a bottle of Chianti wine.  We snuggled into bed at about 7:00 and prepared ourselves to eat around 9:00pm.

We woke up at 12:15am.  It felt like the time I was in London with my mom and sisters and we never adjusted to the time change, so we would always go to bed early and then wake up around 1:00am for laughing cow cheese and crackers.  We made a pretty nice spread on our bed and had an incredible dinner.  I cannot wait to make this snack for everyone – seriously, cream cheese + jam + salami = tastiest thing ever (obviously, since it’s so healthy and all).

After a night of good rest and great food, we all got showers, ate a great continental breakfast (they had these delicious croissants filled with sugar jam – I ate at least 3 every morning), and headed off for the famous church.   It was our first time to really see Siena, seeing that when we arrived we were dragging our suitcases up and down steep cobble stone streets and were too busy being consumed by our hunger to notice any of our surroundings.

If I could describe Siena in one word, well, I guess I would say cute – like a village you would see in Beauty and the Beast.  It’s very small, has narrow roads that can’t even fit cars, and is lined with small local restaurants and great wine cheese shops.  The roads are sometimes so steep that if you take a breather as you hike your way up, be careful, because you might fall backwards.  It is completely surrounded by country side – just green hills as far as the eye can see.  It was a nice change from the city scenery we got in Rome.

We arrived to the church, took some time to just staring at the outside/taking some great pictures, bought our tickets, bought a audio tour, and began to explore the church.  The inside of the church is very unique.  It has these great pillars that are black and white striped.  There is, of course, a lot of marble, and a huge dome in the center.  The audio tour was pretty horrendous.  It would talk about three paintings that would be 15 yards apart and you would be staring at one, say of Mary, and then it would say:  “Notice the war stance of the man closest to the king.”  And I would stare and stare, thinking I was stupid, and then realize it was talking about a painting that was one the opposite wall.  Also, like all audio tours, it had numbers that you press when you reach another item that you want to know more about.  Funny thing is – they didn’t number anything in the church.  So half them time you’re running around, trying to find the correct painting, and half the time you are guessing which number to press and end up listening to description of the altar when you think you are listening to a description of one of the small chapels inside.  So I really didn’t learn much, all I know is that my favorite part was the library.  There the pictures with the colorful ceiling.  It’s just a small room, a little less than the size of our kitchen, and it had these huge books that are ancient, and these beautiful paintings that, together, tell a story . . . about someone . . . once again, the tour – can’t tell you much.  Overall I loved the church; I just didn’t learn much – but definitely worth the see (thanks for the recommendation Don).

After the church we got lunch a small pizza place and my pizza was huge and covered in salami – in other words, it was delicious.  The rest of the day we just wondered around, looked in shops, and ate gelato in the piazza while toasting in the sun.

That night we began to think about what we were going to do the next day.  After all, Siena is pretty small, we had just seen the pretty much only sight they have (the church), and we had walked down almost every street.  We decided to look into a wine tour.  I was really excited but also hesitant because I had no I idea what the price was going to be like.  Well, it turns out, for a wine tour in Montelcino, which is about an hour away by bus, where you drink the famous Brunello wine, it is 35 Euros!  We booked it immediately.  We then went back to the piazza and had a light dinner of salad and wine.  As we were eating Jess got this horrified look on her face and told me to turn around.  So I did and low and behold there was a man who was bald on the top of his head, had some hair on the side, and here’s the kicker, a long thin braid that reached the middle of his back – oh what a sight to see.  I got a little homesick at that moment.  Ha, just kidding . . . but seriously.

The next day we walked around a little bit more and then met the bus for our tour of a wine vineyard.  The bus ride over there was miserable because there were about twenty people crammed on a small bus with no air conditioning.  BUT the view on the way to Montelcino was beautiful.  I can never get enough of green country side.

When we arrived to the vineyard, we were shuffled to the side where there was this old man, who kind of looked like my grandpa, standing on a bench, waiting for us.  He began talking in Italian, which was quickly translated, and we were handed a kind of chex mix thing and a glass of wine.  We then headed into where they kept the giant barrels of wine.  He told us that Brunello wine is special because 1) you have to a specific kind of soil to make it, and they are very strict about this – in the sense that someone comes out and checks it and then gives them the okay to start making wine. And 2) there is a law that states that when you sell a bottle of Brunello wine it has to have been “sitting” for 4 years.  As he was telling us this, we were served our second glass of wine (wasn’t a big fan of this one, it was pretty, well, I guess acidic – but I have no idea if that’s how you would describe it) and a sandwich with prosciutto.   

We then moved to another room where we were served my third and most favorite glass of wine.  He told us to drink to drink it very slowly and to savor the taste.  As we walked to the next room, slowly sipping, we had to climb up this narrow staircase in which he told us to watch out for the water.  I was a bit confused at first, but sure enough, as I approached the staircase, there was a small stream of water running in front of it – no idea why, but it made it seem like we were hundreds of feet underground.  When we approached the top we were met with more gigantic barrels of wine and also a shot of Grappa.  So if anyone is keeping track, I have now had 3 glasses of wine (and yes, they were pretty full glasses – this was not a taste of each wine) and now I was having shot of Grappa.  The old man seemed to like me and at one point grabbed my arm, put me in the center of the group, and told me to imitate his yawn/stretch that you must do after a shot of Grappa.  Once again, I was wearing a great red shirt to match my very flush red face.

We moved on to another room where we had another glass of wine.  At this point, as his little helper women drift through the crowd with sandwiches and cheeses, I am grabbing two at a time, attempting to ease the feeling of 4 glasses of wine and a shot.  Well thankfully we came to the end of the tour where everyone began buying bottles of wine.  The old man found me and took my order personally – two women noticed and laughed at me.  They told me I could be the future share owner of a vineyard if I played my cards right; nice.

After the wine tour they took us to see this castle and abbey, and although it was beautiful, I just wasn’t very motivated to walk around and observe.  But I had a great time and I loved the wine tour, it was just a little more than I bargained for.

The next day we woke up at the crack of dawn and hopped on our next train to Florence.

These past ten days I have been with my best friends touring Rome, Siena, Florence, Venice, and a quick stop in Milan.  Instead of making it one really long post, I’ll divide them into different ones according to the place – making it easier to read and much more organized.

I met Jessica, one of my best friends at Auburn, and her friend, Sarah, at the airport Thursday April 2.  I was so excited to see her – finally, some more familiar faces in my life.  We arrived at Rome at about 5:30pm and went to get our luggage.  Most would think this would be a simple process.  Follow the baggage claim signs, find your little terminal, and wait for your bag to appear from the wall.  Well, Rome has this great system where they only have about 6 baggage terminals, for example, 10-16, in one area.  Once you pass through these doors leading to the baggage area, there is no turning back.  There is also no other way back into the airport.  That’s right, we managed to get into the wrong baggage claim which lead to us leaving the airport without our luggage – nice.  I had a moment of panic because I have to admit, I’ve never heard of someone “forgetting” their luggage.  So the next five minutes consisted of us going up to people and asking how to get our luggage without a ticket . . . real fun.  But it turns out they have a small security line hidden between two walls just for the type of person who would forget their luggage.  What did we need to show?  Our passport and our ticket from our flight.  Jess accidently showed her ticket from the Canary Islands – he let her by.  Tight security Rome has.

We hopped on the train and arrived at Termini Station where we met Rachel, my other best friend from Auburn.  We had a happy reunion and then headed off to our hostel that was literally in front of the train station.  I had my first slice of Italian pizza (artichoke hearts, cheese, and tomatoes, to be exact – with little sauce, that was a little strange) and then we got ready to go out that night.

We decided to do what I guess was a pub crawl and left with our hostel to this new bar.  We stayed there for a few hours and then Rachel took us to one of her favorite bars.  We pretty much just sat on the patio and talked all night, I loved it.

The next day I was the alarm clock for everyone and made sure we would have a nice full day in Rome – I did not receive the most pleasant reception, but nonetheless, we made it out while it was still considered morning.  Our first stop was the Coliseum.  My heart did a slight drop when I saw the line that was quickly wrapping itself around the Coliseum.  But Rachel suggested that we do the tour that would eliminate us standing in line and it would get us a tour of the Coliseum and the Forum – what a deal, or so we thought.  Literally, the first 20 minutes of the “tour” we stood in front of the Coliseum, and our guide showed us pictures in his “picture book of the Coliseum” and within these 20 minutes talked about the importance that virgins had in Rome – in which point he grabbed my arm and said, “Ah, here is ours.”  What a great start.    He also mentioned, “No Finki finki,” during the tour.  I think he just liked saying it and I really don’t remember how he made it “relevant” to our tour . . . although our tour wasn’t relevant, so I guess it fit in just fine.

The Coliseum, once we actually got inside, was neat to see.  Although I’m not quite sure how necessary the tour was.  It’s a pretty self explanatory place . . . or this is just hitting on again how terrible our guide was.  At the Forum we switched tour guides and got this intense woman from Canada who was awesome.  She told great stories and even though I had seen plenty of ruins in Greece, she made it very interesting.   The majority of the Forum is what use to be a palace, but now you just see parts of the wall and floor.  The remains are beautiful pieces of marble and she told us that when we went to St. Peter’s, we would need to envision that beauty in the Forum.

After the Forum we were starving, so we grabbed another piece of pizza and then headed off to the Trevi fountain where we got some great pictures of all of us doing the traditional coin toss into the fountain.  I wish we could have stayed there longer because it was so pretty, but it was very crowded and we had other things to see.  Keeping priorities in order, we immediately got gelato at what Rachel claims is the best and most famous gelato place in Rome – don’t remember the name, but it was pretty tasty.  And to make it even better, they put this gigantic glop of homemade whip cream – you know, to make it healthier.  As we ate our ice cream we passed by the famous Spanish Steps, and, to be quite honest, they just looked like really big steps . . . which obviously they are, but I’m not quite sure the need to visit them, but we did.  We then did some shopping because Jess wanted to find a great outfit to go out in that night – we never found one, but I enjoyed passing time with my friends doing something that we do at least once a week in Auburn – so no complaints.

We got back to the hostel, got dressed and headed out for our big dinner.  Oh my goodness, what a dinner it was.  Five courses of steaming hot pasta drifted down our table.  From ravioli to linguini, everything was wiped clean from every dish and we were stuffed.  It was probably one of my favorite dinners I’ve had since being abroad – of course – it involves 5 plates of pasta, who would be happier except the biggest carbo-holic ?

After dinner we headed towards a club that both Rachel and Jason, Rachel’s friend, really liked.  Jason had assured us that we were “on the list,” which I just think is kind of funny to think about, since lists don’t really exist in Auburn, and, when we arrived, our names were nowhere to be found.  We left Jason there, took Sarah back to the hostel, and Rachel, Jess and I enjoyed a night to ourselves at one of Rachel’s other favorite places.  This bar was pretty much an Auburn bar except international style.  We walked in and everyone was singing, “We Are the Champions.”  We found a booth and began listening to the following song line up.  I kid you not, here it is: Uncle Cracker, Spice Girls “So Tell me What you Want,” Will Smith “Miami,” the COPS theme song “Bad Boy Bad Boy,” and “YMCA.”  Only ten years behind.  We had a great time singing along to our oldies and made it home at a “decent” hour.

The next day we went to the Vatican where I was so excited to see the Sistine Chapel.  When we got there we decided to do another tour and just hoped that it would be a better success than our last one.  Four hours later and 30 euros spent – definitely worth it.  Our tour guide was amazing.  He fist described the outer part of the Vatican, then he took us along the museum – a little longer than I would have liked, but once again, at least he made it interesting, and then, my absolutely favorite part: The Sistine Chapel.  Nothing can really prepare you when you first walk in.  In a word: overwhelmed.  You attempt to take in every image and instead feel as if you aren’t even really looking at it.  So then you go for the attempt at staring at each image on the ceiling, but then you find you are missing the walls beside you and The Last Judgment and you can’t seem to ignore the crick that is slowly building a solid foundation in your neck.  So you think, I’ll stand in the middle – take it in from there.  You stare and stare – making a pattern:  Ceiling above the altar, towards the middle, out to the walls, Last Judgment.  You do this about ten times and then drift towards the back of the church, revisiting each picture with each step.  At this point you feel slightly better but you still feel as if you’re missing something.  After all, this Michelangelo, there needs to be more feeling other than confused awe and twinges of pain in your neck.  And that’s when our tour guide stepped beside us and explained something that I would have completely missed and brought, as silly as it may sound, tears to my eyes.  He explained that when you walk in the church and look at the paintings you notice that Michelangelo painted them backwards in order.  Starting with the picture of the Intoxication of Noah, then the Deluge, the Sacrifice of Noah, the Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise, the Creation of Eve, the Creation of Adam (this is the most looked at one: the one where God’s hand is reaching towards Adam’s), the Creation of Trees and Plants, the Creation of Sun and Moon, and ending, over the altar, the Separation of Light and Darkness.  He did this because when someone walks in the church he is filled with sin and vulnerable, like Noah, as seen in the first picture.  Then as the person makes their way to the Altar to receive communion, then receives communion, they are purified and they can now see right and wrong: separation from light and darkness.  Writing this, it sounds like such a simple explanation, but I guess when you are there, staring into Michelangelo’s paintings that outline a journey of a person’s soul from sin to purity – it’s pretty remarkable.

After the Sistine Chapel, we went into St. Peter’s.  One word to describe? Whoa.  This church is gigantic and every inch is covered in marble – which makes it stunningly beautiful but at the same time, at least for me, a bit cold and not very welcoming.  Some of the churches I have been are big but I can still feel where people would have prayed, had communion, and listened to mass (and of course where they still do this).  But I couldn’t quite envision the same in this church.  So I think that might be the reason why it’s not one of my favorites but I enjoyed seeing it nonetheless.

After the Vatican we got lunch in a piazza and then walked around Trasevere.  We then went to the hostel and got ready for our last night in Rome.

How to describe my last night?  Many images come to my mind but not many words.  To put it simply, I was not very comfortable.  We spent from 12am until 5:00am (that’s right people, I stayed up until 5am – and it wasn’t involving school work) in a gay club.  Ohhhh goodness, what an experience.  The dancing was fun and I definitely did not have to worry about creepy Italians hitting on me, however, I was out of place, way out of place.  I’m pretty sure we were the 3 of the 15 girls at this club.  And the music was the kind that made your heart beat with the rhythm, then to add to that great feeling, they had these great laser beam lights that flickered and moved and gave you a nice sensation of becoming sick on a boat.  I danced dizzily for hours and was grateful that we could finally leave.

The next day we woke up bright and early, said a tearful goodbye to Rachel, and hopped on our next train to Siena.

I arrived in Paris at about 5:30 where I was met by Guillaume and Abby and we immediately hopped on the train and headed to Guillaume’s sister’s flat, where I would be staying the next three nights.  After thirty minutes of the scenic view of graffiti walls and then some time on the metro, we arrived to the flat.  Guillaume had said that his flat is much smaller than his sister’s flat.  I’m not quite sure how this is possible because, although his sister’s flat is very nice and obviously easily livable for one person, my room at Arita’s is probably half the size.  I attempted to argue with his sister, big mistake, over who should sleep on the air mattress – I lost miserably.

We probably stayed there for thirty minutes.  Abby, Guillaume, and his sister would talk in French and every now and then I would catch a word I recognized, like: Megan.  So after they had catch up time we went to a crepe place that Guillaume really liked.  The restaurant itself looked really cool.  Everything was made of broken tile in different bold colors and then had these cool, slightly Moroccan lanterns hanging down.  I had never had a non-sweet crepe, so I went on the safe side and just told Abby I would have what she would have.  It was pretty tasty.  It had this French burger, lettuce, tomato, and this great Dijon mustard sauce.  To accompany the crepe we drank cider.  I don’t think I’ve ever had “real” cider, maybe some really sweet apple cider, in fact yes, I believe Brad got me some, but other than that, I haven’t.  It was good – very bubbly and refreshing – not sure if the taste is my most favorite in the world, but I liked it fine.

After the non-sweet crepe we moved on to the sweet crepe.  Abby and I “split” a crepe with raspberries and honey while Guillaume had something with nuts and ice cream.  Abby got full pretty quickly, so I ended up pretty much eating the whole thing and it was delicious.  Oh how I miss raspberries.

Abby and Guillaume dropped me off and then I was left alone with Benedict and it was semi-awkward, mainly because I was invading her privacy, sleeping in her bed, and, oh yea, we’ve never met.  But she was very nice, obviously seen in the above statement, and I had a great night’s sleep.

The next day Abby and I headed off to the Louvre Museum.  This place is gigantic.  Seriously, I’m pretty sure you would need 2 days worth of food, a sleeping bag, a map, a compass, and maybe then you could accomplish seeing the entire Louvre.  My top priority was seeing the paintings and about ten minutes in I saw the famous Mona Lisa.  Everyone says it’s a let down but I thought it was awesome.  I don’t really remember any specific paintings, mainly because I’m not really an art expert. . . at all, but I enjoyed them.  After seeing paintings for two hours we moved on to the Egyptian exhibit; very cool/creepy.  They had all these mummies, which I of course took a picture of, and then, no lie; they had a mummified man just . . . there, out in the open, for everyone to see.  That was a bit much for me but the whole exhibit was neat – I probably moved a bit fast because by then I was way past my usual museum visiting time of two hours and I was getting hungry; therefore grouchy and quiet.

After the museum we picked up some cheap sandwiches, had a nice break, and then headed off to this great English book store.  The place itself is tiny, however, is houses hundreds upon hundreds of books.  Oh, and they had the cool ladder that you stand on and slide down the shelves: definitely wanted to have a Beauty and the Beast moment, hop on it, and start singing and pulling down books – but I decided not to.

After the book store we went to Notre Dame.  The front of Notre Dame is, of course, stunningly beautiful but simple at the same time.  The front almost looks as if you were to construct it from legos.  Two towers on both side and then a simple rectangle.  The detail, as always, is what captures your attention.  There are three main doors that have arches outlining the mouth of the entrance – the same effect as seen in Toledo.  Then the towers have windows that look as if they have been carved into butter.  Abby and Guillaume had debated going in because as it so happens, that Friday was the worshipping of the Crown of Thorns and therefore there would be more people.  Thank goodness we went in because I had the most incredible experience.

When I first entered I sat down and just sort of “took in” Notre Dame.”  Then I did what I thought would be my usual lap around the church.  Well just as I was dead center of the back side of the church, admiring the Crown of Thorns, I just know at one moment I was standing with other tourists and at the next moment I have a line of priests behind me, all of them following the smell of incents.  So I had somehow managed to get stuck in the procession, had a slight moment of panic, and then “smoothly” exited the crowd, and went to go sit in the pews.

I continued to watch the procession make its way to the altar and then the most amazing thing happened.  A girl, who seemed about my age, began to sing and the most heavenly voice filled the church.  I just sat in awe – and it turned out she was opening the mass in song.  I watched a little bit of the mass and then Abby, Guillaume and I left the church.  I couldn’t believe that my one visit to Notre dame involved a procession, singing, and mass – it was awesome.

That night we went to the concert of this group called “Les Yeus Noirs” (the Black Eyes).  They were incredible.  They’re this Jewish/Yiddish group that pretty much just rocks out on fiddles the entire time.  The guitarist, his hands were moving so quickly that it looked as if he had ten fingers.  And the accordion guy – whoa.  No idea someone could actually be gifted in accordion but it was just incredible how quickly he played oh, and there was this huge guy who kind of looked Greek, and he played what looked like this huge xylophone and it was funny watching this man hold what appeared to be these chop sticks in his hand just go to town on the xylophone, I loved it.  The music sounds as if plates should be thrown on the ground and there should be a bride and a groom bouncing on two wooden chairs as they are hoisted through the crowd.

The next day we completed my tour of seeing everything typical in Paris.  The Eifel Tower was the first stop where I took a ton of pictures, then we went to Champs Elysees where I saw the big arch over the street.  Then we walked around for a bit as Abby went on the mission of finding us a pizza place.  Had some interesting pizza. . . not exactly my favorite, I mean, it was good because I was really hungry, but the pretty  much raw egg jiggling on top was not my cup of tea.

After that we headed to the next famous church, Sacré-Cœur, and it was really cool.  It’s situated on this hill overlooking Paris and the church itself is something that I haven’t really seen before – I sound as if I am now a church expert, so I’ll rephrase and say that of the six churches I’ve in Europe, this one is pretty different.  For one thing it has a lot of domes and the inside is very open in the middle.  There are also not a lot of arches – very weird not to see that.  The inside you weren’t allowed to take pictures, so I do not have my traditional video, but the inside had this huge painting at the top of Jesus opening his arms, and all the colors are soft blues, white, and a little bit of gold; very simple but beautiful.

That night I met some of Guillaume’s friends who are extremely nice.  One of them, Eric, actually studied in Mississippi for a year, so he was fun to talk to – he loves Waffle House, so we got a long.  We had a great dinner, which I had meat and mash potatoes.  Mom’s mash potatoes definitely trump the ones I had, but it was a good taste of comfort food.  After dinner we went to the Eiffel Tower and I finally got to go up.  It was amazing and it was freezing.  I took a great video going up and then a few quick pictures because we were all shivering.  We had great timing because as we went up the Eiffel Tower glittered and when we got down it glittered.  I loved it.

The trip to Paris was great, too bad it was just two days.  My next trip is spring break and be on the look out for some long posts because my trip will consist of visiting Rome, Siena, Florence, Venice, and a short day in Milan – maybe I’ll find time to sleep/eat – but we’ll see.  Miss all of you!

Brad and I arrived to Greece at 11:00pm.  I had planned on us taking the metro but it turns out the metro was no longer working at the airport, so we quickly changed plans and Brad found us the right bus to get us to our destination.  My “directions” to the hotel pretty much consisted of “it’s around this area.”  So once we were in Omonia Square we began asking people where our hotel was – we then quickly found out the Grecians do not know English.  One guy just snapped his fingers and pointed us straight ahead and off we went down Coke Alley.  Seriously, this street is the scariest street I have ever walked down.  At the end of the street Brad asked another guy where our hotel was and he asked us where we were from.  We said, “Alabama.”  He said, “No way!  Oh man, Forrest Gump!  That’s all I think of!”  Turns out, he’s from New York and was so helpful!  He took us to his hotel and we immediately got directions to our hotel.

As we were walking down the street there was this car parked about twenty feet in front of me.  Well, all of the sudden this police car comes to stop by the car, a police man gets out with a flashlight and gun – I about had a heart attack.  Oh, good news, our hotel was about 50 yards from that incident, SO really safe neighborhood – good thing we saved 20 Euros for booking a cheap hotel, besides, who needs to sleep without hearing gun shots?  (might be exaggerating a little)

The next day Brad and I had our “continental” breakfast, which consisted of stale bread, warm milk, and hard boiled eggs.  We then headed off for Acropolis.  Brad and I both enjoyed Acropolis – I think my favorite part was Dionysus’ Theatre ( it’s the picture with the arches and the stadium) and then I guess the Parthenon – the view was amazing.  We hiked all around Acropolis because the site was pretty big and Brad of course was really excited to do more walking.  I think one Brad’s favorite parts was watching these men trying to sell these dumb balls that look like tomatoes and you when you throw them on the ground they smoosh to the ground and then slowly turn back into a ball – Brad was amazed.

We decided we were pretty hungry and so we walked down the street behind Acropolis which was filled with street cafes and more people selling random stuff.  We attempted to read a couple of the menus but whenever we tried the owner of the store would come up behind us within 15 seconds and say: “Oh, you like to stay??  Look, I have a lamb, is very nice, I have a seafood, seafood a grilled, I have a ga-reek salad, I have a vegetables.”  I wasn’t a big fan of the pressure, so Brad and I went back to the hotel and then found a local Soulvaki place where they had delicious Gyros!  And they were only 1.80 euros!  Brad and I were in heaven.  And Brad was pretty impressed with the novel idea of putting French fries inside the sandwich.

That night we found a great little restaurant near Acropolis and Brad had another Soulvaki and I had a Greek salad with veggie rolls.  It was delicious but oddly that night I got sick – I’ve never really heard of people getting sick from salads, but I guess I got a bad cucumber.

The next day Brad and I woke up bright and early for our 7:45am ferry ride.  Brad and I thought we had been smart buying our tickets early and being prepared.  Well, the Blue Star Ferry company has this great setup where there are literally 20 ticket booths throughout the streets around the port and ONE place where you can pick up your tickets.  So that fun: running around with a suitcase, stopping in every booth and then being pointed to the booth just next to the one we were in.  Time of my life really.  Anyway, we made it on the ferry on time and enjoyed 8 hours of hearing them say the restaurant was open (this happened about every hour), watching Will and Grace, playing Crazy Eights, and enjoying the view of the Greek Islands.

We arrived to Santorini and I was convinced that a cute donkey, possibly named Frank, would be waiting for me, and would carry me up the mountain.  Instead I was greeted by a line of taxis and two buses.  I swallowed my sadness and boarded the bus.

I have to say, I really had no idea where our hotel was.  I just figured Santorini is an Island, therefore small, and therefore every person would know of our hotel.  This of course was not the case, but we did find this really helpful tourist guide place that told us we would need to take a taxi to our hotel because she said, “You are here (center of the map) and your hotel is way over here (opposite side of the island, of course).  The taxi was relatively cheap and our driver was so nice.  He talked about places to see and the culture and gave us recommendations of what food to eat and wine to drink.

Our hotel was really nice, too bad the owner was on speed.  This guy talked so fast and I kid you not, ran everywhere.  We literally jogged to our hotel room.  He then told us that to rent a car would be 60 euros a day, a tour of the island is 40 euros an hour, and that if we are to make it to the sunset, we would need to leave now.

Brad and I obviously did not want to pay that kind of money, so we told him we were just going to explore around the hotel.  The exploration did not last long, mainly because our hotel was in the middle of nowhere.  There was one main street that led to the beach and all the shops were closed and all the buildings looked like shacks.  I was so depressed.  But then Brad offered the most amazing idea of renting a motorcycle or ATV.  I immediately said absolutely not.  We didn’t know the island and I have a great fear of motorcycles.  But Brad pointed out that we were pretty much stuck here unless we wanted to keep getting taxis, so I agreed to at least look at the ATVs.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but an ATV is 15 euro a day!  And it was really safe because I think the fastest we went was 20 mph.  It was perfect!  As soon as we rented it I told Brad that I wanted to make it to the famous sunset at Oia.  And of course Oia is situated on the other side of the island.  We sped across the island for probably an hour; I took a great video of the moment, and we made it just at the sun was touching the ocean.  We were absolutely freezing.  My hands were shaking and I took a million pictures of sunset, but we made it, and that’s what counts.

After the sunset Brad and I went to a restaurant in Fira, the capital of Santorini, and I had a pizza, a glass of wine, and Brad had another gyro.  I had heard the wine was very different in Greece, little did I know that the taste would consist of sweet at first but then as you swallow in turns into a olive/pickle taste – weird/gross.  I had to force the wine down because the Greeks seem very proud of their strange wine.  And little random fact, their grapes are grown without water, so I guess this is the reason for the strange taste.

We drove back through the freezing night wind and I’m pretty sure I used all the hot water Greece had to offer to thaw my body – I don’t think I had feeling in my body for about an hour.

The next day we went to the Red Beach, climbed a small hill there and admired the Santorini coast line.  Then we stopped in Pygros where they had the majority of the famous white buildings that I had envisioned Greece having.  I loved the narrow streets that only could fit one person and the bright blue doors – it was so cute!  And there are churches everywhere!  In fact, there are 350 churches for 12,000 people on Santorini, crazy.

After Pygros, brad and I spent a few hours in Fira buying goodies for everyone, admiring the gorgeous hand blown glass, smelling delicious olive oil, and probably having the best gyro ever at Lucky.  The taziki sauce was to die for!  We then returned our ATV and the hotel owner took us to our port since their wasn’t a taxi driver available.  He gave a me a dvd of Santorini as a gift, but mainly so that I would tell everyone about my experience at his hotel.

We had another great ferry ride and arrived back in Athens at 11:30pm.  We didn’t have an address, so we once again had to ask a hotel, and it turns out that our hotel was near the one we first stayed in.  Back to the scary street we went and here is where we met trouble.

I was walking beside Brad and there was a kiosk in front of us, so took one side and Brad the other.  All of the sudden this man comes up beside me and says something to me that I don’t understand and I quickly run to meet Brad.  Well Brad has another guy who is bothering him.  I tell Brad to ignore him and we start quickly walking away.  Well this guy decides to grab Brad’s shoes out of his backpack and it turns out that Brad’s charger is in the shoe.  So by the time I turn around, Brad has grabbed the man completely around his waist, takes his shoe and we immediately leave.  So I guess it was a mugging, but it was a pretty weak one.

The trip to Greece was amazing and I still wish I was in Santorini.  But I have another great trip to Paris where I will visit with Abby.  This weekend will also mark the time where I have only one more month here – so before you know it, you all will be seeing my smiling face!  Miss all of you and you’ll be hearing from me shortly!

Brad and I spent a great 10 days together.  It started with me picking him up at the airport bright and early and setting off to find his hotel.  After we got settled we headed out for Retiro, my favorite park/place in Madrid.  I got us slightly lost . . . Brad was not very happy, but a 30 minute detour never hurt anyone.   Brad really liked the lake, so we sat on the steps and just watched the people row in the little rental boats.  After Retiro we went to Corte Ingles and bought two pasta salads, some what appeared to be salami, a bag of chips, two cokes, and brought our picnic to the Palace Gardens.  It was a beautiful day and we found a perfectly shaded spot in the grass near the line of statues.  The pasta salads were pretty awful and the salami kind of had a dog food taste quality to it – so the best part of our lunch was the bag of Doritos.

We walked around the palace and then went back to the gardens to rest on a bench.  I got up and walked around the fountain and when I returned I found Brad fast asleep on the bench (please enjoy the photo I captured of this moment).  Since Brad was obviously exhausted, we went back to the hotel and took a nap to get us ready to go out later for tappas.

That night we went to Cañas y Tappas and got three different tappas.  I got mussels, which weren’t that great, and Brad got this great fried cod and grilled squid.  The squid was delicious but it was slightly hard getting over the texture and appearance of it – it was not the usual fried look of calamari that we are all accustomed to.

The next day Brad and I went to Plaza de Mayor.  Brad says that after Retiro that this is his favorite place.  He really enjoyed the background information about the Spanish Inquisition.  We stayed a good while there, just people watching and soaking in the early morning light – a perfect beginning to a day.  After Plaza de Mayor we did some wondering through Puerto del Sol and then eventually headed back to Retiro for a picnic there.

This time we decided to buy a turkey salad sandwich and a crab salad sandwich and it was much better.  We once again sat on the steps in front of the lake and Brad got a kick out of feeding the fish with some of our left over bread.  After lunch we walked into a couple of stores where I attempted to buy a purse for Mom that she had really liked but someone had already bought it.

     After shopping we headed for the Prado where entrance is free after 6pm.  We breezed pretty quickly through the museum because I don’t think Brad was in much of a museum mood – but we did find this statue that looks just like Marc Hansen , so of course I took a picture of it.

That night we went out to celebrate our 5 year anniversary.  We went to this restaurant that is ranked number one for tappas and says that is a true tappas restaurant where you get a “free” tappa when you order a drink.  Well, this turned out to be false and we quickly left there because the food wasn’t that great and was overpriced.  We then headed to the same tappas place Mom, Don and I went to (it’s the one by the Olive restaurant).  On our way I said what I believe is Brad’s favorite quote by me – we were walking by some shops and I said, “See Brad, Madrid is the city of knick knacks.”  Brad looks at the store I’m pointing at and says, “Meg, that’s a painting by Dali.”  Nice.   We found the place pretty easily, meaning that I actually guessed the correct street to turn on and we had a great dinner and it was a perfect ending to our day.

The next day we went to the Sofia Museum and Brad happily observed Picasso and Dali but then was also happy to leave after maybe 30 minutes.  We then went back to Retiro, bought two rounds of ice cream, and spent half the time sitting in the grass and the other half walking around the lake and watching people buy bags of peanuts, children skating, and dogs running loose.

Monday Brad took a train all by himself and met me in Alcala.  I first took him by to meet Arita and Danny, which our meeting lasted a total of 1 minute where Brad said, “Hola.”  He shook Arita and Danny’s hand.  Arita said, “Que tal?”  And Brad said, “Bien.”  And that was it.  I died laughing because today Arita told me that she thought Brad was shy. . . what not knowing a language can do with how people perceive you  is amazing.

After our brief meeting I took Brad to see Plaza de Cervantes, my university, and then this pretty courtyard where we ran into my two good friends here, Grace and Shealy, and Grace’s dad, and Shealy’s friend and sister.  Grace’s dad gave us a great history lesson and then Brad and I left to go look at the house of Cervantes.  After spending time near my university I then took Brad to the park where there is this great running trail behind it.  We walked for what Brad believes is miles, sat by the river, and then went to the soccer fields to watch little kids practice soccer.  There was this one little kid who, as the southerners would say, “Bless his heart,” but this kid just really wasn’t cut out for soccer.  They had this one drill where they were suppose to run around this three cones and then shoot a soccer ball.  Well the kid in front of the “Bless his heart” went and did pretty big circles around the cone, well the bless-his-heart was yelling at him telling him he was running to wide.  So then it’s his turn and he kind of does the jog that is the equivalent of walking and bouncing your shoulders up and down and then, as if exhausted by the moving of shoulders, walks around each cone so close that his feet crush the cone – no extra distance for him.

After the park I went back and got cleaned up and then we met Grace, her parents, Shealy, and her friends for tappas.  The place didn’t have room for us inside so Brad grabbed a couple of tables and made a perfect seating for 8 people.  We had so much fun and just talked about all the different things between Spain and the U.S.

The next day (Tuesday) we headed off for Greece and I will make a new post to make it a bit more organized and detail our time there.

This past weekend Mom, Don and I went to Barcelona.  As with all trips, there has to be some sort of glitch – ours happen to involve our morning flight at 8:15 on Ryanair (the always on time airlines) being delayed by 6 hours.  After a questionable lunch of what appeared to be lasagna but tasted like Chef Boyardee gone bad, a comfortable nap where I “stretched out” on two airport chairs, and some healthy exercise on the movable sidewalks, we finally boarded our flight and arrived to Barcelona.  Well, I know I said one glitch, but one more tiny/minute detail that slipped by me was that Ryanair flies into Girono . . . an hour away, by bus, from Barcelona.  So after an hour bus ride where I stared out the window and observed these interesting trees that looked the wind had combed their leaves upward to give the appearance of an upside-down afro/umbrella. . . if trees had afros, we arrived to our hotel.

Our hotel was really cool – very posh, as Muska would say.  But, and I think Mom and Don will agree, our room was a bit on the small side.  When I say small, if two people were in the bathroom, it was one person too many, but it had a great location and we could literally walk to every one of the sites we wanted to visit.  That night we ate some tappas at Qu Qu and called it an early night.

The next morning we ventured off to the Barcelona Cathedral.  I loved it!  There were these massive pillars throughout the cathedral and where the choir sat there was the same intricate wood carving that I saw in Toledo.  I think my favorite part was probably the courtyard filled with geese and palm trees – very calming and beautiful . . . and funny to watch geese peek their heads over the concrete wall.  I took a short video clip of the inside of the church and the courtyard, so I hope you enjoy.

After the church we walked down a street filled with shops and found the coolest place that had the most beautiful glasses ever!  Also, when Mom and I were walking on the second floor my Mom pointed out a small blue box that had The Little Prince and pictures of all the places he visited.  It took everything in my being not to buy that tiny blue box that would have absolutely no use except to make me smile and gather dust, but I just couldn’t believe I encountered one of my favorite books on a small jewelry box in Barcelona.

We then went to the market where we hovered over live lobster/crabs, watch butchers cut fresh slabs of meet, looked longingly at the displays of candy (Gill, I took a picture just for you), and Mom bought oranges from Valencia and strawberries.  We had a quick Vitamin C break at the hotel and then walked to a building built by Gaudi.

Gaudi, for those who don’t know, was a modernist architect in Barcelona.  All of his buildings are very original and I’m pretty sure you could never see architecture like that anywhere in the world.  I attempted describing his style to Gill:  it’s stone meets soft served ice cream, meets anthill, meets a set of star wars meets arches – if you can somehow envision this, then this is the style of Gaudi.  Lucky for you, I took a lot of pictures, so incase for some reason my description does not make sense, you can refer to the pictures.  Oh, interesting tid bit – a way Gaudi would design buildings is that he would hang the chains that were connected to a piece of wood, making loops that would overlap other chain loops, and hang in upside down over a mirror and the mirror would reflect what the image would look like – very cool.  I also took a picture of this because it is kind of hard to describe.

After Gaudi I was starving, well, starving to death to be more precise, so we immediately found a place near our next destination.  Oh my soul, we had the most delicious pizza: one was sausage with other things I can’t remember, and one had shrimp and mussels – deliciousness.  Oh, I was excited because in one of my classes we learn a lot of vocabulary and often times I find myself thinking: “When on earth will I hear that or use that word?”  But while we were at the restaurant the waitress said, “El agua del grifo está mal.”  Well, wouldn’t you know it, but grifo is one of the words I learned and it means faucet. So she was saying the tap water is bad – which it is, but I was just excited that a random word like faucet came in handy.

After lunch we went to the Sagrada Familia, the famous church in Barcelona that is also designed by Gaudi.  It is also a church under construction, and will be until at least 2041.  The outside was pretty incredible (I also took a quick video of this), although I didn’t care much for the bowls of fruit that were on top of the towers – very strange looking and doesn’t really mesh well with the crucifixion, but that’s just my opinion.  The inside was cool but we couldn’t see that much of it because of the construction, but I guess we can rest easy knowing that our 30 euros is going towards the continuing construction of the church.

That night we ate dinner and I had steak (third one, amazingness), and Mom and Don shared this huge plate of three different kinds of fish, mussels, and these things that look like baby lobster but aren’t lobster. . . but taste eerily similar – maybe langoustine, that sounds right? And we had a great salad because Mom and Don said they were in veggie withdrawal, so please keep that in mind, seeing that they were here for only ten days and I’ve been here for 2 months (Spain is a very meat and potato country).  Oh, and Mom picked out the most awesome desert that was some sort of almond thing (but you can’t see them, so that’s why I was able to like it) and it had a chewy crust on the bottom, creamy in the middle, and then essentially a waffle cone layer on top – to die for.

The next day Don went to Picasso museum and Mom and I went to The Catalan Music Palace of Barcelona.   This was probably my favorite place.  The inside has this incredible ceiling where the center of it is the huge stain glass window that has the appearance of a drop of water from a side view and then underneath has the appearance of the sun – it was incredible.  My favorite part was when they played the organ and it played a famous song by Bach.  As soon as the first note sounded I was in heaven.  The entire music hall was filled with Bach and all you could do was just stare at the ceiling, admiring the stone carvings of horses, muses, and flowers.

After the music hall we met Don and went to the beach.  The weather was perfect!  We ate a delicious lunch of mussels, calamari, and salad right on the beach.  And Mom got her first picture by the Mediterranean, and I stuck my toe in the freezing cold water.  Oh, on the beach there were these kids who stuck what would look like a yoga ball in the sand and they would run towards it, jump on it, and then do these cool flips – great entertainment.

That night Mom picked out our restaurant and told us we would have to walk through some sketchy streets.  Little did we know that this consisted of a man stripping in the middle of the street and, it gets better, stripping to Rickroll singing “Never Gonna Give You Up.”  Nice.

The entire trip was amazing and I couldn’t have asked for anything more.  It was sad saying goodbye to Mom and Don but I will be seeing them sooner than I think. 

I forgot to mention in my last post that for my medias class we have to go the radio station and talk on air for thirty minutes.  I went last week and was terrified.  Lucky for me, we talked about light issues such as racial relations in Alabama and the death penalty.  And we somehow got on the subject of what I want to be when I grow up and I told him a writer/teacher and he asked for my last name in which, when I gave it to him he said: Nope, never heard of you.  But then when I explained that I wasn’t one yet he said he would save my name so that one day he can tell people that Megan Garver (or, as he would say it:  Mayhan Gahber) was on my radio station.  I took a few pictures of the experience.

I am really excited about this weekend because Brad arrives tomorrow and we will be in Madrid this weekend and then it is off to Greece for five days!  Hope everyone is doing great and I’ll be writing soon!  Miss all of you!

video of Sagrada:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/megangarver/3348478669/in/photostream/

video of courtyard in Barcelona Cathedral

http://www.flickr.com/photos/megangarver/3348449227/

video of inside Barcelona Cathedral

http://www.flickr.com/photos/megangarver/3348423235/

So I have heard a few grmubles that I have not written anything in 13 days and that this is unacceptable.  I will not name names (starts with a D and ends in erek) but I do agree, and so here we go. 

This past week we had mid terms and I studied non-stop.  I was mainly worried about my history class because it is imperative to take notes in a history class, and seeing that half time I didn’t understand what my professor was saying, this was kind of an issue.  My other classes were not going to be too bad, except for my poetry class, and that exam turned out to be pretty difficult.  Overall, I think I did ok, but then again, I haven’t received any of my grades – fingers are crossed.

Last week, as a study break, I went to the park to go for a run.  After about thirty minutes, my friend Lisa found me and asked me if I wanted to play soccer with her, another girl, and this Columbian guy they met.  So of course I did and I must say that I am waaaay out of shape, but it felt great touching a soccer ball again.  The Columbian guy was amazing and really nice. 

Another day, Lisa and I met Grace and Shealy at the park, played volleyball, well, when I say play, we bounced it around and every time it came near me it was like ultimate frisbie all over again – it just hit me and bounced in the complete opposite direction I wanted – but it was fun.  We then walked in the woods by this stream and it was kind of like being in two worlds at the same time.  To the right of us was this huge pasture that looked like a grass farm and then to the right was like a baby grand canyon, very dersert like, that met the small river beside us.  I was just happy to be in nature, seeing that I am constantly surrounded by concrete and I believe this is not really good for the soul.

I finished my massive book that I’ve been reading, Pillars of the Earth, and it is amazing.  So if anyone has free time to read 1000 pages, read this because the characters will become part of your life – a must read in my opinion.

Oh, I talked to Muska for an hour and guess what?  I gave her a list of top ten books that I just adore, and at the top is Catcher in the Rye, my favorite of favorites.  Well, she has started reading it and she loves it!  I told my señora about it and now she is going out and getting so that we can all discuss it together!  But I did warn about all the curse words – hopefully that doesn’t bother her too much.

This past Friday I went to go pick up Mom and Don at the airport.  Danny and I were both up early making breakfast but I decided not to say anything since, in general, Danny does not talk to me unless I ask him a question.  Well, I sat down, started eating a piece of toast, and all the sudden words are coming out of Danny’s mouth.  I almost want to look around to see if he is really talking to me.  I was so excited and he actually initiated a conversation!

After Mom and Don trecked through the metro system and dropped their stuff at the hotel, we went for a walk through the Retiro Park, my favorite place in Madrid.  And as it so happens, while we were exploring we came across this exhibit that is here for one more month in the Glass Palace. It had these huge sculpture made of light bulbs, glass, and metal – looks like giant snowflakes that, if shrunken down, would look great on a Christmas tree.

Mom and Don did great.  We walked forever, got lunch at this tappas place and had some interesting sandwhiches.  There was one that looked like it had a nice thick layer of goat cheese.  I was all over that and immediately grabbed it, took a huge bite annnnd the strongest blue cheese taste filled my mouth.  I immediately handed it to my mom.

After walking around Madrid, we went back to the hotel, took a nice siesta and went out for tappas.  We had pizza, calamari, and Mom and Don ate an eggplant thing.  The wine was great, my favorite is definitely the Rioja.

The next day we did the palace tour and the Reña Sofia museum.  I loved the palace!  The rooms were beautiful and Mom talked me in to listening to an audio tour instead of just wondering through rooms, and it was well worth it.  The museum on the other hand probably wasn’t my favorite.  It had a lot of Picasso, which was fine, but then the rooms transitioned to Dali, and Dali is just too weird for me.  So I did a pretty fast walk through the rooms and took a breather on a bench while Don took in all the modern art.

That night we went to eat at a nice restaurant and I had my first taste of red meat since I have been here.  That’s right, I had steak.  Oh my goodness, I cannot tell you the amount of deliciousness that was in my mouth.  And Abby, I’m not quite sure that even you would be able to add salt because on top was almost a solid layer of rock salt.  It was heaven and as Mom would say, I was a happy Megan.

Dessert was interesting because we had to get the waitress to describe the items.  I was actaully semi-impressed with myself because I understood exactly what she was saying – a nice/new feeling.  Overall, dinner was a-mazing.

The next morning Mom and I went to the famous Rastro that Madrid has every Sunday morning.  I was so excited because I envisioned buying all these cool authentic Spanish items to bring back for family, friends, and of course, me.  Well, it was pretty much a bunch of junk.  Anything that you would think: Well where would I use that?  or Where would I put that? those were the items we encountered.  In fact, the only thing I bought was a scarf. . . made in India - nice.

That afternoon we went to Alcala to have lunch with my family.  I have to say, I was pretty nervous because I thought lunch would consist of delicious food accompanied by painfully awkward silence.  However, it turned out to be wonderful!  Mom and Don brought a delicious Spanish Rioja and pastries, Arita supplied her famous paella, these red peppers stuffed with crab, egg, and something else, covered in a red sauce, and a famous Alcala desert, Costrada, that consisted of layers of puffy pastry, buttery cream, whip cream, and toasted almonds on top.

Coversation turned out to be great.  I translated, Don used a little bit of Italian, and as it turns out, Danny knows some because his father does, so Danny was talking away and looked so happy.  Mom tried some Spanish and French, and I of course went back and forth between English and Spanish. So who knew that all it would take is four languages for a table of five people to understand each other.

I quickly showed Mom and Don around Alcala because the whether has turned cold again and then sent them on their way.  The weekend was obviously amazing.

I will be writing much sooner because this Thrusday we are going to Barcelona!! So be on the look out – sorry for those who were actually looking for a new post, it’s just been a boring two weeks of studying and writing papers.  I miss all of you, and for those who are in Alabama, I cannot believe I missed all the snow!  All of you better have amazing pictures of snowmen!  Love and miss all of you!

I have slightly been putting off writing this post because 1) I did not travel this past weekend 2) I’m not quite sure if this post will hold any interest to any of you

This past week I had a goal of experiencing more experiences of Alcala and the people within Alcala.  I finally got assigned a conversation partner, which just in case someone is hazy about what this is, it’s where you meet a local every week and half the time you speak in English and the other half in Spanish.  All of my girl friends here have been assigned girl partners, I, of course, get assigned the twin brother – nice.

I was terrified meeting him but he turned out to be really nice and not at all creepy.  He took me to this amazing Indian tea place – although – it was very “close,” so I smoothly inserted that I have boyfriend when he told me he played tennis and asked me if I played.  I said yes, with my mom and boyfriend – just in case.  We talked about politics, well, somewhat.  I was mainly just curious how Spain can have a president and a king and queen and if he could go into furhter detail of how this system worked.  Turns out the king and queen are just the “face” of Spain and pretty much do nothing.

We also talked a lot about sports – he is very active.  I then brought up the topic of books, well, he reads comics, so that was a dead end conversation.  Overall, it was fun, just interesting – but I think it will be a good way for me to improve my spanish.

My next goal was to meet the local choir and sing with them.  I ventured out to find them – got lost - but luckily time has no meaning here, and got there five minutes “early.”  This was enough time for me to awkwardly stand there, everyone stare at me, and to make small talk with a woman there who I’m pretty sure just felt sorry for me.

She showed me where the Sopranos sat and then the director walked in.  I asked her if I should introduce myself, and she said, “Yes! Right now is perfect.”  I trembled my way up there and told him my name and that I was from the U.S. and would like to sing with them, if possible.  He was very nice, handed me a 20 page song (yea, the novel version of a song) and told me that I would have a singing quiz on tuesday for him to determine if I could sing.

So yesterday was tuesday and I was freaking out.  I had no idea what the singing quiz would entail and I was even more nervous about it being in front of the whole class.  So I debated that day whether to go or not, but I finally decided that I’m only in Spain once, this would be a great way to meet locals, and singing always makes me happy – so I went for it.

I arrived early and there was a small group outside the building, waiting for the director.  I heard a girl speaking who sounded like an american and I got excited.  Before I could ask her, the director appeared and pointed to the two of us and told him to follow him for the signing quiz.  On the way there I asked her where she’s from, and she goes to Tufts University in Boston!

We walked in the room and there were two directors – one that I had met the first night, and the other I didn’t know.  The director I knew sat at the piano, played a scale, and told us to sing together.  After a few steps up the scale, he pointed to me and told me to sing by myself.  About half way he stopped and asked if I had had professional lessons.  I said no, and he said that my voice was beautiful and that he loved it (obviously I was on cloud nine)

The other director seemed really excited and told me to keep singing, so the singing “quiz” was nothing more than a simple scale.

After choir Lisa, the american, asked me what I was doing.  I told her homework and dinner and she asked whether I would like to meet her friends and go out for tappas.  I immediately said yes and was excited about meeting people outside the Auburn cacoon.

I met 12 people from Tufts and they were the most welcoming, friendly people I have ever met.  They made me feel completely comfortable and we had a great time sitting, drinking, eating, and telling funny stories.  I left slightly early because I was worried that Arrita didn’t really know where I was, so I told them: “It was great meeting yall.  Oh, as soon as I uttered the word, I knew what was going to come next.

They all laughed and said to say it again.  Then they told me to say wicked and that this was their favorite phrase.  So all because I decided to give choir one more day, I met 12 new people and I now get to sing while I’m here – a perfect day.

Other than that, I have pretty much been doing school work (which I have a ton) and attempting to practice my spanish.  Some people have asked me if I have seen improvements.  Basically, the first two months here have taught me that I can’t be self conscious or afraid of sounding stupid, because this is pretty much inevitable.  So I am talking more, but who knows if it makes sense.  But in terms of seeing this huge improvement, I’m not quite sure if it’s there - I mean, there’s obvisouly some, but not to the point where I’m, “psh, I got this.”  Not quite sure if I’ll ever get there.

Oh, and I have been feeling my first pangs of homesickness.  So I tried to remedy this with my first coke a few days ago and I have been having peanut butter and honey sandwhiches every morning with Gill’s famous homemade honey – it’s delicious Gill.

That’s it.  This weekend will be another boring weekend of me studying for my mid terms next week, oh joy. 

I miss you alll very very much and I hope to hear from some you!