Barcelona

December 4th-8th (Friday-Tuesday) was a long weekend for us because Tuesday was a Spanish festivo and they gave us Monday off too. :) I went to Barcelona, where I visited my best friend from home, Angelica, who was studying there, and then to Prague with her.

On Thursday, December 3rd, I went straight to the airport after my class to catch the flight to Barcelona with Rachel. We took the bus to the city center in Plaza Cataluna where Angelica met us!! She came with us to our hostel and hung out with us for the afternoon. Rachel's twin sister, Sarah, and friends who were studying Ireland also spent the weekend in Barcelona and we stayed in the same hostel room! After getting settled in, we all walked around with Angelica to see some churches. There were a lot of cute shops and restaurants all around the area. Later, Angelica, Becca, Mary, and I got churros con chocolate. I love you Madrid, but I liked the churros here better! Maybe because they put whipped cream and sugar on top of the chocolate... Our waiter had a dice tattoo on his neck and Angelica and I asked him if he's ever been to Vegas. He said no but this older lady working at the front said she went. Across the restaurant, I asked "¿Te gusta?" And she said "¡Me encanta!" hahaha

For dinner, I did a tapas tour with Rachel and all the girls (Sarah, Mary, Becca, Kaitlin, and Aly) through our hostel. Side note: our hostel was Kabul Backpacker's Inn, and it was amazing! It had a huge gathering area on the reception floor with tables and chairs, a pool table, computers, and great music playing. They provided free breakfast from 8-10am, which was pretty good! Magdalenas (muffins), ham, cheese, rolls, coffee, tea.. and for each night you stay you get 20 minutes of free Internet. They also had organized nights out and other group activities you could pay for, like the tapas dinner we did. It was 15 Euro for tapas and sangria. I love this Spanish tradition and wished I had been doing it more in Madrid, so it was cool that we did it in Barcelona. They brought out lots of different things including bread with tomatoes on top, patatas bravas, calamari, chorizo, mushrooms, peppers, mussels and even sardines. We had our own section at the bottom of the restaurant with the group from the hostel. When we were done our host (who's from Portugal) called out the different countries represented in the group one-by-one and those people had to stand up and sing a song from their country. When the Americans (the majority of us) went, we sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." After dinner, we went back to the hostel and took a nap from 11pm-12:30am before going out! (that's how you do it in España! haha). We woke up and got ready to go out to a club called Catwalk with a big group of people from our hostel. We talked to some other Americans and all split cabs to get to the club, which was actually pretty close. My friends Delia and Daniella were also in Barcelona that weekend and they met up with us there. Catwalk was pretty empty at 2 am, but it eventually filled up (again, that's nightlife in España for you!). The music was good but I wasn't superimpressed with the actual club itself. I still had a great time though! It was crazy- I ran into this guy from Philadelphia that Michelle & I met at a bar the night before in Madrid! Small world.

Friday, December 4th: Although we went to bed at about 5am the night before, we still managed to get up at 9ish. Free breakfast is very powerful with college students! No worries.. I went to sleep for a bit after breakfast, got up and took a freezing cold shower. (That was the only downside of the hostel). I walked around a little by myself before meeting up with Angelica in Plaza Cataluna. I kind of got lost, but I stumbled upon the Christmas market! It was different from the one in Paris (it didn't really sell any food), but really cool. They sell separate pieces for nativity sets. There were also ornaments, art, and jewlery. Barcelona overall seemed more ecclectic and artsy than Madrid. Definitely a lot different. I walked down another street and stumbled into the coolest H&M I've ever been in! There were so many cute things for really cheap. (Europe H&Ms have way better stuff than H&Ms in the US). I really wanted to go on a shopping spree, but I wouldn't have been able to fit much in my duffle bag. There were 2 or 3 H&Ms on the same street, as well as 2 Zaras! Angelica took me to see some sights including Placa de San Felipe Neri, Parc de la Ciutadella (beautiful!), and Arc de Triumf. For lunch we got pizza at this good place she goes to often where it's only 4E for 2 slices and a drink! (=$6 but cheap for Europe). Later that evening I went with Angelica and her friends Amanda, Courtney, and Hayley to see the water fountain light show and out to dinner. On the way to the fountains, Angelica got her butt grabbed! She was wearing a dress with no tights or coat. The man and other people we passed noticed it was strange because it was cold outside. He said "¿No hace frio?" And then did it. It kind of bothered her and us.. it's weird how there were 5 of us girls together and a group of men & women with him. And they laughed at it! Usually I think of a guy by himself doing that to a girl who is by herself. I know that kind of thing can happen everywhere, but that, along with the sketchiness of Las Ramblas at night made me feel unsafe in Barcelona at night. Nevertheless, the Magic Fountains of Montjuic show was really pretty! I heard that the fountains at the Bellagio were modeled after it, but they are pretty different. The one in Barcelona is one big circle fountain with all the water condensed together in the middle. At the Bellagio, there are different little spouts of water that form different lines and patterns. After the fountain show we went to dinner at this restaurant called Divinis in the Las Ramblas area. It was very nice with a cool atmosphere, good, and not too expensive. Angelica, her friend Hayley, and I shared a bottle of chardonnay, I got bistec con patatas fritas (steak and french fries), and Hayley and I got café con leche. It was a really good meal. I paid like 13E (=$20.. not bad for all that!). Then Hayley, Angelica and I went to an absinthe bar called Marsella which is apparently the oldest bar in Barcelona. Also, part of the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona was filmed there. We met up with Angelica's intercambio, Abel, and his friend. The bar was a different experience, but fun and interesting. We all had a lot of laughs speaking Spanish and English together. I love practicing my Spanish, so it was cool to do that and hang out with locals.
Saturday, December 5th: Delia and Daniella met up with Angelica and I to go sightseeing with us. We saw the Roman columns, walked to the beach, and went up to the Tibidabo. The water of the Mediterranean Sea was so blue and the weather was sunny and pretty warm there! The beach was beautiful and it made me look forward to going back to San Diego. We took the funicular (this diagonal cable car incline ride) up to Tibidabo Mountain, which has a church and amusement park at the top! I was actually scared for my life during this ride. It was so steep and you could see the view of the city below us as we went higher. We went inside the church up there, called the Templo Expiatorio de España. It was so pretty and colorful, and different from any of the churches I had seen in Europe. There were mosaics, carvings of the stations of the cross all the way around the church, and statues of Mary and the 12 apostles around the altar. There were 2 sections on each side of the altar with statues of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Joseph, and Mary, with colorful mosaic scenes of ships, rainbows, bridges, etc behind them. It was different and more modern than how statues usually are set up. The Monstrance had colorful designs on it with a mural of the Last Supper on the wall behind it. The whole church was pretty small, but very modern, artistic, colorful, and intricate. The view from the top of Tibidabo was beautiful! I thought the view of Rome from the top of St. Peter's Basilica was the most beautiful view I had ever seen, but this view was right up there! The view of the water definitely adds to it. After getting safely down from the mountain (thanks to some prayers), we went to Angelica's barrio (neighborhood) and tried her favorite chocolate croissants at a bakery near her Señora’s house. I went to the house with her and met her Señora, who was really sweet! Angelica got ready to go out, then we went back to the las Ramblas area. We decided to just get McDonald's for dinner because at this point we were starving, and I still had to go back to my hostel so I could get ready. Also, eating at McDonald's together has become kind of a tradition with us, so why not go international and carry on the tradition in Europe? Later at night we went to the Dow Jones bar, and Delia & Daniella met up with us. The stock market concept with fluctuating drink prices was cool, but it wasn't exciting as I thought it would be. Angelica and I were about to leave the bar when a group of American guys started talking to us. One was from Pittsburgh and one was from New York and looked like Jay-Z (I thought). It was really random but it was amusing.

Overall I thought Barcelona was really pretty and cool. I wished I had more time, money, and room in my suitcase. It was a lot different from Madrid... definitely more tourist-y and more of a vacation spot. I honestly didn't feel super safe at night there.. maybe because of the incident with Angelica and just the fact that I wasn't used to the area. I didn't explain before, but "Las Ramblas" is this main street that has lots of shopping, restaurants, and activity. I had to walk down it to get to my hostel. It is kind of odd and random. Walking down the center of the street from my hostel to Plaza Catalunya, you enconuter gift shops, cool flower shops, the most bizarre/scary street performers, and animal/pet stands! It was exciting during the day, but kind of scary at night. Obviously I am partial to it, but I decided that I like Madrid better. :)

The next day Angelica and I flew from Barcelona to Prague. The flight out of Barcelona was awesome because you could see the whole Meditteranean coast! I will continue with the rest of our adventures in the next post..

¡Mi cumple!

I turned 21 here in Madrid 2 days ago! It was actually a very bittersweet birthday. Birthdays are awesome and everything, and it's cool that now I will be 21 when I go back home to Vegas and can do everything I could never do growing up, but I am really sad to be leaving Madrid. I also had two finals on my birthday :/ But, after the International Communications final, our professor guapisimo took us to breakfast at Vips, and bid us goodbye with dos besos!!! :) (We took a picture of the whole class last week, which is to the right). Also, it was snowing in the morning!!!! I haven't seen snow in a long time. It snowed last year in Las Vegas around December 18th-ish, but I missed it because I was in San Diego taking finals. Most of the USD students were really excited about the snow because we don't get it often.

I celebrated my birthday early with my Spanish family on December 2nd. We went out to La Llama to have yummy tapas and sangria for dinner. It was so early because I wanted Michelle (my roommate from Marist) to be there for it too, and she left Madrid on December 8th. I was in Barcelona and Prague from December 3rd-8th. Therefore, the 2nd it was! After La Llama, we went to get ice cream at Ben & Jerry's in Sol. Then I went out to a few bars with Michelle and her friends since it was our last night together! :(

On my actual birthday on the 14th, I didn't go out or anything since it's finals week and I had to finish a paper. We had a regular dinner at home, and then they surprised me with an ice cream cake & candles! It was very nice. Finally being 21 will sink in more when I am home... in 4 days.

Bonjour, Paris!

I was a little skeptical about going to France, with what they say about how the French don't really like Americans, and how expensive everything supposedly is, but was really excited to travel with my good friends Brittany and Delia over Thanksgiving break. We stayed four nights in Hostel Montmartre Clignancourt, which was cool. It was near a McDonald's and a kebob place, and right next door to a small bakery called Boulanger Patissier that we went to everyday for breakfast (best croissants of my life!) The three of us had a private room with our own sink, but the whole floor shared one toilet and one shower! Surprisingly, it was never a problem. I actually didn't even see anyone else use the bathroom. We were on the 5th floor (room 507, I believe), which entailed climbing the old spiral staircase up five stories everytime we entered or exited the hostel. Our flight was Wednesday, November 25th. It was originally at around 9:30am, but RyanAir decided to move it up to hours to 7:30am (I guess they can just do that... but we can't complain because the roundtrip flight was $30). Therefore, we had to be at the Madrid airport at around 6am. Brittany and I slept over at Delia's house the night before so we could all go to the airport together early in the morning. We were going to split a cab, but ended up getting on the metro right when it opened at 6 and saved ourselves about 24 Euro! But to get to my point, we didn't sleep much the night before.. maybe 3 hours or so. The latter is my attempt to justify the 3-hour nap we took when we checked into our hostel. We were exhausted after the flight, the one-hour bus ride from the metro to the city center, and trying to find our hostel. When we were trying to navigate the metro I was thinking 'what are we doing here? none of us know any French. this is kind of scary, etc,' but luckily Brittany and Delia led us around the city all weekend and it was fine! (Have I metioned that I am terrible with directions? If someone knows what they're doing, I just follow). Anyways, so we woke up when it was dark outside and realized we fell asleep for 3 hours! It was a rainy day anyways...? We still experienced Paris though. We went to see the Eifel Tower and the light show at night, which was very cool, and walked along the river. We also got crepes and espresso at a cute cafe nearby called Campanella (chocolate and chantilly-whipped cream).

We had more of a full Paris day on Thursday, November 26th (Thanksgiving!). At 11am we met in the Latin Quarter for a Sandeman's New Europe Walking tour. This company gives 3 hour walking tours in many major European cities that are free! You just tip the tour guide at the end based on how well you think they did. We walked to and learned interesting information about the major sights, including, Notre Dame, the Louvre, garden, gift from the Egyptians, Petit and Gran Palace, Celancau/Charles DeGaulle, and the Institute of the French Language. Fun fact from our tour guide: the workers at the Institute of the French Language spent 3 months deciding whether the new word ipod should be masculine or feminine. They made it masculine. Our tour ended at Avenue des Champs-Elysees, this main street that has great shopping and the Arc de Triump at the end of it. There were also beautiful lights and a CHRISTMAS MARKET on part of this street on both sides. There were a ton of booths with all kinds of gifts, Christmas ornaments & decorations, food, drinks, and sweets. This was probably my favorite part of our time in Paris! We walked down the street, peaked our heads into the huge Louis Vuitton store, and got to the Arc de Triump where we took a ton of pictures. We spent a lot of time looking throughout the booths at the Christmas market, specifically the food. I ate a weird combination of things and we all probably ate too much, but hey, it was our Thanksgiving dinner!! Some of what I consumed includes chocolate covered strawberries (amazing), a chocolate macaroon, a ham & cheese crepe, hot chocolate, and a chocolate beignet. (I know-chocolate overload.) I think all of that random food put me in a food coma (I probably would have had the same effect had I eaten turkey..) and I accidentally fell asleep at around 8:30pm! I can't tell you the last time that has happened.

On Friday, November 27th, we took a day trip to Versailles. We went all throughout the palace and ate our packed lunches outside in the beautiful gardens! We bought lunch meat and cheese to make sandwiches on a fresh baguette from the bakery. We got some other food at the grocery store and saved a lot of money on this meal. It was really cold outside, but a fun experience. After lunch we walked far back into the gardens to see Marie Antoinette's palace. It was really cold and I was complaining. I'm not used to much cold and up until this point I had been fine! Maybe it was just because we were outside for a long period of time, but that was the coldest I've been throughout all my time in Europe. We stopped into Starbucks to get some hot chocolate before getting on the train to go back to Paris. We hurried to change/get ready to go out, and go to the Louvre. The Louvre was so awesome inside! I would have liked to spend sooo much more time there, but we were only in there for under an hour because we did the pub crawl with the New Europe group, which started at 9pm. We saw some pretty cool sculptures, paintings, and the Mona Lisa though, and spent some time outside by the fountain (beautiful night atmosphere!) We had a good time on the pub crawl and met a lot of people from all over- Canada, Australia, United States... Brittany, Delia, and I were going to take a cab back to the hostel when we were ready to go home, but decided to start walking in the general direction to get a cheaper cab fare. To my surprise, we ended up walking the whole way back. It was far.. we were somewhere near the Arc de Triump, and our hostel was near the Sacre Coeur. I, again, was complaining because I was cold and tired, but ended up saving ourselves a lot of money again. And, we technically got to see many parts of the city we wouldn't have seen, many of which had cool Christmas lights up!

Saturday, November 28th we had to do everything we didn't do yet. We went to see the Eifel Tower during the day, the Invalides, and inside the Notre Dame. This day was really rainy and gloomy, and we were thankful that it wasn't like that up until this point. We were lucky to have two really nice days. On the way to the Notre Dame, we encountered this really cool drum line/ group of drummers? on one of the bridges! They were very talented and kept going despite the rain. I think they were a group for a charity in Africa. In the evening we went to see the Sacre Coeur (this church on top of a hill), which was near our hostel. I am soo glad we did this at the last minute and didn't leave it out because it was very beautiful! I have seen a lot of churches, cathedrals, etc. throughout my time here in Europe, but this was different from anything I have seen. It was more circular, and had different little chapels with pews/chairs and candles all around. It was very peaceful. Another notable thing about this church was the huge painting of Jesus on the wall and ceiling above the altar. Because it's on a hill, you can see a great view of Paris from the Sacre Coeur. It was another one of my favorite things in Paris. After this we ate a good meal with wine in a restaurant and reminisced about our trip. Overall Paris was beautiful and I had a great time!! I actually enjoyed the food there more than the food I ate in Italy! I would like to go back some day.

Thanksgiving in Paris

The cool thing about studying in Madrid is that we get Spanish 'festivos' off, as well as American holidays that aren't even celebrated here, like Thanksgiving! We had a 5-day weekend this Thanksgiving weekend, and I decided to travel to Paris with my friends Delia and Brittany. I will write a separate blog about the whole trip, but I wanted to 'give thanks' through this one. I am especially thankful this year for having the opportunity to visit all of these cool places, and spend this semester abroad in the wonderful city of Madrid. This has been an incredible experience for so many reasons and I have loved every minute of it. I love my host family, my roommates, my friends (new and old), and staff at the school here. I am very thankful for my family at home as well. I want to thank them and extended family because they have afforded me this opportunity. My parents have always supported me and trusted me in this decision to come here, which I know is hard for some parents to do. I really appreciate their love and support. Also, a large portion of the money I had to spend on travelling and other expenses came from the savings account I have built up from birthday & Christmas gifts from the time I was a little girl. So, extended family, you have contributed to my experience as well. :) Thank you so much! This was my first Thanksgiving away from home, but my experiences throughout my time away have opened up my eyes and have really made me realize how truly blessed and thankful I am.

Ali visits Madrid

Ali and I were reunited again; this time in my study abroad location! We had a really fun weekend and were going going going day and night. I showed her the major sights during the day and she obviously had to experience the Madrid nightlife conmigo.

Here is what we packed in:

Friday, November 20th:

café con leche, Palacio Real, Cien Montaditos, riding the boats & walking around at Retiro Park, the Prado during the free evening hours, dinner with my host family :), and Kapital (this awesome 7-story nightclub).

Saturday, November 21st:

Starbucks in Sol, Cathedral next to Palacio Real, Plaza Mayor, Mercado de San Miguel, Gran Via, boot shopping, quick dinner at Vitamini on Gran Via, Dubliner's Irish pub in Sol with Cris & her friends where we met up with/ran into lots of USD kids.

Sunday, November 22nd:

earlier start for shopping at El Rastro, café con leche, Templo de Debod and surrounding park, Plaza de España.

Naturally, we were able to compare some of our different ways of life and experiences in our different abroad cities (Oxford vs. Madrid). For example, when we got breakfast the first morning, Ali asked if she could just get a piece of toast in one of the cafes/bars. I simply answered "No, they don't do that here." (Breakfast is not big here.. you usually just get coffee with a pastry or croissant.. some places have eggs and sandwiches but it's not typical). She also wasn't used to the crazy hours of Madrid nightlife (nightclub gets going at 2:30am/3 and most people stay out until the metro opens back up at 6am, bars close at about 3). Overall she was a champ and I think everything worked out pretty much perfectly! I'm glad we each had the opportunity to visit each other in Europe and get a little taste of each other's experience. Can't wait to be roomies again in the spring!

getting to know my way around

I went out with Laura today to get lunch and get to know my way walking from Tirso de Molina, to Sol, to Gran Via, and back. Ali is coming to visit this weekend and I wanted to make sure I know the area where her hostel is. I don't want to leave Madrid and regret that I never really knew how to get around walking. I am terrible with directions, but Madrid seems like a really small city when you walk from one place to another and see how it all comes together. The metro system is easy, but obviously you are underground and don't get the whole concept of streets, intersections, landmarks, etc. I had a nice afternoon with Laura and feel a lot more confident now! Also, we ate dessert at this cool Haagan Dazs that's in a tall theatre building. Tonight we're going out to dinner at the Hard Rock Madrid with Erinn's dad who is in town.

best Madrid weekend ever! (November 11-15)

• Wednesday night: Orange Cafe with Delia, Brittany and others
  
• Thursday night: Dubliner's and Joy with roomie Michelle, Devin, and others


• Friday: school visit to El Congreso building, Starbucks and El Museo Thyssen with Michelle Toomey!
  
• Friday night: Dubliner's and El Torero bar hopping with Michelle T and Laura


• Saturday: Principe Pio, Cien Montaditos, Templo de Debod, teleferico (cable cars), and Starbucks with Devin, Michelle, and Tyler


• Sunday: homework allll day while drinking coffee and listening to John Legend with Cris. :)

Roma, Italia

The roomates and I + Delia took a trip to Rome November 5th-9th. It was incredible.

We flew in on Thursday morning, and then had 4 full days of sightseeing.

I was nervous about flying RyanAir, because they are really strict about the size of your carry-on and other things, but it worked out fine. Instead of using my duffel bag, I packed everything into my huge backpack (and was very proud of myself)! I only wore one pair of shoes the entire weekend- my black Ugg-imitation boots that I bought at Sears for $25 right before I left! Side note: Being from Las Vegas, I've never in my life worn/owned boots. And have maybe worn a scarf a few times for practical purposes (not a fashion statement). But I am quickly getting into both because they are practical here and part of the cool European fashion! I'm still on a hunt for new cute boots here, but I was so thankful I picked those ones up at Sears. They came in handy on this trip since it rained a lot. So Thursday... we got in to the city around noonish, and our hostel was really close to where the bus from the airport dropped us off. I booked it only like a week prior for us, and we got a 5-person private for a good deal. It was actually really cool- more like a "Bed and Breakfast." It was called Termini B&B. The lady who owns it spoke very little English.. but we were able to understand each other. Something I noticed about Italians during this trip was that they just keep speaking Italian at you even if you clearly don't understand what they're saying. Our room was like a two-story studio room. When you walk in the door there are two beds, and then a few stairs on a windy staircase that takes you up to the other three beds and bathroom. We felt really safe because it was only the 5 of us in that room, and there were also two other doors you had to use a key to enter, before coming to our individual room. And every morning she brought us breakfast- coffee or tea, and a pastry. We decided to have our breakfast at 8am every morning (which I was also proud of) to get an early start on sightseeing. So after checking in, we just went exploring. We walked by the Santa Maria Maggiore building, the Colosseum, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, etc. Then we decided to try our first gelato in Italy at this place called Dartigiano del Gelato. They had an amazing presentation of gelato and cones! Obviously the food in Italy was very important to me, so I will give you details and include some pictures. My first combination of Italian gelato flavors was vanilla and chocolate. It was pretty good... but there will be better later on in the trip.

After gelato we went through some souvenir shops (the first few of probably at least 20 that we went to throughout the weekend. There are a billion touristy/souvenir shops in Rome!! But they're not all exactly the same or anything...). We walked back toward the area of our hostel and passed lots of shopping stores/boutiques. (It was really easy to walk everywhere in Rome.. and it seemed like they had good shopping! I just stuck to souvenir shopping since I had to fit everything back in that single backpack, and wanted to spend my money on food moreso than other things.) We ate dinner at a cute restaurant near our hostel. We all got bruschetta to start, I had amazing lasagna, and the girls all got spaghetti bolognese. The first real Italian food experience was a success. We all went to bed pretty early that night so we could be up and ready by 8am to go tour the Vatican!

Friday, November 6th, we left early like we wanted to and had a very intense metro ride. There were sooo many people trying to get on at our stop; it was crazy. In Rome they have guards that stand between the people and the metro to avoid fighting/stampeding. When we got to the Vatican area, we bought a tour with Centurion Tours, which turned out to be amazing. We went from Bernini's Square to the Picture Gallery, to the Vatican Museums, to the Sistine Chapel, and then St. Peter's Basilica. The tour guide was very nice and even though it turned into a big group of about 30 people, it was fine because we used these high-tech ear phones and the tour guide had a connected mike. He gave us a lot of interesting background about the significance of certain paintings and sculptures in the Vatican Museum. The first big room we walked into was unbelievable. One side of the wall had tapestries hanging in a class case. There was a huge one of the Last Supper scene. The wall across from it held 3 paintings by Raphael; the middle one was the Transfiguration. Between these two huge works, I started tearing up. Seeing all of the amazing artwork depicting Jesus' life story, Biblical references, saints, etc. that I've heard about all my life was overwhelming. I also thought about how blessed I was to be able to see all of this. I couldn't believe how grand everything was and I walked quietly in awe through the next through rooms of the museum. Another piece that really touched me was the copy of "The Pity" sculpture by MichaelAngelo on the way out of a section of the museum. After our tour ended we were free to go into the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica for as long as we wanted. The Sistine Chapel was incredible as well! No pictures are allowed inside, and there was a certain peaceful quietness among the people who were inside observing it. I could have sat there for a half an hour just looking at all the different scenes. St. Peter's Basilica was also incredible!! I spent a lot of time looking at each little section/chapel inside. It is huge. Our tour guide told us about how we can pay to go to the top of the dome and see how huge it really is. It was built in a way to make the person inside not feel so inferior, so you can only get a true idea if you go to the top and look down. We decided to do that on Saturday. We had lunch at a restaurant nearby the Vatican area which was pretty good and cheap. I got four-cheese pizza and wine. Then we went into a lot more shops and did more walking. Later at night we saw the famous Trevi Fountain (so pretty!) and the Spanish Steps. We got gelato at a place nearby. I got strawberry and banana. It was pretty good, but the customer service was not. They kept getting mad that we were asking to sample to different flavors (I guess they don't really do that there?). Delia and I were going to go out later that night, but we couldn't really find a cool bar/club. (I guess no one can really beat Madrid on nightlife). We decided to just go have dinner and wine together.

Saturday, November 7th: I didn't think anything would really top how amazing the previous day was for me, but it got even better. We paid the 7 Euro to get an elevator halfway up to the top of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica and walk the rest of the way, and it was the best 7 Euro I have ever spent. It was great to be inside the Basilica at the top like that beacuse it was true; you really do get to perceive how big it really is from up there. We were right next to the mosaics on top that have a pattern of an angels, keys, dolls, etc. After leaving that area, we still had a ways to climb to get to the top outside. The view from up here was the most beautiful view I have seen in my life. I am not exaggerating. You could see the whole city of Rome, and walk all around the outside of the dome if you wanted to, to get every view. We were above the main Vatican square!

I met these two American girls up there who are studying abroad in Rome. They gave us some recommendations for food and gelato near the Pantheon that we followed; and I am so thankful! We had lunch at Miscellanea, this cheap place that is known for hosting international students. I got a ham and mozerella panini (sandwich), Rachel and I shared this really good cheesy-bread appetizer thing, and they gave us all a free glass of "sexy wine" (strawberry wine). On the way to the Pantheon, we saw the Castle Saint Angelo, the Bridge of Angels, and the Plaza Navona. I didn't even know about these sites before, but the bridge ended up being one of my favorite places in all of Rome! I loved the atmosphere of this whole area in general.

After lunch, we went inside the Pantheon, and then got the most delicious gelato at "Giolitti," another place the girls recommended. It only cost like 2.20 Euro for a cone, and you get to choose 3 different flavors! So my third gelato mixture consisted of chocolate, white chocolate, and 'crema.' mmmm! Later we went to the Spanish Steps/Trevi fountain area at night again, and went back to the hostel, had pizza at a cafeteria nearby, and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Sunday, November 8th was a great day as well. Erinn, Delia, and I went to St. Peter's Basilica for 10am mass. We went in and were looking for available seats when a guard/usher told us to come sit in the front row pew! I couldn't believe it! I felt so blessed and this was also a very moving experience for me. Mass was really cool; it was a traditional Latin mass, but they provided guides with the English, Spanish, and Italian words so you can follow along. The procession was so long because there had to have been about 50 priests, 15 cardinals, and 7 altar servers!! There was also a tradional choir off to the left. It was great. After Mass, we waited for the Pope, who does a blessing every Sunday at noon, but he didn't come out. Instead they played an old service of his on the big screens out in Vatican Square. I think a lot of people were disappointed. I noticed how there were so many people waiting; some were holding signs and flags. I was a little disappointed, but happy that we got to go to Mass at the Vatican.

After this we met up with Rachel and Lexi for lunch & gelato in the same area near the Pantheon. We ate at a place the girls recommended called "Maccheroni." Lexi and I were brave and tried the pasta alla carbanara, which we were not crazy about. The ravioli Delia and Erinn got was way better. We got gelato at Giolitti again, and this time I got chocolate, white chocolate, and stracciatella. After this, we were all pretty worn out. We walked back to the hostel and relaxed. We got food at the same little cafeteria for dinner (I got a ham & cheese calzone), and gelato again! I think I got chocolate and mint chocolate chip. The best gelato hands down was Giolitti, though. Delia and I went to do some last minute shopping in the metro station and then we had to go to bed early because on Monday, November 9th, we had to get up at 3:30 in the morning to catch a bus to take to the airport, to make our 6:25am flight. Everything went very smoothly and we got home to Madrid on time!

In conclusion, this trip to Rome was one of the best trips I have ever had. There is so much to see there and so much history. I thought the city (and many of the Italian guards) was beautiful. The food overall (other than the gelato) was honestly nothing to write home about, but we thought that maybe this was because we are on a college-student budget. I had an amazing experience and am so thankful. I want to take my family back someday!! :)

I took over 300 pictures that you can find here.

Portugal

My USD roommates and I took a short trip to Lisboa, Portugal over Halloween weekend.

The first day, Friday, October 30th, was a success. Everything worked out fine with transportation and our hotel room at the Holiday Inn was great! After relaxing in the hotel for a little bit and enjoying watching American TV, we went to the Belem area to see the famous Monastery (Monasteiro Dos Jeronimos) and the cross (Padrao Dos Descobrimentos). We ate pitas at this really good restaurant nearby called Pao Pao Queijo, and got delicious custard-filled pastries at the famous Pasteis de Belem (both food suggestions came from the book "Let's Go Spain & Portugal" and advice from friends who travelled there before us). We had a very friendly waiter named Robert at Pasteis de Belem, who spoke English among many other languages. We sat in there for a while just talking to him and it was really interesting to hear his story.

On Saturday, October 31st, we took a day trip to the beach town called Caiscais. It was so pretty, and the weather was nice and warm. We only paid a few Euro for the 45-minute train ride into the town. We stayed there for a few hours, walking around, eating lunch, and taking pictures at the beach.

Then we took a bus to the town called Sintra in attempt to see the Palacio de Pena, but it didn't exactly work out. When we got to Sintra at about 5:30ish after a long and windy bus ride, we paid for a cab up to the top of the mountain where the palace is. The cab ride was really intense because the roads were narrow and windy. When we finally got up to the palace, the guard told us that it just closed and we couldn't come in so we might as well take the cab back down! So that whole attempt to see the palace costed us a little money, but more importantly, time. We were all a little bummed, but still positive and glad that we got to spend time at Caiscais that day.

Later that night, Lexi, Rachel, and I went to Bairro Alto to walk around and get something to eat for dinner. The following story is what we retell most about the trip because it is so interesting and somewhat funny: We check out the menus at many of the different restaurants in the area and most of them seem a little more pricey than we are willing to pay. We see a more reasonable one that isn't packed inside, so we go in. The waitress, a middle-aged woman who speaks perfect English, greets us and brings us bread. We check out the menu and Rachel and I decide to split two appetizers. We are not super hungry and don't want to spend a lot of money, and Lexi's not feeling well, so she's just going to munch on the bread. We place our order to the waitress and she looks shocked & insulted. She says "only appetizers? No! You can't just order appetizers; the cook won't let you. You can get an entree and a few appetizers, like a steak, but not just appetizers." She says she will go ask the cooks what they think. Rachel and I talk about what to do. We don't want to pay that much for a steak, but we feel like we can't just leave now. The waitress comes back and says that we can't only order appetizers. I try to use the argument that it doesn't state that on the menu anywhere, and that we are not that hungry. Very rudely, she responds with (and I quote): "This is a restaurant, it isn't snacks!" So basically we lose the argument and say that we will just leave. Then she says "it's 1.40 for the bread." We leave 2 on the table and get the hell out.

What a humiliating, enlightening, and funny experience! Compare this to eating at many restaurants in the United States. Usually you can order whatever you want and expect to receive good, if at least decent, customer service. I already knew that customer service in Europe isn't a top priority, but I thought it was odd that they wouldn't at least take what business we were willing to give them. If you go to a restaurant, say Applebee's for example, you can go in and order 2 cokes and sit there for a while, you can go in and just get appetizers or dessert, or all of the above, and they will most likely appreciate your business. I guess maybe you just can't do that there (or in Europe in general?), or that they want to make more money. I thought it was strange that they would rather refuse to serve us appetizers and lose out on around 15 Euro that they would have earned. We felt kind of embarrassed because we were basically kicked out of a restaurant! We didn't know if it was like that in all the restaurants there, but we didn't want that to happen again so we went back to the hotel shortly afterwards.

Sunday, November 1st was more successful. We spent a lot of time exploring the Castella de Jorge- this really cool castle! It was only 2.50 E with our student discount, so that made us happy! We saw beautiful views of Lisboa from there and had a great time. After a quick lunch at McDonald's (in which a little boy came up to our table and ate one of Rachel's fries...?), we went back to the hotel to get our stuff and go to the airport.

This weekend was really relaxing and it was fun to experience a new country with my roommates. Here are the pictures from the trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/NicoleDeFelice.usdtv/PortugalTrip#

otro finde divertido en España

Friday, Oct 24, 2009 was the last of our class excursions. We took a day trip to El Escorial and el Valle de Los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen). El Escorial has a huge Monastery that was built in the 16th century by Philip the 2nd. It had a monastery for monks, a large church, a school, libarary, king and queen's apartments, and the Panteon Real (royal cemetery for the bodies of the deceased Spanish monarchs), and it now serves as a monument with other museums.

El Valle de los Caídos, which means “Valley of the Fallen,”

is very significant to the recent political history of Spain. It is a constant reminder of the Spanish Civil War that ended in 1939. General Francisco Franco wanted to construct this monument as a tribute to those who died in battle. About one million people died in the war, and this underground church contains the remains of about 40,000 of them. It took 18 years to complete, between 1940 and 1958. The huge cross on top of the mountain symbolizes those who died for the salvation of Spain. Inside there is an inscription that says “Por Dios y Por España: 1936-1939. R.I.P.”

Franco was inaugurated officially in 1959, and el Valle de los Caídos also became one of the symbols of his dictatorship. Because of Franco’s dictatorship and negative image, this is a controversial monument.

Oct 25, 2009 was a lovely Saturday in Madrid. All of the roommates and I went to see the inside of Palacio Real (the Royal Palace). On the way we saw this incredible group of street performers in Sol. There were 3 violins, 2 other string instruments and a keyboard playing classical music. This was the most impressive group of street performers I have seen so far, and all of my roommates and I gave them money (which we had never done)! The inside of the palace was gorgeous! There was everything from old silver, china, and thrones to armor and other furniture. The old interior decoration is amazing. The ceilings are covered with paintings and gold; there are chandeliers, colorful patterned wallpaper/tapestries on the wall, and much more extravagent decor.
We had lunch together with two other friends at Cien Mondaditos- this really fun cheap sandwich place that we love!

Afterwards I went with my friends Devin, Jen, and Michelle to ride a boat at Parque Retiro! It was only a little over 4 Euro for all four of us to ride one boat for an hour!

The next day, Oct 26, I went to El Rostro in the morning and then to Mass at the Cathedral next to Palacio Real. I didn’t like it as much because it was hard to follow (since I didn’t know the responses in Spanish) and there was no music.


Overall, it was another fun weekend trying to take in more of what Madrid has to offer!

October 16th-18th weekend: back in Madrid

After I returned from London, I was relieved and happy when I realized that I had two weekends in a row in Madrid before another 2 back to back weekends of travelling. Travelling is awesome, but it can be exhausting! I love being in Madrid on the weekends too, and feel like I need to do more and see more before time runs out.

On Friday, October 16th, I went to Club Joy for the third time. As a club itself, it's not my favorite, but I always meet interesting people there. I met a Spanish guy who studies history in Portugal. He who tried to lie/joke around with me and say he was from Maine in the United States. But probably because I tried to lie and say I was from here. I asked him why he would say "Maine" out of all the states and he said because no one would know because it seems like no one knows much about it/not many people live there. That was funny.

We also met 2 American guys from the New England area. They were visiting their friend here who dates a Spanish girl. They have been dating for 3 years travelling back and forth to see each other! She has lived in England and the United States for years at a time too, so her English is really good. That night the 'dancers' at the club were wearing crazy costumes from the 16th century or something. Weird. But there was this awesome violinist that played a piece that led into the melody of a popular Pitbull song. It was really cool and I feel like you don't see that in a club everyday..

That Saturday I didn't really do much during the day, but I spent a lot of time talking to Cris. I need to see more things in Madrid, but I think that even if I don’t go out of the house sometimes, I’m still making the most of my experience inside the house if I practice Spanish. (One day after school that week I had talked to Concha for an hour and a half! We had café con leche together and I just stayed in the kitchen while she was preparing food).

That night I went to see La Cruda Realidad (The Ugly Truth) in Spanish with Devin. It’s the same movie but dubbed over with Spanish dialogue. Devin and I planned on going because she told me how she had seen The Hangover here in Spanish and how it’s a great way to learn more, especially if you’ve already seen the movie in English. So we went and had a little “date.” We shared popcorn, which made me happy because I often go to the movies with friends who can “take or leave” popcorn, but I personally believe it’s an essential part of the fun of the movies. She does too. She also thinks dessert is fun, so we went to a little restaurant after the movie and shared two desserts- a piece of chocolate cake and an apple pie/cake thing. We didn’t want to buy drinks at the movies so we asked for tap water. The worker said they don’t have tap water behind the counter, but he could give us cups and we can get tap water in the bathroom. So, holding the popcorn, we took our paper Coke cups up to the restroom and filled them up in the sink. I felt really ghetto, but the tap water is seriously great here and it saved us money! The whole image/thought of what we were doing was hilarious though.
Devin and I have been speaking mostly in Spanish when we see each other at school, so we thought it would be good to do so when we go out. We started off doing this, but then we had so much to talk about when we were eating dessert that we just stayed at English. It’s a lot easier to express yourself (and faster when the waiters are rushing you out since the restaurant is closing) in English. We got kicked out and walked down to Gran Villa to keep talking. As we walked through Sol we encountered tons of people going out, others going home, and prostitutes soliciting business. We would have stayed out longer, but noticed that it was 1:30 and we wanted to catch the Metro.

On Sunday, Oct 18th, although I had two midterms the next day to study for, I went to the Prado with Lexi and Rachel.

Before we left, I was chatting online with my friend, Moses, and when we were signing off, he bid me farewell by saying: “have the best day of your life!” That really struck me. If you think about it, if you aim to have "the best day of your life" every day, then even just an ordinary day can turn into something uplifting and memorable, and each day will be better than the one before.