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.