Thursday, August 30, 2012
I Saw the President!!
That's right! After dealing with the crazy commotion all day, I finally decided that I was just going to hangout and see if anyone happened to have an extra ticket. Turns out they someone did! The nicest lady actually came up to me and said "You're not looking for a ticket, are you?". Why yes, that is exactly what I was looking for! So I went in, found some friends, and enjoined listing to our president. Mighty fine way to spend my Tuesday afternoon I'd say :)
Monday, August 27, 2012
Something Called College.
Today marked the first day of my second week of College. I remember when people would tell me that the transition to Middle School was hard, or to High School even... But nothing can compare with the change to College. It is completely different. Not only do you have to adopt a new town, new roommates, a new school, but you also have to balance just plain taking care of yourself. (which sometimes can be harder than all that other stuff put together!). Well here I am a week later, still living and breathing (just a little sick!), and I even had my first theatre audition today!!
By the way, I have almost completely become addicted to Peace Tea. Just one of the many habits I will probably pick up from college... I hope my habits aren't all food related though, I'm trying to avoid that "Freshman 15".
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
15 Reasons to love España :)
1. All four of the skyscrapers that make up the complete Madrid Skyline.
2. My Spanish Family (y Los primos!).
3. Waking up at 12:00, eating at 10:00pm, and sleeping at 2:00am.
4. Tortilla Patata.
5. Shopping at el mercadillo.
6. Mis amigos españoles.
7. Watching the sun set at 10pm.
8. Downtown Madrid.
9. Murcia, La Manga, y Cobo de Palos.
10. The Spanish sun.
11. The blue waters of the Mediterranean.
12. Trying to piece together conversations off of words you know in Spanish.
13. Spanglish.
14. Living with less possessions.
15. Leading a simple, relaxing, enjoyable life :)
2. My Spanish Family (y Los primos!).
3. Waking up at 12:00, eating at 10:00pm, and sleeping at 2:00am.
4. Tortilla Patata.
5. Shopping at el mercadillo.
6. Mis amigos españoles.
7. Watching the sun set at 10pm.
8. Downtown Madrid.
9. Murcia, La Manga, y Cobo de Palos.
10. The Spanish sun.
11. The blue waters of the Mediterranean.
12. Trying to piece together conversations off of words you know in Spanish.
13. Spanglish.
14. Living with less possessions.
15. Leading a simple, relaxing, enjoyable life :)
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Paris
We got to Paris later in the night and it was so sketch trying to find our hotel which was hiding behind a tree... Anyway we found our hotel only to find out that we had to stay in different rooms for a night. No big deal though, we just went to bed anyway.
So the next day we woke up and had breakfast at our hotel then went to Notre Dame which had a line forming out of the entrance, but it was free and it went quickly so in we went. There was a mass going on (because it was Sunday) but we could still sightsee around them as long as we were really quiet and respectful. And though the line for the inside was short, the line for the tower was a bit longer. By the time we had made it down from the too the once short line to get in at all was wrapped around the building which really made us worry about how the lines where going to look for our next stop, the Eiffel tower. We took a break for lunch and while we were eating by the Seine minding our own business it started to downpour. My shoes were filled, my sandwich soaked, and it was now freezing. So before we went to the Eiffel tower it was decide to make a stop back at the hotel to dry off and collect rain gear. Haha.
Our suspicions about the lines at the eiffel tower were about right, though we did wait in the walking up line instead of the four hour elevator line, it still took us a good 4 hours to get through the whole thing. The rest of the afternoon was spent collecting information for the next day, both of the places however were closed... So we went to dinner. We decided upon this little crepe place that seemed so promising, but ended up being not good at all. The service was terrible, the food was okay, and they didn't speak a lick of English so it made communicating what we wanted very hard. The only positive thing that came out of our little two hour crepe dinner was the fact that when we finished it was dark and we were near the eiffel tower so we got to see it all lit up :) That was easily the highlight of my day!!
The next day we woke up early to try to bypass the lines for the louvre, but it didn't make much of a difference. They let so many people into the museum it is crazy. A claustrophobic person would have a fit in there. Anyway, our plan of action was to circle the places we wanted to see, find them, and leave as fast as possible. And that's exactly what we did. It was a good system.( I still don't see why the Mona lisa is so special ). To keep with our museum theme we went to the Hotel de Invalids afterwards. There we saw the armory museum (largest in the world!), a world wars museum, and Napoleon's tomb. All of which, was, of course, amazing. After that we grabbed some lunch at a place with really good French fries where I happily got to eat them with mayonnaise without being criticized!! :P We moved along to the Arch de Triumph and window shopping down Champseleaees where the Abercrombie was a mansion, you had to wait in a line to get in, and two extremely good looking models greeted you!!
As if that wasn't enough for one day we took a small nap and went to Sacre Coure around dusk and went shopping/hung out with the millions of other tourists watching the sun set from the steps of the church. That night however things sorta took a turn for the worse.
Taylor got really sick. The poor thing was throwing up what little dinner we had (we had chocolate crepes for dinner) all night, and the next day. So Tori, Reyes, and I had to venture to Versailles all by our lonesome. If we had thought Paris was crowded before... It was nothing compared to the masses of people trying to get out of Paris and to that Palace. Lordy. I have never waited in lines with that amount of people in my life. That day we spent 4 hours in line (first the line to buy the ticket, then the line to get in) followed by an hour walking through this beautiful palace with little to no walking room. Haha. It was an adventure... But completely worth it. To me anyway. The rooms and grounds of this place are the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Ever.
By the time we had gotten through everything an we're heading back to home base we had left Taylor for a full day of like 8 hours. We were hoping he had used it for some good R&R but as it turned out he was still really sick :( First, we took care of his "dinner" of 7up and crackers, then the three of us headed off again.
This time we ventured to the Latin quarter of Paris for dinner, which according to my book was supposed to have a lot of good restaurants, which it totally did!! We sat down at a traditional French place that had three courses for 10€. So worth it. We finally found our French dinner that didn't make us sick or wait for two hours! On our way home we stopped to watch some street dancers that were really funny (especially when they scared Reyes!! ) and we stole one last look at the Eiffel tower by standing on a rail you probably definitely weren't supposed to be standing on. Oh well....
So that was Paris!
The final day was spent going our different ways (T&T going to one airport and us a different one) and going "home". Where Reyes and I faced little to no problems and Tori and Taylor, as far as I know, went to Frankfurt their second day and are trying to get home from there. I bet they are already on a plane now, while Reyes and I enjoyed our first dinner at home in a long time :)
So the next day we woke up and had breakfast at our hotel then went to Notre Dame which had a line forming out of the entrance, but it was free and it went quickly so in we went. There was a mass going on (because it was Sunday) but we could still sightsee around them as long as we were really quiet and respectful. And though the line for the inside was short, the line for the tower was a bit longer. By the time we had made it down from the too the once short line to get in at all was wrapped around the building which really made us worry about how the lines where going to look for our next stop, the Eiffel tower. We took a break for lunch and while we were eating by the Seine minding our own business it started to downpour. My shoes were filled, my sandwich soaked, and it was now freezing. So before we went to the Eiffel tower it was decide to make a stop back at the hotel to dry off and collect rain gear. Haha.
Our suspicions about the lines at the eiffel tower were about right, though we did wait in the walking up line instead of the four hour elevator line, it still took us a good 4 hours to get through the whole thing. The rest of the afternoon was spent collecting information for the next day, both of the places however were closed... So we went to dinner. We decided upon this little crepe place that seemed so promising, but ended up being not good at all. The service was terrible, the food was okay, and they didn't speak a lick of English so it made communicating what we wanted very hard. The only positive thing that came out of our little two hour crepe dinner was the fact that when we finished it was dark and we were near the eiffel tower so we got to see it all lit up :) That was easily the highlight of my day!!
The next day we woke up early to try to bypass the lines for the louvre, but it didn't make much of a difference. They let so many people into the museum it is crazy. A claustrophobic person would have a fit in there. Anyway, our plan of action was to circle the places we wanted to see, find them, and leave as fast as possible. And that's exactly what we did. It was a good system.( I still don't see why the Mona lisa is so special ). To keep with our museum theme we went to the Hotel de Invalids afterwards. There we saw the armory museum (largest in the world!), a world wars museum, and Napoleon's tomb. All of which, was, of course, amazing. After that we grabbed some lunch at a place with really good French fries where I happily got to eat them with mayonnaise without being criticized!! :P We moved along to the Arch de Triumph and window shopping down Champseleaees where the Abercrombie was a mansion, you had to wait in a line to get in, and two extremely good looking models greeted you!!
As if that wasn't enough for one day we took a small nap and went to Sacre Coure around dusk and went shopping/hung out with the millions of other tourists watching the sun set from the steps of the church. That night however things sorta took a turn for the worse.
Taylor got really sick. The poor thing was throwing up what little dinner we had (we had chocolate crepes for dinner) all night, and the next day. So Tori, Reyes, and I had to venture to Versailles all by our lonesome. If we had thought Paris was crowded before... It was nothing compared to the masses of people trying to get out of Paris and to that Palace. Lordy. I have never waited in lines with that amount of people in my life. That day we spent 4 hours in line (first the line to buy the ticket, then the line to get in) followed by an hour walking through this beautiful palace with little to no walking room. Haha. It was an adventure... But completely worth it. To me anyway. The rooms and grounds of this place are the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Ever.
By the time we had gotten through everything an we're heading back to home base we had left Taylor for a full day of like 8 hours. We were hoping he had used it for some good R&R but as it turned out he was still really sick :( First, we took care of his "dinner" of 7up and crackers, then the three of us headed off again.
This time we ventured to the Latin quarter of Paris for dinner, which according to my book was supposed to have a lot of good restaurants, which it totally did!! We sat down at a traditional French place that had three courses for 10€. So worth it. We finally found our French dinner that didn't make us sick or wait for two hours! On our way home we stopped to watch some street dancers that were really funny (especially when they scared Reyes!! ) and we stole one last look at the Eiffel tower by standing on a rail you probably definitely weren't supposed to be standing on. Oh well....
So that was Paris!
The final day was spent going our different ways (T&T going to one airport and us a different one) and going "home". Where Reyes and I faced little to no problems and Tori and Taylor, as far as I know, went to Frankfurt their second day and are trying to get home from there. I bet they are already on a plane now, while Reyes and I enjoyed our first dinner at home in a long time :)
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Pisa and Floence!
We slept on the train ride there. All four hours. That's all you can do for a 6:10 train... When we finally got to Pisa we went straight to the tower, took cool pictures, relaxed around a bit, and hopped on a train again. We were probably there for just under an hour and a half.
Florence is a different story. This city was huge!! There was no way we were gonna see everything, or was there?! We kinda hit the ground running and went straight to all the big places. Not before buying a map from this very nice man who knew a lot about the city and gave us a lunch coupon for 10% off. Yay. We saw The Florence Duomo, the bridge that they used to only sell gold on, A David replica, and Galileo's thinking spot or something like that. For dinner we stopped buy a grocery store and got snack ish things and went to catch our train!! Which was delayed, but still got us to Milan at 11:15. It was a full, crazy, exciting day, and I'm so glad we got to see two other places :) They were wonderful additions to our trip. Tomorrow we are off for another early morning to Switzerland!
Florence is a different story. This city was huge!! There was no way we were gonna see everything, or was there?! We kinda hit the ground running and went straight to all the big places. Not before buying a map from this very nice man who knew a lot about the city and gave us a lunch coupon for 10% off. Yay. We saw The Florence Duomo, the bridge that they used to only sell gold on, A David replica, and Galileo's thinking spot or something like that. For dinner we stopped buy a grocery store and got snack ish things and went to catch our train!! Which was delayed, but still got us to Milan at 11:15. It was a full, crazy, exciting day, and I'm so glad we got to see two other places :) They were wonderful additions to our trip. Tomorrow we are off for another early morning to Switzerland!
Milan
Shortly after arriving in Milan and getting a good look at the city, we decided we were going to "knock it out" in a day. This way we could go on a day trip to somewhere else nearby. Lucky for us, everything is nearby!! We had originally thought Pisa for the day. I have always wanted to see the leaning tower and it looks closest on the map (which is a lie by the way, it is faster by train to go to rome). Reyes, however, told us that Pisa is pretty and it does have the tower, but it is really boring. So! As a solution we added Florence into that day trip, so if we were to go there we would see both cities. The other option was to go to Rome. After an extensive pro/con list we decided to go with Pisa and Florence!! The rest of our days in Milan went like this: fist day, Milan. We saw the Duomo which was really pretty, but really strict. They wouldn't let me go inside with my shorts (which were not short!) but whatever t was pretty from the outside. Then we spent a good chunk of time exploring the Castillo's many museums. After that we grabbed paninis and went "shopping" (but really we just got very lost). I did manage to get a really cute new dress though! :) So several hours later we had stopped in at home base to pick up our tickets to try to go get our money back/make reservations, successfully made reservations, unsuccessfully received our $116, been eaten alive by mosquitoes(so. many.mosquitoes.), and rested for like an hour to escape the heat. That night we went to the canals (more mosquitoes) for dinner and went straight to bed only to wake up at 5:00 for our train to Pisa!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Venice
The first day of Venice we did what so many books told us to do, get lost. Haha. All we were trying to do was find our Hostel. But we found it eventually. It was about 8:30 in the morning and they let us check in! It was great. Our room ends up being quite a long walk from our original hostel. In fact it wasn't like a hostel at all, it was an apartment they had bought probably for overflow people like us!! This place however was sooo nice. You share it with one other group (ours were from australia) and you have a kitchen and living room and everything.
Most of our time was spent exploring the city. We bought a travel pass so we could go around on the water metro things, which are so unique and a great way to see the city from the canals btw. So we visited Saint Marks and all the other important looking churches, rode boats, fought the heat, fought the crowds, snuck some naps in there, made our own dinners in our kitchen and there you have it, Venice in two days!!
The second day we went to Malano though which is another island right next to Venice where they are famous for there glass blowing. Which was also, of course, cool.
The final day of Venice we were forced out of our house because of a 10:30 check out time that no one told us about, but we got "forced" out at 12:30 instead haha. When we got that knock on our door though we werent packed or anything and were kinda planning on leaving our bags there so it put us in a bit of a pickle. We ended up having to store our bags for €5 at the train station.
The rest of our last day in Venice was spent going to the market feasting on some fruit and, again, getting lost until we found a little pizza place for lunch and headed back to the train station. Now we are on our way to Milano!!
Most of our time was spent exploring the city. We bought a travel pass so we could go around on the water metro things, which are so unique and a great way to see the city from the canals btw. So we visited Saint Marks and all the other important looking churches, rode boats, fought the heat, fought the crowds, snuck some naps in there, made our own dinners in our kitchen and there you have it, Venice in two days!!
The second day we went to Malano though which is another island right next to Venice where they are famous for there glass blowing. Which was also, of course, cool.
The final day of Venice we were forced out of our house because of a 10:30 check out time that no one told us about, but we got "forced" out at 12:30 instead haha. When we got that knock on our door though we werent packed or anything and were kinda planning on leaving our bags there so it put us in a bit of a pickle. We ended up having to store our bags for €5 at the train station.
The rest of our last day in Venice was spent going to the market feasting on some fruit and, again, getting lost until we found a little pizza place for lunch and headed back to the train station. Now we are on our way to Milano!!
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