concluding post to come soon!
here, enjoy this video of an adorable kitten.
and baby otters
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Fotos
One week left. I'm not sure what I want to say to conclude this blog yet so this is a photo post of my favorite memories/pictures, not based on quality of photo or anything like that, but just the ones I happen to personally like. Some are new, some have been on the blog before. Some are stolen pictures, just like my camera as of late April, from Amanda or Jessica. May I suggest you play a fun game trying to guess where each picture is from? They aren't in order.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Senderísmo
So, it's been a while. After I got back from Copenhagen, I took my grammar exams and passed each of them! That weekend, I went hiking outside of Madrid with Amanda, Jessica, and Travis. We took the train for an hour, then arrived in a little town. We had to walk all the way through the town to get to the park, and then the trail was this old Roman road. Unfortunately for the Romans and for us, the road lead directly up the steep mountain. As I possess little to no leg muscles, it was a difficult climb for me, but the beautiful scenery made up for it. When we got to the top of the mountain, there were still patches of snow! Crazy!
The program took us on our last trip together also. This one was just a day trip, not an overnight or anything. They took us up north a bit, to a few cities so small that no one's host parents had heard of them. We saw Roman ruins, so obviously I was really excited. The Romans were really smart, and took advantage of the landscape to build the houses in this area, because there were a lot of rocky cliff type things, so the Romans just carved out of the rock and built mud structures coming out. On top of one cliff, we saw the floorplan and foundation for what is said to be the biggest Roman house in Spain, and it was pretty big, probably the size of the ground floor of my house in Clinton. All of it reminded me of the Southwest and pueblos and stuff. There was wild thyme growing everywhere, and the sun was heating it up and we were walking all over it so the whole place smelled delicious. We got to walk through an aquaduct that had been carved through rock, like a tunnel. It was pretty scary because at points there was literally no light and everyone was blind. And we ate a delicious lunch, and went to the largest fortress in Europe that is like a mile long or something. The landscape was so beautiful, a patchwork of different colored fields as far as you could see. I was glad to go, especially because it's really nice to have the whole program together! It seems to never really happen anymore, and there are people I really like but just don't see all that often. Also, I'm going to miss living in a place where Roman ruins are so common. Europe is awesome for that.
The Mansion:
House?
Fortress
Besides that, my life has been pretty scholastic. I had my poetry presentation last week, on Tuesday. I wrote out everything that I was going to say, like a script, and just read from my paper. We, the Americans in my class, all decided that it would be okay for us to do that, instead of standing up there and winging it like some of the overachieving Spanish kids. My presentation was a little rough, I was really nervous and had some problems pronouncing the words I was reading. Especially since my poet was all crazy into alliteration! Here is an example:
¡Tengo tantas tonterías! …
tentempiés, tímpanos, témpanos,
tengo tinta, teterillas,
tengo pompanos y púrpuras
Admittedly pretty cool, but hard to read when you are a nervous American.
Currently on my plate is my art history paper. I changed my work to Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein because I wasn't finding any information on the Miró I wanted to do originally. I'm slowly trudging through researching and writing. I think tomorrow I'm going to the Reina Sofia library to see if there are any books on it.
I'm trying to balance having a lot of work with enjoying my last weeks here. Thursday night some kids from the Paris program came to visit, and we hung out in their hotel room for a while and then went out to a discoteca. I didn't end up getting home until 5:30 in the morning! Probably only the second time that I've done that my whole semester, but it's so normal for the Spanish kids to do it. I don't understand how they can do that every weekend! Then, the day after Jessica and I went exploring in the middle of the city. We walked all around La Latina, Sol, and Tirso de Molina area. Jessica had randomly run into this guy that is friends with her boyfriend at Bard on the metro the day before, so we met up with him and showed him around. We had chocolate y churros, and then went to the Retiro and rented a paddle boat! It was really fun and really cheap, only 4 euros for all of us. Then we walked down to the Reina Sofia, and parted ways with him. By this point, Jessica and I had been walking around for 6 hours and decided it would be a good idea to go home for dinner. He was really nice, and i love doing the touristy things that we never get to do otherwise.
Today, I finally met my host dad's son. I had met his daughter before, but both of them came over because it was his birthday yesterday/today? No one actually told me specifically that it was his birthday, but I figured it out. He got the speakers that I have for a present, so we both thought that was pretty cool. His daughter brought over their dog, but Luisa FREAKED out because she is scared of dogs, even though this dog was a tiny little thing. So the daughter had to drive it back home haha. And so here I am.. my art history paper is so strange. It's just different categories that we have to answer, not one coherent paper. We have to number and letter each section, and they don't flow very well. Ugh. Well..
The program took us on our last trip together also. This one was just a day trip, not an overnight or anything. They took us up north a bit, to a few cities so small that no one's host parents had heard of them. We saw Roman ruins, so obviously I was really excited. The Romans were really smart, and took advantage of the landscape to build the houses in this area, because there were a lot of rocky cliff type things, so the Romans just carved out of the rock and built mud structures coming out. On top of one cliff, we saw the floorplan and foundation for what is said to be the biggest Roman house in Spain, and it was pretty big, probably the size of the ground floor of my house in Clinton. All of it reminded me of the Southwest and pueblos and stuff. There was wild thyme growing everywhere, and the sun was heating it up and we were walking all over it so the whole place smelled delicious. We got to walk through an aquaduct that had been carved through rock, like a tunnel. It was pretty scary because at points there was literally no light and everyone was blind. And we ate a delicious lunch, and went to the largest fortress in Europe that is like a mile long or something. The landscape was so beautiful, a patchwork of different colored fields as far as you could see. I was glad to go, especially because it's really nice to have the whole program together! It seems to never really happen anymore, and there are people I really like but just don't see all that often. Also, I'm going to miss living in a place where Roman ruins are so common. Europe is awesome for that.
The Mansion:
House?
Fortress
Besides that, my life has been pretty scholastic. I had my poetry presentation last week, on Tuesday. I wrote out everything that I was going to say, like a script, and just read from my paper. We, the Americans in my class, all decided that it would be okay for us to do that, instead of standing up there and winging it like some of the overachieving Spanish kids. My presentation was a little rough, I was really nervous and had some problems pronouncing the words I was reading. Especially since my poet was all crazy into alliteration! Here is an example:
¡Tengo tantas tonterías! …
tentempiés, tímpanos, témpanos,
tengo tinta, teterillas,
tengo pompanos y púrpuras
Admittedly pretty cool, but hard to read when you are a nervous American.
Currently on my plate is my art history paper. I changed my work to Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein because I wasn't finding any information on the Miró I wanted to do originally. I'm slowly trudging through researching and writing. I think tomorrow I'm going to the Reina Sofia library to see if there are any books on it.
I'm trying to balance having a lot of work with enjoying my last weeks here. Thursday night some kids from the Paris program came to visit, and we hung out in their hotel room for a while and then went out to a discoteca. I didn't end up getting home until 5:30 in the morning! Probably only the second time that I've done that my whole semester, but it's so normal for the Spanish kids to do it. I don't understand how they can do that every weekend! Then, the day after Jessica and I went exploring in the middle of the city. We walked all around La Latina, Sol, and Tirso de Molina area. Jessica had randomly run into this guy that is friends with her boyfriend at Bard on the metro the day before, so we met up with him and showed him around. We had chocolate y churros, and then went to the Retiro and rented a paddle boat! It was really fun and really cheap, only 4 euros for all of us. Then we walked down to the Reina Sofia, and parted ways with him. By this point, Jessica and I had been walking around for 6 hours and decided it would be a good idea to go home for dinner. He was really nice, and i love doing the touristy things that we never get to do otherwise.
Today, I finally met my host dad's son. I had met his daughter before, but both of them came over because it was his birthday yesterday/today? No one actually told me specifically that it was his birthday, but I figured it out. He got the speakers that I have for a present, so we both thought that was pretty cool. His daughter brought over their dog, but Luisa FREAKED out because she is scared of dogs, even though this dog was a tiny little thing. So the daughter had to drive it back home haha. And so here I am.. my art history paper is so strange. It's just different categories that we have to answer, not one coherent paper. We have to number and letter each section, and they don't flow very well. Ugh. Well..
Friday, May 1, 2009
Ambicioso
so, thank you to everyone that wished me a happy birthday! it was indeed happy. unfortunately to those who did not know, my whole purse was stolen last thursday night, so that SUCKED but the next day i flew off to copenhagen with my intact passport and some euros i had laying around my room and had a blast celebrating my birthday. i went with my always traveling partner amanda and we stayed with one of her friends from skidmore. he lives in an apartment with other students and it was really nice to be able to hang out in a house with people again, because in spanish culture you don't really hang out with people in your house. we were not the best tourists and started our days kind of late, but we managed to see a good deal of the city. i met up with one of my skidmore friends, and then also friends from home and it was really nice to see old familiar faces! also, we ate at wagamama and that was exciting. copenhagen is a really beautiful city, really quaint and accessible. we took a really neat canal tour that led us around the city by boat and we saw the new opera house and went through the canal with all the house boats and with the apartments with large balconies overlooking the water (very pricey, i imagine) and we saw the little mermaid statue. and we went to christiania, which is this crazy place that is like a commune or something. you walk through this gate and basically walk out of copenhagen and into somewhere completely different. it's overrun by bushes and flowers and old military buildings that people live in now, and everyone is selling joints on picnic tables and there are little dirt paths everywhere and trails along a lake. it was really neat to see.
now, i am back in madrid, probably for good. i have two exams for grammar class next week along with a presentation for my english class. the week after, i have to do a 20 minute presentation on my spanish poet. the week after i have the 10 page paper on my spanish poet due as well as my 10 page art history paper on "harlequin's carnvial" by miró due. then, i have my 11 page paper on british feminism in the 1960's due the 28th. THEN i go home! it seems like time will fly by. but yuck, so much work.
here are lists i have been making if anyone is curious about my deepest desires.
Books I Want to Read Over the Summer
• Nimrod Flipout by Etgar Keret
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
• Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
• The New Kings of Non-Fiction edited by Ira Glass
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
• The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Eric Larsen
• Or Perish in the Attempt: Wilderness Medicine in the Lewis and Clark Expedition by David J. Peck
• The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett
• More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman
• The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker
• Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul by Karen Abbott
• Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander
• London Fields by Martin Amis
• Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
• Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
• Stiff by Mary Roach
• My Mistresses Sparrow is Dead edited by Jeffrey Eugenides
• The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories by Etgar Keret
AND Food I Want to Eat When I Get Home
Pancakes, waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese, cheeseburgers, egg rolls, quesadillas, tamales, enchiladas, burritos, lo mein, ramen noodles, grilled cheese, Greek yogurt with honey, tea with honey, chicken noodle soup, chocolate chip cookies, birthday cake, chips and salsa, potato and leek soup, stir fry, grilled sausages, grilled vegetables, lasagne, pasta with pesto, pasta with tomato sauce, crepes, peaches, Doritos, blueberries, tacos, guacamole, cupcakes, Midnight cookies, raspberries, chili, cinnamon buns, French toast, meatballs, green beans, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, pigs in a blanket, garlic bread, bagels with cream cheese, nachos, Wheat Thins, onion rings, barbeque sauce, chicken nuggets, grilled shrimp, New Haven style pizza, broccoli, cauliflower, corn on the cob, pickles.
in other news, i come home in four weeks.
now, i am back in madrid, probably for good. i have two exams for grammar class next week along with a presentation for my english class. the week after, i have to do a 20 minute presentation on my spanish poet. the week after i have the 10 page paper on my spanish poet due as well as my 10 page art history paper on "harlequin's carnvial" by miró due. then, i have my 11 page paper on british feminism in the 1960's due the 28th. THEN i go home! it seems like time will fly by. but yuck, so much work.
here are lists i have been making if anyone is curious about my deepest desires.
Books I Want to Read Over the Summer
• Nimrod Flipout by Etgar Keret
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
• Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
• The New Kings of Non-Fiction edited by Ira Glass
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
• The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Eric Larsen
• Or Perish in the Attempt: Wilderness Medicine in the Lewis and Clark Expedition by David J. Peck
• The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett
• More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman
• The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker
• Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul by Karen Abbott
• Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander
• London Fields by Martin Amis
• Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
• Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
• Stiff by Mary Roach
• My Mistresses Sparrow is Dead edited by Jeffrey Eugenides
• The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories by Etgar Keret
AND Food I Want to Eat When I Get Home
Pancakes, waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese, cheeseburgers, egg rolls, quesadillas, tamales, enchiladas, burritos, lo mein, ramen noodles, grilled cheese, Greek yogurt with honey, tea with honey, chicken noodle soup, chocolate chip cookies, birthday cake, chips and salsa, potato and leek soup, stir fry, grilled sausages, grilled vegetables, lasagne, pasta with pesto, pasta with tomato sauce, crepes, peaches, Doritos, blueberries, tacos, guacamole, cupcakes, Midnight cookies, raspberries, chili, cinnamon buns, French toast, meatballs, green beans, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, pigs in a blanket, garlic bread, bagels with cream cheese, nachos, Wheat Thins, onion rings, barbeque sauce, chicken nuggets, grilled shrimp, New Haven style pizza, broccoli, cauliflower, corn on the cob, pickles.
in other news, i come home in four weeks.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Bodegón
this week has gone by really quickly, considering at this time last week i was in italy. it's good to be back in madrid; i'm back in a place i know and get around easily, and can communicate with the people. being in other countries made me appreciate how much spanish i really know.
tuesday i skipped class at university in the morning because i needed to register for skidmore classes in the middle. i'm taking medieval drama (for my early period requirement in english), 19th century american lit with a professor that i love, and then my other two classes got to be anything i wanted! it was like freshman year all over again, except this time i don't need to search for things fulfill requirements! so i'm taking a class about the history of the 4 nations in great britian, and intro to latin (if i don't get into classical mythology, which i am still waiting to hear about from the professor). it should be a good semester. only two literature classes, not three like in the fall at skidmore. and i'm taking a break from spanish because i only need one more class, and it was offered at the same time as medieval drama, so i'm going to wait until next semester. ahhh senior year! it scares me to be so old! i'm turning 21 next week and i just cannot believe that i am finally this old! my last year at skidmore is coming! thank goodness i plan to go straight to grad school because i am not ready to live outside of the school world yet. my friend jessica and i have made a list of things we want to do next year, and i will share it with you:
-make beer and wine (to drink at graduation!)
-make yogurt
-make croissants
-make lots of sangria
-bake lots of bread (sourdough, foccaccia, whole wheat, etc.)
-canning (pickles, jams from freshly picked berries, maybe that we pick ourselves if there are any left the first week of september)
-make our own granola to go with our homemade yogurt
-make pasta (she has a pasta maker)
-make ice cream (and she has a ice cream maker)
so i have found a friend who is equally domestic and into eating as i am! this is a busy list; the goal is to do one a weekend. i'm really excited to live in a house again with friends, and not spanish parents, as great as they are. i have a lot of postcards left over that i was thinking i would make into a poster and get it laminated. and i have picked up some new art posters as well, so our house will be full of the usual maps and art that i love. maybe this year other people will bring wall decorations haha, because last semester i think i pretty much decorated the living room myself. but one can never have too many maps, i always say.
back to madrid though. other highlights of the week include going to the malaria exhibit at the national library (where you cannot actually use the library, as we found out), and going out to the wine bar in chueca. they have a really delicious vino rosado there. saturday, i went to the museo thyssen finally and i really liked it! it has a bit of everything, art from the 1600's to the present day, including a lot of picasso and gaugain and kandinksy. today i went to the flea market with jessica and bought a pair of fake ray bans wayfarers that are pretty cute, and then wandered around by myself because she went to go watch the bullfight that we could go to with the program but i didn't want to.
so this friday is the trip to copenhagen! it is looking like it will be my last trip unfortunately, but i'm so glad to be going! and since madrid has been so chilly, it won't even be like entering the cold white north because i am already living in it. i tried on all my spring dresses today in my room. i want to wear them so badly! warm up madrid! RAHHHH!
tuesday i skipped class at university in the morning because i needed to register for skidmore classes in the middle. i'm taking medieval drama (for my early period requirement in english), 19th century american lit with a professor that i love, and then my other two classes got to be anything i wanted! it was like freshman year all over again, except this time i don't need to search for things fulfill requirements! so i'm taking a class about the history of the 4 nations in great britian, and intro to latin (if i don't get into classical mythology, which i am still waiting to hear about from the professor). it should be a good semester. only two literature classes, not three like in the fall at skidmore. and i'm taking a break from spanish because i only need one more class, and it was offered at the same time as medieval drama, so i'm going to wait until next semester. ahhh senior year! it scares me to be so old! i'm turning 21 next week and i just cannot believe that i am finally this old! my last year at skidmore is coming! thank goodness i plan to go straight to grad school because i am not ready to live outside of the school world yet. my friend jessica and i have made a list of things we want to do next year, and i will share it with you:
-make beer and wine (to drink at graduation!)
-make yogurt
-make croissants
-make lots of sangria
-bake lots of bread (sourdough, foccaccia, whole wheat, etc.)
-canning (pickles, jams from freshly picked berries, maybe that we pick ourselves if there are any left the first week of september)
-make our own granola to go with our homemade yogurt
-make pasta (she has a pasta maker)
-make ice cream (and she has a ice cream maker)
so i have found a friend who is equally domestic and into eating as i am! this is a busy list; the goal is to do one a weekend. i'm really excited to live in a house again with friends, and not spanish parents, as great as they are. i have a lot of postcards left over that i was thinking i would make into a poster and get it laminated. and i have picked up some new art posters as well, so our house will be full of the usual maps and art that i love. maybe this year other people will bring wall decorations haha, because last semester i think i pretty much decorated the living room myself. but one can never have too many maps, i always say.
back to madrid though. other highlights of the week include going to the malaria exhibit at the national library (where you cannot actually use the library, as we found out), and going out to the wine bar in chueca. they have a really delicious vino rosado there. saturday, i went to the museo thyssen finally and i really liked it! it has a bit of everything, art from the 1600's to the present day, including a lot of picasso and gaugain and kandinksy. today i went to the flea market with jessica and bought a pair of fake ray bans wayfarers that are pretty cute, and then wandered around by myself because she went to go watch the bullfight that we could go to with the program but i didn't want to.
so this friday is the trip to copenhagen! it is looking like it will be my last trip unfortunately, but i'm so glad to be going! and since madrid has been so chilly, it won't even be like entering the cold white north because i am already living in it. i tried on all my spring dresses today in my room. i want to wear them so badly! warm up madrid! RAHHHH!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Semana Santa
Oh mannnnn I'm back from my ten day European escapade with Amanda and I am so tired! I have a feeling this post may get lengthy, so bear with me, although if you read this blog you are probably curious anyway.
Alors, from the beginning.. Got to the airport on time, despite the fact that Amanda's host cat had peed all over her jacket right before she left. We flew into Marseille, where we were abruptly confronted by a French speaking world. We had to take a bus from the airport into the city to the train station, and at the train station we tried to buy tickets at the machines but it didn't take our credit cards (no weird chip thing) and we didn't have 13 euros worth of coins for each of us, so we were a bit frazzled, and this girl maybe our age saw that we needed help, and got the train information for us and waited in line with us to buy our tickets, and even invited us to stay in her house if we didn't have a place to stay. So, we took a ghetto train to Arles. Once we got there, once again there were problems with the French thing, but we eventually figured out how to take the bus after I asked the woman who worked inside the station, using the sentence structure of a two year old. We got into the middle of town and couldn't figure out how to get to it, when I realized that all the signs that we had seen for the "auberge jeunesse" were for the youth hostel, and then it was easy peasy. The hostel was weird, there were only five other people staying there, and it was a bit like a strange combination of convent and summer camp. There was a big dining hall but the few of us that were there ate at one table, but it reminded me of Camp Huckins.
In Arles, we finally found the historic part of town (we were a little worried because our part of town was kind of run down and generic looking) and had a great day.
We started off with the best outdoor market I had ever seen. So much food everywhere! Urchins, fish, spices, honey, lavander, roasted chickens, cheese stands, everything! We walked by one stand where they literally fed us 6 different sauces on big pieces of baguettes, so I had to buy one. I bought Red Pesto that I thought was delicious. I was on a quest for lavander honey the whole time, and I bought one that came in a plastic jar which doesn't look as pretty but is good for traveling home. I'm saving it to bring home (present for the house mom and dad) but ohhhhh boy do I want to try it now. Spain is not big on honey, so in France I may have gone a little overboard. From the market, we explored the Roman ruins like the theater and the ampitheater, and randomly ran into some Skidmore girls who were studying abroard in Aix but were in Arles for the day with their program, so we walked around with them for a bit. Amanda and I had walked by a crepe place the night before and decided it would be good for lunch, and once we went in, it turned out that the tables outside were in the courtyard that Van Gogh painted!
Then, more ruins for the afternoon, and walking around. We took a nice path next to a little river and explored some less touristy areas. That night there was a nice girl from Seattle that was on vacation from teaching English near Lyons. Then.. we woke up and took the bus to Aix-En-Provence, which was a beautiful bus ride.
Then, Aix.. It was kind of a bust. I mean, the whole trip was great, so that's not saying much, but we got there on palm sunday, so the buses weren't running. But we didn't know that, and the schedule said the next one would be in two hours (HA!) so we tried to kill some time, and then went back to the bus station, waited for an hour, said "fuck this" and we walked about an hour to get to our hostel, wearing our suitcases on our backs, as was our custom the whole trip. The hostel was really nice once we found it, it was the splurge hotel, and we had a great room with a big bed and a strange little loft area, and the area around it was beautiful gardens. When we got back into real town, we had just missed a huge carnival, bummer. We saw some floats go by on their way out, and remnants of confetti everywhere. We explored all around and encounted a lot of half naked alcoholics talking to themselves. We saw a big procession outside for Palm Sunday, and the crowd all sang and walked to church like a parade; I had never seen anything like it. Dinner, more crepes. Delicious..
Bus to Nice! It was a wonderful sight to see the ocean when we arrived. Our hostel was crazy. It was rated the best hostel in France for 2008, and the rooms were nice and breakfast was wonderful and they had a bar with beers for 1 euro and overall it was pretty nice. There were tons of Americans and Australians, which made me miss home a bit, with all the English being spoken. We decided to get French haircuts while we were there, which was a bit of a hassle with the language thing. The weirdest thing is that they didn't get our hair wet first, they just sat us down and went at it! Amanda got a significant amount of hair cut off, but I played it rather safe. I have some rebellious little bangs that are kinda cute now if they dry right, but otherwise, same hair. The whole thing was a lot of miming and gestures and "no." They were cutting some other woman's hair and giving her a blunt cut with the little electric buzzer that they normally use for guy's hair cuts. Just kind of slashing away at the hair with it. We said "no" to that.
There wasn't much to see in Nice; we missed the Matisse museum because it was closed on Tuesdays, but we hung out on the beach and climbed the big castle hill and saw beautiful views of the ocean and the city.
I enjoyed the atmospshere in Nice, being back on the coast in my shoreline element. Luckily, the coast continued on our next stop.. We took the train from Nice, changed at the Italian border, and then had no idea how long the trip would take. We somehow must have taken the local train because there were literally 50 stops between the border and La Spezia. I figured about three hours, but five and a half hours later we got in to the station. I had the bus schedule for the town our hostel was in, and I knew that the last bus left at 8, and we got in at nine. So we arrived, not speaking ANY Italian and knowing that to walk the equivalent of a twenty minute bus ride in the pitch black up windy hills is not a good idea, and I was frantically trying to call the hostel but our phones weren't working.. But, in a moment of clarity we wandered into another hotel and asked them how to get there, and they called a taxi for us. 20 euros, yeeesh.
And then we entered Cinque Terre. There were two buses from the hostel into the last of the five towns, one at 7 in the morning, and one at 9. We took the one at 9 and got a nice early start to the day in the one that starts with an R. We took the easiest trail ever, that was paved with stones, and about 20 minutes walk, called the via dell'amore.
And we ate delicious gelato and I had gnocchi with pesto at this cafe on the beach in the last of the five towns. The food in Italy was heavenly. Gelato was a daily requirement.
Ah, getting tired of this.. So anyway, Cinque Terre was awesome. Florence was way touristy, and we didn't need to know any Italian to get around. We stayed on the same street my mom stayed on when she was there with Aunt Cathy, and she recommended the restaurant down the street. So we went, and it was awesome! The waiter was sooo friendly and nice and the food was great. I got vegetable tuscan bread soup and chicken with butter and sage. The waiter twisted our arms into getting the liter of wine, which we ended up not being able to finsh, but it was delicious. Our tiramisu was excellent, although we both had actually never tried it before anywhere else. We ended up staying for two and a half hours haha. The other waiter turned out to be a huge Texas/George Bush fan whose best friend is from Dallas and owns a cheese shop two blocks from Amanda's house. He showed us his Texas pins and then pulled a bunch of big Bush pins out from his pocket and proudly displayed them. He must have been the only pro-Bush Italian. We got into the city early enough to have a good day exploring. Most things were open even though it was Easter weekend, except for the climb to the top of the Duomo, which I was so disappointed about. I wish I had a guidebook for Florence, because I feel like we just did the two musuems and the Duomo and not much else, but I would have liked to have settled in more because I had always wanted to go. The statues in the Plaza where the fake David is are incredible! I don't know why more aren't as famous as the David. And, more gelato and delicious pasta and pizza all the time. I liked having to walk past the Duomo to get to anywhere from the hotel. And then on our way to the airport in Pisa, we were getting on the train, I heard someone calling my name and it ended up being my friend Dave from Skidmore and his mom! So we caught up on the train, they were going to Cinque Terre incidentally.
Then, we got on the plane to go to Valencia (because it was like 500 dollars cheaper to fly there and take a bus to Madrid, instead of flying into Madrid). About an hour in, the flight attendant asked for all the doctors on board to go to the back of the plane to help someone sick. Then twenty minutes later, we were told that we were making an emergency landing. I have no idea where we landed, some place called Albera or Vabera or something, either Italy or Spain, but not France.. I don't know. So we had to wait for the ambulance to come, and then for them to take the bags of the family off the plane, and then the flight attendants informed us that it was the rules of this airport that we all had to get off the plane and wait in the rain while they refueled the plane and got a new flight plan. Wonderful. At least they had some buses that we could stand in to get out of the rain, but we ended up being an hour and a half late getting in. There isn't much to say about Valencia, we were only there for about 16 hours. It seemed nice. Of course, after having encountered so many friendly helpful people in France and Italy, it was a shock when I went to ask a man what direction a plaza was and he replied in English "get away, leave me alone." Bienvenidos a España, indeed. So, bus back to Madrid and here I am. All in all, a great trip! I think Arles was my favorite. I noticed that I took progressively less pictures as the trip went on, haha, so I have the most from Arles.
here is a link to facebook pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2053062&id=12204355&saved#/album.php?aid=2053062&id=12204355
Alors, from the beginning.. Got to the airport on time, despite the fact that Amanda's host cat had peed all over her jacket right before she left. We flew into Marseille, where we were abruptly confronted by a French speaking world. We had to take a bus from the airport into the city to the train station, and at the train station we tried to buy tickets at the machines but it didn't take our credit cards (no weird chip thing) and we didn't have 13 euros worth of coins for each of us, so we were a bit frazzled, and this girl maybe our age saw that we needed help, and got the train information for us and waited in line with us to buy our tickets, and even invited us to stay in her house if we didn't have a place to stay. So, we took a ghetto train to Arles. Once we got there, once again there were problems with the French thing, but we eventually figured out how to take the bus after I asked the woman who worked inside the station, using the sentence structure of a two year old. We got into the middle of town and couldn't figure out how to get to it, when I realized that all the signs that we had seen for the "auberge jeunesse" were for the youth hostel, and then it was easy peasy. The hostel was weird, there were only five other people staying there, and it was a bit like a strange combination of convent and summer camp. There was a big dining hall but the few of us that were there ate at one table, but it reminded me of Camp Huckins.
In Arles, we finally found the historic part of town (we were a little worried because our part of town was kind of run down and generic looking) and had a great day.
We started off with the best outdoor market I had ever seen. So much food everywhere! Urchins, fish, spices, honey, lavander, roasted chickens, cheese stands, everything! We walked by one stand where they literally fed us 6 different sauces on big pieces of baguettes, so I had to buy one. I bought Red Pesto that I thought was delicious. I was on a quest for lavander honey the whole time, and I bought one that came in a plastic jar which doesn't look as pretty but is good for traveling home. I'm saving it to bring home (present for the house mom and dad) but ohhhhh boy do I want to try it now. Spain is not big on honey, so in France I may have gone a little overboard. From the market, we explored the Roman ruins like the theater and the ampitheater, and randomly ran into some Skidmore girls who were studying abroard in Aix but were in Arles for the day with their program, so we walked around with them for a bit. Amanda and I had walked by a crepe place the night before and decided it would be good for lunch, and once we went in, it turned out that the tables outside were in the courtyard that Van Gogh painted!
Then, more ruins for the afternoon, and walking around. We took a nice path next to a little river and explored some less touristy areas. That night there was a nice girl from Seattle that was on vacation from teaching English near Lyons. Then.. we woke up and took the bus to Aix-En-Provence, which was a beautiful bus ride.
Then, Aix.. It was kind of a bust. I mean, the whole trip was great, so that's not saying much, but we got there on palm sunday, so the buses weren't running. But we didn't know that, and the schedule said the next one would be in two hours (HA!) so we tried to kill some time, and then went back to the bus station, waited for an hour, said "fuck this" and we walked about an hour to get to our hostel, wearing our suitcases on our backs, as was our custom the whole trip. The hostel was really nice once we found it, it was the splurge hotel, and we had a great room with a big bed and a strange little loft area, and the area around it was beautiful gardens. When we got back into real town, we had just missed a huge carnival, bummer. We saw some floats go by on their way out, and remnants of confetti everywhere. We explored all around and encounted a lot of half naked alcoholics talking to themselves. We saw a big procession outside for Palm Sunday, and the crowd all sang and walked to church like a parade; I had never seen anything like it. Dinner, more crepes. Delicious..
Bus to Nice! It was a wonderful sight to see the ocean when we arrived. Our hostel was crazy. It was rated the best hostel in France for 2008, and the rooms were nice and breakfast was wonderful and they had a bar with beers for 1 euro and overall it was pretty nice. There were tons of Americans and Australians, which made me miss home a bit, with all the English being spoken. We decided to get French haircuts while we were there, which was a bit of a hassle with the language thing. The weirdest thing is that they didn't get our hair wet first, they just sat us down and went at it! Amanda got a significant amount of hair cut off, but I played it rather safe. I have some rebellious little bangs that are kinda cute now if they dry right, but otherwise, same hair. The whole thing was a lot of miming and gestures and "no." They were cutting some other woman's hair and giving her a blunt cut with the little electric buzzer that they normally use for guy's hair cuts. Just kind of slashing away at the hair with it. We said "no" to that.
There wasn't much to see in Nice; we missed the Matisse museum because it was closed on Tuesdays, but we hung out on the beach and climbed the big castle hill and saw beautiful views of the ocean and the city.
I enjoyed the atmospshere in Nice, being back on the coast in my shoreline element. Luckily, the coast continued on our next stop.. We took the train from Nice, changed at the Italian border, and then had no idea how long the trip would take. We somehow must have taken the local train because there were literally 50 stops between the border and La Spezia. I figured about three hours, but five and a half hours later we got in to the station. I had the bus schedule for the town our hostel was in, and I knew that the last bus left at 8, and we got in at nine. So we arrived, not speaking ANY Italian and knowing that to walk the equivalent of a twenty minute bus ride in the pitch black up windy hills is not a good idea, and I was frantically trying to call the hostel but our phones weren't working.. But, in a moment of clarity we wandered into another hotel and asked them how to get there, and they called a taxi for us. 20 euros, yeeesh.
And then we entered Cinque Terre. There were two buses from the hostel into the last of the five towns, one at 7 in the morning, and one at 9. We took the one at 9 and got a nice early start to the day in the one that starts with an R. We took the easiest trail ever, that was paved with stones, and about 20 minutes walk, called the via dell'amore.
And we ate delicious gelato and I had gnocchi with pesto at this cafe on the beach in the last of the five towns. The food in Italy was heavenly. Gelato was a daily requirement.
Ah, getting tired of this.. So anyway, Cinque Terre was awesome. Florence was way touristy, and we didn't need to know any Italian to get around. We stayed on the same street my mom stayed on when she was there with Aunt Cathy, and she recommended the restaurant down the street. So we went, and it was awesome! The waiter was sooo friendly and nice and the food was great. I got vegetable tuscan bread soup and chicken with butter and sage. The waiter twisted our arms into getting the liter of wine, which we ended up not being able to finsh, but it was delicious. Our tiramisu was excellent, although we both had actually never tried it before anywhere else. We ended up staying for two and a half hours haha. The other waiter turned out to be a huge Texas/George Bush fan whose best friend is from Dallas and owns a cheese shop two blocks from Amanda's house. He showed us his Texas pins and then pulled a bunch of big Bush pins out from his pocket and proudly displayed them. He must have been the only pro-Bush Italian. We got into the city early enough to have a good day exploring. Most things were open even though it was Easter weekend, except for the climb to the top of the Duomo, which I was so disappointed about. I wish I had a guidebook for Florence, because I feel like we just did the two musuems and the Duomo and not much else, but I would have liked to have settled in more because I had always wanted to go. The statues in the Plaza where the fake David is are incredible! I don't know why more aren't as famous as the David. And, more gelato and delicious pasta and pizza all the time. I liked having to walk past the Duomo to get to anywhere from the hotel. And then on our way to the airport in Pisa, we were getting on the train, I heard someone calling my name and it ended up being my friend Dave from Skidmore and his mom! So we caught up on the train, they were going to Cinque Terre incidentally.
Then, we got on the plane to go to Valencia (because it was like 500 dollars cheaper to fly there and take a bus to Madrid, instead of flying into Madrid). About an hour in, the flight attendant asked for all the doctors on board to go to the back of the plane to help someone sick. Then twenty minutes later, we were told that we were making an emergency landing. I have no idea where we landed, some place called Albera or Vabera or something, either Italy or Spain, but not France.. I don't know. So we had to wait for the ambulance to come, and then for them to take the bags of the family off the plane, and then the flight attendants informed us that it was the rules of this airport that we all had to get off the plane and wait in the rain while they refueled the plane and got a new flight plan. Wonderful. At least they had some buses that we could stand in to get out of the rain, but we ended up being an hour and a half late getting in. There isn't much to say about Valencia, we were only there for about 16 hours. It seemed nice. Of course, after having encountered so many friendly helpful people in France and Italy, it was a shock when I went to ask a man what direction a plaza was and he replied in English "get away, leave me alone." Bienvenidos a España, indeed. So, bus back to Madrid and here I am. All in all, a great trip! I think Arles was my favorite. I noticed that I took progressively less pictures as the trip went on, haha, so I have the most from Arles.
here is a link to facebook pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2053062&id=12204355&saved#/album.php?aid=2053062&id=12204355
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Viajar
It seems I am always starting a blog entry by describing how busy I have been since the last entry. A common theme of studying abroad anywhere, I suppose. Mom, Dad and Aunt Beth came to visit me this past weekend and we had a great time. Mom and Dad got here on Monday first, so we spent the day together celebrating birthdays and then they left me behind to go to Sevilla which sounded very nice. When they got back, Aunt Beth showed up and the visit really began. I think I was a better tour guide this time around, having practiced on Chris a few weeks ago, and knew what I was doing. I didn't make any mistakes like getting on the metro going the wrong way, or speaking Spanish to the waiter and he didn't understand me at all. So, that was good. Also, I got to stay in one of the nicest hotels in Madrid. My mom and I went to Lush and I bought a wonderful bath bomb and took a much needed bath in the hotel room. Aunt Beth and I shared a room, it was nice to stay with her! I was so glad she could come. We took a day trip to Segovia with a tour guide, and there ended up being a marathon so a lot of the streets were closed. Also it got SO COLD last week! It was literally the temperature it was back in February or January. I sent home a bunch of my winter clothes with them, but I made sure to keep some warm things because apparently you never know what the weather will be like. I just want to wear my sundresses. Sigh. So, Segovia was pretty cool, literally. I liked the castles, and the way they decorate the walls of their houses with intricate carved designs. I hadn't seen anything like that before. And, I went to the Prado for the fourth time and the Reina Sofia for the third, but I still have yet to go to the Thyssen. There has been no time! Once they left, I had to figure out my schedule because I am registering the day after I come back from Semana Santa. I only need four more classes to finish my major! I need some filler classes now, I'm looking at Mythology, either intro to Latin or Greek, and perhaps a history class about England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. I feel a bit like a freshman again, having to pick classes totally randomly.
Everything is booked for Semana Santa except our last night, in Valencia. I'm so excited! I should be packing now instead of writing, but, it seems pretty daunting. I'm trying to remember how to speak French. Turns out I just remember mostly the irregular verbs haha. Je suis, je fais, j'ai.. But I found a useful website that is perfect for brushing up on my rusty skills. I'm going to try to find a guide book in an English book store later today. AHHH it's going to be so neat! I'm a little scared of the Italian because at least in French if i don't know what the word means, I can say it out loud. But Italian.. yikes, i don't know how to pronounce things. I have been trying to remember how to say cinque terra but I think my mouth just doesn't move that way. Once I get back from vacation, I'll have like a month and a half left here. My birthday will be soon! Everything happens so quickly here for a country that takes two hours out of the day to rest.
Also, Topshop opens in New York today. Wooo!
Everything is booked for Semana Santa except our last night, in Valencia. I'm so excited! I should be packing now instead of writing, but, it seems pretty daunting. I'm trying to remember how to speak French. Turns out I just remember mostly the irregular verbs haha. Je suis, je fais, j'ai.. But I found a useful website that is perfect for brushing up on my rusty skills. I'm going to try to find a guide book in an English book store later today. AHHH it's going to be so neat! I'm a little scared of the Italian because at least in French if i don't know what the word means, I can say it out loud. But Italian.. yikes, i don't know how to pronounce things. I have been trying to remember how to say cinque terra but I think my mouth just doesn't move that way. Once I get back from vacation, I'll have like a month and a half left here. My birthday will be soon! Everything happens so quickly here for a country that takes two hours out of the day to rest.
Also, Topshop opens in New York today. Wooo!
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