BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM

Went to Brussels and Amsterdam October 15-18 with Tania, her roommate Alyssa, and two of their guy friends Ben and Phil from the SU Florence program! We flew into Brussels because it was much cheaper and our flights got in around the same time so it was super easy to meet up… as soon as I got on my plane I saw my friend Na’Tasha on the flight! Small world! She’s also studying in Madrid and was meeting her friend in Brussels for the weekend. Got off the plane and only waited 15 minutes before I saw Tania! It was so great seeing a friend from home that wasn’t in Madrid with me.

By the time we got into Brussels it was around 11pm Thursday, but we walked around, got Belgium waffles and found Delirium, a bar that has over 2000 types of beer that our friends recommended. There were so many options it was overwhelming- the bartender ended up giving us a beer menu that described some of their main beers on tap and we picked from that.

Our bus to Amsterdam left at 6:30 am so we had to get to the station bright and early- the ride was a little less than 4 hours so we slept along the way. By the time we got off the bus and walked to our hostel, it was 11am so we had the whole day to walk around a sight see! Our hostel was super cool, it was the kind that you can hang out and meet people; we ended up in the same room (it was a 10 person dorm style) with a kid that went to Ben’s high school!

We spent the entire weekend walking around, Amsterdam is so cool- there are bikes everywhere! It reminded me of a modern Venice with all the canals and bridges everywhere, except it was a lot easier to navigate. There was a small carnival in Dam Square- they had Belgium waffles that were way better than the ones we had in Belgium! (maybe it was because we got them covered in melted chocolate and real whipped cream?) It’s funny because the entire city shuts down around 1am.. but we were so tired that we didn’t even stay out past 11:30..

Saturday we took a tram to the Heineken Factory- 15 euros for a couple beers and a tour that walks you through the entire beer making process! We spent the whole day there, it was so fun! On our way out we met a group of crazy britts and ended up taking to them about differences in British English vs American English- funny because they thought every girl in America say “OMG” and “like”, which isn’t completely false. Also thought that we loved Miley Cyrus..

Sunday woke up early for a bus ride back to Brussels, my flight left at 2:30 back to Madrid. It was such a great trip and fun to hang with Tania Alyssa and friends! Too bad my camera died early on in the trip and I didn’t bring my charger, definitely learned my lessons for the rest of my trips!

Na'tasha and I when we landed in Brussels!

Belgium waffles take 1

African friends in Delirium!

Amstel truck in Amsterdam... how fitting

Bikes!

Heineken Brewery

thing that they cook beer in

more waffles

it took forever to find this sign! and when we finally found it, my camera died

D is for danielle

red light district.. now that was interesting

Venice, Florence, Pisa, ITALY

Whoops time flies by when you’re having fun… actually time flies by when you’re super busy and have no time to sleep, or write on your blogg for that matter. Any ways, its been a month since I’ve updated this bloggski, so i have much to catch ya’ll up on.

So Wayne and Gwen came to visit from Oct 6- Oct 15!! I was soo excited to show them Madrid, its hard to skype with someone and tell them about the city when they’ve never been there before, which meant it was great to show them where I’ve been living for the semester!

Wayne and Gwen arrived in Madrid at 8am on Tuesday morning… I had Spanish class that I couldn’t skip so I gave them full directions on how to get from the airport to the metro right outside my school. It’s nice because my line is only one transfer from the airport line, but it can get confusing when you’ve just landed in a foreign country and are a tad jet-lagged form the long flight- but m&d made it alright… it was perfect timing because by the time they got to school, I had just gotten out of class!!! It was so great to see someone from home that wasn’t apart of my Madrid program, especially mis padres..

Tuesdays I have Spanish in the morning, then I teach at an elementary school from 11-4, and then class again at 7pm. I skipped the teaching and my night class so we had the whole day to ourselves! I gave them a tour of my school and then went to their hostel to leave the bags. We then met up with my senora at my apartment… Of course dad has to ask “so do you have a workers union in Spain?” aaannndd she went off. Maria has very strong opinions about the government, state of the economy, health care, etc, all of which she went off on a long passionate rant about to my jetlagged parents… gwen was nodding off and wayne-o just kept throwing in “yeah” and “si”… haha so that was fun. Then for the rest of the day I gave them a giant walking tour of Madrid, starting with my apartment, park near me, the elementary school I work at. Then we went to the center of Madrid and walked for the rest of the day… ended up in Chueca, the gay district of the city, which was a sight for them to see.

Wednesday I have class and work at the school office from 9am-10pm.. so the parents went to El Escorial for a day trip. It’s really easy to take busses/trains to the small city outside of Madrid, so they walked around and saw the monestary all day. We met up to switch luggage bags after my class because we were going to Italy the next day!

Thursday I went to my 9am Spanish class and then met up with the parents for the 12:20 flight. What should have been plenty of time to get to the airport and board, we did not realize that this would be like ryanair or easyjet (of which you can get through security and board within 5 minutes). Sooo by the time we got there it was 40 minutes before the flight, then the lady at the check-in line pointed us to check in on the computers. The computers said “in-vaild” so we went to the Iberia desk for help, which the lady told us we had to be there 45 min in advance. Wonderful. Went back to the check in, waited in line for 15 minutes, and then the girl got all our info, called the gate, who then said there was no way we could make the flight. Thanks to the lady who directed us to the computer, we probably could have made the flight… oh well, paid a 65 euro per person fee for a flight at 7:50pm and spent the day in Madrid. We walked around retiro park and went to Reina Sofia Modern Art museum because friends said it was cool… too bad the Franks Family doesn’t really appreciate art, or modern art. Of course the first piece of “art” we see is a plain canvas with one small line of black on it. Dad looks at it and says what any art connoisseur would say… “these people are full of it”. Needless to say it was a great museum trip.

mom and dad in retiro park!

Piacasso's Guernica

Got to the airport on time this time, and arrived in Venice. We stayed at the Marriott on the mainland of Venice for the night and took a train to Firenzie. Of course dad sat next to an Italian nun, but she didn’t speak English so the conversation didn’t go very far. Arrive in firenze (the train station 15 minutes outside of the city) and we had to wait for a bus to get into the city, which ended up being the most crowded bus I’ve ever been on in my entire life… after walking around for a while, we found our hostel which was right in the middle of the town!

We spent the entire day walking around Florence, it so beautiful and different from Madrid… we met up with my friends Emily and Melanie, who were also visiting for the weekend. Although it was raining, we saw so much! There are so many churches, statues and remnants from the renaissance. Check out the pictures below- I could go on and on about how beautiful Firenze is… We went for dinner with Mel and Em, holy smokes it was amazing- I had gnocchis with a cream sauce- it was buenisimo!

El duomo

in the cathedral

Saturday we spent the day exploring- first stop we went to the Museo Academico to see Michelangelo’s David- impressive but I really likeed the photo exhibit by Robert Mapplethorpe. Walked around and wandered for the rest of the day. We went to the leather market- all down the streets are vendors trying to sell you bags, coats, scarves, hats, gloves, bracelets- there were so many things! I bargained for a leather coat, which was really fun to do. For dinner I had a pesto lasagna- I think every food in Italy is phenomenal.

mom and i in a piazza

piazza de michelangelo overlooks the city

vespas!

Sunday we wanted to go to a wine tour, but we didn’t realize that they don’t offer wine tours on Sundays in italy, so instead we took a day trip to Pisa. Before we left for Pisa, we went to mass in the cathedral- it was beautiful! And we went to church on vacation, such good people… Pisa was about an hour train ride from Florence, it’s a much smaller town/city but nonetheless great to see. Of course we took the tourist pictures and held the tower up! Also walked through the flea market, it was funny to see because all the street venders put everything into their van at the end of the day! We got back to Florence and bought some wine and drank on the steps of the cathedral- a little bit of an oxymoron… but its funny to see because at night, everyone wanders around the city with a bottle of wine- it was fun to see buildings at night!

a random parade sunday morning!

tourist time in front of the leaning tower of pisa!

to market to market...

back in florence for the night!

tiny go-cart

just a statue...

Monday we left for Venice around 12, so we spent the evening in Venice! Its interesting to see an entire city built on water- still not sure of the logic on it, but at least its beautiful. There are 4 ways to get around Venice; by foot, water bus, water taxi, and gondolas. Taxis almost look like limousines in boat form. Gondolas are the classic boats you see with the guy standing on the back of the boat with a stripped shirt. We took the water bus to the piazza san marco- (water buses are the public transportation, and it makes multiple stops along the main canal) and we worked out way back to the train station during the night. All the alleys are squeezed in between buildings and weave all around. Also funny because around the piazza are stores like Gucci, Prada, D&G tucked inside tinny streets. We had dinner “off the beaten path”- I ordered spaghetti and shrimp forgetting that we’re in Europe, so the shrimp came with shell, head, antennas, eyes and all. But it was still good. Instead of following street signs we just walked around and used our best judgment and ended up finding the station easily.

wayne-o and gwen brought the bad weather... but we still had fun!

gondolas!

this is a cathedral in the piazza san marco- the water is from the rain earlier in the day, it shows how much the buildings are sinking..

us in venice!

just before sunset

on Ponte di Rialto for sunset

nighttime

tiny alleyways

Flew back to Madrid on Tuesday, just in time for my 7pm class. Mom, dad and I met up for mojitos after my class! Wednesday I had class and work all day, so D&M went to Toledo for the day (the first city I visited during my Azahar pre-seminar trip). Wednesday night we went out for tapas! Mom and Dad left early for Philly Thursday morning so we said our goodbyes Wednesday night…

it was a great trip! I’m so glad they came to visit Madrid and grateful that we could take the trip to Italy! I could go on and on about the trip but I think I should stop writing now…

Thanks Wayne-o and Gwen for a great trip!! Love you!

BARCELONA, SPAIN

Just got back from a weekend trip to Barcelona- such a pretty city!

This weekend I went with just Emily and Mel, we had to keep it small because we visited Emily’s friend (Chelsea) from home who is studying abroad in Barcelona. Chelsea is studying through a different program and instead of living with a host family she has an apartment, so we were able to crash at her place for the weekend!

We flew into Girona, which is about an hour away from Barcelona, but all the low budget airlines don’t fly directly into Barcelona. Our flights were only 47 euro round trip! And we caught a bus to Barcelona that was 21 euro round trip- so between the cheap transportation and staying at Chelsea’s apartment, our weekend was really cheap!

We flew ryainair, and we got to Barcelona without any problems. In fact, they played a jingle over the intercom system on the plane we landed because we arrived earlier than expected! (apparently 90% of ryanair ‘s flights land on time- I guess much different than last weeks easyjet flights). We got to Chelseas apartment around 2am so we were pretty tired. Friday morning I woke up and went food shopping- I was so excited to be able to cook for once! Funny because all the signs in the food store are in Catalan- they don’t really speak traditional Spanish! But after breakfast, Chelsea took us to the Sagrada Familia- designed by antoni gaudi and is still under construction until 2026! After going through Azahar and learning all about Cathedrals and the labor power it took to complete them, It was so cool to see a cathedral being built. Most of the cathedrals took over 300 years to build, and by the time la Sagrada Familia is finished, it should be about 150 years! As my dad would say, “they don’t make ‘em like that no more”

La Sagrada Familia

After that we met up with Chelsea’s friends at la champagneria, a tapas bar that served their homemade champagne! We spent the rest of the day walking around Barcelona- its such a beautiful city, the architecture and ambiance almost reminded me of Granada.. We even saw the 1992 olympic torch. After walking around all day, we all relaxed in Chelsea’s apartment- something I wouldn’t have been able to do if we weren’t staying with her. Later we all made dinner together- I’ve missed cooking (even though I do love Marias food!). We had a bunch of Chelseas friends over and later we all went to an ice bar- the experience was definitely worth braving the cold in my sandals!

Melanie in front of some palm trees

Olympic Torch.. it's still lit but you can't tell in this picture

Saturday I cooked breakfast again for the girls and then Chelsea took us on another tour of the city- we walked around all day. We went to a food market- there was so much fruit and meat it was incredible! I got a huge watermelon and walked around while eating it- it was so good! The architecture in Barcelona is more modern than Madrid, the cities are so different from each other (but I think I like  Madrid better). We saw Casa Batlló, a communial living building designed by Gaudi- I’ve seen it in pictures but seeing it in person is way better. Later we made our way to Parc Guell- also designed by Gaudi (it was a gaudi filled weekend)- which was my favorite spot we visited- the park is on top of the hill that overlooks the city- from the lookout spot you could see the Mediterranean sea on the other edge of the city. Everything was decorated with broken up pieces of ceramic tiles- so naturally I went a little camera crazy and took lots of pictures…

Fruit at the market!

Fruit juice

The watermelon I bought!

Barcelona is nice...

Casa Batlló

Entrance to Parc Guell

Photo-shoot of the park...

99% sure this was where a season finale of America's Next Top Model was.. don't judge me for knowing that

This looks really sweet but it's too small on this blog to see the detail

Mel, Emily, Chelsea, Hannah and I in front of Parc Guell!

Later I made dinner for the girls again- made pasta and sauce with peppers, onions, sausage. We went out for a little but we were so exhausted from walking around all day so it we just hung out at a tapas bar for the night. I tried to be artsy and took some pictures of the streets…

A cool light fixture in the bar

Great mojitos

Light from a vespa

Sunday morning Mel and I went for a walk (while Emily and Chelsea got some more rest)- our original plan was to rent bikes but we couldn’t figure out how to buy tickets because it was all in Catalan.. We didn’t have much time because our bus to the airport left at 12:00, but we ended up finding the Arc de Triomf!

Mel holding up the Arc.. shes so strong

 Got back to Chelseas apartment, grabbed our bags, thanked Chelsea for a great weekend and headed back to Madrid. Home by 6:30 (our flight was delayed a hour) and had time to work on homework because MOM AND DAD will be here TOMORROW MORNING!!- and off to Venice and Florence with them for a long weekend!! I’ll keep you posted with that trip, until then,

Adios!