I'm obsessed with Portugal

After we went to London, Carrie came back with me to Cáceres for the one day of class I had in between weekends. She stayed with my host family, and it was really cool to be able to show someone where I live. It's really hard to describe life here because everything is so slightly (or in some cases, drastically) different. I give Carrie major props though because she doesn't speak a word of Spanish and the extent of my host family's English is "niiiice to meeet yoo" and "goood mornink".

To give Carrie and opportunity to travel somewhere she wouldn't have gone (other than Spain) we decided to take a weekend trip to Lisbon. It was really great to get another chance to visit when it wasn't raining the whole time. We went back to Sintra as well, which was four times as beautiful with the nice weather. Carrie couldn't get over the fact that we could be only wearing sweater's in December. In Sintra we climbed up to the Moorish Castle, which although it was a steep climb, rewarded amazing views and a super sweet castle in the middle of the forest to explore.

Climbing...

On top of the world

Elizabeth exploring the Castle

We also hiked up to the Pena Palace which is one of the most beautiful buildings ever (so many tiles!!). This too was on top of a hill overlooking the amazing landscape. I didn't want to leave.

Back in Lisbon after an adventure with me not getting on the train with Carrie and Elizabeth in time and having to wait for the next one, we decided to show Carrie the Santa Justa elevator (if you don't remember from my other post, this was the 3 story elevator up to a fenced in view that then exited into a plaza on the hill behind it). This time we went in through the back entrance, avoiding the 3 euro fee to ride the elevator up 30 seconds. We also discovered that we had missed the whole second level of the tower (it might have been closed due to the rain). However, I quickly discovered that the spiral staircase up to the upper levels was something straight out of one of my worst nightmares. It as a very narrow and very steep metal staircase suspended very high up with nothing on either sides. Needless to say, the view from the top was cool, but I'm not sure it was worth it.

Much too soon, it was time to head back to Cáceres and back to classes and [semi] real life. Well, for a week anyway.

We've made it to December, Folks!

So every few weeks in Spain there is a long weekend called a "puente" (a bridge). The first week of December there are civil holidays in Spain, making it so that I had from Thursday-Tuesday to travel. And so I went to London to meet up with one of my old roommates, Carrie, who is currently studying in Budapest. I got really lucky that I was flying into Luton airport because Gatwick had been closed now for a couple of days due to snow. I went to the airport with a group of kids flying to Ireland, and their flight was completely canceled. A lot of people got pretty screwed with travel plans that weekend between the snow and the airport strike in Madrid that Saturday. (In case you missed it, the national gaurd had to be called in and the president announced the first state of emergency since who knows when).

Anyway, I successfully made it London, albeit a couple hours later than I had intended. Since it was a budget airline, we disembarked on the tarmac and had to take a bus to the terminal, which I have never had to do before. Being on a plane filled with mostly Spaniards, I didn't look too ridiculous when I pulled out every article of clothing I had to keep warm in the sudden 20 degree Celsius drop in temperature.

Following the directions given to me by the hostel I was staying in that night, I got off the bus at a stop where no one else got off. The bus pulled away and I found myself standing at the edge of a highway, in the middle of the night, with all my stuff, alone. Slightly concerned, I pulled out my directions and read "walk up A117 for 10 minutes". Up?! Not only was there no visible incline in sight, I couldn't see a street sign anywhere confirming that I was in fact on A117. I picked a direction and began to walk, following the highway under series of maze-like underpasses until I determined that this road was not going where I needed to go. When I tried to call the hostel, my phone wouldn't connect, so I turned around and walked the other way.

I eventually found an underground station, and after studying the map for a few minutes, determined that I just needed to go a few more blocks to the....right? At this point I realized I was totally lost, with no change to make a phone call, and the two people I saw and stopped for directions had no idea what road I was asking about. I ended up walking back to the underground, where I saw a janitor. Upon asking him for directions he replied "You want to walk there?!" and then pointed me in the right direction. I walked for another half an hour, before I flagged down a bus that drove by. The bus driver was really nice and took me a few blocks in the right direction and showed me what road to walk down. Finally, just when I was about to give up, I stumbled upon the hostel.

Checking in, the guy at the reception looked at me, taking in the fact that it was 2 in the morning and I was alone and asked me if I was ok. When I explained politely that the directions on the website were terrible, he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. I didn't want to deal with explaining the fact that "up" is not a direction so I took the sheets he gave me and headed up to the room. Since I was only staying there one night, I had gotten a bed in a 14 person room which I realized was not the smartest choice when I entered in dark the middle of the night to find 13 sleeping people in bunk beds 3 high. Not much I could do at that point except find an empty bunk with my cell phone light, drop my backpack at the foot of the ladder, and sleep in my clothes. Needless to say, it was a pretty terrible experience.

Fortunately, the rest of my trip to London was much better. I got into town the next morning and walked around the city, explored Harrods, and waited for Carrie to get in. The next day, we walked EVERYWHERE. Being the poor students that we are, we did a ton of sightseeing from the street, walking past the houses of parliament, Buckingham palace, Tower Bridge, the Globe theater, and Millennium Bridge. We actually went in to the Tate Modern (all museums in London are free) but at that point we were exhausted and only could look around for a little while before we collapsed in a coffee shop.

Carrie and me at Tower Bridge (common misconception; London Bridge is really lame looking)

That night we ate at a pub where we got carded twice (!!!) and had the rudest waitress ever. But it was ok, because afterward, we went and saw the newest Harry Potter movie in a huge theater. It was fairly epic.

The next day, we decided to take the underground everywhere due to the fact we could no longer feel our feet. We went to the British Museum which was pretty cool. It pretty much has nothing from England in it, but it does contain the Rosetta stone, the frieze of the Parthenon, and half of ancient Egypt. The rest of the day we walked around taking in the sights we hadn't yet seen and checking out all the stores decorated for Christmas. We also found a great traditional pub that had the most delicious roast (and stuffing balls!) ever.

Parliament and the Thames

I suppose that pretty much sums up my trip to London, albeit brief and not extremely detailed. All in all, it was a pretty cool city even though it was freezing and the pound has a ridiculous exchange rate. Oh! How could I forget? In the spirit of Harry Potter, we managed to take the greatest platform 9 3/4 picture ever in King's Cross Station:

Resurfacing from the world of travel

Extensive travel is not real life. The past few months my days have revolved around getting in as much as possible without keeling over dead (from either lack of proper nutrients, lack of sleep, or shock from checking my bank statement). It's funny how quickly the internet becomes on my list of priorities, especially considering it's my connection to everyone in the states that I rely on so heavily normally.

So here's what I've been up to in this other world of trains, planes, snow, and museums.

I believe I left off in November. Our program took us on an excursion to Salamanca, which is home to one of the oldest universities in Europe. It was a really pretty city, referred to by some as the city of gold because the buildings are made of a certain kind of stone which oxidizes in the sunlight, turning the buildings golden. We visited the Cathedral there which had an absolutely incredible facade:

We also toured the university, which was pretty neat. A lot of really famous Spaniards have studied there, including Cervantes (the author of Don Quixote). It's really cold in Salamanca (relatively) so in the olden days the professors would allow their students five minutes in the beginning of class to stomp their feet to warm up. I shouldn't complain about having to take exams because apparently in order to graduate here, you used to have to give a series of orations in front of a committee lasting for hours, and then would be questioned extensively. However, if you passed, you got to write your name on the walls of the buildings in bull's blood and olive oil. Here's me sitting in the exam chair: (you're supposed to rest your feet on the feet of the sarcophagus (one of the founders I think?) for good luck)

On one of the university buildings there is a frog sitting on top of a skull and it is supposed to be good luck if you can find it. If you refer back to the picture of the church door, you can imagine that that's not an easy task.

Do you see it? Hint: you can make the picture bigger by clicking on it. Another hint: it looks like a lump, not a frog.

That night, we wandered around the city, taking in the nightlife. It was interesting to be in another university town, especially one where there's a ton of international students.

Plaza Mayor at night

The next day we lazed around in the hotel for a bit then went out and had a delicious lunch ending in toffee flan. MMMM. We then went and climbed the tower of the cathedral, which had awesome views of the city. Here's Elizabeth, Lara, and me at the top:

Fast forward two weeks, and it's Thanksgiving! (My, does time fly). We all got dressed up and went to a really fancy restaurant where our program paid for us all to have a really nice dinner. Although it wasn't the most traditional of thanksgiving meals (barbeque-like gravy and potato puree) it was pretty delicious. The other cool thing is that we were on tv! The Canal Extremadura (the local channel) did a piece on our dinner and interviewed a few of us, although none of us actually got to see it on tv.

Yummmm

Really disgusting.... the watermelon puree (why??) tasted like a wicker chair.

The next day, we had our last excursion, this time to Sevilla. Apparently rain in Sevilla is a miracle, but that's either a lie or we're pretty miraculous because it rained almost the whole time we were there. After we arrived, we took a very rainy tour of the city and visited a maritime museum (lots of documents from explorer's of the new world). The city is really interesting because it's designed to keep out the unbearable summer heat. Because of this, all the buildings are white, tall, and very close together. Also, all the streets are lined with orange trees, although they're bitter oranges to prevent people from picking them all. That night we went to a flamenco concert in a pretty authentic bar (although it was full of tourists looking for an authentic flamenco concert). It was amazing! Flamenco is such a cool dance, and the performers were super intense. I liked that the performance felt really intimate and real too because it was just 4 people on a stage just in front of all the tables.

The next day, we went in to the Cathedral (big surprise) which is the 3rd largest in Europe (pretty sweet). It was big. Like most things in Europe and especially in Spain, it used to be a mosque before it was taken over by the Catholics. Because of this, there is still a courtyard and a tower. Here's a view from the tower.

After, we went and visited a moorish palace, which was really cool. It had some of the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen (and of course lots of awesome tile).

The Plaza de España (which can be seen in (Star Wars Episode II) was incredible once we finally were able to see it. Around the outside, there are alcoves featuring every province in Spain.

Adrienne, Lara, Pooja, Me, and Elizabeth in front of Cáceres

Elizabeth and I also managed to sneak into the Plaza de Toros (bull fighting ring) which Sevilla is known for. Pretty neat because we were some of the only there.

I know you're sick of reading this by now, so go rest your eyes and I'll add more later this afternoon (I swear!!)

Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad/Buon Natale

This is me officially appologizing for not keeping this updated. I promise once I'm back in Cáceres I'll give you an update on my life so long you probably won't really want to read it. Travelling is hard!

Quick update to keep you occupied:

Since November 22nd, I've been to Salamanca, Sevilla, London, Madrid (again), Lisbon (again), Florence, Venice, and now I'm in Rome. Yeahhhh that's going to be a long update.

I'm missing everyone from home lots and wish everyone a happy and safe holiday!

I really can't bear to put all this in one post

The other weekend (so yes, it was almost 3 weeks ago at this point- shhh), we went on a 22km (about 14 mile) hike with a hiking club. Elizabeth's piano teacher had told her about it so we decided to sign up. We left at 7:30 in the morning with a huge group (about 60 people, some wearing tennis shoes, some with intense hiking gear) and drove to an area called the Valle Ambroz. It was absolutely gorgeous and we met some pretty cool people and saw a 700 year old chestnut tree. I couldn't move for about two days after, but it was definitely worth it. Can't explain how pretty it was so I'll just post some pictures. Click on any of them to make them bigger. In summary: cow up close; Elizabeth, Maggie and me on a bridge; really old tree; there's fall here (!); "wild" Spanish horses; beautiful; donkey up close; blah blah blah, pretty pictures; chestnuts are REALLY ugly; jamón in the wild; more pretty landscape. Enjoy!

Warning: Novel

Yes, yes, yes. I'm 2 weeks behind. I realize. Let's play catch up. Although I'm warning you now there will be no pictures in this post and I won't be very witty. Wow that makes me not even want to keep writing, let alone read this. Shoot. Ok, maybe I'll make an effort.

Two weekends ago I made a very spontaneous decision to change my long weekend plans from going to Zaragoza (an uninformed vacation choice made in the first few weeks and planned by other people) to go to Portugal. I refunded most of my bus ticket (the TEN HOUR bus ride) to Zaragoza for the next day and bought a train ticket to Lisboa with a different group of K students leaving that night. Very spontaneous, but one of the best decisions I've ever made.

We took the train over night and got in to Lisbon the next morning, checked into our hostel, and napped for a couple of hours. It was raining a lot, but we ended up walking around town for a bit anyway before stopping at a restaurant for lunch.

Sweet plaza by our hostel despite the construction

Portugal is famous for their cod (bacalhau: pronounced vaca-joww in portuguese) and we had a huge and delicious 2 hour meal.

 

 

 

 

Delicious. And floating in Oil.

Portugal is also known for its coffee (according to my host family, it's the best coffee in the world, and I must say I have to agree. It comes in espresso form in a tiny little cup but takes forever to drink because you have to take tiny sips. It's so strong it's almost thick, but it's so so delicious.

By this time it had stopped raining, so we walked around some more, exploring the neighborhoods. Lisbon is an absolutely gorgeous city. Most of the buildings are tiled on the outside, which I was obsessed with.

The city is on a hill, so at the top, we found a beautiful church that looked over the whole city. (click if you want to see it bigger: I told you it was beautiful)

That night, we walked around some more and found a really neat lookout onto the mouth of the river (that becomes the ocean). We were standing there looking out at the water, wondering why it looked super foamy when we realized it was because we were surrounded by thousands of fish! It was so disgusting, they were packed together so tightly they would occasionally jump out of the water. I literally took about 25 pictures of them, but I'll spare you.

The next day, it was raining pretty hard again so we decided to take the train to Sintra, a small town about 45 minutes away from Lisbon. Buying train tickets in Portuguese was an interesting experience. It was nice to get out of the rain for a while on the train, but it was raining even harder whn we got there, which was a shame because most of the things to see there are outdoor castles etc. Nevertheless, it was amazingly beautiful. When I buy my European summer home it's going to be in Sintra.

Stupid picture, but did you know umbrellas will actually do this if it's windy enough??

To get out of the rain, we ate lunch for a couple hours again (accompanied by wine and coffee of course), then walked around one of the palaces. The rooms inside were really cool. There were these two strange conical towers which we realized were actually huge chimneys from the kitchen. They just had huge roasting racks over a fire right on the floor. Pretty intense.

Sunday, we went to Belém, which is sort of like a suburb of Lisbon. There's a pretty cool tower there right on the water and a giant cathedral.

My camera battery died right after I took this picture and I was super sad, but Elizabeth let me use hers so it ended up alright. (Although I've yet to get any of the pictures from her). We then went in search of the pasteis do Belém (famous pastries originating from a factory there). We eventually found the factory, which turned out to have a million tables inside and got some of the pastries (and café com leitche) which were delicious.

After that, we went to the Castelo do São Jorge which is located looking over the city. It was really pretty, and there were actual peacocks running around! Pretty sweet. There was also a moat, which I was really excited about. After eating (more bacalhau) we wandered around the city some more. Our train didn't leave until 11:30 so we had lots of time to kill. It started raining again so we stopped in a café and got some port wine (which is from Porto, a city just north of Lisbon). I had a sweet picture of the plaza we were sitting outside of, but it's not letting me upload it right now.




My host sister used to live in Portugal so she had given me a list of things to do while we were there. So far everything she'd recommended had been amazing, so we decided to give the last attraction a shot: the Santa Justa elevator. It's a strange looking elevator located in the middle of the city. There was a super long line, so we figured it must be great. 3 euros and a 30 second elevator ride later, we were about 4 floors up looking at the city through a chain link fence. The elevator is attached to a building behind it by a walkway which goes next to an old cathedral which we'd actually been wondering how to see it up close. However, the exit to this so called "Eiffel Tower equivalent in Portugal" was a back entrance into a courtyard on a hill we'd been standing in 30 minutes earlier. The gate was open. So essentially we paid $5 to ride up 3 floors on an old elevator. It was so ridiculous it was hilarious, and we couldn't stop laughing the whole way back to the hostel.

The Eiffel Tower if there was a back entrance out the top.

Overall very successful trip.

Weekend in Madrid (ie. not enough time to see anything)

Hello all! Sorry it's been a while, I've been incredibly busy. Actually, I feel like I say that all the time, but it's true. I actually just got back from a trip to Portugal this morning, but that's for another post. Anyway, let me catch up. Last weekend my program went on an excursion to Madrid! (Prepare yourselves for an enormous post)

We got there early Friday afternoon and checked into our hotel. It was a really nice hotel and the rooms were really big with only two people per room. It was really funny, because no one could figure out how to turn the lights on. It turns out you have to leave your room key in a slot by the door in order to work any of the electricity. Energy efficient I suppose, but I was pretty concerned for a while that we had no power. We had some free time after that, so we walked along the Gran Via which is the main commercial street in Madrid and shopped a little (huge H&M? Yesssss). There were so many people speaking English it was really weird. At one point, we passed a souvenir shop and the ladies walked by and one of them goes "Ohhhh! Remember where this is because I want to come back and get stuff for my son!!" (in a strong southern accent). We all looked at each other and immediately switched to speaking Spanish.

The whole group met up a little later to do a scavenger hunt (or in spanish a gymkana) where we had to wander around Madrid and answer questions about certain buildings and ask strangers questions about Spanish culture. Not really my ideal way of getting to know the city, and my group couldn't find a lot of the locations. After that we were all super hungry and tired so we headed back to the hotel. Everyone was so tired from traveling/walking all day that no one ended up going out (which was sort of crazy considering it was a Friday night and we were in Madrid, the city that literally never sleeps).

The next morning, I woke up with horrible heartburn and ended up walking with my friend up the Gran Via looking for Aquarius (a drink similar to Gatorade) in my sweatpants. Pretty ridiculous. After I was feeling better some of my friends wanted to head out and go shopping. I went with them for a little while, and then me and Colleen decided to go check out the Parque de Retiros which is a huge park in Madrid that's super beautiful. We were super tired, so we took a quick nap in the sun (sounds weird, but there were people, well mostly cute couples, laying around everywhere).

FALL COLORS!!!

We then met up with the group at the Prado, which is one of (if not the) best art museums in the world (even better than the Lourve for its paintings apparently). It was really amazing, and I got to see a ton of famous art in person (Goya, el Greco etc). It would've been really nice to have more time though, because it's a huge museum and therefore we only saw about a tenth of it.

Las Meninas. I was told immediately after I took this that you weren't allowed to take pictures.

 After looking around for a few hours, we went to the Reina Sofía, which is a museum of contemporary art. I loved this museum. Probably its most famous work of art is La Guernica by Picasso (if you don't know, it depicts the Spanish civil war). The museum also contained all of Picasso's studies of the painting which were really interesting to see how the idea developed. The museum had a ton of Dalí and Magritte and so many other great painters.

You were allowed to take photos in the whole museum except the room with the Guernica

At this point, we were all exhausted and the last thing I wanted to do was go to Kapital, the 7 story club Madrid is famous for. Colleen and I decided we'd walk back to the hotel, change clothes, and have a super leisurely dinner. After walking back for about half an hour, consulting the map every few blocks, we realized we were farther from the hotel than when we started. If you've never looked at a map of Madrid please do now. If you zoom in, you'll notice there's absolutely no order to any of the streets.

We called the girls we were going to meet for dinner and asked them to come meet us because if we walked all the way back to the hotel we'd never leave. We sat in a Plaza waiting for them and people watching (and freezing...). There were these really cool flower stands that looked like boxes around us that closed up into cubes at night.

We finally met up with the other girls and walked to a plaza we'd accidentally stumbled on that looked like it had good restaurants. We ended up having an amazing meal at a very authentic restaurant which was really nice. The place was packed, and we were squeezed up between another table and the corner where they served the jamón. It was pretty cool.

Ironically, our meal was all the same color but it was sooooo delicious. We had manchego cheese (super famous cheese from Spain), tortilla española (like an omlette with potatoes), and the best calamari I've ever eaten in my entire life.

After eating, we wandered back to the hotel through the Plaza Mayor and the Puerta del Sol (another very famous plaza). In the Puerta del Sol is the "kilómetro cero" (kilometer 0) where all distances in Spain are measured from. There's a plaque in the ground, and I made the whole group go sarch for  it with me, only to find a Spaniard standing half on it, intensely absorbed in a conversation. (I took a picture of it anyway, random man's leg and all). Here's me, Colleen, and Elizabeth by one of the fountains in the plaza:

Sunday morning, we checked out of the hotel and walked to the Palacio Real. The inside of the palace was incredible. Elizabeth and I fell so behind the group because we had to stop and gasp at every room. It was a good thing you weren't allowed to take pictures inside because I would've been there for days. We also visited the armory which contains the biggest collection of armor in Europe (or maybe Spain, I can't remember, but it was impressive either way) and the cathedral.

Palacio Real

More Palacio (inside the main courtyard)

We looked pretty funny standing around with our audio guides.

After that we all split up and found another awesome restaurant to eat lunch before catching the bus home. It was a really great trip in spite of getting sick, but I'm definitely going to have to go back to see more of it. There were a ton of places I didn't get to. I was glad to get back to Cáceres after being in such a big city with so many people and so much to do. I missed my siestas!