Inside Notre Dame

Here's a video of me inside Notre Dame!!  I wasn't kidding when I said I had no words, lol.  I literally had no words, so I sound pretty stupid describing it, but you have to remember I was pretty brain dead from lack of enough sleep and pure shock.

Paris 2

Well I'm still working on uploading more videos that I have taken.  I'm quite proud of my videos.  I know the one I just posted is a little old, but I just realized I could post videos in here, lol.  I figured out how to post them, lol.  They should be up soon enough.

Okay, now that that's happening it's time to get back to business!!  So Friday was a day of traveling and then it was time for Saturday!!!  Saturday Hollie wanted to go to Synagogue and in case you didn't know, there's like no Synagogues in Spain.  So she found one in Paris and wanted to go because she hadn't been at all since she'd been here.  She offered to go and come back for me but I said that would be silly and I would accompany her. It's not like I'm not accustomed to being inside different churches and attending different services.  I always find it a bit interesting.  So we went to Synagogue at around 10:30.  That was an interesting experience, let me tell you.  First we had to get our bags checked, which made me concerned and saddened that they have probably been harassed to the point where they fear for their safety.  Then on top of this being a religion I don't really know much about, it was all in French. haha I was looking at a book that was backwards, in not one, but two languages I didn't understand (french and hebrew). Needless to say I was lost the entire time, and we even thought we had stumbled into a Bar/Batmitzvah (I have no idea which is which) because there was a young boy doing like half the stuff.  We couldn't figure out who the rabbi was and who was in charge.  It was slightly entertaining and comical for me, but very interesting.  I enjoyed it and seeing another side of religion, especially since Judaism is so close to Christianity, I mean it was was Jesus was...  Anyways, it was interesting and we got out at around noon.

It was perfect timing for us to go to....THE LOUVRE MUSEUM.  Yup, that's the one.  The one from "The Da Vinci Code" (which I just bought in Spanish) and the one that has a bunch of famous pieces in it, like the Mona Lisa, and the Headless Wings and a Michaelangelo piece.  Yup.  So we headed over there and grabbed a bite to eat first.  We weren't really feeling the whole 'pay an arm and a leg' for lunch thing so we walked around the corner and there was a nice super market that had a nice little area for us to eat.  We got some frozen pizza, crackers, cookies and a drink.  They had a microwave for us to use so we ate our lovely 6 euro lunch and people watched.  Then it was off to the Louvre!

 Did you knoooow that the Louvre is three buildings put together.  It also used to be a Palace, which explains  its enormity.  And the cool Pyramid that they have in the center was their way of connecting all three buildings.  You used to have to buy a ticket for one building, then leave and go to another to see everything. They wanted to make a way so people could travel within without leaving, so they had some Chinese guy invent this cool Pyramid.  It was supposed to be see through and self-supporting but something about a billion tons of glass just didn't want to be self-supporting.  Oh well, it's a really sight to see.

So that's meee!! There were awesome blocks, which you can see in the background that you could use to put your finger on top of the pyramid.  You could try to do it on top of the big one, but you had to go to the other side and that was too much work.  Plus it was a lot harder to do.  So we settled for this image, which I still thinks is pretty cool.  Then on the right is a picture of just part of the Louvre.  It's massive, and I only got a part of it in the picture.  But I think you pretty much get the picture.

Off to inside we went!! Also, did you know that pretty much everything I did in Paris was.....FREE.  Yup, as a student, and with a student visa, I get a butt load of things for free.  All the museums I went into were free.  And many other things.  The Louvre, which usually costs like 10 euro was 100% free, and that was awesome.  So me and Hollie were able to stroll on in and get out free tickets.  We then made a game plan.  The Louvre is so big you'd literally have to spend months inside in order to see everything.  So we decided to hit up the things we wanted to see the most.  We were originally going to head for I think some Egyptian art and then see the famous stuff later, but we walked in the wrong direction and ended up going towards the main attraction.  We walked around and saw a bunch of cool things and then ended up running into The Winged Victory of Somothrace.  That's the wings without the head, that's really famous.  It was huuuge!! And really pretty actually.  So that's me and that's for reference, so you have an idea of how big that thing is!  Then we headed in the direction of that masses.  While it was nice to know that we were headed somewhere it was hard to walk through people, and it was really loud because most people were there to see one thing, and one thing only...Mona Lisa.

So that brings me to my next paragraph.  The Mona Lisa is pretty cool.  I have to admit it kind of sucks seeing her from about 12 feet away and through about a foot of bullet proof glass, stupid person that ruined it for everyone.  The painting is very small and it's kind of hard to see her because there is literally a mosh pit of people around her trying to take a picture of it.  So people def don't tell you about the mass of people around the painting, but it's very cool to see.  I didn't stay very long people there were so many people and I was honestly fearing for my purses safety (perfect spot for pick-pocketers).  But just to prove to you that I saw it..here you go.  P.S If you click on the pictures they are enlarged and you can see them better, haha idk if any of you know that.

So after I went through the most pit to see the Mona Lisa we meandered around the museum.  I loved looking at all the renaissance art, but I decided that I could forego looking at all of it because I figure I'll see my fill in Italy in about a month.  But I really liked the religious pieces and many other pieces that were there.  I really started getting into the art, mostly because I know a little bit about them.  I wandered into Egyptain stuff with Hollie and saw some pretty cool Egyptian statues, some Sphinx's , and other things.  Then after wandering around we wanted to split.  I really wanted to look at more Roman and Greek sculpture because I learned so much about it in Art and Politics.  There was also a Michelangelo piece that I wanted to see.  On my way I saw Venus de Milo and Psyche and Cupid.  I really honsetly didn't even know what the name of Psyche and Cupid  was when I saw it.  I really just saw some people standing around it and realized it was really pretty.  I didn't spend too much time on it because I was on a time crunch, but I spent just enough to admire it and realize how pretty it was.  I ended up buy a postcard with a picture of it because I thought it was gorgeous.  Then I saw  Michelangelo piece called Captive (The Dying Slave).  Not gonna lie...it was alright.  Mostly it was Michelangelo so it was pretty cool to see it.  But I also didn't have much time to stare at it so I couldn't appreciate it funny.  There were some other things I would have liked to see, but we had already spent more than 2 hours there and we really want to go to the the D'Orsay Museum to see some Impressionism.  

So we finally left the Louvre at around 4, after buying out post cards and little such things.  Because it was a pretty crappy day outside we decided to continue on with our museum kick and go to Musee D'Orsay.  This is the other really famous museum in Paris that has a ton of impressionism.  For those of you who can't remember what that is...that's Van Goh, Monet, Manet, and other famous people.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but that's okay, it was almost better that way.  I totally was able to appreciate these pieces because I was able to just look at them, rather than fight people taking pictures.  So I saw some Van Goh and a tooon of Monet.  They had a huge collection of his stuff and I really liked a lot of them.  I got a magnet with my favorite one of it because I thought it was really pretty.  The place was really big too.  The only picture I have is of the inside as a whole.  There was a balcony where you could see almost the whole museum and it was really big and cool!

We stayed at the museum until it close and they kicked us out, which was at about 5:30-6.  Then we decided that we didn't quite want to head back, so we'd head towards the Eiffel Tower.  It was getting dark so we decided that by the time we get to it night would be falling and we'd be able to see it all lit up.  I heard rumors that it lights up and is really pretty at night, but I wasn't expecting what I saw.  Basically I took about a million pictures of the Eiffel Tower, so I'm sorry for the bombardment on FB.  But it was soo pretty and I couldn't help to take more photos.  We got there and there was a group of friends doing the typical touristy thing...opening a bottle of wine in front of the Eiffel Tower and enjoying the view.  It was pretty funny.  Hollie and I took our obligatory pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower and even fooled around with out cameras and took some artsy ones.

Then we wandered around and looked at the food vendors around and under it.  At first we thought eating on the Eiffel Tower was cheap because the electronic menu was misleading.  But then we realized it was lunch that was cheap, NOT dinner.  So we scratched that idea and decided to grab some Crepes and look at the tower.  So we went across the street to the carousel and got some food from the vendor.  Then we sat down and waited for the light show to start...yup, you heard me...light show.  Even thought the Eiffel Tower is gorgeous all lit up every hour from 7-2 they light the tower up and it sparkles for a full 5 minutes.  I love it, the people that live around it probably hate it, but I love it!  Sooo we sat down at the carousel and waiting for it to start sparkling.  It's soooo pretty!!  I took a video because I thought it was so cool.  Here it is!!  I know it's not long, but it's just long enough to get the idea.  I also know that it's sideways, sorry...

My first crepe!

But that's pretty much what my entire day was.  After that we got really tired and wanted to go to sleep.  We had decided to go into Versialle the next day so we wanted to rest.  We also treated this time more like vacation, where we just took our time getting from place to place and enjoying what time we had in Paris.  Basically the whole time I was there I was just like "I'm in Paris, I'm studying abroad and traveled to Paris, this real, omg"  Basically that was me.  I really couldn't get over the fact that I was there and doing and experiencing these things.  It just really hit home while I was there, for some strange reason.  I wasn't even home sick, just so incredibly grateful for being there and being able to experience those things.  We walked back to the metro after getting hit on my some painfully obvious and obnoxious men, and my hair being pulled by an obnoxious French teenager, and then some more  rude men hitting on us.  Not that we wanted to go out, but if we had, that definitely killed the mood.  I definitely understood why some people said the French are extremely rude.  Near the touristy places they just want to murder you and ruthlessly make fun of you.  Needless to say I watched my volume more after that night.  We also saw a weird guy shout at the police officer to look at him pretending to shoot a duck with his cane....it was strange.  I can honestly say I saw many many strange things there.  Also, you would think that near the Eiffel Tower they would place a metro station that's easy to find...not so easy.  We got a bit lost, not very, but enough to be frustrated and confused.  We found it and headed back to our hostel on a metro filled with people, ugh, I hate full metros, they're so stinky and uncomfortable.

We made it back, feasted on our bread, nutella, fruit and crackers and headed in at around 11.  I wasn't very tired and had a hard time falling asleep, but that's mostly because it was really hot in the room.  I was also pumped to go to Versaille the next day.  YAY :) Hope you enjoyed this post.  One more left!!

Video!

I've been taking some videos at places I go to but haven't figured out how to share them.  I think this should work.  This one's for you daddy!

Love you

I just wanted to add one more video that I made for you daddy.  I made this the in January when I was in the Alhambra and just never figured out how to post it until now.  But I like making videos, love you!

There's no place like Paris

Yup, I have to say that without a doubt there's no place like Paris.  I understand why people go gaga over Paris now.  Besides my Saturday night mean French people experience, I'd have to say I do love Paris as well. Everything about that city is just so different from any other place I've been.  Maybe it's the fact that they speak French though, that certainly helps add to the whole foreign feeling.  Now I wouldn't go a say it's my favorite place, because there are a few things I would change about it, but I certainly didn't hate and and certainly loved it.  

Let me start you off with the antics I had to go through to get there.  haha, that was certainly a trip.  I didn't take a siesta on Thursday, which was a bad plan.  But I'm really bad at siestas here, there's always something else I want to do during that time.  No offense to the Spanish siestas style, and I do love it, but 4 o'clock is such a great time to be productive!! I'm so pumped after class to run errands, but I can't because I had to eat and everything is closed.  It's kind of a bummer, so I've taken to doing other productive things, such as catch up on blogging, or reading, or journaling, or just fooling around on my computer. :P  But I digress.  

I didn't take a nap and my bus left for Madrid at 1:30 in the morning.  Naturally around 10 I was feeling tired and regretting forgoing the nap, but wanted to power through it so I would sleep on the bus there.  Well, I left the house around 12:30, caught a cab with some friends to the bus station and hopped on an overnight bus to Madrid.  My flight left Madrid at 9:35 in the morning so that worked out perfectly.  Except for the whole sleeping on a bus thing.  I finally got comfortable (and I say that in the loosest terms) and fell asleep, only to be woken up at 3:30 by the bus lights.  I guess it's madatory to stop half way through these stops.  So I got up to use the restrooms at the stop and grab something to eat because I was actually pretty hungry.  Then we continued on our way to Madrid and got there at about 6-6:30 a.m .  Me, Jen, Kendall and Allie then all realized we forgot how to look up how to get to the airport from the bus station...minor oversight on our parts.  But have no fear!! We knew some girls on our bus, there were a bagillion students on the overnight buses heading out for the weekend, so they showed us the ropes and we went with them.  We took the metro and got to the airport at around 7:30 or 8. 

Then the funniest thing happened!! Me and my friends stopped to use the restrooms...don't worry this is going somewhere funny...and when I walked in a saw..........MY SENORA!.  haha.  She was traveling to "Londres" or London with her cousin/friend and we knew we were going to be at the same airport, and took buses only a 1/2 hr off from each other, but it was so random!  I said hello to her and she turned around and was so shocked and happy.  It was the cutest thing every.  She gave me the biggest hug, like it hadn't only been about 6 hours since she saw me. haha.  She was adorable and then we just said hello and goodbye and went on our merry way, but it was a funny experience. 

Anyways, so our flight was fine, it was easy and we arrived in Paris, France with no problems.  In Europe they like to let you off on the tarmac, which is a bit odd because I've only done that once before.  But here in Europe it's actually quite common.  Anyways, we headed to our hostels, and took the metro together.  I was staying at a different hostel with my friend Hollie than Jen and Kendall was, but it turned out that unknowingly we booked hostels literally 2 min away from each other.  Since Hollie had taken a different flight with a different friend I was by myself, so Jen and Kendall helped me find my hostel, after getting lost and asking  French woman who spoke no English where to go.  But it was no problem and we found the hostel just fine.  I dropped off my stuff and met Kendall and Jen outside at the metro station to explore the city a bit.  By the time we dropped all our stuff off it was only 3:30.  So we grabbed some grub (some expensive grub that was not worth my money) and then headed over to Notre Dame.  No worries, after that one experience at the restaurant I vowed that although food is supposed to be good in France, I was not going to bother spending 15 euro per meal.  The rest of the trip I just ate at stands, got crepes or bought food at a store and cooked in the hostel kictchen.  

I'm going to digress again and say that I actually like staying at hostels.  Idk why I thought they would be so scary.  People tell you they are, but in Europe that are really nice places.  I enjoy the experience, it's a cheap and easy way to sleep somewhere.  And honestly, why should I have $100+ just for a place to sleep in?  I stayed at Le Regent Montmare, I have no idea how to say that or if it's spelled correctly.  But it was a nice little place with like 6 floors and a huge common kitchen and nice common space.  You also get to meet some interesting people.  Me and Hollie had a room with one awkward person who we had no idea who he was.  I really don't even think he slept in the hostel.  And then there was this Turkish guy there for some medical conference that was happening.  We saw a billion people with that same silly pink bag all over France.  He was really nice and gave us some extra pads and pens he had gotten from his conference.  He was meeting with some teacher to find out if he could study in London for 6 months this summer.  

Any ways, so that's my hostel.  There's a pic of the outside and of the inside.  There's Hollie and our dinner feast on the floor.  It consisted of bread, nutella, crackers, cookies and an apple :) Yummm

Well, I didn't actually check into my hostel until around 9, but that's because Hollie was MIA with Gabe and our phones didn't work.  No biggie, I headed out to Notre Dame!!! with Kendall and Jen!  I was so excited to see Notre Dame, who hasn't watched the Hunchback of Notre Dame and wanted to be Esmeralda or just be there in general.  Oh and all the gargoyels are scary!

So we found out way via metro, and when we walked out, the first thing I saw as "uh guys, I think I found Notre Dame"...this is what I saw...  Yup, it was pretty sick.  We got there at a good time too, because the line wasn't too long to get in.  Unfortunately I have too many pictures of Notre Dame and just not enough to talk about inside of it.  I didn't get to take any cool free guided tours, so I don't really have any cool tid bits of information.  We got there too late to take the free tour they offered, and I didn't want to waste the rest of my days there on a 3 1/2 hr tour if I wasn't going to get to see everything well.  Hollie went on one because she got there early enough on Saturday.  So she gave me a few bits of information while we were walking around, but we didn't go to Notre Dame together, so I didn't get any cool info.  But I can tell you this place is ENORMOUS and really super cool inside and outside.  I was literally just in awe the whole time. That also could have been the sleep deprivatey, but I doubt it.  So since I have so many photos, I think I'll just list them and post little captions.  

ME!

Pretty stain glass window

Gorgeous alter

Mother Teresa

Ceiling

Model of Notre Dame

ME

Another view

Gargoyles!

That's pretty much the only way I describe this place.  It was breath taking and I loved being inside.  I wanted to return but we just didn't have time.  But I spent about a good hour inside and I loved it.  After we wandered around the Cathedral we actually ended up asking these two girls we heard speaking English take a picture for us.  Turns out they're studying in Granada too!! So we hooked up with them and walked around that area of Paris together.  It was pretty fun.  We found this cute cool little shop that I actually got a gift for someone from there.  They had all sorts of quirky little things....like this!  I wanted to buy one so bad for Maggie but it just wouldn't have fit into my backpack :(  So I settled for a picture of it for you guys.  Hope you enjoy them.  Then we found this cool shop that was full of stuff made from olive oil.  Turns out the girl at the place was from Cleveland and studied in Paris about 5 years ago.  She got into the Olive Oil business (I know weird) and ended up living in Paris.  It was a cute little store and we gave her some nice company!  From there we turned around and headed back.  We stopped for some coffee and then parted ways.  I was pretty exhausted and wanted to head back to the hostel in hopes of catching Hollie and getting some rest.  Jen and Kendall headed over the Eiffel Tower and the two girls were heading in my direction towards another Cathedral.  So I went with them towards my hostel and checked in.  Turns out Hollie was there just hanging around so I stayed and we planned our Saturday.  I went to bed at around 9, which I legit think is the earliest I've gone to bed the whole time I've been here.  But after nearly 12 hours of travel I was pretty beat.  I knew seeing the Eiffiel Tower and doing more touristy things would just make me cranky and unappreciative, so I hit the hay.  Let me just say I slept amazingly.

Once again this is going to take more than one post, so I'll continue with another post of Paris!!  Maybe I'll even get most of them up today and tomorrow.  Seeing as I leave for another adventure on Friday morning I'm hoping to finish all of my blogging and journaling so I'll be all caught up for that.

Till then, love you all!

School

Wait, I'm supposed to be learning here, say what?  Yup, that's right, this whole study abroad thing isn't all about travels, going out and seeing weird people on the streets, I'm actually doing some learning here too.  But I haven't talked a lot about it because, in all honesty, it's quite boring for you guys.  I really like pretty much all of my classes.  All my professors are pretty good, except for one who bores the heck out of me that I want to shoot myself some days, but hey you can't win with them all right?  Well here's a quick overview of my schedule:

M/W:  I have four straight classes.  I start at 8:30, which means my alarm goes off at around 7:30 so I can eat breakfast, and get ready to leave for 8.  I go to my grammar class first, which is basically just a class for us to go over everything grammar.  We did Ser/Estar last week, now we've moved onto reviewing the Pasados (past tenses), which I'm actually beginning to get very good at, yay me, I just need to get my agreement right all the time.   Then I go to History of Spain.  I really like that course, the teacher is really nice and it's so interesting learning the history of this country.  It's so different from ours and seeing how Spain is influenced by the Romans and Arabs is really cool.  Then I go to Islamic Culture in Spain.  This class is only offered through AIFS here in Granada because of the strong Arabic roots they have in Andalusia.  It's really interesting seeing how this portion of Spain was influenced by the Arabs.  Also, this whole country is about the size of Texas...that's nuts.  I guess my friends teacher was talking to them about how far away they go to school from home and they told her it takes about 3-4 hours (they live in the mid-west), the teacher was astonished and thought that was so far because that's essentially here to Madrid.  So I just thought that's funny because it's fairly normal to drive long distances in the US.  After that class I have my POE class, which is a writing and oral expression class.  That's the one that bores me to death!!  For my intensive course I had such an energetic teacher that it was fun, but this teacher is so boooooring.  She's so calm and hardly gets us talking, it's just a snore.  But it's improving a bit, we'll see.

T/TH:  I have one class at 1 that's my education course for the internship I'm doing.  I really like the class, it's interesting to learn about the education system here in Spain because it is very different.  It's similair in some ways, but very different in others.  So I'll actually only be having a few more classes of this, and then the rest of the semester on T/Th's I'll be in a school.  I haven't found out which school yet, so we'll see, but it should be interesting.

Then I go home for lunch every day after classes, which every day I end at 2:30 and just hang around for the rest of the day.  They don't really do the whole homework thing here, it's more like you take initiative to study on your own.  They also don't do the whole buy books thing.  Most of my "books" are worksheet packets they've made for us, which is so exciting.  So I just come back, eat, relax, and go out for coffee or icecream with my friends.  Like yesterday I went to Cafe Futbol with my friend to do some work and studying and eat some food outside.  It was a gorgeous day and I was so excited to be able to get outside.

But yup, that's pretty much my life here.

Love you all!

Random Happenstances Around Granada

Lots of silly little things happen around Granada.  Every day I see something silly, a little off, a little abnormal, but it always brings a smile to my face and reminds me that I'm in another country experiencing something new and exciting.

This is not him, but it's the general idea :)

For example...about last week on Friday I was walking down to the AIFS office to meet with my friends to plan our trip to ITALY for Spring Break.  It's about noon, I'm strolling down the street just listening to my iPod and being happy that it's a nice day outside and I have no classes.  Then all of a sudden I hear all this clatter, like a little kid is in the kitchen playing with all the pots and pans and thinks he's making music.  I look around and everyone is staring and looking at this person.  What do I see...I see a Bert, from Mary Poppins.  I kid you not this guy looked straight out a film.  He had the drums attached to his back, stomping his feet, the cymbol and the harmonica attached to a pole in front of his mouth.  Picture this guy ^.  Yup, I saw that walking down the streets.  Boy was it comical and it pretty much mad my day. :)

Also, this weekend was Carnaval.  For those of you who don't know, it's basically a huge weekend for people to get dressed up, get drunk and be altogether silly.  People wear all sorts of silly costumes, and some cities have huge parties.  Some kids went to Caidez to celebrate Caranval where they have a huge party, with music and the city is all lit up and decorated.  Well, you don't just have to be in Caidez to celelbrate Carnaval, you celebrate it all over Spain.  Julia was telling me about her nieta dressing up as a mermaid for school, everyone celebrates.  So I guess it shouldn't have surprised me to see a cute little girl walking down the street in a Snow White costume (adorable!)

But it did surprise me a little bit to see some guy dressed up as the saddest Winnie the Pooh ever!!! His costume looked like he made it in his basement, he probably did, and he wasn't fat at all.  He was holding balloons and only had costume feet, not costume hands.  He also looked pathetic, and was hardly taking pictures with children.  One word: sketch.
  But then he did the unthinkable.....he took off his head.  Now, as a lover of Pooh I was appalled.  As a lover of all things Disney...I had no words....I guess not everyone thinks of the magic of costumes like Disney does.

And to top off my bizzare week, on my way home from seeing this pathetic Pooh I saw a bunch of people dressed in older garb running from the plaza with a bullhorn and shouting something.  I have no idea what they were shouting but it was obviously something that had to do with Carnaval.  It was very entertaining but I wish I had caught what they were saying.  I also did see a few people out last night dressed up, but not too many.  I don't think I was out late enough to see that sort of thing.  Either was it was very entertaining.  I loved it.

Now why don't we have some fun holiday like that...oh wait...it's called Halloween. hahah.  Oh well, Carnaval was still pretty fun to see.

A day full of Gaudy Gaudi.

So I've decided that the term gaudy, as in all things overly ridiculous and a bit tacky comes from Gaudi.  While I absolutely adore his architecture and everything I have to admit his stuff is a bit gaudy.  So hence commences my account of my second day in Barcelona, full of Gaudi architecture, and other random happenstances.

First things first, I woke up around 9, got ready, ate breakfast and went on my way with a bunch of other people to the free tours that our hostel offered us. Yay! Free tours!! It was actually a really good tour too.  Now when they say free they really mean "we're going to beg you for tips if I do a good job" but the tips don't have to be that good, and given as I'm a poor college student studying abroad I'm going to just pool my money with my other friends and make it look like we all gave you an excellent tip.  It's funny, because all europeans seem to think that since we're American's abroad we're all rich.  I guess their thought process is that if we're here in Europe not working and just traveling we're loaded, they clearly do not understand how weak our dollar is here and how much it pains us to spend money.

Anyways, we started our tour around 10:30 or so and had two to choose from, Gaudi tour or a tour of the Gothic neighborhood.  Now I still have never looked at the Gothic Cathedrals, but I knew that I wanted another tour of the Gaudi stuff and learn about what I was looking at.  So I went with that, as did many others in our group.  There were about 15 of us from AIFS that were at the same hostel and such, so many of us were on the free walking tour together.

We started off our tour in the plaza we stopped at, where we saw Gaudi's first and only piece he did for the city of Barcelona.  This was also his first piece he did for money, and the last one he did for the city of Barcelona because they stiffed him. After he was finished they decided they didn't want to pay him in full and only paid him half the money.  But as a good ol' American would do he took them to court and got all of his money.  But then he swore he'd never work for the council again, and he didn't, he only worked for private owners after that.  But this cool lamp has red touches and influence from nature, as does everything else he made.  Most of his stuff is very colorful, and he looked at nature for inspiration.  A lot of the designs are based on nature and he studied things to see how they really looked, worked and fit together.  It was really cool.

After that we headed to Gaudi's first piece that he was commissioned to make.  It was a remodel of a building in what once was known as the red light district. This guy named Guell hired him to remodel the building in hopes of bringing the rich people to the area and reviving it.  There's a phoenix in the middle of the two doors (don't ask me why though) and all the way up the windows actually get smaller.  Our guide also told us a funny story about the couple that lived there.  Basically what happened is that no one else ended up moving to the red light district but the Guell's, but they of course had guests over all the time.  Apparently they had a huge window built so they can see from their rooms the carriages coming into the garage area.  Then they would look to see if their guests were dressed better than them and change if necessary.  Can't have your guests upstaging you now can you!! I thought it was an entertaining story.

Next building is my favorite.  It's called Casa Batllo, and it's very colorful.  I saw this one about 3 years ago and we were there during Carnaval so I have two women dressed as cats in the picture. haha Now I have even more pictures of it!  I honestly couldn't tell you much about it, just that it's very pretty and really super cool.  You can go inside it and see the inside, but I didn't think it was worth my 15 euro, I was saving that to go into La Sagrada Familia.  Oh and apparently you get to see the head of my american tour guide!! haha He was a pretty funny guy, and his name was Ross! He's from American and apparently got his job by doing the pub crawl that the hostel offered.  I guess he was just very energetic, and was being a tourist.  They had a job open and he got it, that's how he described it to us "I wanted to get drunk and came back with a job".  So it was certainly an interesting tour, but he was a funny dude.

Next stop, La Pedrera, which also has other names, and I cannot translate that name for you. haha But it has many other names by the locals, and this was the first house that Gaudi was able to completely build from scratch.  Guell only had once request and that was by his wife, she wanted a room to play her piano...guess what, Gaudi didn't give her one. haha  He was one stubborn man and only built what he wanted to build.  In this building there are no 90 degree angles, unless you count the modern windows that were installed (which I don't).  All the walls, ceiling, floors, everything is rounded out.  It was pretty cool.  Oh yea, and this building gave George Lucas his inspiration for the Star Wars movies.  The tops of the buildings look like Darth Vader and the snow patrol people (if I just butchered Star Wars I'm truly sorry to all you Star Wars people out there).

FINALLY, our last stop was La Sagrada Familia.  This place is AWESOME.  Literally it is my favorite Cathedral/Basilica ever.  Technically it's a Basilica, I don't know what makes something a Basilica really, but it is one.  So we took the metro to La Sagrada Familia (LSF as I will refer to it because it's easier).  We took the metro and our guide had us exit a certain way and then turn around all at once so we could get the full affect.  We sure did, well, at least everyone who had never seen it before did.  Everyone turned around and was pretty awestruck, I mean honestly how can you not be when an enormous Basilica stands before you.
Before I start explaining everything I'll also give you a link to their webpage.  I cannot possibly tell you everything about it, but in case you're interested here it is.  http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/sf-eng/?lang=0

There are no pictures I could take to possible give you a good idea of what this building looks like.  From afar it kind of looks like mush and a ton of detail.  But believe me, up close it's amazing.  There are three facades to the building.  The first one is the only one Gaudi saw finished before he died, the Nativity Facade.    It's the facade of the birth of Jesus and is topped with an evergreen tree to stand for the ever lasting life I think....

Next is the Passion Facade, which shows the Passion of Christ. That one is not finished yet, but it looks really cool!! This is probably my favorite facade.  Maybe because it's not directly made by Gaudi, but it's all his sketches and his model, someone else just created it.  I think this facade is really pretty.

Then there's the Glory Facade, which has yet to be finished.  It is the facade currently under construction, I think...again look on the website to confirm my information. The Glory Facade will depict the life of Jesus complete with bible stories and other such things.  This was also the side that Pope Benedict blessed in 2009 so it will be the official entrance of the Basilica.  There's no pictures of the Glory Facade because it's just blankness.

So here's the thing with this building, it started in 1882 when Gaudi began sketches and building.  It's not been 125 years...and it's still not scheduled to finish until 2030...and they are funny if they think it will be done then.  It won't, I promise you.  Barcelona brings in over 15 million euro a year from toursits entering this place, and once it's finished they can't charge people a dime for entering a public church.    So it won't be done, and they will figure out a way to extend the amount of time it takes to build this thing.

After I walked around the outside me and my friends resolved to grab something to eat and then go inside La Sagrada Familia.  After all, our guide said it's definitely something that's worth going into, and I've been dying to go in for 3 years now...  So finally I got to enter......dun dun dun!!  That's meeee.  I'm standing in front of a piece of the Passion Facade.  Up there is a saint I think, and on his right is a magic square that adds up to 33 all ways...which is the age Jesus died.  So that's pretty cool.  Walking up close to these things was awesome, I could stare at it all day.  But I practically did.  I spent probably about 2 hours inside LSF.

Oh, did I mention that when this massive thing is done it's going to be twice it's size.  Yup,  it's going to have 18 towers in total, one of Jesus (which will be the highest), one for Mary (slightly lower), 4 for the Evangelists, and 12 for the disciples.  So if you think it's big now...just wait another 50 years and it'll be massive....

After I gawked at the sculptures outside I entered...where we were allowed to take pictures, which I thought for sure would be forbidden. yay!  The inside is magnificent.  All the columns look super tall and like a forest.  The stain glass windows are so pretty and the light comes in perfectly.  The alter is incredibly pretty and the area behind the alter is really pretty cool.  There are several small chapels behind the alter for private prayer that you can't take pictures of because there are some people praying or watching the video of Pope Benedict blessing the Basilica.  There are spiral staircases going to the upper levels.  There's a huge choir loft that is very tall and can hold a lot of people, that they obviously used for the dedication ceremony thing ( I have no idea what to call it).  I was so excited to be inside and read all the little information that had about the architecture of the place.  Unfortunately I don't remember much of it anymore, but it was really cool see at the time.  So to the left is me inside and then below is a main part of the place.  That's where they had chair set up and people could go through there to get better pictures or rather to just plain see better. 

.  After I wandered around the inside of the church I wandered outside to the other side where the Nativity Facade was.  They had a really cool informational sign about all the different parts of the facade and which stories it told.  So it showed you were the three wise men where, Mary and Jospeh, Angels, animals, etc.  I had a really fun time reading all of that, even though it was freezing.  They also had a small area that had some info about Gaudi and some of this works.

But there's an even bigger museum downstairs...it's huge and it even has Gaudi's casket in there.  Ironically the only part of this place he did not design or build is the crypt, and that's where he is buried.  The museum also has a ton of his original sketches of the design for the Basilica, along with the remains of the original models they were able to recover.  The government burned down his workshop at some point, I don't remember why though.  They were able to recover some pieces and are rebuilding them based on the sketches he had.  They also have the original sketches from other architects who have worked on the building, and some portraits of Gaudi and others.  It's a really cool museum and there's tooooons of stuff to look at.  I definitely spent an hour down there just looking at everything.  By the time I was done looking at La Sagrada Familia I was definitely a huge Gaudi fan, not that I wasn't one already.  But I pretty much fell in love with him genius/madness.  Did you know...he actually used real people, dead people, dead babies and real animals to create casts of the animals and people he sculpted.  He wanted to anatomy and everything right.  So he cast casts of dead people, and dead babies, and just tranquilized animals to get the right anatomy of them (that's why we don't know if he was mad or a genius, personally I think both ;) )

Last stop...another thing I was waiting for all day....Parc Guell.  Parc Guell was designed and created by....you guessed it, Antony Gaudi.  This park was actually a failed project, so the tour guide said they didn't bring us there because that consider it a failure.  This park was supposed to be a private residence.  Gaudi said he would build anyone a house there that paid him to build one, the thing was they got no say in the design.  haha as you can imagine pretty much no one lived there.  There are only 3 houses on the property, and only one of which is lived in now.  Gaudi, and two residents lived in the park.  But he designed a ton of stuff in the park, including a market area, a fountain and tons of other really cool architecture.  Mostly just cave like, market type areas.  There's an amazing view of the city from the park, you can see all the way out to the sea.  It's incredible.  Where we entered we had an amazing view of the LSF, and it was really impressive, I can't imagine what it'll look like when it's finally finished.

Then we walked over to probably my favorite part, the market type area.  There's an awesome dragon spiral type bench area.  The bench is all made of small broken pieces of what looks to me like plates and stuff.  It's very pretty and intricate.  And under it is the columns that I love so much because of Gaudi's brilliance.  The tiling on the bottom of the columns change in height as you go down the line.  Gaudi understood how the eye works, and he knew that if he made them all the same height they would not look all the same.  So he changed the height a little at a time, based on distance, and they all look uniform.  I think it's pretty sick and shows his brillance!  This area was supposed to be where the market was, but as you know that whole residence thing never happened...so now it's just a pretty spot to be in .

Next I got to see the lizard!! Dun...dun...dun....  I love this cute little lizard dude, he's not very cute, but very cool.  This is pretty much the spot to be in the park.  This is where all the tourists are to see the things they see in movies and such.  Another little factoid, you guys know the Cheetah Girls movie where they all go to Barcelona.  Well the song with the little Spanish boy showing them around the city and them dancing all over the place.  Well I was pretty much in all of those spots, and Gaudi's lizard was in the movie! haha The lizard is very famous.  So there's me with him!!

After that I explored the park some more.  There's sooo much more to see than just the big touristy spots.  We wandered around some more, and looked at those little houses that I saw last time.  The ones where I was told about them representing the whole hansel and gretal story.  Turns out you can't really go in them, but there's a little gift shop in one of them where I ended up caving and buying a book all about Gaudi's works.  I just couldn't help myself and I know I will be happy with my book purchases in the future.  I'm still on the hunt for a children's book though, more for a classroom but that just having one would be fun for me either way.

I wandered over to where Gaudi's house was.  Unfortunately it was late so their awesome museum inside Gaudi's house was closed. :(  But I walked around the house and looked at his cool stuff.  He had cool statues and other things out in his patio area.  Now it's just a museum obviously, but Gaudi did live there!!  We also saw some cool looking areas to just chillax.  There's one cave area where surrounding it are chairs!! They're all wooden columns and sculpted at the bottom are chairs!

And that was pretty much it.  That was the end of my day.  Me and Jen headed back to the hotel after spending about 2 hours in Parc Guell.  On our way we helped a hopelessly lost American older woman find her way to where ever she was going.  I stayed in for the night but it was a girl in our groups birthday that night so most of the people went out on the free pub crawl the hostel offered.  I stayed in and bought some food to make at the hostel on the way home.  Then I headed in early for the night because the next day was our last day and we had to travel home.

On Sunday I woke up late, around 9:30, grabbed some breakfast and checked out of the hostel.  We were able to leave our bags there because we still had most of the day to wander around.  So me and Jen wandered up towards the Olympic Stadium, but we got hoplessly lost when we left a small garden on the way out and ended up on the wrong side of the stadium.  Then it just looked kind of weird and we realized we ended up near a stupid toy place racing track.  After we got oursevles out of there we headed to Plaza Catalyna where we found a free museum!! Apparently in Barcelona they are required to host days where museums are free, it's part of the their cultural requirement or something.  Anyways we found the national art museum was free, along with pamplets, which is a steal cuz they usually cost at least 1euro.  By that time though I was cranky and tired so I pretty much sat on a bench while my friend looked around.  We finally left and headed back to the hostel to meet up with our friend and go to the airport.  Our flight left around 8 and we got to the airport around 6 or so.  I finally got back to Granada by 9:30 and was home by 10.  It was an extremely busy and adventure full weekend, but I was extremely glad to be "home".  I couldn't believe how much I missed my Julia's food, and a nice warm, comfy bed to sleep in.  I didn't even realize that I called this place home until then.  But it is my home now, and I'm glad of it.

Now you've finally heard about my whole adventure.  Unfortunately it's taken about 2 weeks, and now I'm off to Paris next weekend.  But at least you're getting to hear about mee!!

Love you all!

Me amo mi famila

 I know this post is out of order, but I just needed to write about seeing Kelly today!!  I'm so excited I got to see Kelly.  I know I've only been here for a month but I have been a bit homesick lately.  It could be that I have known she'll be coming, but either way this visit couldn't have come at a better time.

Last night she arrived at around 8:30 or so, and so I gave them about an hour or so before I left to grab some dinner.  Then I headed out, unfortunately I tried to walk...bad decision.  I got a bit lost, but no worries, I made it there fine.  I just turned around and went back towards the center of town and took a cab up there.  So granted I got there a bit later than I wanted to, but I still got to see Kelly.  First I saw Mr. Alphonso, and I cried a little bit because I was homesick and really just wanted to see Kelly, haha.  But they found Kelly and the Megan's.  I just mostly sat down in the lobby and hung out with all of them, talked to Alphonso a bit, and talked to the girls too.  Megan Camp apparently filmed a bit of it when me and Kelly saw each other, although I certainly didn't notice that. But eventually I was forced to leave with reassurance that I would see her again tomorrow.  I made plans to meet with them near the river and hang out with them during their free time tomorrow.

So today I went to my first class while they were in the Alhmabra and then I headed over the AIFS office to wait for them.  The AIFS office was the closest to their meeting point, so I just waited for Rafa to call me.  Rafa, the tour guide leader of EF Tours gave me a call at around 12:30 and said they were heading over to the bridge.  So I headed over there and met up with them all.  YAY! Finally!!  Then the girls all had until about 4:20 of free time, so I took a bunch of the girls with me to walk around Granada.  I took Kelly, the Megan's, Genna and Maria with me.  I found an awesome Kebab place for them to eat.  Kebab's are basically big burritos, and they are delicious!  All the girls got one and I got props for finding the place!! Yes I say found because I haven't actually eaten out a whole lot in Granada.  I mostly eat at my house and then go out for tapas, which isn't exactly meal time food.  So we just went towards Plaza Nueva and found this Kebab place that I knew they'd like.

After that I took them shopping, mostly touristy shopping because it was siesta time and just about everything but the big chain stores and the touristy shops are closed.  So we stuck around Plaza Nueva for a while and the girls were able to get the stuff they wanted from some of the stores.  Then we headed over to the Cathedral to do a little bit more shopping.  After that Megan Camp needed camera batteries so I took them to Corte Ingles to get her some more batteries.  We found them alright and then went down to grab some ice cream before I had to get the girls back to their meeting spot.  I had a lot of fun, got to show the girls around and they were quite grateful to me as well because I was able to clear up a few things for them.  Like Megan Camp accidentally bought 3 scarves instead of 2 and I had to help her get her money back and return one of the scarves.  But the girls overall had a good experience, as did I.

I've very glad I got to see Kelly.  I'm so happy I could show them where I'm living and they can understand so much better what I'm doing here.  Overall, I'm very happy.

Love you all!!

Traveling Alone

Well..not really alone, but this was my first experience travling somewhere without AIFS.  I have to say I was a bit nervous at first...but I almost like it better than traveling in a group with organized events.  Don´t get me wrong, I loved traveling with AIFS because they showed us a lot of the important things and we got tours of stuff that I probably wouldn´t have done if I were on my own.  But it´s very busy when you´re traveling with a group, there are schedules, and you´re constantly running.  When our organized trip to Madrid was finally done I was ready to travel on my own and explore Barcelona unhindered by schedules.

My hostel! My bunk was the bottom bunk on the left

So I woke up at around 3:30 A.M to catch our cab we called to the airport.  Our flight left at around 7 or so in the morning, so naturally, as the overacheivers we all were, we arrived at the airport at like 5, haha.  What we didn´t realize is how much faster you go through everything when you don´t have to check a bag, and when there is no one in line for security.  We all only had our little carry on bags, so we didn´t have to wait in any lines.  While it was awesome, it also meant waiting in the ariport for about 2 hours when we could have slept longer...oh well...better to be safe than sorry.  There were about 10 or so of us on the same flight to Barcelona so we all eventually met up in the terminal, and after a rather uneventful flight to Barcelon (only about 50 min) we arrived!!  From there we split up, some of us went to the hostel right away to drop off our stuff, and others went off and meandered around until it was time to check in.  I went to the hostel right away because I wanted to explore and get to know the area better before my full day of adventures the next day.

Getting to the hostel was an interesting experience.  We had to take a shuttle bus to the train station, take a small train to the metro station and then take the metro to the right metro stop, and then walk around a bit until we found our hostel.  Everything went smoothly, no one got pickpocket, or backpack pocketed :P And we finally arrive at the hostel.  We arrived a bit early but they let us leave our stuff in the lockers they provided us.  By the time the group of us had settled into the hostel the rest of the group arrived, so we all waited around for each other and then went off in smaller groups.  A number of people had friends in Barcelona, so some went off with friends from school.  I went off with my friends Abby and Jessy and we went to explore the area near us a bit.

We were walking around and we came upon this cute little church.  I was just looking through the streets while walking and went "oh!, pretty, let´s to check it out!"  So we did.  It was a really pretty little church with statues inside, and after a pretty eventful  morning I took some time to myself as well.  After that we just meandered around, we found a really cool bit market off La Rambla.  It was basically just a bunch of food shops, meats, candy, fruit, everything you can think of.  All the food looked really yummy, and only made me even more hungry.

Jamon Iberico! (At the Market)

So from there we decided to grab some grub.  We found this cute little place that had paella, and me and my friends shared a seafood paella with squid, squid ink, black rice, muscles and something else.  That might sound gross, but believe me, it wasn´t.  It was delicious and we ate it all up.  It was even the perfect size for three of us to share.  Yummmmm.  After that we decided to just meander around and go find Gaudi´s cool house, and we stopped by La Sagrada Familia.  I´m covering these so briefly because the next day I took a full Gaudí tour and saw these in much more detail.  So for now I´ll provide very quick photos and tell you allll about these things in my next post.  But we briefly stopped by these wonderful pieces of art and then made our way back home because it was literally freezing and we were cold.

Gaudi Designed house

After our day of being outside we decided to relax for a bit in the hostel.  Obviously it was a youth hostel so there were a ton of college students, or kids around our age travling and staying there.  We met some really cool people, chatted with them for a bit out in the common room and share stories and stuff.  It was really nice.  The hostel provided computers, and a common area, tour guide books, art supplies and a t.v, so it was a great area to hang out in.  We weren´t hungry until around 8, yay that means we´re adjusting to Spanish dinner time!, and so at that time me and a few others decided to go find a little bar close by and just try to find some tapas and a drink.  Unfortunately, everyone else you have to pay for your tapas...so I wasn´t too keen on that idea, but we managed to find a little place. 

La Sagrada Famila

Funny thing, we found a place called Travel Bar.  We were looking for some place to sit down, and every other place that had people was packed, so figures we ended up a travel bar where there are a ton of foriegners.  Oh well, we squeezed our way through and "found" a table.  When I saw "found" I really mean, we saw it but there were drinks there, and then the lovely drunk Scottish men decided to move their drinks and give us the table...and there started our interesting night.  The drinks were good, the burgers were amazing.  We got two burgers to share, and I´m not a burger person but that burger was downright awesome, probably because of all the spices it had in it.  Abby and I got the drink specials, and then for the rest of the night "enjoyed" the very drunk Scottish men hitting on us allll night long.  Thankfully I was on the inside, but poor Abby got the brunt of it.  She hit on multiple times, and they even bought us flowers from these stupid Gypsy people that walk through the bars with flowers.  They finally found some other ladies to harrass for the rest of the night and we enjoyed our night peacefully, but that was certainly an experience.

Jessy, Abby, Me, Jen enjoing our delicious pastries!

We left the bar around 10:30 and headed to this cute little pastry shop we saw on the way to the bar.  We stopped in there and decided we deserved some chocolate after that experience.  We each got two little pastries, which were only like 1.30 euros.  Then we headed back to the hostel to see everyone else.  We got back, shared our hiliarious story and ate our amazing chocolate pastries.  Everyone else was getting ready to go out to the discoteca but I really wasn´t feeling braving Barcelona at night...so I stayed in and got a good night´s rest to ready myself for the next day.  The chocolate pastries were heaven on earth, and I was able to just relax the rest of the night, while the rest of the hostel was out partying.  But it was a very good first day in Barcelona.

Next stop....¡GAUDÍ!







Love you all