Rainy day ruin your plans? TREAT YO SELF!

What happened to Sunny Sorrento? I am on day 16, I believe, of my post-Toledo travels (now with my good friend Paige), and I have had exactly 2 not-beautiful days. Compared to the frigid winters of Wisconsin or Minnesota, this Italian "winter" is something I can get behind. Every day has been in the 40s or 50s (with some chilly 30-degree nights), and every day has been sunny and gorgeous.

Exception #1: Christmas Eve. It rained a little, but we didn't mind because every street in Bologna has a portico! Then it snowed a little, so that was neat!

Exception #2: Today. Okay, 2 rainy days out of 16. So what? That's not so bad... False. This morning we woke up early, got dressed, and packed our backpack, ready and excited for a day of hiking the (supposedly amazing) "Path of the Gods" on the Amalfi coast. We walked down the hall to brush our teeth and looked out the window... completely overcast. With all of our extensive research and planning yesterday, we forgot to check the weather. We found out it is supposed to rain all morning, so our hiking plans were canceled.

This kind of screws up all of our other plans for the next couple of days, but we decided not to worry about that at 7:30 in the morning... so we went back to bed and then had a lazy morning "treating ourselves" by chilling in our swanky hostel watching Paige's new favorite show Parks and Recreation (you're welcome, Paige). After all, after two exhausting weeks of intense museums and sight-seeing, I'm ready for a break! I'm considering this my vacation time.

In the words of Tom Haverford, "Treat Yo Self!":

P.S. I don't know if I've gotten this point across yet...Sorrento is beautiful. And they love lemons here.

Buon Natale!

Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas! 

From Rome to Florence to Bologna...and now finally we have settled in Venice to relax for a few days for Christmas! In a way it almost doesn't feel like Christmas for me because I'm still in study abroad/travel mode. It's like I'm just on one big extended weekend trip (visiting ten cities in three weeks instead of one city in three days) and I keep hearing this phrase "Buon Natale" or "Merry Christmas" thrown around here and there! It is weird not being at home at this time of year, but it helps that my mom is traveling with me, and honestly I'm having such a great experience I can't really complain!

Florence was amazing. We got in later than expected on Thursday (because we spent the whole morning in Rome having chatting with our hosts Luca and Nicole before we finally decided we should get ourselves on a train!), but once we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, we turned right around and went back downtown to explore Florence, and then go to the Galleria dell'Accademia.

NOT the real deal... just a copy in the original location

What's so special about this art Gallery... oh not much, except for this one statue called David, by some artist named Michelangelo. Maybe you've heard of him. Of course, I had heard of Michelangelo, and I had heard of his David... everyone in the universe has. But, let me tell you, I was not prepared for how impressive this statue was... I'm no art expert (although after this week I feel like I'm well on my way), but after walking through halls and halls of amazing statues, with just one glance David blew all of them away. I probably sat and soaked it in for at least 10 minutes. And one of the great benefits of our off-season traveling is that there are no tourists! I can only imagine David is teeming with admirers in the summer, but in the middle of December, at the end of the day, we practically had him to ourself! It was amazing!

 Then just after moving down the hall, I ran into my friend Paige! We are working our way separately across Italy in different directions, and we have plans to meet up in the Amalfi coast later this week, but at the time neither of us had a clue we would be in Florence together!

For our next day in Florence, we checked out the Uffizi Gallery, home to the greatest collection of Renaissance art, including one of my favorites, Botticelli's Birth of Venus (I don't think Joan Lynch knows how much her interior decorating has influenced my art education!). Then we popped around the corner to the Galileo science museum! Not a lot about Galileo himself, but they had a killer collection of old science-y gadgets and gizmos, with one room dedicated to Galileo. The Duomo, or Cathedral, was also very impressive, with its huge dome that was the biggest to be built since the Pantheon.

Galileo's telescopes!!!!

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, we departed Florence for Venice, but not without a visit to Bologna. My aunt Robin studied abroad in Bologna (and she definitely sparked my love for all things Italian) so we had to visit the city that she fell in love with! Unfortunately, this was the one day that the weather decided to be icky, so we had to tour the city in the rain. But if there was one city you'd want to be stuck in while it's raining, it's Bologna with all of its porticos (basically cool "porches" of roofs over all the sidewalks)!! It was a beautiful city nonetheless, without tourist-y crowds, and we were able to find the street my aunt lived on, stroll through the streets, and find ourselves a nice restaurant in which to dine! Bologna is known for fab food (it's also known as "La Grassa" - the fat one), and for lunch I had some typical tagliatelle alla bolognese, aka the most amazing pasta dish I've eaten in my entire life. And that's saying a lot.

Tagliatelle alla bolognese = heaven

Last night we got into Venice just as the sun was going down, found our hotel and took a quick nap before heading out on the town. We wound our way through the narrow, poorly-lit streets, and over numerous canals until we ended up at St. Mark's Square, with just enough time to grab a quick drink and get in line for the Christmas Eve Mass at St. Mark's Basilica. It was definitely an experience... hundreds of people crowding in, a beautiful choir, and the gorgeous gold-mosaic ceiling lit up (honestly, the impressive Basilica itself was my favorite part, I couldn't stop looking up and around at all the details!).

Today we spent our Christmas day strolling around magical Venice, getting lost, having a fancy Christmas lunch, doing a little window shopping, and watching the sunset. We capped it off by skyping my dad and Bridget, and watching our favorite holiday movie, White Christmas!

Christmas Eve at Basilica di San Marco

 

And with that I shall bid you all adieu. I'm wishing all of my family and friends the merriest of Christmases, and sending my love from the other side of the world! Ciao for now!

Arrivederci Roma!

Actual real-life update: I am in Florence right now!! Yes, we made it to Italian stop number 2! But I am playing catch-up and I wrote this post while on the train, so...

Ciao! I am on the train from Roma a Firenze, racing past the beautiful Tuscan countryside, and I can’t believe stop #1 on my tour Italiano is already over! Two days is not really enough time to see Rome, but we managed to squeeze in a lot of cool stuff!! Originally we had 3 “official” days set aside for Rome, but when we added Bologna in between Florence and Venice, that took away time in Florence, so we had to cut into our Rome time as well.

My favorite shot from the Roman Forum.

Our first full day, Tuesday, was our “Ancient Day”: we strolled through the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, up to Capitol Hill, down to Piazza Venezia, up to the Pantheon, down a little side street for some excellent pizza, over to Piazza Navona, and all the way and back in the other direction to the Fontana di Trevi. Lots of walking. Very sore feet.

Wednesday was “Art Day”: First we got up early and went to the wonderful and pleasantly small Galleria Borghese. We spent our full two-hour limit enjoying all of the wonderful sculptures and paintings. I was almost just as impressed by all the artwork of the rooms themselves (the ceiling art was amazing!). Then we popped over to the Vatican, and spent the entire afternoon marveling at the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica. By then end of the day we were a little overwhelmed, to say the least, by all that exquisite art and architecture!!

While all of the cool sites and art were amazing, the next best thing about Rome was our bnb, where we were hosted by the wonderful Luca and Nicole! We stayed at their little private bnb, and they were absolutely amazing. The first night they met us at the train station, helped with our bags, and even cooked us a lovely Italian pasta dish! Luca is Italian and Nicole is German. Luca doest not speak German, nor does Nicole speak Italian, so they speak to each other (and to us) only in English! Almost every night we sat up with them for a while eating dinner, or having a drink, and talked about everything from traffic lights in Germany, to the mafia, to the problem with lazy Italians (a lot of it ended up being Germany vs. Italy!). They were absolutely hilarious, and made our stay 110% better!

Rome according to Jolene: 

Well, Hannah has summed it up quite nicely, but I really was amazed by the Colosseum, Forum and Pantheon, the history they represent. I kept grabbing the camera* from Hannah but we managed to share it very well, and I think that between us we managed to capture the feeling of that day. Day two and more Art with a capital A, again the years of Art History classes have come to life in a most amazing way. I can’t wait to continue Art Fest at the Uffizi in Florence, but I’m grateful for a day off my feet, since I developed a massive blister on my all-important little toe; otherwise I have limped along quite bravely, and Hannah is mostly patient with me as I grab her arm and we stroll along.  I think the Vatican could single-handedly solve the world financial crisis if it held a garage sale of one fraction of its wealth…incredible!  The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was fabulous and we listened to Rick Steves’ guides that we downloaded for free on our ipods, and trundled along with a Brazilian tour group to use the faster exits. The Crazy Borghese Gallery was quite splendid and the Gardens lovely.  

* Side-note: I forgot! New camera! After an entire semester of hazy, grainy photos from my trusty old pinky, my dad bought a shiny new camera and my mom brought it along. So at least Italy will be beautifully photographed.

More photos from "Ancient Day":

Pantheon. So cool...I could easily have sat in there all day!

Fontana di Trevi

Last stop in Spain: Barcelona

Wait, wasn't I just in Barcelona? Yes, you are correct. Somehow, Barcelona got the honor of being visited twice on this trip! Before my mom and I jetted off to Italy, I wanted her to see a little more of Spain than just Toledo, and frankly, Madrid wasn't going to cut it (except for el Museo del Prado, that was great!). So we spent our first weekend of the tour in Barcelona, and I was able to show my mom some of the cool stuff I saw the first time, and I got to see a bunch of new things. My favorites: the inside of Gaudí's Sagrada Familia, a day-trip to Montserrat, and a tour of the beautiful Gran Teatro de Liceu (the opera house!).

When I was in Barcelona a few weeks ago, we went to as many free things as possible… this meant just seeing the outside of all the Gaudí buildings. But this trip we decided to splurge and go inside of la Sagrada Familia. And it was absolutely stunning. How could someone possibly come up with that design?? Well, we also saw the small exhibit about how Gaudí was inspired by nature, and that made it pretty clear. And awesome.

"The great book, always open and which we should make an effort to read, is that of Nature.” -Antoní Gaudí

We also got to take a trip out to the Benedictine retreat of Montserrat, a trip that Paige and I missed out on the first time. It was a good 1 1/2 hours away by train, and it was very cool to see those crazy jagged peaks as we approached! Then we took the cable car up (good thing I’m a cable car pro now), and enjoyed that fresh mountain air for a few hours. We walked around, marveling at the view, and went inside the Basilica. Unfortunately we just missed out on the famous Montserrat boys choir by a few minutes.

View from Montserrat

While planning our trip we almost stayed in Barcelona one more day, so we could go see one of our favorite tenors, Juan Diego Florez, in an opera at the teatro de Liceu. But we didn’t want to lose too much time in Italy, so we decided to leave a day earlier (and go see JDF sometime at the Met in New York!). Instead, on our last day before we left for Rome, we went to the Liceu and took a tour of the beautiful opera house! We were the only people who showed up, so we got a private tour and our guide was hilarious and fantastic. We couldn’t take pictures in the auditorium itself, which is a shame because it was one of the most gorgeous theaters I have ever seen.

Gran Teatro de Liceu

And since I'm sharing these travels with my mom (and my dad has been pressuring her to keep her own blog!), here's a recap from my special guest blogger, Jolene Steinhorst on her experience so far: 

Ah, Espana…did I miss the Toledo section? That was perhaps the closest I’ll get to time travel. I was amazed at every turn in the twisting, narrow, cobblestoned streets, and spent a lot of time with my mouth agape at the beauty of the buildings. I was sad with Hannah as she said farewell to her city, street by street, this view, that little plaza…so lovely.  In Madrid the Prado was fantastic, thanks to the collecting savvy of generations of Spanish monarchs, so far Titian wins. Until we reach Michelangelo territory, then we’ll see…

Barcelona, I love this city. It has good transportation, happy people, and we stayed in a super-cool modern hotel with the best breakfast in all of Spain. It’s amazing to see years’ worth of art history lectures come to life, such as at the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s masterpiece. The Picasso Museum was also interesting, with many works from his early years. The Opera House was stunning, although we did not run into Juan Diego Flores in the hallway as I had hoped…

Saying goodbye to Toledo

Well, it feels like the end came suddenly and unexpectedly, even though I had almost an entire week after my finals and before the end of the program to enjoy Toledo and mentally prepare myself. I spent as much time as possible hanging out with friends (when they weren't still studying for finals), and enjoying beautiful Toledo. I hiked up to the "mountain" across the river 3 times in one week, the last time with a huge group of people to celebrate one of our last days and to watch a non-existent cloudy sunset. I finally got my own picture of Toledo, and while it's not quite as professional-looking as the one heading my blog, it's set as my background and now I can look at it and cry whenever I want.

Toledo from the mountain!

I thought saying goodbye to everyone would be the hardest part, but it turns out saying goodbye to Toledo was harder. It was tough saying goodbye to friends from Notre Dame and Puerto Rico, but it was easier to say goodbye to Minnesota friends, knowing that I will see them again back at school! It was also different for me, knowing that I wasn't going home right away but rather staying in Europe for a while. After everyone left, I had another day and a half in Toledo to show my mom around before we left for our travels.

Since I had already said my goodbyes, I figured the next day and a half would be a nice, relaxed, fun time, showing my mom around Toledo. False. I did not expect to tear up every time I saw something that sparked a memory from this semester... which was pretty much everywhere. Who knew that it would be harder to be in Toledo without everyone than actually saying goodbye to them!! My only hope is that I was still able to give my mom a decent tour of my dear little Toledo, while I was barely holding myself together! Sorry Mama!

On Friday we woke up in Toledo and went to bed in Barcelona, with a quick stop in Madrid in between! (And I finally got to go to the Prado museum!) Now that my time in Toledo is over, the epilogue begins: Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice and Milan with my mother, then Naples and a few more southern cities in Italy with Paige! USA: I'll see you on January 4th.

Adios Toledo!

To study, or not to study...and blog instead -- that is the question.

 Well it's that time of the year again: the end of another semester approaches and finals week is upon us. I'm supposed to be cramming for exams right now, but I decided to reminisce about my semester and think about the future instead. And blog about it. At 2:30 in the morning. I am a model student.

It's scary to think that my time here is almost up. It's like I've been living in a different world for three months! Pretty soon I'll be closing this little chapter of my life and throwing myself back into the "real world." They always tell you that the time will fly by, and boy were they right...

In less than 24 hours and after just 2 more tests, I will be done with my classes! Then I have an entire weekend (and more) to bum around Toledo and enjoy my last few days here.... and probably get really sad that I'm leaving.

In 7 days, the program is "officially done." Also in 7 days my mother will be coming to visit, help me pack, and joining me as we travel to Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan!

In 8 days, most of my friends here will be heading home! It is so weird to hear everyone talk about being home so soon, seeing their families for Christmas, etc! It is also weird to think that in 8 days, we won't all be living with each other and seeing each other EVERY SINGLE DAY. Even for those of my friends who also go to the U (which is a lot), I won't see them for a whole MONTH, and then once back at school who knows how often we'll actually see each other?? Sad thoughts to bring up, I know, but I just think what I think and tell it how it is.

In 12 days I will be in Italy. Italy. I don't think most people actually know how much I love Italy. Perhaps just my mother/family, my aunt, and Etta Berkland. Like, Italian language courses were one of my criteria for choosing a college...seriously. I almost studied abroad in Italy, but damn it, I had to be all practical and stick with my Spanish minor. So a small trip to Italy will have to do. However....

In 21 days I will probably still be in Italy. I couldn't bear to visit Italy for just one weekend during the semester. So I decided to travel after the program, with the hope that I would be able to spend a lot of time in Italy. Check. At this point, everyone else will be at home, making plans for New Year's Eve. I will have just spent Christmas in Venice with my mother, and will be jetting off to some new city (location tbd) to celebrate New Year's Eve with Paige!

Not until 27 days from now, on the 4th of January, 2012, will I finally be flying home. I'll have about 2 weeks at home in Madison (to spend time with the fam and eat all their food) before I have to head back up to the Twin Cities, move in with my bestie Erika and start another semester at the good ole U.


But that's all waaaaay in the future. Tomorrow I just have to wake up, ace those tests, and enjoy Toledo for a few more days. Easy as pie.

¡Hasta luego!

Flying solo to Barcelona!

Well it is finals week at the fund (which doesn't actually mean very much), but I have enough to do to keep me busy all day... or at least to keep me feeling guilty if I'm not studying. Barcelona was already ONE WHOLE WEEK AGO, and I have not yet blogged about it. I usually like writing about a trip right after I get back and it's still fresh in my memory, but I was behind already, and I was so busy this past week that anytime I thought about writing a post, I felt guilty (again) and decided to work on a paper or do homework. Such a good student, right? I have decided that I have studied enough in the past few days to give my self a blog-break.

Barcelona was just a fantastic weekend. It came after probably the roughest week I've had here, and it was the perfect, most relaxing way to just take a few days off and have fun! Here's why:

1. Except for Paris, this was the only other weekend where I made my own travel plans and booked my flight, so instead of just going for the best dirt-cheap flight out there that means you have to sleep in an airport and you only actually have 1 1/2 days in your city... I actually planned this out way in advance, and waited for the optimal flight that was reasonably priced, yet gave me 2 1/2 days in Barcelona! No rushing from site to site, no sleeping in airports.

2. The weather was amazing. When I left Toledo on Thursday it was maybe in the 50s, sunny... and that's pretty nice. All weekend in Barcelona it was sunny and in the 60s! In late November! That's crazy.

3. PAIGE SCHAEFER. I believe Paige has made a guest appearance on the blog before... she is my friend from high school who is studying abroad in Granada, Spain right now. We briefly met up earlier in the semester when I went to Granada, and we will be traveling together again in Italy after our programs end! It was so great to see Paige again and just hang out with her all weekend! 

Bike tour with Paigey!!! 

A few great things about Barcelona:

Our hostel: we stayed in a pretty cool hostel that had a kitchen in which we could make our own meals (can you say MONEY-SAVER!), and it was very social/interactive/helpful. Paige and her friend arrived the day before me and went on a free walking tour through the hostel. The next day we went on a bike tour through the hostel that was SUPER COOL. We were able to hit up a bunch of different locations in just one afternoon, our guide was australian and super funny, we stopped and had wine and tapas, and we were getting exercise! It doesn't get better than that! The hostel also showed us what the nightlife was like and on Friday night Paige and I checked out Barcelona's hottest new club: Hyde (I hope you said that in the Stefon voice... if not, we should perhaps revaluate our friendship). And we just met a ton of cool people around the hostel and on tours and such. 

Passing the beach on the bike tour... no big deal.

Gaudí: Antoni Gaudí was an architect who was kind of a big deal in the Catalan Modernista movement. He has a bunch of works all around Barcelona, including what is probably his greatest/well-known work, the Sagrada Familia. Construction on this church was started in 1882, Gaudí continued working on it until his death in 1926, and it will probably not be finished for another few decades. Yes, that's right. Gaudí was also greatly inspired by nature, which he worked into many of his buildings, making them appear very unusual and different than the norm. In addition to the Sagrada Familia, we also saw Casa Mila and Casa Batlló (my favorite) on the bike tour, and we ventured to his Parc Güell on our own.

The Nativity Facade of the Sagrada Familia

Casa Batlló

Parc Güell

Wandering: Barcelona just had an awesome vibe, and it was so easy to wander around the city and find something cool to see or do. The main avenue is Las Ramblas, a big walking street that runs from Plaça Catalunya down to the harbor. It was probably really cool a while ago, but now it's pretty touristy and not that great. It was a lot more fun to take a side street and explore another neighborhood, finding a church, or a christmas market, a cute little street, an organic foods grocery store, a cool statue, etc. On Sunday Paige and her friend left early, and I had until about 2pm to myself, so I literally just packed up, strapped on my backpack (w/ belt strap), left the hostel at 10am and just walked around for 4 hours. I walked to the harbor, through a park, to the cathedral, came across some Sardana dances, a christmas/art market, chocolate con churros (okay I searched for that one), and up and down countless more streets until I forced myself on a bus to the airport.

My day alone in Barcelona... not all of my selfies were successful

Also, there was a chocolate museum. My ticket was a chocolate bar.

Chocolate museum!!!

Another one of the best things about this weekend is that I'm going back to Barcelona in 2 weeks with my mom! We kept to pretty chill, cheap things this weekend, so there were a lot of places we didn't get to: museums, inside the Sagrada Familia, Montjüic (nearby mountain), and more.

Okay, time for me to get back to studying and eating chocolate. Peace.

München: couchsurfing in Germany!

So I need to play a little catch-up... thus far I have prided myself on my prompt blog posts (usually because it's much more fun to write a blog than do homework on a Sunday night), but last week I was a little busy and I just did not have time to write a post. I just got back from Barcelona a few hours ago, but LAST weekend, November 18-20, I was in Munich, Germany, and that will be the focus of this plog (my new word for a blog post... I'm tired).

Let's go back in time... November has been a whirlwind of traveling and being super busy! After a fantastic birthday weekend in Geneva, I came back for another busy week in Toledo, and then turned right back around to go to Germany. I went with three other people, but somehow we couldn't get the same flight, so two of us had to fly out early (like sleeping-at-the-airport early) on Friday while the other two flew later. So to make the suckiness of sleeping at the airport even better, Roberto and I went to a Rodrigo y Gabriela concert Thursday night in Madrid before heading to the airport. IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!! Perhaps one of the greatest concerts I've been to.

Roberto and I arrived in Munich around noon, and had four hours to explore the city before the other two arrived. So we pretty much just walked down one road as far as we could, then turned around and walked back on another road. We started out in the main plaza, Marienplatz, and walked down a big shopping street. We found a cool outdoor skating rink, a cute little park, a beautiful church, christmas decorations/markets everywhere, and then went to the English Gardens. This park was HUGE (bigger than Central Park, according to some internet source), and we barely walked through 1/4 of it. There were people surfing on a river, cute dogs everywhere, people slacklining and hammocking, sitting, walking, eating, even someone RIDING A HORSE! We just sat for a while and enjoyed the view before trekking back to Marienplatz to meet up with Andrew and Lauren. Once we found them, we headed over to the Viktualienmarkt, a glorious outdoor market of food and even some Christmas-y goods! We settled on some bratwurst, our idea of stereotypical German fare.

This trip we decided to try something new, and instead of staying in a hostel we did couchsurfing!! So we met up with our host "Baba Kace" and he took us to an Irish pub for a drink. Of course, when in Germany, drink beer.... so Lauren and I had cider. Then we headed back to his place, which was a little outside the city, and he made us dinner! Some traditional bavarian food, which was excellent! We pretty much just hung out at his house all night, drank amazing homemade chai tea, and talked with him and his friends. Our host was very interesting; he lived in India for 6 months recently, which seemed to have influenced him a lot, and he had a lot of cool stories to tell about that. I feel like couchsurfing definitely changed our traveling experience: instead of just going to a hostel at the end of the day, we got to sit down with locals and actually learn about them/their culture, share some of our culture, etc, which I feel is exactly the idea of couchsurfing. It was very cool!

Saturday we decided to get our history on. There is a concentration camp memorial site in Dachau (very close to Munich), and we thought that this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to actually see some of the history that we have learned about all our lives. It was very sad (even a little creepy when a dense fog set in), but it was extremely interesting, and I'm definitely glad I did it. By the time we got back into Munich and ate some lunch, it was starting to get foggy/dark/cold there as well, so we didn't have a lot of time for sightseeing. We went to the Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady), the Theatinkirche St. Kajetan (another church), and saw a bit of the English Gardens before we decided it was just too dark and foggy!

After holing ourselves up in a bookstore cafe for a while we decided it was time to call it quits in the city and head back to Baba Kace's. He cooked us another lovely meal, showed us how to make his chai tea, and we sat around for some more talking and sharing! Later we decided to check out Munich's nightlife and Baba Kace took us out to a club that was playing old funk music or something... it was awesome! After some funky dancing, Roberto and I again headed to the airport for another early flight, while the other two hung around Munich for another couple of hours. Then I returned home, this busy busy week began, and I ran off to Barcelona.... new post coming soon!

Munich in pictures:

Marienplatz

English Gardens

Bratwurst with sweet mustard... yummmm....

Dachau

cider, beer, cider, beer

Happy Birthday in Suiza! (And a little bit of France as well)

Dear future birthdays... you have a lot to live up to. This past Friday was the much-anticipated "ultimate wish-day," November 11, 2011, 11/11/11 ... aka: my 21st birthday. For years, I anticipated this day as an epic birthday, one birthday to rule them all, a celebration extraordinaire with all of my best friends! Then one day Emilie (a fellow November baby) and I realized that we would both be studying abroad during our 21st birthdays! Honestly, I was a little sad that I wouldn't be at home for my birthday... HOW WRONG I WAS!

EMILIE!

To start of the birthday extravaganza, Emilie came to visit Toledo! After Paris, she and Nolan went on an adventure through France and Spain, and then ended up in Toledo last Sunday. It was lovely! She stayed for about four whole days, and in between classes, homework and extensive Switzerland planning, we were able to grab a chocolate con churros, wander/get lost in Toledo, and even get some early birthday drinks! Luckily Nolan had a little more free time than lame me, so he was able to show her more essential Toledo before they jetted off for Madrid.

SUIZA:

Since we had a pretty early flight on Friday, we were originally going to leave Thursday night and sleep in the airport... but that SUCKS. Instead, we decided last minute that we could cut it super close and take the earliest bus from Toledo! So on Friday, after some drama regarding our boarding passes and Kelsey almost not making the flight, Kelsey, Lauren, Roberto and I made it to Geneva without any more problems! We got into downtown Geneva, saw the Jet d'Eau (enormo fountain), and walked around a bit while we searched for our tram, but we decided that we should get to our apartment before any exploring.

THE APARTMENT. Funny story... the main reason we went to Geneva was that a while ago we found super cheap plane tickets. So when we went to book our hostel about a week before, we found out that there is literally no way to stay in Geneva on a student budget. We spent the entire week up until the trip researching couchsurfing, airbnb, hostels, cheap hotels, STRESSING, and we went back and forth between a million different options before we found a cheap airbnb apartment that was actually just across the French border! It turned out to be amazing, and it was only about a 15-minute tram ride from downtown Geneva. And everything was cheaper in France!

When we got to the apartment, we first ogled our host’s collection of gaming systems/video games…it was impressive! (Of course, despite an enormous collection including such newfangled contraptions like a Wii, the old Mario for Nintendo won the day!) Then we got ourselves to the grocery store, bought food for the weekend, and in our very own kitchen, we whipped up a lunch of scrambled eggs and potatoes!

The girls, working it in the kitchen!

After gorging ourselves and just lazing around the house, we finally got our butts into gear and went back to Geneva. Of course it was only about 6pm and already dark… so we did the nighttime tour. We walked along the river, saw the lake, the fountain at night, a lot of swans, looked at some Swiss chocolate stores and some cool monuments. HOWEVER, we soon realized that everything closes really early… like 7:30pm. We actually got kicked out of a supermarket. We wandered into the “old town” and got a glimpse of the Cathedral St-Pierre at night, and found a little café for some coffee and hot chocolate. Since we couldn’t actually find any bars to celebrate the big 21, we decided to head back across the border, but not before stocking up on some chocolate bars!! Back at the apartment, we celebrated with a stir-fry dinner, classy drinks, chocolate, video games, card games, and good conversation! Some may call this lame, I would call it perfect! And I'm the birthday girl, so what I say goes!

Since we were in Switzerland, and we could see mountains from our apartment, I was determined to go to the Alps. There is not much that I love more than mountains. Earlier in the week we had found a sweet deal where we could take a cable car up into the mountains for only €7.60 round trip… um YES PLEASE. So on Saturday we got some directions from our host about how to get there, and we took a few buses to what we thought was the cable car place… of course on Saturdays our bus didn’t go all the way there. The bus driver told us to just walk along this road and we’d get there. We started walking, the sidewalk turned into the side of a highway, and eventually we saw, far in the distance, the cable going up into the mountains… at least a 30-minute walk away! Oh well, what were we going to do! So we stuck it out, did a little hiking and finally made it to some cute little town in France where we bought our tickets, hopped in a little square box and ascended into the clouds!

Mountains. Clouds. 

I was a little scared that we would go up into the clouds, and not actually be able to see anything… but when the cable car came up ABOVE the clouds, it was amazing. We got out of the car, and immediately ran over to the edge, where we saw a sea of clouds with mountain peaks popping up all around us. There was even a paraglider who took a dive into the clouds! We ran around, frolicked, saw some more awesome views, got some hot chocolate, and then we went UP.

After hiking upwards, we came out onto a huge field with absolutely gorgeous views of clouds and snowy mountains all around! We mostly just stood and stared until we got too cold! And while we were descending, we saw a gorgeous sunset over the clouds! IT WAS AMAZING. Although I must clarify, technically we were not IN the Alps, but the French Prealps. Pretty much the same thing…

The hills are alive with the sound of music!!!

After this, we were not exactly sure how to get back to Geneva, but some nice people on the mountain told us to take the 8 bus all the way back into town. So after waiting at a random bust stop for a long time, we finally saw some normal-looking people and decided to ask if we were indeed in the right place. Luckily they spoke English and informed us we were not, but they were going the same way! So we followed them to the correct bus stop, and found out that one of them was Australian, and the other was an American nuclear physicist working at CERN…. nice. We chatted them up on the bus until going our separate ways downtown.

Your basic cheese on the left, and Mediterranean on the right

Once again, we thought we would make it to Geneva during the day, but alas twas not to be… So we spent another night walking around the city, and finally we found a place to have dinner. And not just any dinner… FONDUE. We went to this cute little place and got two types of fondue, the basic cheese option, and a Mediterranean fondue that had some tomato mixed in! It was fantastic! And it even came with potatoes on the side so Lauren could fondue too! (And we were so proud of ourselves that this was the most expensive thing we did the whole weekend!)

Then we headed back to France for another relaxing night at our lovely apartment, drinking hot cocoa, eating chocolate, and playing video games, the usual. We had an early flight on Sunday, and luckily the guy who owned the place came over at 4:30am to drive us to the airport! He was super nice, and we realized that we definitely should have met up with him/talked to him earlier because he told us about so many cool things that we could have done in Geneva! Oh well... next time!

Just wait, the fun doesn’t end at the airport… When we got on the plane it was still dark out, but by the time we took off and passed through the clouds we looked out the window and saw a faint orange glow above the line of mountains and sea of clouds! Despite being extremely tired, both Kelsey and I couldn’t help but keep our faces glued to the window as we watched the orange become brighter, the streaky clouds above the mountains change from purple to bright pink, until finally a burning orange sun started peaking up over the mountains! It was hands down, the most beautiful sunrise I have ever witnessed.

PURE BEAUTY 

I don't think I could have asked for a better way to spend my 21st birthday! It came about randomly and unexpectedly, but I was able to spend a wonderful weekend relaxing with good friends, eating chocolate, climbing the (pre)Alps, and just enjoying the view (yes, both literally and figuratively)!

Weekend in Paris!

Twelve hours ago I was strolling through the streets of Paris eating a warm chocolate croissant (excusez-moi, pain au chocolat) and I still can't quite believe it. This weekend was a whirlwind adventure in Paris, and it was an absolute dream. To top it off, I got to spend it with the other two thirds of Nolemnah: Emilie Sabourin and Nolan Hudalla. NolEmNah... get it? It's cute. Or obnoxious. Either way, we don't care. We all had a super romantic weekend in Paris together... they tried to make it awkward for me, but that's just not possible anymore.

So here's how it went down...

Friday

First Parisian monument!

Nolan and I met Emilie in Paris on Friday...but we all arrived at different times. Nolan arrived early and met me at my bus station when I got in at 2ish. We were just a few blocks away from the Arc de Triomphe, so we decided to pop over there for a little sight-seeing. We looked it and walked around, but no way was I going to pay to walk up 200-some steps. Then we headed over to the hotel.

My hotel... but not my picture

Oh yeah, we stayed at a super sweet hotel. While Emilie was looking for hostels/apartments, she came across this deal where we could stay at a mystery 4-star hotel within a certain radius for a very reduced fee. We went for it, and ended up staying at a really nice Marriott that was just south of the St. Germain-des-Prés neighborhood. I'm surprised we ever got out of those beds...

My macaroon stash

Anyway... after I dropped my stuff off, we still had a few hours before we had to meet Emilie, so Nolan and I just wandered Northwards: we saw the Jardin du Luxembourg, a glimpse of the Panthéon, and decided to go in search of one of my chocolate stores. Gail Ambrosius, my "chocolate mentor" (from back in the day when I was in the chocolate business), gave me a few suggestions of chocolate stores in Paris, and we found one of them Friday night (we also passed a few others on the way with some crazy chocolate creations). Our destination, Ladurée, was a super classy little store, with a bunch of delicacies, chocolates, sweets, and the main attraction: the macaroons. I don't know exactly what I was expecting (probably something more like Gail's), but it was not quite this... they just looked like little cookies with cream in the middle. And there were only 2 or 3 chocolate flavors... how could they be that great? So I bought one (pure origin Columbian chocolate), and immediately changed my mind. It was one of the most surprising, decadent, amazing things I have ever tasted in my life... there were so many layers of chocolate! (Don't worry, I went back yesterday to get a box to take home!!)

The Louvre at night

After THAT wonderful experience, Nolan and I walked to the river and wandered into some plaza that turned out to be the Louvre. Paris at night: amazing. This turned into a common theme, every night we wandered around and every night we found beautiful amazing stuff.

Then we went to get Emilie at her train station, almost didn't find her, eventually found her, and went back to the hotel. We did more wandering around our neighborhood looking for something to eat, but everything was SUPER EXPENSIVE (as was all of Paris). We wanted to save our money for a nice dinner Saturday night, so we ended up having chinese food!

Saturday

We got ourselves up relatively early on Saturday and headed out on our northward route again, destination: the Musée du Louvre. On the way we stopped at Gail's other chocolate store suggestion, Pierre Hermé. In addition to beautiful sweets and chocolates, they had pastries, so I had to get myself a pain au chocolat for breakfast. I also got a chocolate-passionfruit macaroon to save for later...

1st chocolate croissant (aka: love of my lfie) in Paris

View of the Louvre across the river

Me and Venus

Next we went to the Louvre, and thanks to our "student/temporary European Union member status" we got in for free!!! Paris loves them students! The outside of the Louvre was literally awe-inspiring, it went on forever; the inside was equally as overwhelming. Of course we saw the big one, the Mona Lisa. We also saw Venus de Milo, Hammurabi's Code, and a ton of amazing works by italian, french and spanish painters, sculptures, egyptian works, etc! There was just so much art and so little time!!

Sacré-Coeur with Emilie!

Next stop: Montmartre. I didn't know a ton about Monmartre... but I knew the Sacré-Coeur and Moulin Rouge were there, and my parents loved it and Craig Ferguson loved it. (You don't know how many times Nolan and I wished we had Rick Steve's to tell us about what we were doing/seeing....). So we metro-ed ourselves up there (okay, the metro was nice, but it was confusing as hell compared to Madrid's), got some sandwiches and walked to the Sacré-Coeur Basilica. We stood at the bottom of that hill, and looked up at that building, and it was amazing. Common theme here. The inside was pretty neat too. The top of the hill provided one of the best views of Paris, and it was here I decided to eat that passionfruit macaroon. Great decision.

Moulin Rouge: at the end of Sex Shop Boulevard

Then we walked down the street to the Moulin Rouge. It was on a very interesting street... and in the end we just stopped and took a picture. But still... the Moulin Rouge!!

After Montmartre I wanted to go to the Musée d'Orsay, but unfortunately I had lost my "cheat sheet" of museum and chocolate store times/prices/info, so we got there at 6:15pm and the museum had closed at 6pm. Dang. So we just walked along the Seine towards the Eiffel Tower as it got dark, and by the time we could see it, the entire Eiffel Tower was lit up and absolutely gorgeous! It soon started drizzling, so we quickly found ourselves a nice/reasonable restaurant and had a nice French dinner, steak and frites for me! 

Eiffel Tower at night

Sunday

Hall of Mirrors

After all of the walking of Friday and Saturday, I had blisters on the bottoms of both my feet. So I switched to my trusty gold sandals for the trip to Versailles. We thought we got ourselves up and going pretty early, but by the time we walked to the station and took the train out to Versailles it was almost 11am already. And boy were there a lot of people... it was like a mass migration. We got into the Palace for free again, but we still had to wait in the line to get in. It took a while. The inside of the palace was pretty amazing, so ornate and ridiculous! Why on earth was a building every so fancy??? There was one hall that was just full of enormous paintings of battles... whoa.

View of the never-ending "backyard" at Versailles

Then we got to the grounds... um, huge. There were so many different little gardens, fountains, statues, forests, and a huge canal. It was absolutely gorgeous, especially with the fall colors! I took so many pictures of pretty trees. At the other end of the grounds were two more "little" estates... so the King and Queen could escape that hard life in their main palace.

Pretty tree

I probably could have spent all day walking around those gardens, but we still had so much to see in Paris! By the time we got back into the city it was about 4pm so we made it to the Musée d'Orsay. We got in for free again, but we still had to wait in line. Fortunately we had a nutella crepe to help us through the line. Now, how can another little museum in Paris possibly compare to the Louvre? Good question. However, the Orsay holds a beautiful collection of Van Gogh, which alone probably would have been worth it for me. It also had a nice collection of Impressionists, such as Monet, Manet, Renoir and Degas; as well as some Toulouse-Lautrec works.

We couldn't take pictures in the museum, but we snuck one from one of the balconies

 Then we walked around and found ourselves some nice French-Italian pizza. We may have jumped the gun and settled for the first pizza place we found, and the service was questionable... but I got a carbonara pizza and I loved it. We wandered some more, walked around Notre Dame Cathedral, found the Latin Quarter, got some nutella ice cream, and stopped by the Panthéon again.

Notre Dame

This morning I headed back to Toledo solo, while Emilie and Nolan had one more day in Paris. Now they're headed to Nice (France), Barcelona, Málaga, and Emilie's coming to visit Toledo next Sunday!! Can't wait! Becca and I had a nice afternoon alone in Toledo... doing what we do best: eating... since no one else was here. I'm still kind of in awe at how amazing this weekend was... I did not want to leave Paris this morning! Who knew I would love it so much! Epic weekend, epic blog post, wrap it up. Okay, au revoir!

What am I doing in Morocco??

Right now I am in the middle of what we might call my first "stressful" week here in Toledo. Midterms. Yes, even here in slacker-ville, Spain, we do have midterms. I'm not actually that stressed out though, I just know that I have a lot to get done before Friday (i.e. PARIS). Probably adding to my knowledge-of-things-needing-to-be-done (I will not call it stress) is the fact that while everyone else was here in Toledo, dutifully studying... I was off in Morocco for the weekend! I justified this decision because I do not have class on Mondays, and Tuesday (today) we did not have a test/class, instead we have to turn in a paper by Friday. So why the heck not go to Morocco?

We literally just flew to Tangier with no idea of what we were going to do there. I was pretty sure that this would not be like any of my previous trips, and I hit the bulls-eye with that one. This was not quite Granada or Lisbon, where we could grab a map and wander around the city, marveling at cathedrals and beautiful palaces, take a bus or metro from one location to another, or even communicate easily with the locals... this was more of a trip where I had to step back and open my eyes and my mind to a very different culture, I really had to go with the flow and be comfortable with being uncomfortable! Luckily I can keep a cool head in almost any situation and I can go-with-the-flow with the best of 'em ... but let me tell you from first-hand experience, not everyone has this ability!

The flight was very short, and with the two hour time difference (Really? Two hours? We could see Spain from Tangier...) we landed "earlier" than we left... weird. The airport was tiny and so close to the ocean that we were pretty much hovering just above water before landing! Also, this was my first flight since arriving here in Spain and not once did I feel sick! I got a little scared with the bumpy landings... but no dizziness! In the airport, we changed our Euro for Moroccan dirhams, which is almost 1:10, so we felt super rich running around with 200 dirham-bills. Then our group split up and went to our respective hotels/apartments. The only way to get around is by taxi, so we hopped in some guy's car (I thought for sure I was going to get Taken, and Becca wasn't there to save me!) and when we got to the hotel we ran into our first language-barrier incident. "¿Cuanto questa?" we ask... the cab driver responds "Parlez-vous français?" Crap. He kept saying numbers in french, which we did not understand at all... until we finally resorted to writing it out in the dust on the car. Phew. For some reason we had assumed that people here would speak Spanish... Nope. Mistake #1.

Then we got into the hotel, which was beautiful. It was no 4-star resort...but it was gorgeous, and it even had a pool. We got settled into our room, and then we realized we had no idea what to do. We had assumed that somewhere we would find some tourist information, perhaps at the airport, where we could pick up a map. Nope. Mistake #2. So we had no idea where we were, although it was quite apparent that we were not really IN Tangier, more like the outskirts, and we did not have a map to guide us. We wanted to wander around, but we were afraid of getting lost. What do scared, lost, confused Americans do in this type of situation? They find something comforting, something that they know and love. Good thing there was a McDonald's (or as they called it there, McDos) across the street! Now, I haven't eaten an actual meal at McDonald's in YEARS, and I felt dirty doing so, but it tasted so good! They also taunted us with giant Toblerone McFlurry signs. From there we wandered around the strange strip-mall area we found ourselves in, desperately searching for somewhere we could buy water. Finally we found the enormo-supermarket and stocked up on water, snacks and sandwich materials.

YUM!

By this time, our friends had decided to come join us at the hotel, we took them to the supermarket, and we found a place to eat dinner. We spent the majority of the time trying to pronounce french words on the menu, cracking up every time someone said "boeuf!" or "l'eau!" Being two hours earlier than Spain-time, but essentially in the same location, it got dark super early, so we retired to the hotel bar for a nice chill night.

Saturday, we got our act together and asked the front desk for a map. Of course they have a map! The receptionist showed us where the hotel was, and he advised us to go to The Old Medina in the city. Enlightened, we met up with the rest of the group again and crammed 6 people into a taxi, destination: Medina! We arrived in the main plaza (the Grand Socco) outside of Medina, and were greeted with a much different environment than the bleak suburbs of the hotel! We headed into the Medina and found ourselves in the traditional Moroccan marketplace. All around us were shops selling clothes, shoes, knick-knacks, food, spices, etc! And everywhere we went, someone would come up to us and practically shove their wares in our face trying to sell it! We just wandered around for a while, bartering, getting hassled, eventually buying a few things (I got a Barcelona soccer jersey for approximately €8! But I'm afraid to wear it here for fear of being exiled by my host family!!).

Grand Socco

More YUM!

Then we trekked up the hill to find the Kasbah, an old building situated on the highest point in Tangier, that served as living quarters for the ruler, as well as a means of defense if the city was attacked. Now it's a museum, and while it was definitely no Alhambra, it was pretty cool. After, we had lunch on the roof of a restaurant with the most amazing view! We almost didn't make it to this restaurant because one of our market friends (who had sold some of us soccer jerseys), came up to us and told us that this restaurant was for private guests only, we should go to his friend's restaurant. BS. Eventually we got rid of him and went to the very-open-to-the-public restaurant where we tried a variety of delicious Moroccan appetizers!! We spent most of the afternoon there, and although we wanted to make it to the beach, we were just too tired! So we headed back to the hotel (where the rest of our group stayed the second night), and relaxed a little more before getting dinner (it may have been McDos again...) and heading to the bar to watch some fútbol! Andrew and I even got to represent our teams, both Real Madrid and Barcelona played!

Represent!

The next morning we took advantage of the free breakfast and made our way back to the airport for the flight home! Overall, a great weekend! Definitely a different experience, but worth it. I was uncomfortable at times and I felt overwhelmed in such a different culture, but I think it is important to do things like this that are way out of your comfort zone!

Now I have to get back to studying/writing papers so I can finish up this week and jet off to Paris on Friday and see Emilie!!!!