Brussels and Amsterdam

Last weekend's trip took us to The Netherlands and, rather unexpectedly, to Brussels, Belgium, both on the northern coast of the European continent, between France and Germany.  We had all really wanted to make it to Amsterdam during this semester abroad to check out the world-famous and extremely unique city.  Dan and Lauren booked a flight a couple months ago and got a great price, but when the rest of us looked and attempted to book, the price had shot up and it was virtually impossible to pay to fly there for the weekend.  After talking to our friend Carly, the one we met up with in Paris and who is studying abroad in Brussels, she told me that we should consider flying to Brussels and then taking a cheap train or bus to Amsterdam for the rest of the weekend.  We were able to get great flight into Brussels, the capitol of the European Union, and then even cheaper Megabus tickets to Amsterdam and a nice train back to Brussels in order to fly out on Monday.

Ross and I, as well as our two friends Emily and Jordan, booked the travel together and headed out for Brussels very early Friday morning.  We landed in a very inconveniently located airport, Charleroi, around 9 AM and had to then find transportation for the 1 hour journey into the city.  Carly had arranged to entertain us in Brussels for the day and then see us off to our bus ride at 3 PM.  There was a shuttle bus system running fro Charleori to the city center, but it quickly filled with people and we were approached by a cab driver, who told us that if we could find 4 other people, 8 total, we could take a taxi van into the city for only 13 euros per person, the same price as the crowded bus, and only a 35 minute ride!  We did it without a doubt, got into the station, payed to go pee and then met up Carly.  She led us onto the metro system and directly to the city center.  There we walked through the downtown, the central square, and later met up with her friend Courtney, also from SLU and also joined us in Paris.  From there, we went straight for a delicious, Belgian waffle.  They were incredible! I got just the plain sugar waffle, with no toppings, but the others got Nutella, strawberries and more.  The waffles were thick and had little sugar crystals baked into the dough.  We ate them while sitting on the curb of the square, overlooking the town hall.  Later, we walked to the Royal Palace and on the way passed some sort of motorcade with police motorcycles parting the streets for a couple black mercedes to pass through.  We are not sure who was inside, but Carly and Courtney said it is a rather common occurrence in Brussels.  The capitol of the European Union is there in the city and the enormous office building, which houses the European Commission, was the next stop on our tour.  They told us that more than half of the residents of Brussels now work for the commission... sounds like Springfield.  haha!  On the way to the Commission, we walked through a beautiful park.  It has been awhile since we have been out and about in Madrid enough to notice the changing and nice fall scenery.  The aforementioned office building was certainly impressive.  It was a huge X shape and definitely looks like a place that would manage all of the EU countries.  We saw some other sights nearby, then got on the metro illegally, through a construction zone, which doesn't charge (and Carly and Courtney knew it!).  We took the metro to the city center once again, since the initial walk was much longer than anticipated.  Our next stop was for some famous Belgian frites, or french fries.  Carly explained that the fried there are double fried.  So they are super crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. They are served with a selection of sauces, but they recommended we try the Andalouse.  A sort of spicy mayo-based sauce.  Delicious!  We too the fries into a well-known cafe called Delirium.  The place is known for its beer selection and they told us that on some nights it is so packed, you can hardly walk down the street to get in.  We, of course, had to try they infamous 9 or 10% beers, so basically we only needed one before heading to catch our Megabus for Amsterdam.  It was a great stopover in Brussels and so nice to be reunited with Carly and Courtney over here in Europe!

The Belgian Waffle

Courtney, Emily, Carly, Jordan, Ross and I at the Royal Palace of Brussels

The Enormous European Commission 

Emily and I with Frites

Au Revoir to Carly in Brussels

We arrived in Amsterdam around 6 PM, but it was already completely dark and it is always terribly disorienting arriving into these cities at night with no sense of direction or location.  We followed onto the crowd onto a tram heading towards the city center, Emily and I evaded paying since the ticket man shooed us away.  Once there, we parted ways from the girls, who were forced to book in a separate hostel, and Ross and I searched out our, StayOkay hostel.  There we met Dan and Lauren, checked in, made our beds and went out to find something to eat.  The hostel reception recommended Lauren to go to the "little China" area for Chinese food, so we did.  Little China over here was not quite what I had in mind, with the roasting ducks and chickens hanging in the windows, overpriced, crappy buffets and generally weird (probably authentic) Chinese food.. ugh.  We picked the least threatening looking place and were not too happy with the food.  Dan got some dumplings, which were awful and the rest of us ordered a chicken dish, which was certainly edible, but nothing like you can find at home!  After eating, we went to meet up with Emily and Jordan, but first meandered though the unbelievable Red Light District, which was conveniently located just a couple blocks from out hostel.  This place was one of the craziest places I have seen.  Window after window of prostitutes standing and dancing for the passersby.  It was like a disgusting zoo.  Some of the girls were actually disgusting, while others were not too bad looking, but just so weird.  Needless to say we were all pretty creeped out, so kept on moving and met up with the girls in Dam square.  We walked around the streets together, got a few drinks and then ended up in a bar downtown, when randomly three friends from SLU walk into the same place!  The guys were also in Amsterdam for the weekend and just happened to run into us there. We hung out for as long we as could manage, then went back to go to sleep.

On Saturday, we woke up and took advantage of the free breakfast in the hostel.  We had made 12 o'clock reservations for the Anne Frank House tour, so we headed out, stopped for coffee at a cafe, then went directly to the house.  Anne Frank was a German Jew during the Nazi Holocaust and fled to Holland with her family to avoid capture.  The house they hid in was incredible, very secretive and intricate.  We got to walk through the home, reading excerpts from Anne's journals along the way and experiencing how they lived in complete secrecy, until their eventual capture and deaths at Auschwitz.  Next, we went to see one the hundreds of coffeehouses in Amsterdam, which are famous for selling pot!  The one we went to was featured in Ocean's Twelve and therefore drew a pretty big crowd.  They had awesome hot chocolate though!  We got some more fries like in Brussels afterwards and even had the same Andalouse sauce.  Without a doubt, the ones in Brussels were much better!  The Next we walked to a huge flower market along one of the canals and along the way, stopped into a cheese store, sampling every kind possible, and then into a couple souvenir shops to stock up on Amsterdam stuff!  After, we had to make an appearance at the famous I AMsterdam sign.  It was oddly difficult to find, but made for some fun pictures.  We separated from the girls once again, to head back to our hostels and regroup for the evening.  We met them at bar again in Dam square and then moved to another area where Emily was planning to meet up with a couple friends from highschool.  That never happened, but a repeat of the previous night occurred instead when the same three guys from SLU walked into the bar and joined us for the rest of the evening.  How fun!  We ended up leaving there later to go to a different place and I managed to escape with a pretty cool Amsterdam beer glass!!  We didn't stay out much later at the next place, but rather left to grab a snack at a place called Wok to Walk, a chain I did not know existed here in Spain, but it does and I am eager to find it!! They make fresh sitr-fried noodles on the spot and throw them into a cardboard box to take away!  So great!!

The Anne Frank House

Sunday was a more relaxed day, as it was our final day in Amsterdam.  We were returning to Brussels that evening to fly back to Madrid on Monday morning.  We met the girls at our hostel, as the four of us were storing our bags in Dan and Lauren's lockers there.  We went to breakfast, since we missed the free one, at a place for "pancakes."  The Amsterdam pancakes are much thinner and more like crepes, but we ended up getting "American" breakfasts, with bacon, eggs, a couple pancakes and juice and coffee.  Of course, nothing beats the Cracker Barrel or the Hen House, but this did come pretty close.  Despite the terrible service, it was a good start to the morning.  We had bought tickets to take a canal tour boat ride, so we went to the boat afterwards.  It wound through all of the little canals of the city, pointing out several landmarks and interesting things.  To burn the rest of the afternoon, we walked back through the city, again through the red light district (we had heard that all of the big girls are out in the day light -- very true!) and then went into the Bulldog.  The world's first "coffeeshop," according to them.  We got some drinks there a then went to the Hostel to collect our things.  Before catching the train, we stopped back through Wok to Walk for another serving of those delicious noodles!  Our train departed around 6:30 and arrived in Brussels three hours later.  We got some good sleep in on the train and I got to study a little for the two quizzes I had on Monday!  We were planning to meet up with Carly again on Sunday night, but considering the time, our exhaustion, my and Ross' quizzes and the fact that we couldn't get ahold of her, we just went to our hostel, checked in for the few hours we would stay there and went to sleep.

Dan, Emily and Lauren on our Canal Cruise 

Famous Seven Bridges of Amsterdam

I am not sure what happened to my alarm that was supposed to my alarm that was supposed to go off at 5 AM, but I woke to a very frustrated Emily and Jordan at 5:30 as Ross and I were scrambling out of bed to dress for the trip to the airport.  We struggled getting into the metro and ended up entering it illegally once again, made it to the train station (though going the wrong, much longer way on the metro) and into the same 8 person cab that we arrived in.  Despite all of the confusion of the early morning, we arrived to the airport earlier than we would have by taking the shuttle bus as we planned.  A two hour flight landed us safely back into Madrid after a long and eventful weekend.  We will rest for a couple days then head off to Netzbach, Germany for my birthday this coming weekend!

London, England

Sitting here writing this blog post, I am killing two birds with one stone - knocking out this daunting task for the second time this week, as well as keeping a watchful eye over a pot of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese on Mamá's scary, gas stove.  She has left for the weekend to go to her country house in Zaragoza, Spain, so we have decided to risk it and use the kitchen or the first time this semester.  Nancy B. sent me some Velveeta Mac and Cheese in her care package, which I am saving that for a later date!!

Last weekend was a long one in Spain, we had Thursday off of class due to All Saints Day, which made for a full 4 day weekend.  Bearing that in mind, we booked that weekend for London, which we expected would be well-deserving of the extra time - and were we correct!!  The city was amazing.  Every part of it was captivating and exciting.  The people were friendly, the food and beer was fantastic, the sights were breathtaking and the English language was such a welcomed change (something I did not expect to say as Spanish major, but boy was it nice!).  I could have done without the misty, cold, London weather, but that was to be expected.  

Dan and I arrived early on Thursday morning, after taking a 4 AM cab with Ross to the airport.  Ross was going to Rome, after visiting London this summer with his family.  We got to London and took a 1.5 hour bus ride into the city center from the crappy airport that the discount airlines fly into - so basically, we save a little on the fare and spend 20+ euros on transportation to and from the airport... Since the rest of our group would be arriving later, Dan and I had virtually the whole day to ourselves to explore the city and get our bearings.  Although, we didn't do anything that we would not repeat, since Lauren would have killed us.  London is her favorite city of all time.  When we arrived, we ended up convincing the hotel, which we would stay in on Saturday and Sunday nights, to store our two measly backpacks for the day, since we did not want to be weighed down by them.  They were reluctant to do it, but the nice concierge stepped in and helped us out.  Freed from the bags, we started waking towards the river from the Victoria Station area and after stopping at McDonalds for some delicious chicken nuggets and stumbling upon a mass for the religious holiday in Westmister Cathedral, we walked smack-dad into Westminster Abbey and Big Ben!! We were shocked and easily spent an hour or more walking around and taking pictures.  We crossed Westminster Bridge for beautiful views of the  House of Parliament and the entire city down the River Thames.  The London eye was just to our left, so there was plenty to see.  Once we had taken shots from every angle, we decided to go find a little English pub to weather the inclement weather which had moved in (our only rain of the entire trip, very atypical for London).  We found a nice place called The Clarence.  The bartender was friendly and chatted with us, while offering us samples of several English ales.  I learned that a real ale, pulled from the tap, is not really fizzy nor really cold, very different from a lager.  We had a few beers there... then had to leave to meet Lauren at the underground metro - called "The Tube" in London.  We returned to The Clarence for some more ales and a traditional English meal.  Dan ordered the Fish and Chips and Lauren and I got a really good Chicken Pie!!  We even saw a little mouse run across the floor of the restaurant.  At home, disgusting; but in London, quaint and traditional feeling.  Haha!!  To explain the lodging situation would be a very long story, so in a nutshell, our friend Amanda and five of our girl fiends from SLU had arranged to stay in a hotel in London using Amanda's mom's reward points.  Their hotel was upgraded at the last minute, to a presidential suite with 3 king beds, 3 bathrooms and countless other amenities.  Amanda messaged and said to cancel the hostel and stay with them for free - so we did!!  Upon arriving there, it turned out there was mistake and the presidential suite was not offered, but due to the confusion, they still offered her a very large Balmoral suite, with several free cots and some wine.  Dan and I ended up on the just-too-short couches, but hey, it was free and filled with friends, so we made due.  

The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben!

Jordan, Brenna, Emily, Callie and Lauren in the Balmoral Suite!

On Friday, the three of us went first to the Tower of London.  A very old fortress that dates back centuries and has played a major role in battles, English monarchs and historical events.  We discovered that you could pre-arrange tickets online, so we did and ended up jumping a line of hundreds of people and saved money!!  Quite lucky!   The inside was very cool, but swarming with tourists.  It was midterm in England, so all of the schools were on a week long break and evidentially flocked to the city for "holiday" ugh... We ate lunch in the tower, which we stole from the breakfast buffet at Amanda's hotel.  First, we took a tour with a traditional Beefeater, one of the Royal Guards of the tower, and learned a lot about its history and significance.  Then, we waited in another long line to enter the stronghold of the Crown Jewels - all of the monarchy's riches.  There they are kept in a massive safe-room, which can be entered for viewing the jewels, though photography is strictly prohibited.  We meandered though, looking at the massive diamonds, some over 500 carats and the size of my fist!!  Crowns, rings, plates, flatware, scepters, and orbs - many of which are still used in coronations and official ceremonies today.  Dan, along with Annie, could not bare to miss this great photo-op and snapped pics "discretely" left and right inside the room.  As we were leaving, a guard chased us down yelling "Camera Check" and demanded to see Dan's camera, watching as he was forced to delete each and every photo and video of the jewels from his memory card!  HAHAH!  He was shaking in his British boots and Lauren and I could barely hold back our laughter.  What a shame, but a good lesson - do not mess with Her Majesty's riches.  We toured the tower complex a bit more, then crossed the famous Tower Bridge to the south bank of the River Thames.  The bridge was incredible to see in person, this was the one displaying the Olympic Rings last summer.  The south bank boasts impressive new construction and architecture and was named the "Queen's Walk".  We made our way back into the city and to Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus at night, which were very cool all lit up. We finally got a seat at a great bar and the bartender would not serve Lauren, since she did not have proof of age, aside from a photocopy of her passport - isn't this Europe??  So, we left and ended up just going back to the hotel to sleep, since we had trouble getting ahold of the other girls.  We were ready for bed without a doubt!

The White Tower - The Tower of London

Tower Bridge

Closest I got to the Queen... 

On Saturday, our friends were leaving London and going to a smaller town in the country, so we had to change hotels.  Luckily for us, to another one, which Dan's dad booked with more hotel points.  We were two for two in terms of hotels this trip!  This same hotel recognized us this second time around and were more than willing to store our bags for the day.  We headed straight for Buckingham Palace to catch the 11:30 changing of the guards.  Well... we were not the only one's with that on our agenda and since in the winter, they only do the full ceremony every other day, I think the crowd was almost doubled.  We managed to weasel our way up to a gate, right as the police were separating the crowd and making a pathway for the procession.  We found ourselves next to a couple very nice American ladies, who were happy to speak to us about the U.S. and even happier for our American-style respect of personal space!  We talked the whole time - well I did... haha!  They were very interesting and one had been a high-end watch buyer for Tiffany and Co. and had been to London, I think she said 50+ times, and had seen the changing of the guards over a dozen. They gave us their email address and wanted us to send them some photos (which they took with my camera from a better vantage point) and also to remind them to talk to their friend who owns an Irish pub in Boston and is the largest distributer of Guinness in the city, with the hope of her getting us a private tour of the Guiness factory in a couple weeks.  How cool!  After the ceremony, we got some photos of the palace, spoke to a guard who said that the Queen was out at a private residence (go figure) and then moved on back to Trafalgar square for photos in a Traditional London phone booth and with the famous, giant, bronze Lions of the plaza.  We stopped into a cafe for hot chocolate and a breather, then continued to St. Paul's cathedral.  We had intended to go up the cathedral for incredible views of the city, but it was closed for a confirmation, so we headed back across the Thames, using the very modern pedestrian bridge, which is seen in one of the Harry Potter movies.  We walked past Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on our way to the Borough Market.  This is a famous market in London on Saturdays with every imaginable food item.  I had a burger type thing with onions and English mustard (which is unbelievably strong/spicy) and Lauren had a thanksgiving plate on a bun, which was also great!  There, we met up with our friends Jordan and Sara, whom we had been with the nights before and were now going to squeeze into the hotel with us.  We left the market and stopped into a cool little pub on the river.  They left later for a Michael Jackson show (wish I had gone), while Dan and Lauren and I stayed to continue with the ales and to argue about languages and anything else imaginable before returning to the hotel, back along the Queen's Walk, with more beautiful night views of the city and the Tower Bridge... 

Changing of the Guards

Buckingham Palace babayyy

On the tele

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

St. Paul's Cathedral in the Distance

St. Paul's and London Bridge (not falling down) from the Queen's Walk

Tower Bridge

Sunday, was another busy day.  The five of us woke up and went straight to the train station (across the street) to arrange travel to the town of Windsor, the home of Windsor Castle.  Two train rides and a couple hours later, we were walking down the quaint streets of the town and staring at the impressive castle, which the royal family still frequents.  The castle is the largest one still in use today and was actually expecting Her Majesty's arrival (as they said) while we were there, but she never showed up.  We guessed her private helicopter or military escort must have been delayed... The castle was awesome!  So much more interesting when you can imagine people living there, state dinners being served there and foreign officials being entertained there.  We had lunch at a cool little restaurant and I finally broke down and ordered the famous Fish and Chips of London.  It was wonderful!!!  Seriously the best beer-battered fish of my life.  The rumors are all true!  From Winsor, we went back to London city to check out Harrod's the world-famous shopping center, but since it was Sunday, it was closed by the time we arrived.  Regardless, it offered impressive window displays and beautiful lights.  Next, we took the metro all the way to to King's Cross Station, from Harry Potter, to get a photo with the Platform 9 3/4 from the movies.  There is a goofy little set prepared there for tourists to take photos and pretend to be where Harry Potter entered the magical world.  Before going back to go to bed, we stopped into Shakespeare's Pub near the hotel to burn our remaining British pounds on snacks and drinks, when unbelievably the entire rest of our group walked into the same bar for the same reason!  We all sat and laughed and shared our stories, until it was time to hit the hay for yet another, miserable, early-morning departure for Madrid.  

Windsor Castle

Harrod's

I was super sad to have to wake up and go to the airport on Monday morning (gets worse each week), but I was even sadder to leave the wonderful city of London.  I highly recommend it and cannot wait to go back.  The time is flying here.  Only 3 trips and 6 more weeks left before I will be home for Christmas.  I hope all is well over there.  Cherio!

Sevilla, Spain

Two weekends ago, Ross and I took an impromptu trip to the famous, Spanish city of Sevilla. Sevilla is located in southern Spain, a 6 hour bus ride from Madrid, in the region of Andalucia. It is known for being home to the birthplace of Flamenco music and dance, due to its historic gypsie population, as well as the third largest gothic cathedral in the world and tapas at every turn. 

We left on a night bus from Madrid last Thursday night at 1 AM, scheduled to arrive in Sevilla at 7:30. The bus ride was nice, but we did not get as much sleep as we had planned and were super tired upon arriving in Sevilla. We made a pit stop  half-way from Madrid and as I was inside using the bathroom (maybe around 4AM) the bus pulled away to refuel. So, as you can expect, I walked out of the rest-stop with a few other people, all in a panic looking for the stupid bus! Fortunately, someone had been through this before and remembered that the bus refuels and then returns for the people who left. Whew! Crisis averted! 

First, we went to our hostel, The Traveler's Inn, to store our bags and inquire about checking in early for a little shut-eye before beginning our day. They took the bags, but could not offer us a room until midday since the place was full. Therefore, we were forced out into Sevilla bright and early to explore and to get our bearings. We stopped for some coffee and pastries near the hostel, then navigated through the windy, cobblestone streets to the historical center with the cathedral and other attractions. We actually ran into some fellow SLU students who had been on our bus, they were burning time to catch another bus to Morocco for a weekend in the desert!  Instead of going in the attractions, we decided just to tour around and save the admissions for the next two days. However, our next stop, the Torre de Oro, (the golden tower) was open and worth entering. It was an old lighthouse situated on the river, which now houses a maritime museum and can be climbed up for views of the city. For the record, Christopher Columbus is from Sevilla and there is much dedicated to him, his crews and the discovery of the Americas. We opted to take a bus tour of the city afterwards, since we were tired and it seemed like a great way to feel out the town without having to walk. It was a hop-on-hop-off tour, though we never really hopped off!!  It toured us around, highlighting the major sights and areas. We returned to our hostel for a much needed siesta and then after a few hours, went back out for an early tapas dinner.  Afterwards we visited the beautiful Plaza de España. This huge building and extravagant plaza was constructed for an international exhibition in Sevilla, but now attracts visitors for the architecture and beauty. We left there, passing through the old Tobacco factory, which once processed all the tobacco entering into Spain from the New World, but is now home to the University of Seville.  Later we stublmed across a tapas and wine bar called Vinela, which came to be one of our favorite stops in Seville.  They had fantastic Rioja, red wine and really good breaded shrimp tapas.  

Cathedral of Sevilla

Torre de Oro

Plaza de España

On Saturday, we got moving early, took advantage of the free breakfast at the hostel and went straight to the cathedral to begin seeing the sights that we had just glanced at the day before. Bathe cathedral was incredible, we took a look at all the small chapels, the impressive treasure room, loaded with gold and jewels, as well as the tomb of Columbus, while trying to eavesdrop on some Spanish tour guides to pick up a little information. The place was swarming with Costa cruise ship passengers (seriously, the cruises haunt me!). We ended the tour of the cathedral by climbing the tall bell tower for unmatched views of the city. It required walking 35 ramps and then 17 steps, but was really cool at the top and worth the workout.  Next, we stopped for a small lunch of some tapas and beer, then proceeded to the Royal Alcazar. This structure was once a Moorish fort, but was later inhabited by the Spanish royal family. It was rather empty, but boasted impressive architecture, mosaics and gardens. After burning some time there, we moved on to the Plaza de Toros of Seville, the bullring, which my mom told me to check out (she did some Seville research for me).  The tour of the ring was interesting, we got to see the hidden areas of the ring, where the bulls enter, where the royal family sits and where the matadors pray before each fight, as well as  a couple museum exhibits of bullfighting paraphernalia and art.  My sociology teacher had informed me that an interesting area, called Tirana, was situated just across the river in Sevilla, this place was once home to the city's gypsy population and therefore became the birthplace of Flamenco music and culture. We walked into Tirana just for a drink and some sightseeing, but walked back to the city center after nabbing a couple nice Cruzcampo beer glasses from the unfriendly bar. It has become a game to collect as many of these unique glasses from all around Europe as possible. Dan is undoubtedly winning, since he has no shame or fear of embarrassment, but I am not that talented of a clepto (now, hotel toiletries on the other hand, that's my expertise!) As it turns out, upon returning to Madrid, only one of our two glasses was even printed with the beer logo... I am fairly certain the good one is mine. Haha!  After Tirana and making a run for it with out hot glasses, we walked back along the river to our standby, Vinela, for some more wine and shrimp.  There, we decided to look into changing our return bus ticket for the following day, Sunday.  We had planned to take the same 1 AM bus home from Sevilla, but at that point felt like we had seem most all of the city and could afford leaving earlier in order to get back to Madrid as a more reasonable time.    Luckily, the lady at the bus station was super-friendly and helped us choose a new departure time of 5 PM with nothing more than a 1 euro fee to change.  Afterwards, we regrouped again at the hostel and headed out for a visit to the world largest wooden structure for the evening, Metropol Parasol.  This place was designed by a German engineer and takes up most of the plaza that it sits in.  It looks like six large mushrooms, and houses shopping, restaurants, a pedestrian plaza and a observation deck on the top.  There was some sort of festival going on, with live music and tons of people.  For just 1.30 euro we took an elevator to the top of the mushrooms for a scenic views over Seville, including the Cathedral and other buildings lit up at night.  It was awesome!  Before leaving, we stopped into the tapas bar up there, Gastrosol, for a couple beers and croquettas tapas as a snack, since we intended to find something good for dinner later.  We left Plaza de la Emancipación and headed for Plaza Neuva, an areas bustling with bars and restaurants.  After walking around for some time, we settled on Ginos, a nice italian place, since we were tapas-ed out and ready for a big plate of pasta.  I got a really great pesto with green noodles and we washed it down with three glasses of red vino!  Before going to sleep in the hostel, I had an interesting conversation with a couple Australian girls staying in our room.  We were talking about the differences between American English and Australian English -- they say things like sunnies (sunglasses), rubbish (trash) and thongs (flip flops), that we just don't say!  Too funny!  

Tomb of Christopher Columbus

View of Sevilla from the Cathedral Tower

Royal Alcazar

Plaza de Toros de Sevilla

Metropol Parasol

Ross and I atop Metropol Parasol

Sunday was spent simply by checking out the few places that we had missed in Sevilla.  We headed west from our hostel, after eating breakfast, to an area called Macarena.  Despite ho badly I was actually looking forward to doing the Macarena there, I never heard the song nor had the chance. Bummer!  There is a an awesome church there devoted to the Virgin Mary and it has an extravagant altar with a larger than life size Mary mannequin/statue/doll thing set into the ornate golden facade.  Even though mass was about to start, we were able to walk behind the altar in a line of tourists to enter the chamber where the Mary stands and view her from behind, while looking out over the assembling congregation.  It was pretty cool!!  They had creepy mirrors set up, so that you could see around her head and get a look at her face from the back.  We left there, walked back to the river, through a couple interesting plazas and just happened to stumble upon an awesome place for lunch.  Going along with the tapas theme, this place specialized in pinchos, which are a form of tapas, where some sort of meat, cheese, etc. is prepared and served stop a slice of french bread.  The place was self-serve, so we could fill up a plate with various pinchos and then get charged based upon how many toothpicks we had in the end. Very cool and fun idea!  We ended up walking back though the town center and the cathedral to a small plaza near our hostel, which was loaded with people hanging out drinking beer on the nice Sunday afternoon.  So, we grabbed a beer and spent some time there before collecting our bags and hitting the long road back to Madrid!  

Virgin Mary of Macarena 

For such an unexpected and quick trip, Sevilla turned out to be a travel great destination and a whole lot of fun!! 

Palma de Mallorca, Spain

This last weekend, I traveled to the beautiful, Spanish island of Palma de Mallorca with Dan and Lauren.  The island is well known in Europe for being a popular tourist destination (especially for the Germans and the English) and I have really always wanted to go there.  It is located off the western coast of Spain in the Mediterranean Sea.  This trip just fell into our laps as we were looking for cheap flights and found roundtrip tickets to Palma for around $50, which we could not pass up!  It was a refreshing change of pace, since for the past several weekends we have been taking incredible, but somewhat stressful, trips to various cities around Europe and getting caught up in the hustle and bustle of touring and traveling.  Mallorca was more vacation-like with a just quick 90 minute flight from Madrid, along with a warmer, beach destination to call home for 3 days.  We were able to forego a bunch of "obligatory" sightseeing and focus on exactly what we wanted to do and see!

The Island of Mallorca 

On Thursday afternoon, with our discount Ryanair plane tickets in hand and our backpacks full of beachy clothes, the three of us made the now routine trek from the city of Madrid out to the airport via the metro system.  We sailed through security and landed at our new-found favorite airport watering hole of a large, pre-flight San Miguel beer.  Ryanair would be like the crappier version of Southwest in the US -- very low prices, free-for-all seat assignments, and additional fees for everything, and non-stop advertisements and solicitation during the nerve-racking flight.  I am a pretty relaxed flier, but the roller coaster ride to Mallorca put me on edge and nearly sent white-knuckled Dan face-first into the barf bag.  After a rough landing on the island and a long and slow bus ride into downtown Palma, we were getting closer and closer to our Hotel Dalí.  I had booked the place online due to its price and had no idea what to expect or where to find it.  We encountered a super-friendly, older lady on the bus who offered us some recommendations for the island and gave me three croissants from her purse for me and my "amigos".  After making it to the hotel's area by bus and walking around for 45 minutes, we happened upon the Hotel Dalí and checked in.  I already didn't trust the receptionist, since on the phone he had told me he didn't speak English and instructed us to get off the bus about 3 stops away from the actual hotel, then upon checking in he turned out to be British and requested all the payment upfront.  Desptite feeling cornered and pissed off, we payed the bill and made out way up to the three person room, only to be shocked at how nice it was, complete with free breakfast, a modern bathroom, balcony and (distant) ocean view -- all for only 60 euros a night! We ate dinner at a little Italian place near our hotel and then got some beers to enjoy on our balcony before calling it a night.

On Friday morning, we put a dent in the free breakfast buffet, then headed back to to the airport to rent a car, per the recommendation of Bettina (who has traveled to Mallorca several times) and multiple travel websites.  The car rentals are relatively cheap on Mallorca and offer much more flexibility and freedom to explore the island.  The three of us split up to find the best deal on an automatic, small car and ultimately settled on Goldcar, which offered us a nice, blue, Ford Focus - perfect for the Americans.  We were so excited to drive for the first time in months, but equally as nervous to drive in a foreign country with the confusing metric system, odd road markings and vicious drivers.  Needless to say, we made it to south east coast with Lauren behind the wheel, just in time to catch a perfect afternoon on Es Trenc beach.  We caught the tail end of the high-season and the weather was borderline beach-appropriate, so it was hot in the sun and cold in the shade, but we enjoyed relaxing in the sand and Dan even braved the cold ocean water.  We had lunch and sangria at the beach restaurant, then another little siesta, before heading back home to the hotel to regroup for the evening.  We planned to eat dinner downtown, so we got dressed and I drove us through the city to the historic center of Palma.  We did some sight seeing at the awesome, gothic cathedral and old streets, then settled on a unique Spanish Tapas place for dinner.  It was great!  We all chose various small dishes, "pinchos," and split larger ones, "raciones." I took the waitress' suggestion of one pincho, the Gulas and Cangrejo Gratin.  I knew cangrejo meant crab, but the rest I was willing to risk.  When it arrived, I tasted delicious, but contained these strangely colored, noodle-looking things, which I had to ask the waitress about.  After our discussion and some consultation with my dictionary, I learned that gulas were young eels and I had had basically multiple mouthfuls of little baby snakes.  ugh... luckily, I had a whole glass of Rijoa red wine to wash it down and help laugh it off!

Dan and Lauren with our Ford Focus

El Trenc

Gothic Cathedral of Palma

Las Gulas, Young Eels

We decided to beach it again on Saturday, since there was relatively nice weather and we figured we should get all that we could.  We chose a small, secluded beach in Portals Nous, really near our hotel.  After driving there, walked down a rocky cliffside and set up camp on the beach.  Lauren and I went straight to the siesta-ing, while Dan proceeded to play in the ocean and roll around in the sand like a little child.  He ended up "building" a huge hole (castle) in the sand, covered himself from head to toe in sand (which later ended up in the Ford Focus) and successfully attracted every little kid on the beach to trample around our area.  Luckily Lauren and I found a nice beach bar with Coronas to keep us happy until play-time ended.  We packed up and headed to the yacht harbor of Portals Nous for lunch.  I check out the Tahini Sushi restaurant, which was another recommendation of Bettina's, but didn't quick fall within our budget... so, among the multi-million dollar yachts, Louie Vuitton luggage and Range Rovers of the harbor, we settled on a pizza joint and split a big, delicious pizza, before returning to the car to move on.  Our next stop was the further south town of Magalouf.  It it much larger and more commercialized, but had a really big and deserted beach.  We assume since it was later in the day and beginning to cool off, most people had headed in.  We had the beach to ourselves and relaxed there for about another hour.  For dinner, we returned to Palma and due tot he disappointment of Tahini Sushi, we scoured the town for a more affordable sushi place.  We put our name on the list at Wasabi Sushi, had a beer while we waited and ate another great meal!  It had begun to rain pretty hard in Palma, so after misplacing the car for about 25 minutes, we made it home to watch some American TV for the first time since being here and went to bed.

Portals Nous

Dan and his friend

Sunday was our final day on the island, so we decided that since the weather was cooler and wetter, we would take a road-trip around the island to tour a little before having to leave.  We began with the highly recommended, picturesque village of Sóller.  Dan drove there and after getting screwed by an unexpected 4.50 euro fare to use a stupid tunnel into the city, we made it to the port.  It was breathtaking!  A quaint little town, surrounded by mountains, with a bustling harbor lined with cafés and restaurants.  We walked around the harbor, took some pictures of the ocean views and then stopped into an outdoor restaurant for a pitcher of sangria and some hamburgers for lunch.  Filled up, we left Sóller to head down the western coast to the town of Port Andratx.  The drive took over two hours (little did we know), but it turned out to be beautiful with winding, cliffside roads and incredible ocean views.  We were able to stop along the way for photo-ops and interesting sights.  We made it to Port Andratx, toured the streets with beautiful homes and walked down the piers of the harbor, loaded with mega-yachts.  It began to rain once again, so we sought shelter in a cafe for some cheap sandwiches and dessert, before heading back home to Hotel Dalí.

Sóller, Mallorca

My favorite photo of the weekend... 

Oceanside Drive

Port Andratx

We had to wake up this morning at 3:30 to drive to the airport and return the rental car before flying out at 6:30.  We landed in Madrid before 8, but were delayed taxying by really thick fog in the city and then delayed again by metro system strikes, which caused disrupted transportation service throughout the city and people backed up by the hundreds at many stops!  Once home, I hit the hay for another couple hours before going to class at 2 this afternoon.  I have no upcoming travel plans for this week, but am happy to be back in Madrid, refreshed after a wonderful weekend on the beach in Palma.  I cannot wait to return there again someday!