extremely late...but better late than never right?

so since i am currently home (sad i know) and my last post was from the beginning of march..there is bound to be some holes missing here. but ill try my best to fill in the gaps from what i remember. So we came back from our valencia trip and liz's friend from school amy was in barcelona to visit. we went out that week with amy and the next weekend was st. patricks day. on st patricks day we woke up and suz was ready to go. she made us pan con tomate and a microwavable pizza and made us start drinking. we drank for a little while in the apartment and then decided to leave to go to a bar. we went to ryans pub. it was really crowded and there was a kid balancing a beer bottle on his head for a while that we were pretty entertained by.

After ryans we went to go meet emily and her friend at dunnes and of course on the way had to stop for wok to walk. after going to the bathroom in dunnes and liz chatting it up with a barcelonaian who teaches english we headed to sutton to go see lmfao. we waited on line for a while. we finally get to the front of the line and the bouncer takes our tickets and said you know youre not allowed in like that. we werent dressed up to dress code...i thought the best thing to do would be to go home change and come back but suz had a different plan..she decided to start yelling at the bouncer (always a helpful move) and he pushed her away which made her start screaming about how her dad will sue him blahblahblah. we went home and liz and suz were too bummed out to go back so we ended up just staying home. Then im pretty sure the next week was midterms. That wednesday there was a free afrojack concert and word on the street was calvin harris was going to be there so suz and i were determined to go. Jordans friends had ended up reserving extra tickets so we got ourselves in. rhianna and akon were there but we didnt see them... a few people did though. suz and i were convinced we saw calvin harris and then found out the next day that was completely not accurate. anyway im going to end this post now... ill continue soon!

Valencia

So the week after amsterdam that monday we went to loco lunes at otto zutz and it was packed. Tuesday we relaxed, wednesday I was planning on staying in but of course everyone in class was talking about how awesome nicky romero was going to be and liz asked me if she should buy tickets and we decided that if there were still tickets when she got out of class then it was meant to be and of course there were so I ended up going but it was totally worth it. Thursday i woke up with a horrible sore throat so I went to my first class but decided to miss the second two (one of which ended up being cancelled anyway) and went straight to sleep when i got home. I slept from 1-8pm and woke up because liz wanted to go get pizza. I was physically unable to get pizza so i asked her to get me some and wake me up when she came back with it. When she woke me up it was so hard to swallow i couldnt even eat the pizza so i just went back to sleep in hopes of waking up in the morning all better for valencia. No such luck. I still couldnt really swallow and i knew the bus ride was going to be rough. Somehow one of the directors monica knew something was wrong and asked me as i got on the bus. She said wed find a pharmacy when we got to valencia and she would get me something. The bus ride was actually pretty long but we finally got there and dropped our stuff in our hotel room and went on a tour. We went on a walking tour all around the city and saw a lot of really cool places. Monica took me to a pharmacy and i got some medicine. Then we got on a bus tour and after that its safe to say i fell in love again. We went to the city of arts and sciences which was also like a dream world but this time a futuristic dream world. The whole thing was just so cool. There was water surrounding all the buildings and it was just all so pretty and surreal.

After this we got back on the bus and went back to the hotel where we all regrouped and some of the group met up and we went to a church where the holy grail is supposedly and went to the top of the tower to watch the sunset. We got there a little to early but it was still an amazing view.

After that we walked around until we found a place to eat dinner. We found a little place and jacque and i split patatas bravas which werent as good as we hoped and calamari and we were supposed to get pallea also but they forgot us and after eating all the rest of our food we decided not to remind them. 

After dinner we went back to the hotel and everyone got ready to go out. while everyone was pregaming i was sipping on my water bottle. When everyone went out I went to sleep and woke up feeling so much better. We woke up and went down to breakfast which was so good. We then went on another tour and it was of the roman ruins. This was very cool to see. After that we headed down to the town square because last week started the celebration of las fallas in valencia. This is a festival where they build wooden structures and set them on fire at midnight. Everyday at 2 there is a huge celebration in the town square with fireworks. Each day the fireworks get louder until the last day when you can actually feel the buildings shake. It felt like i was in the city for the st. patricks day parade. It was so crowded and the crowd was so full of energy. The fireworks were insane and the whole sky was filled with smoke by the end. 

 Also for las fallas there were little girls dressed up all over the place in these intricate dresses that our tour guide told us cost thousands of dollars to make. Every year a girl gets crowned princess and queen of las fallas and they are usually a girl from a wealthy family. We found these little girls posing for pictures. 

After this we went to go rent bikes to ride to the beach but the place was closed. we walked around a little and the whole place was so chilled out everyone was just sitting around on the grass drinking and relaxing. We took cabs to the beach and hung out on the beach for hours. It was so pretty and it made me want summer and the beach so bad.

After a while this man came up to us giving henna tattoos and at first it started as a joke but then everyone decided they were going to get one. Jeff got a monkey on his butt..so dont be alarmed by this next picture. It was hilarious watching the poor man do the tattoo on his butt.

After the beach we went to go eat and had amazing pallea

afterwards we went to find a cab to go back but we got sidetracked when we saw a park. we played in a park for a little and then got in a cab to go back to the hostel and on the way we passed a park that we saw on the bus tour the day before and we decided to get out and walk through the park the rest of the way which was probably the best decision we made the whole trip. The park was absolutely amazing with little fountains everywhere.  It was so modern and pretty. There were orange trees everywhere. We ate an orange off one of the orange trees but it was a little too bitter still. We walked past a few valencians walking their dogs and they asked us of we wanted to do fire crackers and i got to play with one of their dogs. Then we came across a jungle gym like thing which we went on it for a little. Then we went back to the hotel and rested a little and then got ready to go out. We went out with no intentions of where we were really going and ended up coming across a party in a town square with all spaniards. It was so much fun and all of the Spaniards were so welcoming and were dancing with us. After that we went to a cool club and then went home. The next day we got on the bus home and came back to barcelona!

Amsterdam!

first of all...I am writing this post sitting out on my balcony in a nice comfy chair. It was so nice out today. anyway...time to get to amsterdam. Let me start by saying Amsterdam was like a dream world. Theres no other way to describe it. Lets start with a continuation of the last post...So while getting ready for Thomas gold im getting prepared to leave straight from thomas gold to the airport with jacque and suz when i look at my ticket and realize my flight is at 10... and then i remembered that of course stupid me decided to choose the later flight than my friends were taking because it was cheaper. At the time I was freaking out a little but at the same time i was happy that i would at least get a little bit of sleep...which turned out to be worse than no sleep. Of course I thought since i was coming home id either pack when i got home or in the morning...next thing i know liz is waking me up about an hour before my flight and im freaking out thinking im not going to make my flight. I packed quickly not even knowing what I packed if anything...all i knew was i had my passport and my tickets and thats all that mattered. So i sprinted to sants estacio and thankfully there was a train in 5 minutes. I caught that train and found my way to the terminal somehow rushed through security (of course got frisked again- even after taking off my other bracelet which i assumed was the only other thing that could have been putting off the alarm) and got to my gate at 9:42 when the gate was supposed to close at 9:45. For some reason they were a little delayed and there was a whole line of people still boarding. When i got on the plane i couldnt even believe that I made it. I slept the whole flight and then arrived in Amsterdam. Since i was alone I didnt want to experiment and try to figure out the bus or metro system...it seemed a little too risky so i got a cab hoping it wouldnt be too expensive...my hopes were not right...40 euros down the drain. As i get out of the cab the cab driver said "theres a train right up the block that goes directly to the airport thats only 5 dollars you should use that next time". I was so angry and then to make things worse i walk up to my hostel and the door has a sign on it that says "closed until 2" and it was 1:15. So im sitting there thinking what am i supposed to do by myself in amsterdam for an hour so i decided to walk around and explore. Once i started to walk around I instantly fell in love with the quaint little town. The bridges everywhere and the canals and the cute little buildings and everyone riding bikes

A Mom and daughter holding hands riding bikes.. saw this everywhere. 

So after I got to the point where i was scared i was going to get lost in one direction i decided to go the other direction and passed my hostel and went down the first block i saw. While walking down this block i saw a cute little park on one of the canals and decided to just sit on a bench there and wait until 2.  While sitting there I watched videos on my camera from the night before and i looked up for a second and who was walking towards me- jacque and suz. I dont know how we possibly found each other but it was crazy. They said they had been walking around for hours trying to find the hostel and i told them i knew how to get there from here and it just happened to be two. We went to the hostel and checked in. This hostel actually  had the steepest steps in the history of steps and it was unreal trying to get up and down them

So after checking in we went to get something to eat across the street and then decided to take a nap since jacque and suz didnt sleep at all and i slept for 3 hours. We woke up with the intentions of going to the van gogh museum but couldnt figure out how to work the tram system so we kept asking directions to walk. Every person we asked said it was far every time we asked and eventually it got late so we decided to redirect ourselves to get food and check out the red light district. We went to a restaraunt called the three sisters which was amazing burgers like actually the best ive ever had in my life. Then we went to the red light district and I have never experienced a more odd experience in my life. It was not what i expected. I expected the girls to be in windows above ground level calling people up not standing within reach. When walking down the blocks we were the only girls in a sea of guys. and of course we saw boys in our program. we walked through a few streets and ended up almost mistakenly walking into a peep show and ran out of that alley quickly. We walked around a little more and then went back to our hostel and went to sleep early since we knew we were going to be up all night the next night. We woke up early, got our complimentary breakfast at the hotel and made our way to the anne frank house. 

The anne frank house was one of the coolest things ive ever done. It was insane to think that the room you were standing in was actually where anne frank hit. It was awesome to see her journal entries. and her actual room and how she decorated it because she thought it was too boring with the walls being plain. The whole experience was amazing and the best part was that when we left the line was huge so we were so happy we forced ourselves to get up early. We hopped on a boat tour. 

On the boat tour we made our way to the van gogh musem, the Iamsterdam sign and the heineken experience. I got my iamsterdam sign picture on the m!

After a struggle getting down from there we went to the van gogh museum which was really cool to see. After that we went to the heineken experience which was also awesome. It was cool to see the history of how the beer is made and there was a virtual tour part which was very cool. A lot of it was just advertising but it was in a very cool way and i enjoyed it a lot. 

After that we just walked around a little more and i got my cool amsterdam hat and new sunglasses!

Theyre kind of contradicting but whatever right? this hat is the warmest thing ever and was a lifesaver when we were still in amsterdam. After that we went back to our hostel and took a little nap and got up and got dinner right below our hostel. We got ready for energy and met up with other people from our program and made our way over there. It was a pretty long journey but it was fun because the train was full of people all going to the same place. The venue where energy was was HUGE. there were three stages but we only stayed at the one that tiesto was going to be at because we wanted to have good spots. We got to see fedde and tiesto and armin van buuren and they were all amazing. We saw hardwell in there too which made me decide that im most certainly not going to see him while hes here. After we got bored we left to go back to our hostel and get our things together and go to the airport. We made it on to our flight and safely made it back to barcelona.

berlin

wellll since i clearly suck at keeping up with this blog (and i know i say this every time) i am just going to make two separate blog posts for the past weekend and the weekend before. First weekend was in berlin. I bought a ticket last minute without realizing that i had a midterm the day we came back and i would be arriving halfway through my midterm. When i asked my professor if i could take it at a different time and they were very strict about it so i ended up having to change my flight. So friday morning we left for berlin and when we got there we went straight to see sights. The first thing we saw was tacheles. Its an abandon building that artists took over and graffitied from wall to wall. also some artists have their art studios in the building and they were making art right in front of you. Of course since I have been obsessed with graffiti here (no dad, im not going to become a graffiti artist) this was my favorite place.

After Tacheles we went to "Tom's Fritten" which was a little food stand across the street. Here we got bratwurst and currywurst which isnt as bad as it sounds. After this we went to go into the sculpture area of tacheles but decided not to because it was starting to rain. As we turned around to walk out, we saw a man freely peeing in the middle of the sidewalk so we waited a few minutes until he was done to walk away. Somehow we magically figured out the metro system there and it wasnt that hard once we got the hang of it. We went to see Brandenburger Tor which is the Brandenburg gate.

After this we went to go see reichstag which is parlament with the intentions of going back the next day and going into the cool dome but when we went they told us you had to make reservations days in advance so instead i took this fake picture and pretended i was in it

pretty legit right? so after that we went to some tourist shops and i got my post card with a piece of the berlin wall in it and a keychain. after that we went to our hostel to check in. it was not a pretty sight. by this time it was raining and freezing and when we got to our hostel, the gold marie, they made us wait. when we checked in we asked about my cancelled reservations for the next two nights and they said they had no record of it. All the people working there looked like messes and the people walking in and out looked like bums. we were scared to see what the rooms looked like. we walked down a hallway and these purple lights flashed on like we were in a brothel and then we walked up about 6 flights of stairs and were finally in our room. The room wasnt horrible and we had a lovely view of a ghetto alley way. We shared a bathroom with the next room who ended up being really nice and bringing us a space heater. We got ready for skrillex and obviously were late. we ended up only seeing about 20 minutes which was very disappointing but i got to see my two favorite songs so i guess its okay. I ended up having an emotional breakdown in front of the concert after it was over because i was mad we missed skrillex and i had to leave the next day. We ended up meeting these two german boys and they brought us to a restaurant/bar. Of course we ate nachos like we do everywhere and got drinks. We went back to the hostel and slept and woke up early. In the morning we went to go get my money and the women at the desk acted like she had no idea what we were talking about. She was very rude to us and i was getting really frustrated. She said that shed talk to liz and jacque later in the day when the managers were there. I ended up getting my money back when they got home. We went straight to reichstag and got denied from the dome so we went to the holocaust museum. The monument was awesome and so was the museum even though it was depressing.

After that we went a restaurant and got bratwurst again. We went to go to the 360 which is the highest view of berlin and when we got there the line was huge and i had to leave for the airport so we didn't wait. Then I had to leave so jacque and liz took me to the train and i ended up waiting in the airport for an hour doing nothing. I got home and made my way back to our apartment where I spent two nights alone which was very creepy. This past week there was a free afrojack concert which i wasnt planning on going to but i heard calvin harris was going to be there so suz and i went and got tickets from jordans friends. It ended up being full of business men and shakira and akon were there. It was a really good concert but i didnt get a lot of sleep. Thursday night we went to Thomas gold and melissa came to visit barcelona!

And then comes amsterdam! which will be in the next post....

Madrid and a weekend in barca

well i guess its about time i update this again...especially since it officially disappeared from my top sites which means i REALLY need to step up my game. I know i said i wanted to make a very in depth post about madrid but im sure i could easily sum it up. Differences between barcelona and madrid- madrid was much more city like...almost felt like i was in london. There were more poor people which made it more depressing. there were street performers everywhere and people who had things in their mouths that made them sound like talking babies. Liz was so freaked out by them and we didnt find out until the last day that they had things in their mouths to make those noises and they didnt just have some odd talent. I liked madrid a lot and i got to see Jackie and other marist people which was nice. The food was awesome and we ate a lot. We went on a food tour and stopped at a bunch of places. We went to the best patatas bravas place in the world. We also went to two little mexican restaurants. One was very classy and the other was a hole in the wall. Both were great.  We went on a guided tour which was nice except i fell asleep on the bus...typically. We went to a club called kapital that is 7 floors and each floor has a different type of music. We went to the reina sofia and the prado museums. I liked the city square of madrid and how there was so much in one place but i felt significantly more unsafe there than i do here. On the last day of our trip we went exploring and found this really cool lot that was basically an outdoor area made into an indoor area by using plastic and balloons. There was graffiti everywhere so of course it was one of my favorite places we went. overall it was a good trip.

                                                  One of the mexican restaurants and our waiter

At Kapital

Street performers

View from the balcony at Kapital

The cool balloon place

Soooooo after our weekend in Madrid it was back to barcelona. We were once again happy to be back. on Monday we went to loco lunes for the first time which we are now obsessed with. Tuesday...valentines day...we all went out to dinner. Wednesday was Laidback luke which was absolutely amazing. We were up so close i almost could touch him. Thursday we went to opium for the first time and it was also awesome. Friday we went to chupitos finally but it was so crowded that it wasnt as fun but im sure we will go again. After we went to duvet and it was masquarade themed so they gave us free masks and free drinks. There was nobody there so we finished our drinks and went to city hall which was also cool. We met a group of army boys from the US who are stationed in Germany and we hung out with them for a little. Saturday we went to las ramblas for the first time and went to a little bar there and then mcdonalds. Sunday we went to sitges for carnaval which was amazing. we didnt have outfits so we dressed in crazy clothes. we had the most amazing wraps of our entire lives in sitges which just made me fall more in love with the place. We went to classes on monday and tuesday we went to sitges again. We thought that sunday was more fun but both nights were crazy. Last night we went to ice bar and it was awesome. tomorrow morning we leave for germany. I PROMISE i will update RIGHT after i get back from germany. 

Lebewohl! (goodbye in german)

clearly slacking

ive clearly been slacking with blogging but i recently decided to watch all of the shows i watch at home online so thats whats been taking up most of my free time. Im going to skip last week at school because lets be real school is school and its not that fun. Ill jump to the fun part...the weekend. last friday we had a day trip to montserrat and sitges. im officially in love with sitges and moving there.

its the cutest little beach town. Our tour guide said that it has a magical power and people fall in love with it there and i honestly felt it. I didnt want to leave. Luckily thats where carnival is so i will be going there in a week. Monteserrat was also cool. Forgot to mention that there was record lows in temperatures here and there were actually some flurries. Since they never see snow here and arent prepared for it all the spaniards were freaking out and some schools even got let out early. Montserrat had some snow so I got to see some snow this winter! 

Montserrat has a monastery and an all boys music school. Its a very historical place but of course i liked sitges better. Also we went to a place for lunch and they gave us so much food. We had calcotada which is onions basically burnt and you had to rip off the burnt part and dip it in a sauce and eat it. It wasnt bad at all. We also got artichokes which i was happy about. Ive been eating more artichokes here than ever before. Loving it. we also had bread with rubbed tomato on it which is very popular here. Also we had sausage and salad. I think that was it....but it was one of the best meals we have had so far here and it was free so that was nice. Saturday Liz and i decided to venture out and we ended up finding this cool restaurant which huge pita like sandwiches.

Saturday night we went to the FC Barca game which was awesome. we had really great seats and of course they won. 

Sunday we went to the MNAC museum which was really cool. The museum itself was set up really cool with the time periods separated and the room with the oldest time period was actually made to look like a  church. After that we went to the mall which was made in the old bull fighting ring and got mexican food finally. We went home and did some homework and then went out to watch the superbowl. of course we are so slow and didnt leave in time to get into ryans pub which is where all the study abroad students were going to so we ended up going to Dunnes instead. We ended up meeting a sweedish soccer team and hanging out with them the whole night. Only a few of them spoke english but it was funny to talk to those who did speak english. They asked us at one point if justin bieber was our "fantasma" and we were like what is a fanstasma...its a fantasy...we though it was really funny. They also were all booing justin bieber and had no idea what the superbowl was but i got them to root for the giants anyway. This week classes were pretty cool actually. With my photo class i went to the born district and in my history class i went to the jewish quarter. Between those two trips i found some of the coolest restaruants and stores. Not to mention saw some of the best graffiti i have ever seen

Im so happy that i found these places and now Jaume I is officially my favorite metro stop. Last night we went to Nervo which was really good. This weekend were going to Madrid. Ill be sure to blog right after so I can give a little more descriptive post!

Adios!

epiphany

so apparently a weekend away from barcelona makes me forget where i am and how to get to class etc. i decided to give myself a few extra minutes of sleep this morning...not my brightest idea...and ended up rushing to class. i decided to try out a different metro line today because it drops me off closer to class. of course when i got there i got out at the wrong side and was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to find the big building that i recognize. i finally found it and still made it to class before the professor. so on the way home for some reason i got off the red line and got back on in the other direction. i realized i wasnt on a green line when it was already too late. i had to go almost all the way back to school until i could switch. but i do not regret this mistake because it made me realize something. today in class we were talking about how we think spanish people lack manners because they dont say sorry or thank you or please most of the time. i saw a man sit down next to another man and basically sit on him but didnt say a word and the other man didnt react at all. in my head i was thinking "wow that was rude" and thought how i would have said sorry if i did that. But then i started to think...was that really something that deserved an apology? and when we say please and thank you over and over again...is that really necessary? I think that americans often overreact about certain things and overdo manners a lot. it almost is fake. even if this might be true, when i get back to america i am not going to stop being polite because in our culture i would be seen as a brat but my point is that i have been getting very offended and annoyed with how rude people are here but it is really just their culture and they might be doing the right thing not being so sensitive about everything.