The end of my Europe trip was freaking amazing! I loved it. Barcelona {My last post} happened on week three of five. The last two weeks of the program were fantastic! My Spanish got way good and it made me wonder why the freak I just didn't save for longer and do a full sememster. Oh well, live and learn. Maybe, just maybe in the future, I will be able to go back. I heart Oviedo. It's a great place. I didn't want to leave, and Rosa (host mom) didn't want me to leave either. She said I could come visit whenever though :) That's a plus.
Just a quick recap on what I did after, since the deets are written in my journal. We left to Madrid (five hours by bus) and then got on another bus to Grenada (another five hours by bus) {oh, and just for the record, I have freakingggg bad luck with buses.} Grenada was a blast, probably my favorite part of Spain, besides Oviedo and Llanes. While the other yahoos watched freaking soccer that wasn't Spain or the US, (I loved watching the World Cup and all, don't get me wrong, but really only when the above teams were playing) Jessi and I went to explore the gypsy corner. Definitely not what I was expecting, but it was soooo fun to see all the stuff. On the way back, we stopped at this sweet store and bought....drumroll....GYPSY PANTS! Everyone there wore them so we had to find some, and they are awesome! haha. Let's see--next stop was Cordoba, which entailed more bad luck with buses haha. Cordoba was my least favorite place of all. We had this disgusting and hot hostel room and there were six of us (Jessi, me, Rachel, Michelle, Michael and Harrison). Jessi and I wanted to go exploring while the other four slept. Reallly? who does that? Goes to Spain to sleep. Lame! There wasn't much to explore there and the next day we were leaving anyway. We got up the next morning, visited this huge Moorish mosque thing; that was one of the good things about being in the South, is the Christian/Muslim history was very noticiable and made me remember. Then we headed out to Sevilla. We were in Sevilla for five or so days, and let me tell you, IT WAS HOT!!! We would come back in the middle of the day for siesta because it was just too hot to be out. On at least two of the days, it hit 44 degrees celcius (sp?) which translates to 110 degrees farenheit, no lie! Insane! Plus the streets stunk haha. heat plus reeking whatever equals no bueno! Good thing our hostel was nice because we spent time there in the afternoons. I got to see a flamenco show in Sevilla, that was really cool, we also went to this bar that had soooo many beers from all over the world. I don't like bars, but that's the culture there--that's where they spend their time. It was cool to see that one bar though. Well, then Rachel, Michelle, Michael and Harrison left and the next day, Jessi, Grayson and I went to the airport in Sevilla. They were leaving for Barcelona and I was going to Paris to meet up with my mom!
It was interesting because on the plane to Paris, the lady in the seat next to me was like, "It's not often that you sit by someone in these parts of the world with an American passport." So I chatted with her for the rest of the flight, and I found out that she lived within a few blocks of the hotel I was staying at and she said that she would show me the way. How cool is that? Not that I was worried, but I was concerned, because I don't speak any French at all, so I didn't really know how I was going to get around on public transit and didn't want to pay for a cab because I didn't fly in to centrally located Charles De Gaulle, I flew into an airport that was out of the way. The lady wrote down a list of all the not-so-touristy things I should do while in Paris, and I was so excited! I'm one for those types of things, the off-the-beaten-path stuff.
The next day, my mom got in and we went to the Louvre. Pretty cool stuff there! We had six days in Paris and had a lot of fun. My favorite things we did: going to the top of the Eifell (I know I didn't spell that right) tower (we took the stairs this time, last time I went, we elevatored! Quite a climb!) Amazing view! And we listened to where all these people were watching a world cup game and Spain won!!!! Good thing I had my jersey on! Anyway, back to my favorite things--going into Cartier and looking at jewelry. Those who know me well, know that I love rings, and man alive!!!!!! The guy let me try on the most spppaaaarrrkkkkllllyyyy ring you've ever seen in your life! hahahahaha great fun. I also loved going into Louis Vuitton and looking at purses {I'm definitely a purse girl}. One day, I will own a Louis; I've wanted one since I was 12 or so and went to Hollywood and saw the store! ha. I also loved Normandy and seeing the beaches and the visitors center. That was a sombering experience. So many people fought for our freedom and died for it too. I'm grateful to live in such a great country and appreciate all the hardworking servicemen and women who fight for our freedoms.
Next stop, London!!!! This is the place that I was most excited to go to after leaving Spain. My favorite thing we did here was see shows!! London's West End is like New York's Broadway {only it's a lot easier to find tickets for cheaper! yessss}. We saw Jersey Boys, Wicked, Sister Act (before it's even in NY, cool huh?) and Legally Blonde. They were all fantastic, and I'm usually not into musicals AT ALL, so that definitely says something! Of all the touristy things, we only saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. My mom had way too much fun taking optical illusion pictures! i will have to post some pictures. We also went to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, and on the way there, we saw a hunger strike for peace/to bring the troops out of Afghanistan. It was kinda crazy! There was this almost naked hippy lookin dude that would walk around the block and bang pots and pans and maracas! Talk about random. I loved shopping in London, even though the pound is 1 to about 1.50-.1.60USD. It actually adds up quite fast and I was not happen to look at my bank account! ha. That was lame! We went to two really cool markets too, and one was just like food type stuff! Holy moly. I had the yummiest chicken curry ever and pineapple juice :) Hard Rock Cafe was really cool too, I bought a hoodie that I am excited to wear. Let's see...I would go back to London whenever I can! I loved the people, the culture and just the cool vibes! It was awesome! Last semester, I had a roomie from Scotland and there were so many things that reminded me of her! So cool!
My mom's family comes from the Lancashire area in England, which is big (about 200-300 miles in area) but she wanted to go out there and see what it was like. After looking into the pricing and options, we found that it would be too expensive and time consuming. We chose to go to Manchester instead, some locals told us that it would be similar to Lancashire but not as far. Manchester and ahhh I can't think of what the village was right now were fun. Not much to do, so we wandered around and got lunch and such. Then we were headed back to the train station, and while we were waiting for the tram that would take us into the train station to go back to London, we met a guy from Bolton, England and he told us that Bolton used to be part of Lancashire, but the changed it to be considered Greater Manchester, and he said that the older folks didn't like that, that they wanted (and still considered) it Lancashire. That's where we should have gone. We had one more day in London after that, and we just goofed around. Getting out of there was a joke because of some illegal immigrants that got on a plane without documentation (obviously, but how does that work???) and needed to be sent to New York on a 24 hr visa. Oh I was sooo mad, but that's an entirely different story. We were there in plenty of time, then we had to wait in this huge line because we were being involuntarily removed from the plane and no one (of the Delta people) knew what was going on. That was frustrating. We were supposed to fly from Heathrow to JFK and from JFK to SLC and be home at 7, but instead, we flew from Heathrow to Minneapolis, had a freaking 5 hr layover and then our plane was delayed by almost three hours! So we got in at around 2 am. Could have been a lot worse, but just sitting in airports is not a fun time. hahaha.
I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to be in Spain on that study abroad and to travel elsewhere. It showed me that I really can do things like this, because two years ago when I started looking into it and saving the money, I sometimes thought, "Am I really going to be able to go and be ok financially?" But I worked my butt off and it definitely paid off. This is the most expensive thing I've ever done, but it's shown me that I can if I work hard, am dilligent and save. That goes for anything, not just travel. I also learned that I can be by myself in foreign places and be just fine. I'm proud and happy I did it. I highly reccomend study abroad. Next summer, I will be headed to Italy and I will plan out my after-program travel better, so I think I will be in Rome for a week, Greece for a week and then head over to Thailand (it's been on my travel-to list for awhile, as has Greece) and spend about two weeks doing humanitarian aide. I'm pretty stoked!
xoxox
Ash
No comments:
Post a Comment
I don't hate comments!