26 May 2011

It has taken me forever to get this entry up and I am sorry about that. After my London trip, which was my last blog entry, I went to Venice with Hannah for literally about two days, but it was probably one of the most laid back trips I have been on. Even though I had bought a travel guide for the city, we just ditched it and decided on our one whole day to wander around the city and see what we could find. Venice is a maze. Literally. Quite a few times, we found ourselves going in circles, finding dead ends at either a wall or heck, even the water. We did get lost for about an hour past the Plaza San Marco trying to get our bearings. Thank God we did because we could not find where we were on the map, but Hannah managed to figure it out. We ended up not really going into anything, but on Saturday morning, before we were leaving, the line outside the Basilica was huge and we had our stuff with us, so we figured not to mess with our chances on that one. Instead we thoroughly enjoyed our time there just seeing the beauty of Venice, eating home cooked pasta by the hostel kids, Italian pizza and even gelati. It was a nice, relaxing two days considering I generally like to have a plan but instead decided to just go with it.

Since then, I have completed my studies at the university which means I have had about a week and a half of summer vacation in Spain. I have gone to the beach a few times, staid in and read quite a bit, and kept Rachel company on her last day here since she ended up leaving earlier than planned. During this time, we also had new doors put into the apartment which turned out to be an eventful three days and one really stressed Maria. There was sawdust everywhere and Maria is a bit of a neat freak, but seeing as she has been an ama de casa for goodness knows how many years, this is to be expected. It is her job, her comfort, so to see her house in a state of chaos was a little stressful for her. Now though, we have beautiful doors. I started packing last week after watching Rachel's struggles, and I am glad I tried it out because I might not have been able to get everything to fit. So, I have now reworked everything and should be ok. Tomorrow is the last day I have in Alicante, and part of that will be spent in the University area, eating a fairwell lunch with the other students in the program, turning in the cell phone I have been more attached to than I probably should have been, and locating a shirt that I want to remember my time at the university. Sadly, my flight is at the awful hour of 7am on Saturday, so I have to be up and have a taxi at the house by around 4:45. That will be a rough, loooooong day as I make my way homeward.

Do I have any regrets from this time abroad? Yes, but not with what I have done, because even in my worst experiences, my toughest times, I came out of it with some lesson learned about myself, the world, or life. My regret is that I did not spend enough time enjoying Spain itself. I had wanted to go to Barcelona, and would still like to, and I have heard that the north of Spain is beautiful too. And I fell in love with Andalucia, so I hope to go back there sometime. I never really left Alicante, or explored what was near because I was always saving money to spend on my bigger trips, so I never went to Elche or any of the other close communities. But, I did enjoy what I had the time to see, and I have lists of things for my next time I am out here, if there is a next time, which I hope there is. I am thankful for the experience, as it has taught me about myself, about others from my country and from Europe. Perhaps I am not so enamored with Europe as I had been, but it still a continent to admire. I hope to explore more of it, as well as South America after graduate school perhaps. I definitely believe that my horizons have broadened, as cliche as that sounds. So, adiós, hasta luego, y buena suerte with all that lies ahead for you.

11 May 2011

I just got back from London trip 2. This time, we were able to breathe a little more and actually got a chance to do quite a bit.

Day 1 (Friday):

We woke up and decided after breakfast that we were going to walk over in the direction of the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament. I don't know how many of you know London, but it really isn't a walking city. We walked and got some Starbucks for lunch ('cause they have sandwiches and caffeine- two essentials in my book). We also corned a souvenir shop on our walk that I was able to get most of my gifts and what not at for around 15 pounds. Note- that includes me, my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister-in-law, and my grandpa. They were little things though. Also, find the locations with 15 for 1 pound postcards. I split that with Rachel and Logan, so we paid practically nothing each for 5 postcards. As we continued our walk, we encountered a tourist office, where we pre-ordered our tickets for the London Eye that day and perused the broadway shows that were being offered. Sadly none were really in our price-range AND in a good seating area. We finally made it across one of the bridges to the London Eye, where we exchanged our receipt for our actual tickets and then saw a 4D video about the London Eye. It was free and 4 minutes long. I liked it other than the 3D aspect solely because 3D usually makes me really dizzy. We finally ate our sandwiches and then hopped in a bubble and took our ride around the wheel. I got some great pictures of the city from it, but it was hard getting my camera to focus because of the glass. After that, we took a siesta of sorts in the green at Westminster Abbey because we had pretty much been on our feet all day at that point. We then started our walk back to the hostel, which required a stop at the tourist office to book our tickets for Westminster, and a stop at a shop on the way back. Cutting that out, we calculated about an 1 and 40 minutes worth of walking from Westminster to our hostel. We decided for dinner to try out a nice little Indian restaurant a few blocks away from the hostel. I was pretty tired by the end of this, but this is only the beginning of our adventure. 

Day 2(Saturday):

Logan and Rachel had made friends with "Canada" as we called her, or Sam which is her real name the night before while I had been showering, and she tagged along with us on our adventure. We originally planned on going to the Houses of Parliament and touring Westminster, but we were only able to visit the houses. I really enjoyed the tour, other than the fact that you can't sit down the entire time, and you also can't take pictures. However, I did come out of that with a classic picture that they took of me when we were going through security before entering. The picture was taken while I reached up to move my hair. After this, we decided that we needed to have a traditional English lunch, so we popped on over to a pub nearby. I tried some bangers and mash, Logan and Rachel opted for the chicken and mushroom pie, and Sam went for the fish and chips with "garden" peas, aka non-mashed peas. She didn't feel good after, so we sent her back to the hostel while we decided to try and find the Camden market. That didn't turn out quite as well as planned. Apparently we didn't make it far enough but it was starting to get late in the day so we headed back towards our hostel after Rachel did some quick work figuring out which bus takes us where. For dinner, we collected Sam and went to a Chinese restaurant near to our hostel as well after realizing that the pub Logan wanted to go to was the same as the one we went to for lunch. They all have different names, but belong to the same chain. 

Day 3(Sunday):

I have no clue how they did it, but Logan and Rachel had me up at 6something in the morning because we had decided to go to Westminster for a service. The one that sounded best to Rachel and Logan for our schedule for the day was the 8am communion service. The day started out rainy, but after the 30 min service, it was sunny (I should note that we had beautiful weather ALL weekend). We tried out this little French themed cafe before heading over to the British museum to wander around a bit. I think we calculated about a 2 to 3 hour visit there before meeting up with Emma, a friend of ours from Hollins who is studying with the Hollins program at the University of London. She took us around the area of the university to show us where the classes take place and we stopped at a Pret A Manger to grab lunch. After that, Emma pointed us in the direction of Platform 9 and 3/4 for Rachel and Logan, but we decided to take an hour detour in the gift shop of the British Library. When we had found it, we realized that it was only open for an hour more, so we just decided to chill in the gift shop. I wouldn't have minded looking at some of the other stuff, but obviously, time would not permit that. Once they kicked us out, we finally made it to King's Cross for the obligatory Harry Potter pictures with the trolley in the wallpapered wall. We then went to Mangosteen for dinner (that is a Thai restaurant, and yes, that is our 3rd and final night of Asian cuisine). 

Day 4(Monday):

Windsor Castle is pretty awesome. That is all we basically were able to do that day because we had to hop trains to get to Windsor and then we spent about 3 hours or so touring the castle grounds. Other than a brief cloud of rain which sent us into the closest building, the Middle Ward giftshop (notice a trend?), it was sunny with a crisp wind. I fell in love with the architecture of the castle, which led to my purchase of a book about it. While on the grounds, we saw Queen Mary's Dolls' House, the State Apartments (some of which had been burned in the 92 fire but are fully restored if not remodeled), the changing of the guards there (somewhat), and St. George's Chapel, complete with the grave of Henry VIII and his 3rd wife as well as symbols for the 24 knights of the garter or something like that, which the newly married Prince William and his father are both a part of. Once we finally left the grounds, we found a wool shop right there that we perused for a bit and then started our hunt for a lunch, which turned out to be at a pub where I tried a steak and ale pie. After that we hopped on the trains back to town and then went over towards the university to meet up with Emma and surprise some of the other Hollins women there because they were having their own little version of the HDP (History Department Party) with one of the History professors at a nearby pub. It was nothing like the HDP back at school, which is good because I would probably not be able to write about it. Basically we were sitting around a table catching up and discussing different things with the professor. I felt a little bad for Logan because she doesn't go to Hollins, but she fit perfectly with us. It was nice to see some of my friends again, even though I wasn't able to see all of them. It did make me miss home even more, especially knowing that this Saturday they are going back to the states. After a happy hug, but a sad departing, Emma, Rachel, Logan and I went to Benito's Hat, which is a lot like a Chipolte for those of you who have been to one. So now we have added Mexican to our list of food we had (recap: Indian, Chinese, Thai, English/French, Mexican). We stopped for some frozen yogurt after that and then said our final fairwell to Emma as we went back to the hostel. 

Day 5(Tuesday):

Our flight was not until the evening, so we had plenty of time to fit in an attempt to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham and an actual tour of Westminster, complete with the tombs of many famous monarchs and poets and even scientists, such as Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, as well as some still more amazing architecture, and a final stop at a giftshop. This was however not our last shop. We did have to stop by the university for a sweatshirt and shirts for Rachel to take back to her family, but after all of this, and an Italian lunch, we raced ourselves back to the hostel, collected our stuff, got one more picture by the telephone booth, and ran like the wind to the bus, then the train, then the gate. We finally got to our houses around 1 am. We unfortunately had to split a taxi because the bus stopped at midnight, and we got in at 12:15. 

So, we are at today, which consisted of me waking up late, showering, napping, eating lunch with my new Japanese roommate/housemate Mayuko from Osaka and rushing off to one of my last classes. We found out today that we have to write a summary along with the presentation, so Sunday, my mom's birthday, will be one very long but very necessarily productive day seeing as my presentation is at 11am the next day. We (the American students) are still trying to figure out if we have to come after our presentations, or at least that last week we are here. If not, then I have two weeks to finally relax and enjoy the city and beach a bit more. I am thankful that we do not have a final exam in my class. Oh, I should probably explain why I can't work on my project over the next few days. I leave for Venice tomorrow afternoon. I will spend the evening, all day Friday, and a bit of Saturday morning/afternoon in Venice and be home Saturday evening. I could work on the plane or at the hostel, but I also foresee a lot of sleeping left over from the London trip sneaking into my schedule while there, especially with my sore ankle. Always be prepared if you have old joint injuries. I think that is everything, so I will update after Venice, and then of course over the next few weeks as I finish up my time here. 

4 May 2011

Here are some pictures that I promised. The video formats are not that great, so they are not uploading properly. I hope you enjoy.

Semana Santa

Dublin

NERJA

Hope you liked the pictures! I will be going to London for the next five days so I can actually get a chance to enjoy my time instead of trying to cram it all in to 2 days. After that, I have an extremely short trip to Venice planned with another girl from the program, and then I have my final presentation for my class. These next few weeks will be really busy!

30 April 2011

Oh wow! I have just finished two crazy weeks! Last week was Semana Santa, or Holy Week. Everyday, there are processions with nazarenos or brotherhoods who walk with candles, crosses, and carry a replica of a saint or Jesus. They look a little weird to American students because the hoods of the traditional outfits remind us of the KKK, but they are nothing like them at all. In fact, here in Alicante, they are a lot more laid back. Children participate in the processions, either in bands or just walking as representations from their school or church, handing out candy to the other kids standing along the side of the road. Also, women are involved in everything, which is also not traditional, but is comforting to see. Before the week was up, my spring break started. A friend wanted to go to Dublin to see a movie that will not be showing in the states, and since I have never been, I decided to tag along. We only had two days there, but we met an old old friend of hers at Trinity College and she gave us the poor man's tour of the school and some of the surrounding sites. We also just enjoyed roaming the city, especially because pretty much everything was closed on Good Friday, so there wasn't much to do. Saturday, we tried to find out about the movie, but of course it still wasn't available even though it was supposed to be opening that day. To make up for it, we went and took a tour of the Guinness Storehouse, where at the end, I got my free pint and it took me almost an hour to finish it because I am not much of a beer person, but you got more to drink for free if you got the pint than if you opted for the coke, go figure. Plus, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to drink a free Guinness. We went to see Red Riding Hood instead since we couldn't go to the movie she wanted to see. The next day, we went to Malaga, back in Spain. Our intention was to stay there for five days and explore the area, maybe go to another town for the day, all because one of our professors loves the city. Well, when I booked the hotel, I thought I had booked something within the city, or at least pretty close to the city, because I knew it wasn't actually in Malaga. So we took a taxi. Turns out, the hotel was in a pueblo an hour and 15 away from the city, so the taxi was 97 euro. Note to all who plan to travel= double check where the hotel is and transportation to the place. There was a bus but we did not know about it until too late. However, the mishap turned out fine. We enjoyed spending the five days in the pueblo, visiting caves, walking around and admiring the black sand beaches. It was beautiful. Traveling back to Alicante turned out to be a lot more stressful than anticipated, and I will spare the details on that, only noting that we did have to buy another ticket from Madrid and so stayed in the airport for around 6 hours. That was a long, long, LONG day. I was so happy to be back in Alicante. I have spent the last two days relaxing and trying to get some more stuff done before my next trip back to London with Rachel and Logan. I am looking forward to this one because I think it is a little more well-planned than this last one. But eh, you live and you learn. That is precisely why I am here after all. It is weird to think that in a month, I will be back in the states trying to adjust back into the time difference. But until then, I intend to enjoy what time I have left in Alicante, and get this project for class finished!

* If you would like to see photos from Semana Santa, Dublin, and Nerja, I will be putting them up later, as well as some video footage from the processions

7 April 2011

Here is a video from part 1 of the ascent to the top of the Eiffel Tower:

Here is a video from part 2 of the ascent to the top:

Now that I have officially finished uploading info from Paris, I figure I might as well let you know some more about what I have been experiencing here in Spain, the main theme for this blog. Well, now that I am down to just taking my university class, I have a lot more free time. I still have some reading to do, but I only have class twice a week, so since I got back from Paris during my class, I only had to go once this week. The weather here has been improving and so I spent a few hours at the beach with Rachel today. I needed that lazy time and I most definitely need the color from the sunshine (my arms and legs are totally different colors). For those of you who have never been to Europe before, like me before I came here to study abroad, the likelihood of you experiencing topless beaches is probably slim to none. We think that within the few hours we were at the beach today we saw about eleven women without the tops, quite a few in thongs, and a few men in speedos. It was definitely a different experience. The Spanish, or rather the Europeans in general, have a different idea about body exposure for sure than Americans. Be prepared when going to beaches while here. Also, make sure to note that there is a chance that you will see people completely naked, which, thank God, I have not had to deal with yet, but a few of my friends have. It surprisingly didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, but I know that it still shocks some of the other students here with me. We have such a different mindset, wondering why they do it. It is the same as I discussed in my social realities project on sexuality in Spain, it is rebellion on a minor level from the censorship of the era that the Spanish were under Franco. They feel that they should embrace their freedom; if they can do this, why shouldn't they? At least that is what I have been observing in my time here. It definitely has been making me think more about my culture and how we take advantage of our freedoms or take them for granted, etc. I still can't say that one is better than the other, but just that they are different. Just some food for thought. 

6 April 2011

I have returned from the beautiful city of Paris as of yesterday. I had a very eventful trip. Saturday, when we left, the plane was late all in all (arriving to get us, and arriving in France). We had a little bit of difficulty navigating the Metro system when we got there, but by the end, we had it down pretty good. Rachel and I took a night bus tour of the city, seeing all of the beautiful sights of Paris lit up, including the Eiffel Tower in all of its sparkling glory. After the tour, I got us lost but we found a wonderful little crepe shop where we grabbed some dinner on our way back to the hotel. Sunday, we woke up a lot later than intended, so we didn't get a chance to visit Versailles, but, as it was the first Sunday of the month, the Louvre was free to enter and so we got to go in and see the Mona Lisa, among the other marvelous artwork (including the palace itself).
We couldn't resist some gift shopping in the carousel of the Louvre, where among other cute shops, you can find an Apple store, 2 Starbucks, a Mc Cafe, McDonald's, Swarovsky, Virgin Mobile Music and Video Library... The list of stuff just goes on and on. Monday was our last full day so we went to Notre Dame and took a peek inside the cathedral (sorry we did not see any hunchbacks) and enjoyed the craziness of the pigeons while we waited on our friend Nick to catch up with us. We then proceeded on a walk to La Sorbone (?) so that we could see Kelly, a fellow Hollins student who has been studying in Paris this semester, but before we met up with her to eat at an American themed restaurant, we located a vintage jewelry shop where we proceeded to drool over all of the classic beauty. Nick and I were sent on a mission to meet Mina, another CCCS student, at Notre Dame so that we could continue our tour of the city while Rachel and Kelly stayed behind. Of course, Nick and I got us lost, but we found the Luxembourg Gardens and so Rachel and Kelly caught up with us there. From there, we proceeded to the Eiffel Tower, where Rachel and I rode the elevators to the top and I bought some French Champagne to celebrate. It was definitely an experience. That night, Rachel and I found a quaint little French restaurant that had a 3 course meal for 10 euros. The one waiter (or co-owner, not sure) liked us so much, especially since I let him have the tulip Nick plucked for me from beside the tower. He put in in a cup of water on our table and gave us free rose wine. I tasted real French onion soup, boeuf  bourguinon (beef stew for those of us who can't pronounce that) and an apple tart. It was so delicious and we were having so much fun that I accidentally left a bag with a few little gifts behind. When we went back in the morning, and I tried my best to explain to the manager what happened in simple English, and thankfully the bag had been placed safely by the bar.

We then hurried off to the Eiffel Tower to get a few more photos with the tower, but we weren't free from harassment by the gypsies and other con-artists that flock around the tourist attractions. I fell bad for giving one any money, but I was having trouble pushing her away so gave her 3 euro and ran. Another con-artist tried 3 different languages with us but we continued to ignore him and his friend. When we got to the bus station to catch the bus to the airport they immediately went on break, which was supposed to be 10 minutes but was really pushing 20. In the mean time, the bus came and was getting ready to leave so one of the other workers caught the bus before it left so that the very angry line of customers didn't storm the cashiers. As it was, we were told to shift the lines we were in and then they still didn't open right away. It was frustrating, but we finally were on the bus, which Mina and I slept on the entire ride to the airport. The airplane was half an hour late, but we managed to get back into Alicante on time. I am very glad to be back, especially knowing that I only have one class to worry about right now, so I can take my time a lot easier now. I do have to start planning for fall term back in the states, but for now, I think this weekend I will be at the beach catching up on some articles for class. Bring on the 80 degree weather!

I have included a video of the tour sparkling for you, as well as a view of what I had to deal with to see the Monna Lisa. 

1 April 2011

Today is my last day of program classes! I have an exam at 11 am and then I am free. I just have my university class (I am in the semi-integrated program). In the afternoon, there will be a going-away coffee thing for the Spanish studies program whose last day ever is tomorrow. They will be leaving on Saturday. The international business program leaves a little later into the month of April, where as the semi-integrated and integrated students (of which I am a part of) are staying until the end of May. I am excited but also homesick. To make up for it, the weather has been beautiful the last few days with sunshine and highs in the low to mid 70s.

I just helped Rachel move into her new room (same apartment, but better room) and studied a little. We had fajitas for dinner and I was reminded of how much I miss our American food. Mmmm. We are going to Paris Saturday through Tuesday which I am excited about. I don't know French, but I am curious, plus I am in Europe so I figured, hey, why not? There will definitely be a blog post about our trip when I get back. I am sure there will be some story to be told from it.

Anyways, it is midnight, so I need to actually try to get to bed. I have a lot to get done tomorrow. Buenas noches!