Hace Calor

Because of the nice summer like weather in Granada I thought I would repost a video from last semester.

Hace Calor

Hurray it's May!

Holy molly it's May already!  I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. This month is going to packed full of all sorts of thing.  This week there are holidays galore in Spain. Then I have two weeks left of classes, two weeks full of projects and papers and book reading.  Three weeks from now is the middle of finals week.  And finally, exactly three weeks from tomorrow night, I will be getting on a bus to go to the Madrid airport and leaving Spain and going home.  Just thinking about all the things I have to do before I leave is a little overwhelming, but I am sure I'll have no problem getting it all done in time. 

Barcelona

Barcelona was probably my favorite city of the whole trip.  It might have been because I could actually speak to people but really, it's just a beautiful place.  The first day we were there we basically went on a Antoni Gaudi tour.  We started off on a tour of Casa Mila. It was definitely worth the wait to go in.  My favorite part was the terrace with the Star Wars like chimneys. After that we took a nice walk to the Sagrada Familia, the most famous building of Gaudi.  It is still unfinished and is projected to be done in 2026. Last time I was in Barcelona, I was with a friend and since neither one of us wanted to spend that much money to go into the church so we just looked at it from outside. Well, this time, since I was with my parents I got to go in.  If I could do my first trip to Barcelona again, I would have paid the money to go in.  I honestly think it is much prettier on the inside than it is on the outside.  We also got to go into a chapel attached to the main church and that is where Gaudi is buried.  It will be really interesting to see it when it's done.  Maybe I'll have to make another trip to Barcelona in about 20 years.  Our last stop of the day was the Picasso Museum.  I had already been there but I liked it so much the first time that I thought it was something my parents should see. I love the way the museum is organized.  It's all in chronological order so it starts out with his painting as a child, when he had a really good, realistic style and you can see how his technique slowly gets weirder and weirder through out his life.

The next day, we spent pretty much the whole day outside, starting in Mont Juic where we walked to the Olympic Stadium.  In December, the stadium was closed so we had to peek through gates to see anything inside.  This time it was open!!! Being at the stadium got me really excited for the London Olympics this year. We also took a sky lift up to a castle on top of the hill.  I personally think the coolest part of the castle is the view of the city and the sea.  After that, we had lunch on the beach and then went to Park Guell, another Gaudi creation.  I was a little disappointed with how overcrowded the park was.  I think I probably overheard at least ten different people saying that Gaudi most likely wouldn't be too happy if he knew his park was this overcrowded. 

And that was the end of my trip.  The next day, we went back to Granada and I had to go back to school.  I had a great time traveling with my parents, but I was glad to be back in my town.

Rome

Unlike Paris, where I never really wanted to go and ended up really liking it,  Rome is a place that I was expecting so much out of it and was a little let down. I have been wanting to go to Rome since the Lizzie McGuire movie came out when I was like 10 or 11.  It was still pretty awesome and I would definitely go again.  The only real problem I had with Rome is that it was way over crowded, everywhere.  Our hotel was in a great spot, right down the street from the Colosseum and the Forum.  My favorite part about Rome is that the city is built around the ruins.  I feel like if the United States was where ancient Rome was, but we had the same government that we currently have,  they would be like "This really old building is falling apart and no one can live or work here, it's just taking up space," and they would destroy it so a thousand condos can be built. Wednesday we went to the Vatican.  We ended up getting there right as they were settting up for the Popes weekly talk.  One of my biggest hopes for this whole trip was to see the Pope...and we saw him!!!! The Vatican muesums were very interesting, but probably the most uncomfortable part of the whole trip just due to how many people were standing in not very large spaces. 

Italian food was exactly what I was expecting.  I don't think a day went by when we didn't eat pasta.  I think my favorite was the Carbonara.  We also got our fill of tiramisu.  A little fun fact I learned in my Italian class: "tiramisu" literally translates to "you lift me up".  It is called that because it lifts your mood.

Paris

A few weeks ago I had a whole week of school to celebrate Holy Week.   I started of my vacation meeting my parents in Paris.  I have to say,  except for maybe when I was really young, Paris was always one of those cities that I wouldn't say no to, but never really considered a must see city.  Well, after actually going to Paris, I think I've changed my mind.   I would probably say, it is one of my favorite cities that I've visited.  Now, what exactly I liked so much about it, I can't really tell you, it definitely wasn't the food.  The first day, we didn't do much because we were all tired.  We went to see the Hunger Games (in English) and then went to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up.  The next day we went to the Louvre.  I was actually kind of disappointed with the Mona Lisa.  It was probably because there were so many tourist, standing right in front of the painting and never moving, so that my little 5'2" self never saw more than the top half of the painting.  Other than that I really did enjoy the museum.  I think my favorite thing was the Venus de Milo.  Now for the food.  The most interesting meal, probably of the whole trip, was lunch after the Louvre.  The place we ate was beautiful, but they did not have an English menu and seeing as no one in my family speaks French, we had no idea what we were ordering.  We ended up with a lot of raw meat.  I had raw salmon which was basically just like eating sushi. My dads plate of raw beef was a little weirder.  Once I got past the "ew it's raw" feeling, it was actually quite tasty.  Dinner that night was  really good.  My mom and I both had French onion soup (tasted even better than Julia Child's) some sort of mushroom dish and escargot.  I was a little worried about the snails at first but really, what's the difference between a snail and an oyster? 

I'm alive!

Hi guys.  I just wanted to share that I am in fact alive and back in Granada.  I had a great time traveling with my parents the past couple of weeks and getting back into the schedule of school as been a little difficult for me this week.  I don't really have time to say more right now, I've kind of overstayed my welcome at this cafe, but I'll post more about my trip in the next week or so. 

Time Off

In Spain, Spring Break is more commonly known has Holy Week Break.  The week leading up to Easter is a big deal here with all the schools closed and most stores closed or being open for less time.  Apparently there are parades at all hours of the day, every day.  I however will not be in Spain for most of the Holy Week.  Tomorrow afternoon I am leaving to meet my parents in Paris where we will spend a few days and from there visit Rome and Barcelona.  Then on Easter we'll be coming back to Granada so I can go class on Monday.  I'm really excited to see my parents and excited to visit a few new cities and see just how much Italian I've learned in the past six months. Because of traveling, I will either blog a lot in the next week or so (due to wifi in hotels) or not blog at all (due to having so much fun). So no one freak out if you don't hear from me for a week or so.  I can't wait to share all my travel experiences with you!


I am actually getting a full day head start on my Spring Break due to a general strike that is going on in Spain today.  It was up to teachers to decide to if they wanted to have class or not and all my teachers decided to participate in the strike.  I haven't done a lot of research into the new labor reforms or anything but I can tell you, the people of Spain are really mad about something. The first half the year, protest weren't really that huge of a deal.  Maybe once a month I would here about one on the news, but even then, they were rarely violent.  Starting pretty much after the election in November, protests started being more common and more often are becoming violent.  My host mom seems to think that these people are just idiots that want to cause trouble, but when every single one of my teachers is cancelling class to participate in a strike, it makes me wonder if there really is something to be angry about.  I'll need to check into that.

This morning I woke up to a big crowd of people outside of my apartment shouting "Huelga general" or general strike.  They were on their way to a large department store down the street, to try and keep the store from opening.  According to my host mom, people also shoved plastic in the key holes of banks to keep them from opening the doors and spray painted over the screens of ATMS to keep people from taking out money.  My roommate decide to walk into the city center to see what those protests were like and she said "it was pretty crazy".  I decided I would rather stay home and start packing for my trip than to go stand in the middle of a bunch of angry people. I don't know if this strike or the protest will actually change anything, but people are certainly trying to change something.