Spring Break

Part One: The Land Before Time

Lanzarote, Canary Islands
March 28-April 1

This first part of my trip was really fun and relaxing. I went with four other girls, 3 from my program and a friend of one of the girls. We arrived and took a surprisingly cheap taxi to our hotel. We checked in and got comfortable. It had plenty of space for all of us and we ended up paying less than 15 euros a night for it. There was a nice pool that we never ended up using and there were cats wandering everywhere which was just kind of funny; they weren't too bothersome. The hotel was mostly British and German couples over 60 years old on vacation which made us stick out a lot. In general we were in a very touristy area, but we only ever encountered a handful of other people our own age.

Our first night in we went to the grocery store to stock up on food to save money. We made WAY too much pasta that night and had enough left over for a baked ziti type deal the next night. The first morning I cooked scrambled eggs and bacon for everyone since I tend to be much more skilled in that area. We were lucky to have some beautiful weather our first day and I only ended up getting burnt in a few weird spots like my neck and one side of one of my shins. My burns became the subject for a bunch of laughs later on.

At the Lunchbox where I ate a nice healthy sandwich and smoothie with Jill and Anna the first day, the British guy running the place suggested we go to a beach up north called Arrieta. We hopped on a bus to Arrecife the next day and then had to wait an hour for the bus to Arrieta. The beach was definitely less touristy than where we were staying. They had a really nice Tapas bar right on the beach and we had some food and watched the surfers, then we took a nap in a less windy area and watched these kids dressed up in pumpkin colored outfits that seemed to be some sort of wrestling team. They were quite amusing to say the least.

The third and last full day we signed up for a bus tour to see all the main attractions of the island. Besides one youngish couple we were the only people under 50, but it was a great tour anyways. The island is full of active volcanoes, cool caves, and amazing views. In Timanfaya Park we got to see three tests of the volcanoes activity in one they put the stones from on top of a hot spot, and I was expecting a sort of luke warm temperature not burning hot so I kind of yelped and immediately dropped mine. Then there was a whole that they put some brush into and it caught on fire. The grand finally was the burst of water that shot out of the ground after they poured into into another whole. The landscape made from the last eruption was really cool. We went to this place called Jameos del Agua which was a cave filled with water that the artist Cesar Manrique turned into a really cool place equipped with a restaurant, auditorium, and a beautiful swimming pool reserved for the King of Spain (aka it never gets used). I think my pictures explain things better than I can so here we go:

Part 2: Amsterdam and Paris

April 2-April 9

I first went to London to meet up with Briana who was just starting her Spring Break so we could head off to our first destination of Amsterdam. We stayed up pretty late (I don't even think Briana slept) excited for our trip. We had to be to the train station at 4:50 AM but due to being tired and out of it we prepared breakfast and our stuff only to find ourselves in a full-on sprint to the train station to try and make the train. We missed it and the next one that was supposed to come at 5:12 was a bit delayed. We were still fine on time though.

At the airport I accidentally forgot to take out my liquids which I've done on numerous occasions with no issues but at Gatwick Airport they decided to undo all my hardwork of packing and completely unpack my whole backpack right there in front of me and put my liquids through again. And of course he didn't put it back together in the same way so it didn't all fit the same. They even had a seperate section to take off your shoes and put just those through. It was the most bizarre and intense security check I've ever been through. We made it just in time for boarding and got in a nice one hour nap before we were landing.

We came on a beautiful day in Amsterdam, so warm we had to remove our coats. We made our way looking for our boat hostel. Yes, we stayed in a BOAT! It was very neat and the guy running it was so nice and helpful. The only bad part about it was because our room so quaint (read: tiny) it got extremely hot at night and made our first night's sleep pretty miserable.

Our first day we just decided to walk around and get a feel for the place. I really never expected Amsterdam to be such a pretty city. The river and canals are everywhere and everyone gets around by boat or bike. We decided it would be really fun to rent a bike the next day and so we added it to our plans.

The weather on day two was not as nice but we decided that renting bikes would still be fun. Briana forgot to tell me the part where she hadn't been on a bike in over 5 years and that the last time she was riding a bike, she was still on the sidewalk, never on the road with cars. This lead to some pretty humorous (to me) and frustrating (to Briana) occurances. The brakes were back-peddle brakes not hand brakes and it was especially funny everytime she needed to put on the brakes and her feet went flying out instead. One instance was especially disastrous when she went around a corner, a man was coming along the other way, she got nervous and shaky and her feet did the flying out thing and she smashed into a parked scooter then on to some parked bikes. Thankfully nobody and nothing got hurt. I proceeded to lead us away from the busy city center along the river on some easy bike paths. After about 2 hours of frustration Briana was ready to call it quits and because I was so nervous about her crashing into something again or personally running into one of the tourists not paying attention, we decided to return our bikes early. The last stretch we walked our bikes due to an overwhelming amount of people walking into the bike path and getting in our way. It was an adventure at least!

Amsterdam itself is quite a show. It really just completely met and outdid all my expectations of the Red Light District and its infamous windows and all the oddities found in such a beautiful place. The city just seemed like it followed the beat of its own drum, forgetting all the rules of the rest of the world. That being said we were surprised to see so many families and older couples wandering around, but overall it felt like a very safe place.

Luckily in order to go on to Paris we didn't have to deal with the whole airport deal again and just had to get on the right train. We had these pretty cool ticketless cards that they just scanned through as they were checking everyone's tickets. I slept most of the 4 hour ride there, but was awake to catch a few beautiful views of fields and windmills on our way out of the Netherlands.

Our first experience in Paris was a precursor for the way most of the rest of our experience went. We had to wait in a super long line to get metro tickets and when we reached the window we were greeted with an extremely obnoxious and rude "HELLO! HOW ARE YOUUUUU!" We were both caught a little off-guard coming from such friendly helpful people in Amsterdam that I just quickly and nicely asked her if we could get two of the 10-packs please. She started obviously talking about us to the woman next to us and Briana caught her calling us bitches in French. I asked her in a very nice tone, "Could I also get a map" and she said "PLEASE!" and shoved it through the window. Oh, the French.

As I was in charge of all the planning and organization of our hostels in Amsterdam, Briana with her little knowledge of French was in charge of Paris. Unfortunately when we got to our stop we had to do a little wandering before we figured out the directions and mini-map she wrote down. We luckily didn't have too much trouble finding it and heaven forbid we try and ask another French person for directions. We had a nice private room at a really cool hostel in the Monmartre part of Paris, which turned out to be my favorite part of all with the beautiful Sacre Coeur and amazing views overlooking the city, lots of cute outdoor restaurants and shops all around as well.

We didn't have very good luck the whole time in Paris. As we were sitting around sunset looking at the Eiffel tower the first night, a bird pooped on my white sweater that I proceeded to throw in the garbage while cursing Paris and the Eiffel Tower. We went back to the hostel so I could change my clothes and we had a much better evening as we went around Montmartre. We were in search of an Italian restaurant that our hostel recommended (we weren't in the mood for anything else French) as being pretty cheap and although I don't think we found the right one, we found one that was reasonable and had a really delicious lasagna.

The next day our luck was even worse. First off the weather was cloudy and a little drizzly. Briana had signed us up for a tour of the UNESCO building at 10 AM. As we were standing outside the doors right at 10 AM we saw no one and the security guard didn't seem too quick to lend us any advice as to where to go. Then we decided we'd walk to the Lourve, which is quite a hike, but since we didn't really have anything else planned we decided to do it.

While walking we saw a lady pick up a ring off the ground and was very excited about it. She came over to us and gave it to us, explaining that because of her religion she couldn't wear jewelry. We were a little confused but we thought it was a nice gesture, when after walking away, changed her mind, and came to ask us for money for it. We just gave it back to her and laughed.

After such a long walk and me needing to use a bathroom urgently we were thrilled to finally arrive at the Lourve then to our dismay discovered big white signs in the entrance: THE LOURVE IS CLOSED ON TUESDAYS. We looked at eachother and started cracking up- of course that was our luck. We decided find somewhere to eat and had our only strike of good luck finding a nice soup/salad/sandwich place with reasonable prices and a fairly friendly guy working there that spoke English (willingly). The problem with Paris is most of the people speak English, they just pretend they don't to be pains.

We headed on to the Notre Dame which was truly beautiful and then on to the Bastille area where we caught the metro back. We were very excited for a nice long nap to rest our legs after walking around 6 miles and seeing the majority of Paris's main tourist attractions. We finished our long day off with another night in Montmarte, eating crepes and wine in a cute little restaurant and getting to bed fairly early.The next day we slept in, took our time, went for a walk down the Champs-Elysees to the Lourve and spent a good deal of time there, saw the Mona Lisa, but I was a bit disappointed because we were kept at a distance and you couldn't really appreciate it, plus all the swarming tourists around trying to get a picture of it.

As much as the my overall Paris experience wasn't all that amazing, I still got to eat some of my favorite French foods: Baguette with Brie cheese and French onion soup!

'Ello London

On Thursday I packed myself a nice dinner to eat on the plane and then I was off for a fun weekend with Briana. Unfortunately it took way too long for everyone to board and we sat on the runway for a good amount of time so the plane took off an hour late, which made me nervous about my transportation options when I would arrive. I got into London and I made my way to the trains and after I picked up my tickets I found out I had the perfect amount of time to catch the 11:16 train. Originally Briana was supposed to meet me at the tube stop and we'd go together but she somehow had the wrong information about the Tube (London's subway) closing at 11 PM. I caught the lady right before she shut the window for the night to buy an oystercard and filled it with 20 pounds. I asked a few girls which line went to King's Cross, managed to get on going the right direction and made it to King's Cross around midnight where Briana met me.

At the dorm her friend Riley signed me in to get a guest pass under his name because they have a rule that there can only be one guest per room and her roommate Jess already had her friend Kim visiting. We went upstairs and sat in her communal kitchen to hang out for a bit because Jess and Kim were sleeping because they had to get up at 5 AM to catch a train to Brussels. Briana and I got all caught up and then went to bed fairly early with big plans for sightseeing the next day, which turned into an off the beaten path trip instead.

Around the time the girls were getting up I heard someone sniffling and crying. I was afraid to say anything and luckily Briana asked Jess what was wrong. She said she felt horribly sick and didn't think she'd be able to go to Brussels. I wasn't sure if she was crying because she felt sick or because they were going to lose the money they spent on tickets, but we all tried to figure out what was wrong with her and how we could help. She was feeling really nauseous and had the chills so Briana figured out what the deal was with their health center. Unfortunately it didn't open until 9 and it was only around 6 AM so we decided to just keep an eye on her and wait.

They called the front desk and all they offered was calling an ambulance for her, which didn't seem to be what she needed. Since Kim was visiting from NYC she talked to her parents about switching her plane ticket to be able to go back early and not spend the weekend if Jess was feeling sick. As Kim was getting signed out Jess wandered away from the desk and fainted, hitting her head and was out for a few minutes. All the people working at the dorm were aware of the situation at that point and decided to call a cab for us to take her to the hospital. Kim felt so terrible and started crying, but she had to catch her plane so we did our best to keep her updated. Briana and I waited in the hospital for about an hour but she was getting a lot of tests done and so we just decided to go home. She had booked the London Eye for 7 PM so we decided to wait at the dorm for a while to see if Jess called an then left around 5 PM (which happened to be the time she got home).

After such a stressful morning it was nice to go on the Eye. It's hard to describe the experience except for that it's like a slow moving ferris wheel with incredible sites of London. We went at the perfect time, just at sunset to see everything with a beautiful sunset and then also at night all lit up. London is HUGE, overwhelmingly huge. Not like NYC tall, but just massive in how far it expands. On my trip I only saw the tiniest fraction of it. We got back, were relieved Jess was home and sleeping, and made some pasta for dinner and were so exhausted after the day's turn of events we went to bed super early.

The next day we went to go see Westminster/Big Ben, St. Jame's Park with the Buckingham Palace, and I got to try out my new art appreciation skills at the National Gallery. I was quite impressed with my newfound ability to spot Spanish artists from across the room. It was a great museum and was free. It was nice to go to a museum and see other artists outside of the Prado, today in class I really impressed my teacher, too.

WINSTON!

I stayed in a hostel for my last two nights due to all the restrictive rules of the dorm and the fact I had to get up at 4 AM on monday morning to go to the airport. It did the trick and was RIGHT around the corner from Briana and even closer to the train station, which made it very convenient. We spent Sunday shopping on Oxford St and I found a lot of great buys and was able to use the rest of my 20 pounds that would be a pain to exchange.

Overall it was a really great getaway and it helped to have a lot of the things I missed including hummus(which I ate the equivalent of an entire big tub of), pomegranate, cranberry juice, bagels, and Briana! It put me in a really great mood and after a stressful week in my homestay due to various reasons, it was exactly what I needed. Now I'm in my last week of school before Spring Break, and I have a big paper due.

Becoming a chef and assorted other successes

So I just wanted to share with all of you who know how terrible I (usually) am at cooking all the wonderful food I've made this week. I found a new love for recipezaar.com because there's a filter where you can search for recipes that have 5 ingredients or less. So far I've made Spicy Mustard Chicken, Honey Lime Chicken, and Chicken Parmesan. I was very proud of myself to say the least. They all came out really tasty (surprisingly) and I even brought my second batch of Chik Parm to school to eat while I studied and everyone was saying "ooooh, did you make that?!"

I've also been pretty excited about the grades I've been getting so far. I came here knowing I wouldn't be putting in as much effort but I got an A- on my Cinema midterm, an A on my first Prado quiz, and an A- on the midterm. I got a B+ on my Cuban Revolution paper that I thought I did horribly on (which I did grammar-wise but he really liked the content). I have yet to see how I did on my Islam and Spain midterm but I think I could possibly get an A. So this makes me a lot less worried about how I'm doing in class and I know the effort I've been putting in is sufficient.
UPDATE: I got a 97 on my Islam and Spain Midterm... went from knowing nothing to an expert!

Also I've been going to the gym a lot lately and it really feels great to get back into working out. I take a class called Cardio Tonic with Adrian and I'm always dripping in sweat and every muscle in my body gets worked. I went from once a week to two and this week I went to all three classes Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. After all that hard work I treated myself to a massage today which I desperately needed and my gym has a great hour long massage for 30 euro (which is less than $40!).

I also thought I'd fill everyone in on the upcoming weeks ahead because I'm going to be doing a lot of traveling. Next weekend I'm going to London to visit Briana. Then the following weekend our two week Spring Break begins. I'm spending the first weekend in the Canary Islands (May 28-April 1), then I'm going to have one day back in Madrid to get reorganized and then I head to London to spend the night with Briana before we head to Amsterdam (April 3-6) and Paris (April 6-9). Then I have Easter Weekend to relax before I have to go back to the reality of school. The weekend after we return to classes (April 17-19) I am going to Lisbon, Portugal with 7 of my friends here. All of the transportation and hostels for all the trips above is costing me less than $800.

It's going to be a lot of traveling but it's really one of the things I was most excited for in coming here. I'm definitely going to need another massage after all of it. I'm a bit disappointed I won't be going to Morocco and a few other places in Spain but I know I'll be coming back to Spain for a year to teach English after I graduate which will give me plenty of time to see the spots I missed.

Castles, Castles, and more Castles!

NYU let us pick out of three weekend trips to take, and I picked the trip to places that I knew I would never see on my own, and it was really worth it! We went to a region in Spain called Extremadura and crossed over into Portugal.

The trip didn't start out on the greatest foot. I was all ready to go the night before and left early so as to not have to rush around in the metro to get to campus at 8 am. I've never had problems with the metro here, not once, and of course on that morning there were issues and it was announced it might not come for another 15 or 20 minutes. Then, the nervous person I am, call my friend Jill who was already there and told her there were issues and I would take a taxi even though at that point I would still probably be late. After spending 8 euro on the taxi ride I found out that they were waiting for everyone to get there because of the metro issues. I was so flustered and angry about wasting the money that I was ready to deem the trip a fail before we even left. Luckily things turned around and it turned out to be a beautiful trip.

The first stop, Merida, was full of Roman ruins which after going my freshman year of high school on my trip around Rome and Athens I felt like I could fully appreciate. We watched Gladiator on the bus right before we got there (Maximus the Spaniard is supposed to come from this town in the movie!) and it really helped set the tone to picture all the fights that went on there. I forgot my camera in my backpack which happened to be under the bus, so sorry to say no pictures from here.

We stayed in a small city called Caceres. There were storks all over the place clacking their beaks. We got a tour of all of the old quarter inside the castle walls with it's churches and royal homes. There was also a film festival going on, red carpeted street and all.

NYU really hooked us up with a nice hotel, big rooms, lovely bathrooms, and a GREAT breakfast. Jill who I was rooming with and I were still full from lunch and were so exhausted so we just had some snacks and went to bed at like 9:30.

Saturday we went to Portugal and saw two more castles. The one little town Castelo de Vide I loved mostly because of all the old men walking around with their newsies caps. They all had them, in lots of different colors and styles, and they all had canes. I'm not exaggerating, the town was just filled with groups of cute old men in their Caps for Sale caps (my parents better get that reference!) and their canes.

The Fearless Leaders

Marvao, the other Portuguese castle town was up high on a mountain, so as to not be attacked easily. The castle was beautiful and we had plenty of time to wander around and explore it. The views were amazing.

That night Jill and I had tapas in outside seating in the Plaza Mayor of Caceres looking at the lit-up castle, then had some delicous ice cream. I forgot to mention how beautiful the weather was the whole time and I got my first sunburn in the first week of March which has to be a record. Today it was in the upper 60's, sunny, and gorgeous. Yes, I know you are all jealous.

Today we went to this funky museum. It was all modern and hard to explain, and although I don't usually understand or like modern art, this stuff was pretty cool and in a gorgeous location in the middle of nowhere.

Then we had to go to one last castle. This one was pretty funny because there were some college aged kids dressed up in medieval outfits trying to make some sort of movie. The views here were also incredible. Lunch was a bit disappointing because I ordered the hamburguesa (hamburger) and they brought out just the patty, fries, and fried eggs. Not exactly what I had in mind.

Reunited

Irene came to Madrid to visit me this weekend. It was a really great time, and we are both so excited to have so much time together this summer (Dad you guessed right, luckily she isn't getting a job). She came Saturday morning and left on Sunday night and we did a lot of walking around Madrid. We got Indian food for lunch and basically had dessert for dinner because we were still so full.

We did a little shopping, but it was more like perusing because neither of us wanted to spend a lot of money. Nothing all too exciting really, we just had a lot to catch up on not seeing each other in two years. Her English is still excellent, and although we should have talked in Spanish we mostly spoke in English with eachother.

Reme LOVED Irene. It was so funny. She just kept going on and on after she left about what a nice girl she was (tan simpatica, maja, preciosa, guapa). I think it was a nice break for her to have someone Spanish to talk to outside of her family. I mean she could go on about the current state of things in Spain and political stuff and Irene was following along right with her as we watched the news.

Although the weekend was a lot of fun, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep and happened to have a midterm today in my Spanish Cinema class. I think I did okay on it, nothing spectacular but I'll get at least a B I think (and hope). This is midterm week so everyone's stressing out, mine are spread out over the next two weeks so it won't be so piled on. This weekend I have a trip with the school to Extremadura and Portugal which I'm looking forward to.

I hope everyone back home is doing alright with this snowstorm I'm hearing and reading about. I saw "A Foot of Snow is Predicted for New York City" on my NYTimes newsfeed and felt a lot better about being here. They cancelled school everywhere in NYC except NYU.

Bray, Dun Laoghaire, Howth, Guinness! Dublin Part 2

Ireland was a blast. I met so many cool people and got to see a lot of cool things. On Saturday I went on a day trip to Bray and Dun Leary with the girls from my room. We got Subway to bring with us and had a lovely picnic on the beach. It was so nice to be near the water again, it reminded me a lot of home. The weather was a bit cloudy but fairly nice. We started in Bray and walked up and down the beach and then took the train to Dun Laoghaire. This was more of a port and we walked out on the pier. It also had a pretty neat town center full of cute little shops so we wandered around for a while. That night we got to see some live Irish music for free, so that was fun. The round trip train ticket cost 4.60 euro and it was totally worth it to get away from the Dublin tourist area and go somewhere so nice and calm.

I still had to go to the Guinness Storehouse and check that out and so I went Sunday morning. It was a really cool place and very informative. Now I know why Guinness is the way it is, "It's the toasted barley!" (that comes from a commercial I watched while there). They had tons of cool things to see and at the top the views of the city were amazing. I was lucky to have the place be so empty because I heard it can get jam packed up there.

Because I enjoyed myself so much the day before I planned to go to Howth. I read online there was a hike to go to the summit and overlook the bay. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to get there and wandered around a lot and found some trails and the castle but not the summit hike. There was a farmer's market going on and one of the vendors let me sample all the nuts and candy he was selling. In the end I bought some mixed Chili nuts. I spent most of my time just sitting on the pier watching all the fisherman. There were three funny young guys trying to fish with just line and bait standing down by the water on some rocks. I watched them struggle for quite a while and it kept me amused.

Bray:







Dun Laoghaire (Dun Leary):

The girls from my room in the hostel

Guinness Storehouse: One of the important ingredients: Hops, Barley, Yeast, Water

My Irish side coming out... my complimentary pint of Guiness at 11 AM

Howth (like Both with an H):

Had to see at least one cool castle

Outdoor market... they were selling clam chowder in the green caravan on the left

Ireland's Eye

A seal! He popped up to say hello