Día Diez: Sevilla.

Sunday, we made sure to get up earlier than we had the day before. We had our breakfast at the hotel and then my dad left to pick up our tickets for the futbol game we were going to that night. About a half hour after my dad left, my mom and I left to meet him at Sevilla’s Plaza España, hoping this time things would work out better than the last. The Plaza España in Sevilla is really impressive. It’s huge and pretty and very detailed. The plaza is also surrounded by parks, making it even prettier. Luckily, we had no problems meeting my dad this time and when he showed up, we started exploring the plaza. We walked around taking photos and checked out the representations of all the main Spanish cities around the plaza. After that, we strolled through the park, exploring some more before going to the Alcázar Palace. We explored the palace and spent about an hour and half there. It was a gorgeous palace, with an enormous courtyard in the middle, and it was really nice just walking through it. After that, we grabbed a quick dinner at a restaurant near our hotel before going back to the hotel to get ready for the game. We ran into a minor complication, however. My dad was looking over the tickets and realized we had six tickets when we obviously only needed three. Apparently there was a promotion going on where if you buy a ticket, you get one free. Well of course we didn’t want to just waste three perfectly good tickets, so I quickly went to the Eau Claire Valladolid Study Abroad facebook page and posted something, hoping someone would happen to be traveling in Sevilla at the same time. Much to my surprise, I got a reply from a girl in our program named Kristina! She and her mom were in Sevilla so we met up with them and watched the game with them. Kristina is actually a soccer player so it worked out perfectly! The game was insane! It was Sevilla against Villarreal and these fans were absolutely crazy. I was expecting it to be much crazier than American games, already having known how important soccer is to these people, but I wasn’t expecting this much. There was a section of really rowdy fans who sang and shouted literally the whole game. If something bad happened, they would scream, cursing whoever did whatever wrong. We actually heard a chant, shouted by everyone, saying “mother fucker,” in Spanish. Completely crazy. I was actually really worried about what would happen if Sevilla lost, but luckily, they won the game 3-2 and everyone was happy. That was quite the experience. I’m so glad I got to see it though. It was actually a lot of fun. On the way back, I got some ice cream and was very disappointed by how bad it tasted next to gelato. It might take me a while to get over the fact that I can’t have real gelato anymore. Once we got back, we quickly hit the sack, exhausted.

Días Ocho y Nueve: Mis Padres y Sevilla.

Friday morning I got up early so I could catch my flight at 1 pm. As usual, it took an hour to get to the center of the city and probably another 45 minutes to get to the airport by bus. I got my passport checked and everything and in line, I met a girl from Washington DC who was on my flight and studying in Sevilla. She gave me some pointers on where to go and what to do. My flight was about two and a half hours and right when I got to Sevilla I took a bus to meet my parents at the train station. I only had to wait about ten minutes before their train arrived. Perfect timing! It was so awesome seeing them again! I realized that this is the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing them in my entire life. Crazy! After trading stories about my trip and their flight, we headed out to find our hotel. After staying in so many hostels, this hotel seemed so nice! My parents weren’t as enthusiastic as I was, but I thought it was great. Later, we explored the town, got some tapas, and then relaxed at the hotel. They obviously went to bed early, exhausted from their flight over, and I stayed up a bit later.

Saturday, we accidentally slept in until 11 am. Oops. I actually didn’t even know it was possible for my dad to sleep that late. We headed out right away to find some breakfast, as we had missed the hotel’s breakfast. After much searching, we found a tapas place where my parents could have an eggs tapa and I had a muffin. Later, we bummed around the city for a while and then went back to the hotel for a bit. My mom and I then split up with my dad, planning to meet later at Sevilla’s famous cathedral, the third largest in Europe. Unfortunately, when my mom and I arrived at the cathedral, my dad was nowhere to be found. We searched and searched throughout the church but could not find him anywhere. However, we were able to see a Holy Week procession from the huge tower. Holy Week in Spain is a HUGE deal. There are many processions every day and much more. Sevilla is famous for their Holy Week, as is Valladolid. Anyway, after a long time of looking for my dad, we went back to the hotel and finally found him. Later, we got some dinner at a nice little restaurant before seeing a Flamenco show! As most people know, Flamenco dancing is a big deal in Spain, but it’s actually more of a South Spain thing. We don’t really see much of it in Valladolid, as we’re more toward the North, but Andalucía (especially Sevilla) is much more known for Flamenco. The show was awesome. The guitar players were insane – I usually couldn’t even see their fingers move! I hadn’t even seen a Flamenco show yet so it was really interesting seeing it. Flamenco is such a different form of dance, unlike anything else. After the show, we went out to get some churros y chocolate, one of my favorite Spanish desserts. We then headed back to the hotel and called it a night, ready for some more much needed rest.

Día Siete: Roma.

Thursday morning, I woke up to Aryn waking me up, telling me she couldn’t get out of the room. The night before, the door handle had fallen off while I was coming in, but we were still able to stick it in and open the door, so it was no big deal. Somehow, overnight, the notch we stuck the handle on had gotten pushed farther into the door, so we couldn’t get the handle on anymore. We were completely stuck in the room. I told Aryn to try opening the window, but there was a screen that only budged a few inches – definitely not enough to climb out of. Also, it was 6 am at the time, so finding a passerby to open the door for us from the outside was highly unlikely. My solution: I got up out of bed and pried the screen off the window so Aryn could climb out. After that, I passed out on my bed again for another hour. When I got up at 7, Aryn had set up someone to come and fix our door and we went and got breakfast at the hostel restaurant. We left around 9 to meet a couple of our friends, Kim and Lindsay, from school at the Colosseum. We took the shuttle, then the tram, and then the metro and arrived at the Colosseum around 10:15. We found them pretty quickly and got in line right away. After about a half hour wait, we got in! The Colosseum was so cool! It was really neat just being there and realizing how old it is. We stayed there for a while and then left to see the Forum and Palatine. It was so fun seeing Rome with Kim and Lindsay. I love those girls. After we finished seeing all the ruins, it was time for some lunch. Lindsay and Aryn got some Chinese food, but Kim and I were hoping to find an authentic little family-owned Italian place, so we split up. We ended up being successful and found a small place where we ate delicious Ragu. After lunch, gelato was necessary, of course. We found a place that had about a million flavors – I had Nutella, Oreo, and something that looked like S’mores, but wasn’t. So. Delicious! Later, we met up again with Lindsay and Aryn and walked around again before seeing the Pantheon church. After that, we saw Trevi Fountain, and then headed to meet up with someone Kim knew and her friend. They are studying in Rome now, so they offered to bring us to their favorite restaurant for pizza. They were super nice and the pizza was delicious. We got gelato one last time before the night was over and then, after some transportation complications, Aryn and I got back to our hostel to rest after such a fun day. I would definitely say the second day of Rome was the best so far. I packed up my stuff and got ready to see my parents the next day and then went to bed.

Día Seis: Roma.

Wednesday, we woke up in Rome. We had a quick breakfast at the hotel and then headed out to start seeing the sights. We started out seeing Repubblica, which was basically just a bunch of ancient ruins. It was interesting. Then we headed over to the Vatican. The guy working at the hotel told us how to find a trustworthy tour guide and once we arrived there, it was very easy to find one. The tours not only have the perk of being super informative, but you get to skip a four-hour line which obviously saves so much time. When we got to the tour office, we had a bit of a dress code issue. The Vatican is very strict on their dress code – you have to be dressed very conservatively. You can’t show shoulders or knees, and if you do, the guards can kick you out. I was wearing a white dress that exposed both my shoulders and knees. I was able to buy a scarf for 3 Euros that covered my shoulders and my dress was just above my knees so we decided to chance it for that part. When we left for the tour, they gave each of us headsets so we could easily hear what the tour guide was saying and he didn’t have to shout. Super handy, but they sometimes made it easy to lose the group, as I couldn’t hear where the voice was coming from. We walked to the Vatican museum, skipping the enormous line, and had a quick tour of the museum, seeing tons of statues and other ancient Roman art. I didn’t run into any problems with my dress. After the museum, we got to see the Sistine Chapel! It was so cool! The details of Michelangelo’s painted ceiling were immaculate. There was so much to look at. It probably took the tour guide at least a half hour to explain all the pictures shown. It really was so cool to actually see that, after having learned about it a hundred times in art and history classes. Once the tour was over, we explored the museum a bit more before walking around the city’s walled border to see the basilica. We only saw the front plaza area so we didn’t stay there very long. The pope gives public addresses every Wednesday, so a lot of it was closed off for that. After that, we got some gelato and then headed to get our stuff and leave for the next hostel, a “campsite” (meaning small cabins) quite a distance from the main part of the city, but very cheap. We settled in there, ate some pizza, and then headed to rest after another long day.

Día Cinco: Venecia y Trenes.

Tuesday, we were still in Venice. Our train was scheduled to leave at 6:30 pm so we pretty much had the whole day to spend in Venice. We went back to Rialto, where I got some strawberries for breakfast at a market, but one of them ended up having a worm in it so, long story short, most of them did not get eaten. We walked around for a while, basically just exploring the city again. There isn’t really much sightseeing to do in Venice; it’s just a really nice place to explore and get lost. Of course, we had plenty of gelato again, and a giant piece of pizza. One thing I’ve noticed here that’s been kind of disappointing is that the pizza and pasta aren’t that different. The pizza we’ve had has pretty much tasted the same and the pasta we had was just as good as pasta I can get at an Italian restaurant. Actually, when it comes to actual cooked food, I really haven’t had anything amazing in Europe. The sweets, on the other hand, are always to die for. Anyway, we kept exploring for a while until we had to head back to the hotel to get our things and go to the train station to catch our train to Rome.

Our train left at 6:30, so we figured we’d be just fine if we left the main Venice area at 4. However, the water taxis are extremely slow. It took about forty minutes to get to Lido, where our hotel was at. When we got there, we got on a bus to get back to our hotel. Everything was still running smoothly… until we realized we were on the wrong bus. We got off at the first stop and walked back to the main bus stop. So then we got on a different bus, which surely had to be the right bus. Nope. Wrong again. We ended up just walking to the hotel after that, as we had no time for any more bus mistakes. When we got to the hotel, we grabbed our stuff and rushed back to the water taxi station, getting there around 5:45. We got on the water taxi, but it took an hour to get to the train station and we missed our train. Fortunately for us, though, that wasn’t the last train leaving for Rome that day. We went in and asked if we could change our reservation to the 7:30 train instead and that was perfectly fine. No charge or anything. While waiting in line, we met two guys about our age who were going to be on the same train. One was from California and the other from Texas, both studying in London. We chatted for a while and ended up all sitting together on the train and talking the whole way. Here’s the crazy part – one of them spent last summer in Latvia! What a small world. No one ever wants to go to Latvia, if they even know what it is. We talked for a while about that and he gave me some advice on things to see and do. So awesome. Well they got off the train in Florence and for the remaining hour and a half, Aryn and I played cards.

When we finally arrived in Rome, I pulled out the directions to the hostel, which turned out to be a quick five minutes away. When we got there, however, we found out that we had booked the hostel for the wrong days and they only had one open bed that night. They were very helpful and understanding though and helped us find a place to stay. We ended up staying in a really awesome hotel/hostel, getting a room for two with two beds for the price of a four-bed room (much cheaper). So that worked out well. We were finally able to settle in and relax around 1 am. What a day.

Días Tres y Cuatro: Trenes y Venecia.

Day three was not that exciting. We left Lauterbrunnen on Sunday morning and took a train to Interlaken. From Interlaken, we went to Bern, from Bern to Lausanne, Lausanne to Milan, and from Milan to Venice. It was just another horrible day of trains. We arrived in Venice around 11 pm and took a water taxi to our hotel in Lido. Tired from the day of traveling, we pretty much just went to bed. But before going to bed, I decided to take a shower and discovered we didn’t have any hot water. I felt like I was involuntarily doing the polar plunge. That was wonderful.

Anyway, Monday morning, we woke up in Venice and left around 9 am for St. Mark’s Square. We explored the square for a bit and had breakfast. Aryn, always the smart one, had a turkey sandwich while I enjoyed some authentic Italian tiramisu. I know tiramisu probably isn’t the ideal breakfast, but how could I resist tiramisu from Italy? It was delicious, by the way. Afterwards, we waited in a huge line to see St. Mark’s Basilica. We walked through, but I am still very much cathedral’ed out and unfortunately, didn’t get much from it. After seeing the basilica, we decided to try some gelato, because, of course, we can’t go to Italy without having gelato. It. Was. AMAZING. I don’t know how I will ever be able to eat normal ice cream again. I really could go on and on about how much I loved it, but I won’t bore you. After that, Aryn and I split up. She went and saw Doge’s Palace while I explored Venice. I did some gift shopping, walked around the city, took photos, read a bit by the waterways, and ate some more gelato. Of course, it was just as amazing as the first try. I decided then and there that buying gelato could never be a waste of money (which turned out to be very dangerous, as you can imagine). When I met up with Aryn again, we did some exploring, taking photos and such, and then had some more gelato (hopefully you’re not surprised by now). Then we walked around a bit more before we decided it might be smart to get some actual food inside us, so we had some pasta. I had delicious ravioli and she had spicy penne. Then, we headed back toward St. Mark’s Square and took a back road which led us to tons of shopping, lots of people, more gelato, and gorgeous views from the Rialto Bridge. Pretty soon, things started closing up so we headed back to the hotel, getting back around 10 pm, to rest from our busy day. I’m liking Venice – not as much as Switzerland, but this is a really pretty city and actually much better than I had expected.

Día Dos: Suiza.

Day two of spring break was a complete turn-around from day one. It was so much better. We woke up in Interlaken to a gorgeous view of the Alps right out our window. We had a nice breakfast of bread and nutella, yogurt, and coffee outside in beautiful Switzerland. After eating breakfast, packing up, and talking to Texas guy a bit more, we headed out to take the 20-minute scenic train ride to Lauterbrunnen. I was freaking out all morning because of how gorgeous it was. I have never been anywhere more beautiful than Interlaken and Lauterbrunnen was even prettier. The grass is greener, the water is bluer, just everything about Switzerland is prettier than anywhere I’ve ever been. Interlaken is just on the edge of the mountains and Lauterbrunnen is actually in the mountains in an amazing valley. I didn’t even know it was possible for somewhere to be so pretty. Well we got to Lauterbrunnen and only had to walk about two minutes to get to our hostel. Lauterbrunnen is a super small town – pretty much just a street that takes five minutes total to walk down. It is so cute and everyone there was so friendly. We checked into our hostel and after getting settled, we headed out for the much anticipated hike through the valley. The hike was amazing. It was very easy since it was all flat and I could never get tired of the immaculate beauty. Of course, I was going photo-crazy the entire time. We hiked through the valley to Trümmelbachfälle, a huge waterfall that is actually inside a mountain. We took an elevator up to the top and climbed back down, seeing the waterfall twist and turn down the narrow passageway in the mountain. After seeing Trümmelbach, we sat down in the valley for a quick lunch, after which Aryn decided to turn back to Lauterbrunnen. I kept hiking to the end of the valley, where there was a cable car that took me higher up in the mountain to another small town named Mürren. It was so gorgeous being up there. The immensity of the mountains was mind-blowing. I walked around for a bit, taking photos and watching hang gliders flying through the sky before heading back down. When I got back down, I took a bus back to Lauterbrunnen, ending my day of hiking. When I got back, it was about 7 pm, so Aryn and I decided to go look for food. Apparently, everything in the town closes around 5 pm, including all reasonably priced restaurants and grocery stores. I wondered what time people ate their dinner there, because 5 pm is the start of dinner in the states and after living in Spain, we’re used to eating dinner around 9:30 pm. We walked around for a while, hoping to find something we could eat, when we found a small café that had sandwiches for not too expensive. We walked inside and ordered our food and the lady working said, “Sorry, we don’t serve food anymore at this time.” However, she did sell us some frozen chicken pies we could throw in the oven to eat. When we got back to the hostel, we discovered the hostel kitchen didn’t have an oven. Great. So we tried cooking them in the microwave. They turned out…interesting, but edible nonetheless. Since Lauterbrunnen is such a small town, absolutely nothing happens at night, so we spent the night hanging out and talking to some people at the hostel – one couple from Los Angeles/Korea, and another couple from Canada. Before bed, we just sat outside in the amazing fresh Switzerland air and chatted, surrounded by mountains and serenity. I have decided that Switzerland – specifically Lauterbrunnen – is my new favorite place in the world. It tops Barcelona by a mile. One day, I will go back for sure.

Vacaciones de Primavera: Día Uno. Trenes.

The start to my spring break included trains, trains, and...more trains. We left Valladolid on Thursday at 5:30 pm to Hendaye, France. While attempting to reserve tickets at the train station on Wednesday, we learned that in order to reserve tickets for the Eurail pass, you have to actually be in the country you're wanting to travel in. Meaning you can't be responsible and order all your tickets ahead of time to make sure nothing goes wrong. You just have to wait until you're in the country and hope the trains aren't full. And most trains need reservations with the Eurail pass. So it turned out that we had to switch our plans around a bit and go through Hendaye, France to Paris. The train ride to Hendaye was gorgeous. I wish I could have seen more of North Spain while here because it is so beautiful. When we arrived in Hendaye Thursday night, we literally had four minutes to catch the train to Paris. And of course we didn't have seat reservations yet. Luckily, they let us on the train and let us reserve our seats while on the train. So then we took the overnight Paris train, trying to ignore the crying baby while trying to sleep. Once in Paris, our original plan was to take a train from Paris to Bern, Switzerland - easy. Well obviously, we weren't able to reserve tickets when we croseed the country border in Hendaye because of needing to catch the train, so, of course, all the trains to Bern were full. As were the trains to pretty much everywhere else that made sense to go. After speaking with a train station worker for a while, he finally helped us figure out a way to get to Switzerland. The goal was just to get to Switzerland, because once in Switzerland, we would no longer need to reserve tickets. So around 11:00 am, we took a train from Paris to Troyes, France. In Troyes, we had about five hours to kill until the next train so we walked around the city, looking for internet so we could tell our hostel we wouldn't make it that night and try to find another one. We found a wifi hotspot after a while of searching, but the person working hardly knew any English and wouldn't let us order anything and told us to just leave. So much for that plan. Troyes is a smaller French city, so really, almost no one knew English outside of the train station. I never realized until then how difficult a language barrier can actually be. We walked around a bit longer and had some lunch - Aryn had a kabob and I had a French pastry. We sat around in a park for a while, watched a girl trying to learn stick shift and crashing into the curb every few seconds, found internet in a McDonalds, and eventually made it back to the train station. Before our train left, I decided to run to the bathroom quick. I walked into the bathroom and this lady started yelling something in French at me. I used my ever so useful phrase "Je ne parle français" (I don't speak French) but she would not stop yelling this at me. After a while I just left, planning to use the bathroom on the train. When we got on the train, I went to the bathroom and a minute later, some lady started banging on the door, screaming at me in French. It was probably the scariest bathroom experience I've ever had. So then once I sat back down, a kid two seats behind us started screaming - so much worse than the baby on the overnight train and so much worse than the French woman outside the bathroom door. He screamed the entire three hours, his parents actually laughing at him while he did so and encouraging him to keep going. Needless to say, Advil was an absolute must when the train ride was over. We arrived in Mulhouse, France around 8 pm and soon left for the next train to Basel, Switzerland. I was so glad to leave France and arrive in Switzerland. I was so tired from hardly getting any sleep, super crabby, incredibly annoyed with all the French people yelling at me, and so frustrated with the language barrier. So when we arrived in Switzerland, I was very happy. I already knew I would like Switzerland much better. While waiting for the train in Basel, I decided to grab a quick dinner at an "American Bakery" which I thought was incredibly funny. I'm not sure why anyone would want to run an American bakery when they could be running a French bakery or something. From Basel, we took the next train to Bern. Once arriving in Bern, we got on our last train of the night to Interlaken, Switzerland. We arrived around midnight and the streets were absolutely empty. This was so weird for us, as we're used to everyone usually being out until 4 am on Friday nights. Well we found our hostel (which just so happened to be the top ranked hostel in Switzerland), got our keys outside the building, and finally got to rest. In our room, we met a guy from Texas who was super nice and super helpful. He had just gotten released from the Air Force the day before and was just traveling and doing crazy things to celebrate. His plans for Europe included bungee jumping, hang gliding, sky diving, mountain biking, intense hiking, etc. Crazy, but very cool. We went to bed around 1 am and finally were able to get a decent night's sleep. Horrible first day, but it was so nice when it was finally over.

Las Médulas.

Oh, what beautiful weather we are having in Valladolid! It’s been sunny and hot! It has been in the 80’s all week and it is definitely shorts and tank top weather. Unfortunately, these crazy Spaniards don’t start pulling out their summer clothes until mid-June so these days, we have the option of looking like stupid trashy Americans or dying of heat. People like to wear shorts with black tights here – definitely not my style. People are also still wearing thick jackets and sweaters. I think I would drown in my own sweat if I wore a jacket or sweater now. Also, I haven’t had the chance to soak up the sun as much as I’d like because of all the work I’ve had in school lately. Last week, in addition to working on my 10-page paper (which I hope to finish by Thursday), I had to work on a presentation and a Literature paper. Now this week I have two exams, so with everything else going on, I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to finish my paper. Life will be good come Thursday. I’m leaving right after school to begin my two-week journey around Switzerland, Italy, and then back to Spain. Spring break plans have changed again, probably not to anyone’s surprise. I am now going with just one other girl named Aryn to Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, then Venice and then Rome until next Friday when I will meet up in Seville with my parents. I cannot wait for spring break to start – I just have to get through one more week of school first.

Yesterday we went on our “naturaleza” (nature) excursion to see Las Médulas. Before this weekend, our professors had told us how intense it would be and that we would die if we didn’t wear a hat and things like this, so I was a little scared for the day of hiking. However, I made myself think, “No, I’ve been hiking in the mountains plenty of times before. How hard could a school excursion hike be? It’ll be fine.” It turned out to be a long hike up a steep hill with no flat spots to rest until we got to the top. It was extremely tiring and, of course, pretty hot out. Everyone was sweating and many people became dehydrated, including myself. I tend to have issues with always getting dehydrated. But luckily my dehydration didn’t kick in until the very end of the day. Anyway, as we were trudging up the hill, Alfredo, one of our professors who happens to be a chain smoker, admitted that he hated this excursion. At the time, I had wished he had told us earlier it was going to be so hard. However, once we finally got to the top we were able to see a beautiful view of the Médulas (not quite sure how to describe them – they’re a lot like the rock formations in the Southwest). We stayed at the top for a while, enjoying the view and perfect weather before we began our descent back down. After this, we also quick saw a cave formed from these rocks. Soon we headed back to the bus to begin our three-hour journey back to Valladolid. It was a very tiring day, and as much as I hated the uphill hiking, this was probably my favorite excursion so far. Seeing so many ancient cities can get dull after a while and eventually, they begin to all look the same.

This week, I’m going to be working nonstop on my paper and studying for my exams, so I’m not sure when I can post next. I will try my hardest to update you all on everything that goes on during spring break, but I will be really busy traveling all the time, so we’ll see how that goes. Wish me luck on yet another great adventure around Europe!