Barcelona, Spain!

For our “long” weekend, a big group of us decided to go to Barcelona, Spain. It was seriously the best decision we’ve made this entire semester-Spain was beyond what I even imagined! It kind of reminded me of a European Miami/California...but with amazing architecture, interesting people, and all the history Europe tends to offer. Not to mention that in Germany we’ve barely been seeing the sun and in Spain, we got to wear shorts and tank tops everyday. Hallelujahhhhhhhhhh(insert emoji praise hands here). Ps: the font keeps changing sizes on this blog post & i'm too lazy to figure out why. So...yea.

palm trees errrrrwhere!

 We booked Spain literally the FIRST week of school. We’re talking the flights were booked by January 21st people. It’s crazy because these flight tickets were the most expensive for us buuuut they were also the earliest booked. Can you imagine how expensive it would’ve been if we had waited? Yea. Just yea. Worth every penny though! Alli, Jeff, Martin, Chelsey, Teaghan, & I left for Barcelona on Wednesday after class. I don’t think any of us really knew what to expect for this trip so when we stepped off the plane and immediately saw palm trees, we were stoked. (Or at least I was!). We caught the Aerobus from the airport into downtown Barcelona and pretty quickly found our hostel. It’s amazing how easily we adapt to huge cities now- between the metro system, buses, hostels, airports, train stations...everything is so simple now. Once checking into our hostel, we went to go eat at a traditional spanish restaurant. Just keeping it real, but it wasn’t that great. Didn’t matter though cause we were starving and anything and everything tastes good when your stomach hates you. 

That night, we went on a pub crawl with our hostel. We ended up going to this bar with 600 different shots! It was crazy because you would pick a random shot, such as the “Harry Potter” and they’d do crazy stuff to it. For example, the Harry Potter involved lighting the shot on fire and then exploding these sparks out of it. 

Morgan Willett, this would be your happy place. (Sorry, Mom). The nightlife in Spain is awesome. All the clubs stay open until 6am, a lot of things are on the beach,and you end up meeting so many people from different countries. I <3 Europe.

The next day, we woke up and submitted some finalized things for our comic book project. We had to leave the day before our main project for studio was due(unfortunately when we booked these flights, we had not even been assigned a studio project yet!), so we all went through a couple of hours of panic when we realized the wifi in spain is pretty terrible. Eventually some of us made our way to Starbucks and we (slowly) got everything submitted. After that....it was a beach dayyyyyyy! We caught the closest metro to Barceloneta Beach and headed that way. The beaches in Barcelona are gorgeous! The Mediterranean Sea is this deep turquoise color and the sand is super soft and light brown. When you walk up to the beach, there is a giant street right by it where everyone is long boarding/roller skating/bike riding down it. It reminded me so much of Venice Beach in California! It was super chill- we all luuuurved it. It was so refreshing to just go lay on the beach and hang out instead of walking around and trying to sightsee. Barcelona, you da shiiiiiz. 

On Friday, we all caught the train to Montserrat! For those who have never heard of it, Montserrat is about an hour away from Barcelona. It’s a convent that is situated on top of these huge cliffs overlooking Spain. The views here almost rivaled Switzerland. It was truly so so gorgeous. 

The best thing about Spain is that EVERYTHING is green! It kind of has this beach meets vintage meets western desert meets green blooming gorgeous vibe....which probably makes no sense to anyone reading this. If I had to describe this country in 3 words though, I’d say: color, life, fajitas...hahah. 

When we got to Montserrat, we took a cable car up to the top of the mountain. There were a bunch of trails you could hike up, and we ended up choosing one that lead us to this giant cross on top of the mountain. I can’t verbally describe the experience of being there- it was just stunning. That’s all I can really say. Pure beauty. 

It ended up getting pretty cold around the middle of the afternoon, so we all caught the train heading back to Barcelona. For dinner that night, we wandered around Catalunya Plaza until we found a restaurant that offered fajitaaaaaas. I was so happy!:)<33333

That night, we stayed in our hostel and all just played cards and hung out. Our hostel was pretty cool- they had two rooms full of bean bags so it made it easy to just lounge around and meet new people. They had one room with a tv in it and it was packed full of travelers watching the news of what was happening in Boston. It’s crazy how out of touch we are from whats happening in America. I was grateful to be able to catch up that day!

On Saturday, we woke up early and went to see the Sagrada Familia. This is a “modern” cathedral designed by Gaudi. Gaudi was a prominent architect in Barcelona- he also designed some crazy looking apartments that I’ll post a picture of in a bit. This cathedral was started in the early 1900’s and is still being built today! I plan on coming back to Spain when I’m way older to see the finished product(if it’s even completed by then!). The best way to describe this building is quirky. Like, it straight up looks like something about of a Dr. Suess book. The exterior has snake carvings on it and weird pink bulbs. When you walk inside, you see that Gaudi designed this entire cathedral around the concept of light. The ceilings are insane and the stained glass windows cast light onto the pillars in a really unusual way. The Sagrada Familia even had some modern day graphic design going on in it! Also, the stone carving of Jesus was really abstract looking. All around, this was THE coolest cathedral I’ve been in. It’s unlike anything else. Gaudi had an amazing mind. 

We ended up walking down the main shopping street in Barcelona and went and got tapas for lunch. Tapas are extremely small portions of meals that typically cost between 1.95-3 euros each. You ended up needed to eat about 5 different types of tapas to get full though! It was fun picking different things to try-chalking it up to experiencing spain in its fullest. After that, we ended up splitting up for a bit. Some of us went back to the hostel and some of us walked down La Rambla(the most famous street in Barcelona). La Rambla is jam packed full of tourist shops, restaurants, flea markets, and street performers. I loved walking around and seeing everything! Barcelona has such a fun vibe. We all eventually met up at the beach and chilled there until heading back to the hostel. There was a supermarket right across the street so we decided to all cook dinner for ourselves that night. Guess what we had? Fajitaaaaas! I was, once again, extremely happy. 

Here's some more of Gaudi's architecture!

pretty crazy apartments, right?

Sunday was our last day in Spain :( I had to go to Starbucks that morning and submit some last minute internship things and then we all went back to the beach! As if you couldn’t tell, we went there a lot. Blame it on surviving in 30 degree weather for 3 months up to this! We only got to lay out for an hour or two, but it was still nice. You always hear how pickpocketing is prominent in Spain, right? I have always known it but never really felt threatened by it. However, we were laying on the beach and the lady right next to us had fallen asleep. A guy had been walking all over the beach since we had gotten there and he ended up sneaking up to the sleeping women, stealing her iphone from her purse and running off. (Why anyone would fall asleep on the beach with a purse right beside them is besides me...) But anyways, Jeff saw and got up and chases the man down. The man whole stole it tried to pretend that he just “found it.” His story eventually changed to how he was so poor and really needed the money. The lady got her iphone back, thanks to jeff! Hero of the day. 

Here's some more pictures of Barcelona!

We caught the metro back to the hostel, grabbed our luggage, and caught the aerobus back to the airport. We got to Cologne, Germany around 1030 that night and made it back to Bonn around midnight. It was one of my favorite trips this semester! Oh & I've realized that on every blog post I say something like "I love this place so much!" So for clarification, I<3everything. No but seriously, top 3 places I've been(in my opinion) are:

1) Edinburgh, Scotland

2) Barcelona, Spain

3) Switzerland in general(although I love Italy as well!)

annnnd my least favorite places I've been are:

1) Paris, France

2) Vienna, Austria

3) Prague, Czech Republic

kkkk that's all. goodnight!

edit: just teaghan needed to go to starbucks and we all went to a lightshow. happy now?:)

Easter Break(Firenze&Roma):Part 2

The following morning, we caught an early train heading from Venice to Florence. We got lucky though because we didn't reserve train seats ahead of time for our eurail. When we went to get the tickets the morning of the lady at the desk informed us that they were sold out! I think she saw the panic in our eyes(we had already booked our hostel in Florence and couldn't afford to stay in Venice an extra day) and she gave us another route to catch to get to Florence. We ended up switching regional trains twice but we got there eventually! Crisis adverted. When we arrived in Florence, we checked in to our hostel and immediately headed to the Galleria del' Accademia. For those who don't know, this is one of the most famous art museums in the city and the line outside is typically around 3 hours long. It houses the famous statue David. Being the overly organized(note: only organized when it comes to traveling) girl that I am, I managed to book reservation tickets for this museum a couple of days before by finding the phone number on trip advisor and then miraculously getting someone on the phone to book them. We managed to get inside the museum within 20 minutes! Yea, I felt awesome. When we got inside, we walked around and ran into the statue of David. The security there was pretty tight but I managed to sneak a picture...

It's hard to tell in this picture, but this statue has such a powerful presence! I wish I could just stand alone in the room, look at it, and take it all in.

We then ended up walking over to see the Duomo. It is MASSIVE. It (almost) puts the Cologne cathedral to shame. 

Right after walking around this, we realized that the famous baptistry doors were right beside us! Everyone who has taken art history at A&M will know what these are! Caffey loves them & I'm pretty sure they've been covered on two different tests now, hahah. Here they are!

Later that day, we just walked around, explored the town, and popped in different stores. The following  morning was Easter! We discovered that the Scoppio del Carro takes place here; this is a 450 year old tradition in Florence! It basically involved the parading of super old flint around town for a couple of hours. Eventually the flints make their way to the Duomo where a cart is waiting for them. The cart is rigged with explosives and the flints then light the cart on fire. If the cart explodes properly, everyone witnessing will be blessed with a good year! It was really cool to take part in such a tradition.

It was packed! A parade followed after this. 

Later that afternoon, we hiked up to Michelangelosplatz because it has a gorgeous view overlooking the town. It was stunning!

We ended up walking up to this creepy cathedral that was perched on the very top of the hill. I don't think it was meant to be creepy but I seriously have never felt chills when walking into one before! This one was super old, smelt like it was decaying and had these eery paintings on the wall that were about 1000 years old. It was dark and there were carvings on the walls from the 1800's! 

Here it is in all it's creepy glory.

Crazy!

The following morning, we woke up at the crack of dawn to catch a train to Rome for the day! In all the guidebooks, they say Rome can't be done, let alone walked, in a day. 

Challenge accepted & defeated. 

On the train ride over there, we met a man from Romania who had just moved to Italy. He was a professional fighter. We all started talking and learned that he left his family because he had no possibility of moving up in the world or making a life for himself. Romania still exists as a caste system in a sense. His goals are to stay in Italy for awhile until he earns enough money to move to Amsterdam. Eventually he wants to move to America because the economy is so bad in Europe(Germany is one of the few stable places). It was very eye opening to talk so freely with someone who lives a life so opposite of most people I know. 

One quote that stands out to me was when I asked him about Italy:

"Do you like it?"

"I need it."

It really put everything into perspective for me then. 

We got to Rome and decided to go to the Colosseum, Forum, Pantheon, Vatican, and the Trevi Fountain in a day. All by walking! Call us crazy, but we did it. My favorite was the Forum. For those who don't know, the Forum is the ancient city of Rome. It is literally in the center of modern day Rome and is surprisingly well preserved for being 2000 years old(think the time of Jesus!). Getting to walk thru this ancient city and see still standing structures, ornamental carvings, a 2000 year old church, and buildings upon buildings upon buildings was SO COOL. It was one of my favorite things I've done in all of Europe. I loved getting to sit there and try to picture in my mind what this once thriving city looked like. Truly amazing. 

We kept walking thru the city and eventually made our way to the Vatican! It was cool because the chairs were still in place from when the Pope was elected a week ago. The line to tour St. Peters was extremely long but we kind of slipped in and got to see everything. And by slipped in, I mean Teaghan stood beside old people and snuck in. Gotta do what ya gotta do. After touring the cathedral, we wanted to see if we could get into Vatican City. Unfortunately there were guards everywhere surrounding it, letting only the actual residents in. Teaghan went up to the guard to ask him a question and I'm pretty sure everyone watching thought he was trying to break in, haha.

Anyways, after that it started raining. Whoop, spontaneous european weather. We went and saw the Trevi Fountain and then headed back to the train station. We managed to do everything we wanted and got back to Florence around 10 that night! Ah yea, beat the system. 

The following day was spent just wandering around Florence before our train that evening. We had tickets to catch an overnight train which would take us to Munich at 5 in the morning. Once we got to Munich, we caught a train going to the airport and then an airplane going from Munich to Cologne. After that, we caught a bus going from Cologne to Bonn and went straight to class. Why did we put ourselves through that torture? To save money? Never again. We were so out of it at the airport that we were sitting in Starbucks for a couple of hours waiting for the flight until we realized that our flight was set to leave in 30 minutes and we hadn't gone thru security yet. We ended up running full sprint through the airport. Luck was on our side that day because we somehow made the flight! However, when we finally found the gate number that was on our ticket, we sat there until the last minute, confused as to why it said Paris on the board. We thought our flight was late and eventually went and asked the lady working the desk. She was all like "Oh, you should never trust your boarding ticket!" Apparently what's printed on a piece of paper besides your name isn't real y'all. So we frantically ran to the other gate that was giving the call for last board...and barely made our flight. Keep in mind that nothing is in english here so when they make announcements, you have no idea what they're saying! 

But yea, made the flight. Made it to class. Italy was awesome. 

Easter Break(Venice): Part 1

Guys, I only have 28 days here left. 28 DAYS! I'm in the twenties now! I CAN'T WAIT TO GO BACK TO AMERICA AND EAT MEXICAN FOOD AND SWEAT OUTSIDE! I mean, I really do enjoy being here but after awhile you end up missing the little things from home. Since I'm thinking about it, I'll list more of what I miss terribly: my bed, a ceiling fan, not sleeping underground, healthy CLEAN food, it not being 30-40 degrees everyday....everything else I'm fine with :) I've already decided that the things I'm going to miss the most about Europe are the metro system, apfelsaftschorle(carbonated mineral water mixed with apple juice/so freaking good), and the history&beauty of this place. If I could just go back to Texas for two days...I'm pretty sure I'd be ready to come back here for another 4 months. 
The struggle.

But anyways, my last blog documented me being sick in Prague buuuut so much has happened since then! I'll try to remember as much as I can and I'll start with Easter break in Italy.

Wednesday,(the 27th of March), we flew out of Cologne to Venice, Italy. We managed to get each plane ticket for 70 euros so that was pretty awesome. I was super pumped to go back to Venice. I went during Spring Break of my senior year of high school, fell in love with it, and have been dying to go back ever since. I'm pretty sure my parents were ready for me to go back & get it out of my system since I mentioned it way too much. For example:

"Ah, that's pretty."
"You know what's pretty? Venice is pretty."

"Do you want to go on vacation to *insert random state* or *another state*?"
"Venice? You say Venice? Venice sounds good."

"What do you want for dinner?"
"A trip back to Venice."

You get this gist. So needless to say, I was ecstatic at the airport. When we got off the plane, we caught a bus taking us from the mainland to the island. We then took a water taxi back to our hotel. It was dark and we couldn't see anything but we were starving so I decided that we should go eat at my favorite restaurant. We totally managed to find it, in the dark without a map, and I hadn't been there for 4 years! So proud. Literally the second we sat down though, Teaghan basically offended the waiting by asking him for chicken in his gnocchi(boys and their protein...). The waiter was all like "This is an exclusive menu, the chef would never change it! Blah, blah." So that was great & I'm pretty sure we got stale bread because of it. Thanks Teaghan ;) But other than that incident, the restaurant was wonderful!

The following morning we went out and wandered around Saint Mark's Square/Basilica. It was crazy because due to the rain, the entire plaza was almost flooded! They had these giant wooden planks you had to walk on to get anywhere. It's things like that that remind you that you're currently on an unstable island. Oh, fun fact. Venice is slowly sinking. 
Everyone go while you can! haha.

 Here's Saint Mark's Square. The domes in the back are the basilica and to the right (the tan building behind the tall thing) is Doge's Palace, which is where all the royal venetians lived. You can't really see the wooden planks because they're too far back, but they were there! We ended up trying to go inside the Basilica, but due to the flooding, it was mainly closed and you couldn't get a good picture. Sad day. We ended up taking a tour of Doge's Place which was super intricate. Here's some pictures!

(old medieval weaponry they had in the palace. pretty cool to look at everything up close!)

they also had a prisoners section that was pretty fascinating. In one room, they had a several pictures that the inmates had drawn on the walls...from the 16th&17th century. It was really neat to see how humans were perceived in drawings from way back then! I have pictures on my digital camera that I still need to upload and I'll post all these on facebook lataaaa.

Later that day we continued exploring the area. Venice has a great shopping area so of course we did that :) The street vendors there are awful by the way! They shove roses, umbrellas, locks, purses, weird squishy balls, etc in your face and expect you to buy them. They were in Florence & Rome(where we traveled later) too. I'm convinced they're all in a gang and work for the same boss man dude. Just a theory/I'm totally right.

Here's some more pictures of this beautiful city!

For the next couple of days, we really just explored the city. I knew that the next two cities coming up were going to be hectic so I wanted Venice to be really relaxed! One key thing I realized throughout this trip was that our classes in Germany obviously are not as stressful or hard as the classes at A&M. But that's okay. This is going to sound lame, but in a way we're becoming "lifesmart" instead of "booksmart" this semester...which if anything is equally as important. I've learned so much about myself, traveling, this world, etc. It's been a priceless experience. If anyone reading this blog as the opportunity to study abroad, do your best to make it happen! It'll be worth it. Promise. 

Oh, also my hair dryer ate my hair. I'm including this in my blog because it was a tragic moment in my life. I'm blowdrying my hair when all of a sudden I hear this weird noise, feel a tugging on my hair, and smell something burning. I realized that somehow my hair magically got sucked into the back of the blowdryer? Crazy German products. Anyways, I couldn't figure out how to turn off the dryer so I eventually unplugged it...but it was too late. A huge chunk of my hair was sucked up and I didn't have scissors or anything to cut it out. Don't you worry, fingernail clippers were used to cut it out, strand by strand. 

Welcome to my life.

I'll be blogging about Florence & Rome within the next couple of days! It's too much to cover within one blog. Until next timeeeeeee.