Superbowl, Midterms, and ... Portugal!

Hello hello, dear friends!

I know it's been awhile, but that's because I have only been on one trip since Barcelona. I last left off February 10th-ish, right? OK, what's happened since then? Hmm, I went to watch the Superbowl at a bar called O'Connell's with some very cool chicas. I'm not really into football, but the pre-party was fun, and the game itself was actually very exciting -- the first play was jaw-dropping. Everybody in the bar went absolutely wild.

From left to right: Melanie, Amy, Jumel, Caelainn, me (looking kind of creepy..)
[side note: I am going to be traveling to Morocco with
Melanie, Amy and Caelainn in a couple of weekends!]

The bar was packed, and the atmosphere was charged.
It was a pretty cool bar.

a large group of dudes, all dressed as Elvis, were
situated near us and provided lots of amusement


Well, that's all for superbowl pics. That night was fun. But then! Soon after, I got sick, which was certainly not fun at all. I was miserable for about a week and a half, but at least I had a hilarious/frustrating experience at the pharmacy ("farmacia" in espanol), trying to communicate that I had a cough, sore throat, and fever. :P

I spent the following week hanging with Caelainn, planning out all our trips, and now all my weekends are booked and all my trips are planned, with the exception of two weekends. I only have two weekends left to spend in Madrid! How crazy is that?!

Anyway, after that came midterms, which royally sucked. In all honesty, I had not anticipated having to work at all when I came here to "study" abroad, but midterms week was actually a lot of stress! I suppose everything pales in comparison to Mudd though. Whatev.

Caelainn and I celebrated the end of midterms with... a trip to Lisbon (Lisboa), Portugal!!! We took an 8-hour long bus ride from Madrid and spent a day and a half in Lisbon, and had a blast. It was so crazy when I realized that I was in a different country, surrounded by people who spoke a different language, despite being on the same landmass as Spain. Sort of surreal.

Interestingly, apparently Spaniards and Portuguese hate each other, so we were advised by everybody not to attempt to speak Spanish. All weekend, we spoke English (which actually felt really weird) and everybody was so friendly. Portuguese people are nice. :)

The main word I learned: "obrigado" means "thank you."

So, we arrived at 6 am, bus-lagged (?), and this is pretty much the first thing we saw:

which is one of the many gorgeous plazas in the area
in which we stayed. Cool, huh? (click to enlarge)

We couldn't check into our hostel until 10 am, so we
wandered around a bit, and here are some gorgeous
Lisbon streets/sights.

sunrise!


After much-needed breakfast, we took a tram to the flea market.
Isn't the tram cute? Very San-Francisco-esque. hah.

The flea market was called "Feira da Ladra" and it
was pretty cool.

After the flea market, we went to the area called Saldanha to see the Museu Gulbenkian, then we had lunch, after which we went to see the "Castelo de Sao Jorge" which was the Castle of Saint George.

This is the entrance to the castle.

I think the castle was my favorite sight in Lisbon.

it even had a view of Lisbon's own Golden Gate bridge!
Ok, I don't actually know what the bridge is called,
but it sure looks like the one in San Fran!

this is us on the super cool bridge over the dry
moat leading into the castle

inside the castle we found a well! old-school.

I felt like I was in a Lord of the Rings movie or something.

for serious. SO cool. and pretty.

yea, I'm just nonchalantly leaning in an arch. I'm cool like that.


After the Castle, we checked into our hostel, which was pretty nice, especially for the cheap price. We rested a bit, then we got dressed up and headed out for Lisbon's famed night life! We met up with a group of friends from SLU (where I'm studying in Madrid) who were also in Portugal for the weekend and went to the area called "Barrio Alto" (roughly translated, tall neighborhood), and boy, did it live up to its name! We climbed super steep hills to reach a small area in which a TON of people were congregated, just hanging out and drinking on streets on which there were a bunch of small bars and discotecas (clubs).

This is right before we reached the crowd.

We met a group of really nice Portuguese guys and hung out with them for most of the night. They took us to a bar that served "ginjinha," Portugal's famous cherry brandy, but it was closed. Fortunately, being locals, they got the bartender to bring us out some shots. Cooool -- we got the hook-ups!

group picture: cheeese!


The next morning, we had breakfast at an award-winning cafe.

breakfast was deeeeelicious, albeit not-so-healthy..


After breakfast, we took a bus to an area just outside of Lisbon, Belem, where we saw the "Mosteiro dos Jeronimos," which is a famous monastery:

this is the view of the monastery from the river.


THEN we went to get custards at the most famous Pasteleria (pastry shop) in Portugal!

the place was jam-packed, and rightfully so.
the custard tarts we got were amazing.

:D

Ok, that's all I have for you guys for now. I'm heading to GREECE for a Spring Break, in two days, so I'll be back with a ton of amazing pictures, I promise. Until then, take care, everybody!

Segovia, Toledo, and Barcelona

Well, I'm just going to jump right into it this time!

As I mentioned in my last picture-entry, I went on day trips to Segovia and Toledo two weekends ago, and had a lot of fun. The first thing we saw in Segovia was:

The friggin' awesome Roman Aqueduct!!! It's almost 3,000 feet long
and is constructed of granite blocks without any mortar or clamps.
It was constructed circa 1st/2nd century CE and just.. WOW.

Here's us after climbing some steps up the side (?) of the aqueduct.
Michelle, Sarah, Marion, me, Sam, Becky from L-R.

Next, we checked out the cathedral of Segovia,
which was gorgeous, of course.

Ah, I forgot to mention that it was below freezing in Segovia,
and despite my many layers, I was still cold. So, I bought the
best/dorkiest beanie ever (and subsequently put it on backwards).
Best 4 euros I've ever spent.

This is the Alcazar of Segovia, after which
the castle in Sleeping Beauty is supposed to be modeled.
It was my favorite part of Segovia.

I fell for Mr. Tall, Shiny, and Faceless. Sadly, my love was unrequited.

.. so I went a little mad and decided to become a royal guard?

The gals inside the Alcazar.

I got a little thirsty.. so I attacked this weird wall-tree.
Pretty cool, huh? (Pun fully intended.)

After exploring the castle, we climbed up a
bajillionzillion steps up the tower.. this picture is not
actually representative of my mood during the long climb.

But, it was totally worth it because the view was spectacular.

For serious. Just so beautiful.


After a night's rest, I went to Toledo with a different group of friends.

Here is the group chillaxin' with Don Quixote.

top, L-R: Michael, me, Lauren; bottom: Stephanie, Urse, Erin.

This is in front of one of Toledo's cathedrals.

general Toledo scene

We passed through a park..

..that had a grrrreat view.

And we passed by this brick wall that totally
reminded me of the wall in between the Tavern
and Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter movies, so
I had to be a dork and pose for this photo op. :P

random adorable chihuahua (sp?) in a sweater! hah.

I believe this stained glass was from the official cathedral of the city.

from the same cathedral -- it was so much cooler in person.

aaand, a modeling shot of my oh-so-stylish money belt. Sexy, no?

:cough: Moving on!


This past weekend, I spent four days in Barcelona:

This is the area called Las Ramblas that totally
reminded me of Santa Monica promenade, with
street performers and such. It was pretty fun to walk through.

me, cheezing for the camera on Las Ramblas.

I stayed in my first hostal, and I gotta say,
it was not bad at all! Especially for only 14 euros a night!
We definitely picked a good hostal. But now I'm spoiled, haha.

This is a side street near my hostal that I thought was pretty.

Rie, Joce, I took this picture solely for your amusement! ;P

Caelainn and I got a kick out of seeing this sign.

Chocolate hedgehog!!! Looooots of chocolate
yummies, actually. I definitely overindulged, bwahaha.

Caelainn and I in the "Catedral de Santa Llucia," in front of the fountain.
Get used to seeing her, because we plan to travel together lots.
She's a cool chiquita from Santa Monica that I met during orientation, just fyi.

A cool shot of one of the side chambers in the cathedral.

Aah, familiar territory -- we stopped by a Starbucks, hehe.

Now, for the best part! This is the side of the "Sagrada Familia,"
designed by crazy man and genius architect Antoni Gaudí,
on whom I now have a big crush (yes, I am aware that he is
dead. Shut up.)

My favorite stained glass window of the many I've seen, hands down.

We climbed one of the towers and this is just a cool shot
of us (you'll definitely have to click on this one to enlarge it.)

.. taken right before we had to climb down a very narrow spiral staircase.

well, we obviously made it down intact, to take this photo
of the main facade of La Sagrada Familia. I told you Gaudí was crazy!
Keep in mind, this is only a small part of it!

Here is another Gaudí creation, "Casa Batllo," also
known as "The House of Bones." SO cool.

Close-up.

"Casa Mila" aka "La Pedrera," an apartment building built by Gaudí.
We got to go inside and tour one of the apartments, and seriously,
I would love to live in one of them. So beautifully designed.

Ah, yes, I had to include the Barcelona night life! This is inside
one of the cool bars we visited.

This is James, a nice British fellow we hung out with for a couple of hours.
I tried a delicious drink with a crazy name; something like caprioska? :P

Our last stop in Barcelona was the Picasso Museum, with was pretty interesting. I certainly enjoyed it, but that's because I luuuuurve art history.

Now, I take my leave, and I end with
this amazing view of Barcelona from the airplane
on the flight back to Madrid, courtesy of Caelainn's camera
(I was definitely asleep on the plane ride home, haha).

Ta-ta for now!