where do i begin!

sorry for the hiatus, but sissy was here and we had no time to sit down!

i'll start with mallorca. we left early saturday morning and we had beautiful weather, our hostel was right on the beach! we went with my friend diana also, but none of us had any idea about what to do there, not even towns or monuments to see. but we got there early and went to eat and then went into the main town. there were a lot more people out and more things to see with a cathedral and fountains and just really pretty landscaping.

mallorca is very very different. there are TONS of germans there, tons of german food, everyone speaks spanish, german and english. crazy!  and it is also super cheap there, my cheapest trip yet! but the stores don't really have a schedule. things open really late and it seems like they close really early. i guess that's the island life. you can do whatever you want. the people are extremely nice and welcoming, i really liked it there. the water was beautiful, but the mountains! oh my i want to move there when i am old and gray and live on the side of the mountain and watch the water and the sailboats go by:

the second day we went to this town called Soller. that's pictured above. it's on the beach and lots of mountains and we climbed up to the top of one and there's a huge lighthouse and restaurant up there. it's beautiful! you look out and you can only see water, and you know that Spain is right there across! but you can't see anything. Soller is definitely one of the cutest towns i've ever been to.

so the second day we spent in the mountains and the third day we went to las cuevas del drach. they were these super giant caves really far down and there was so much water and awesome stalagmites/-tites!

we went down to the deepest part and they have a place to sit and there's a big lake and they have these boats come out with lights on them and violin players playing!! and they were really really good. it was beautiful. they just ride around and play for you. and when they were done we hopped in a boat and they took us to the end. we weren't supposed to take pictures so i only got a few of the caves.

so that was pretty much our trip. we ate at one restaurant both nights because the first time we went they loved us and gave us free things :) they were really cool. everyone that ate in there knew them and it was like they were all friends. what a life!

classy dressers and intelligent conversations

my school still kills me.

i love walking in the doors and seeing guys in ties. i mean, really??!

you don't even need a notebook. if they want you to write something down and turn it in they will provide you with the paper.

if there is a barca futbol game on, the teacher will understand if you have to leave.

i've got to say, as much as they party and go out and drink here, i think the kids are more mature. it's really weird actually. i've even met younger people who i would never think they were younger. even the boys, what??? it's really sad when i think about american parties compared to parties here.

my roommate alicia is 19 and i never would have thought! not like that's really much younger than me. but this is her first time living on her own. she's really cool and super sweet. she's kind of a hippie so maybe that's why we get along so well ;) but she knows soooo much. sometimes when i'm having conversations with these people i feel so dumb.

alicia was telling me a little history of spain and i have a quick little story. you might know how the spanish call americans "gringos," right? well during the mexican-american war, the americans wore green suits, and during the war, they would shout, "Green, GO!" the term in spanish is actually a slang term for "foreigner." i always thought it had a bad connotation but she said it doesn't.

by the way, today i watched an episode of friends in spanish, because it's the most familiar show to me, haha. and i used to watch them all the time in the beginning of the year to learn more, but it was so hard. but today! i understood it! and it wasn't because i had remembered it hehe. i know i know, thank you.

LAS FALLAS

one of the coolest things i've ever seen. las fallas, the statue burning and fireworks shooting and everyone in the street setting off bombs it seems like! sparks everywhere. valencia was a really old looking town, but it had some awesome museums and aquariums:

and then there's these:

the people!

that turn into this:

and that pretty much sums up the night!

we left barcelona at 1pm. there were 10 buses with like 40 kids on each. when we got to valencia we got off the bus and they go, okay everyone gets a complimentary bottle of wine, cava, or sangria, your choice.

can you say chaos? like how dangerous is that! all these foreign college kids running around with their own bottle of alcohol in a city they have no idea about. but we made it to the meeting point, and we left at 4am. it was a quick night! but so much fun and spain will really give any excuse to party. i love this life.

y mas y mas!

told you i'd get some! enjoy

 infront of the Louvre!

just me and the notre dame, but no hunchback

atop the notre dame!

a random church we happened upon that turned out to be glorious

see how the trees are perfect?

on top the eiffel tower

pretty cool, no?

and this just because that's his real hair.

some pictures of Paris

i only have a few pictures from Paris but i will post more when i get them!

the arc de triomf

inside the louvre, the rooms are MASSIVE

on top of the arc!

moulin rouge!!!

Paris Days 3&4

i will continue!


sunday we woke up pretty early because we had a lot left to see! we went to see my favorite thing of the whole trip, the Sacre Coeur. it means the sacred heart. it's a huge huge church that looks like a palace ! i have a picture:

magical!

inside is so beautiful too. and in the back there is a huge bell tower. it's on the top of a hill and we watched the sun set from outside. the town around it was my favorite also! it's called Montemart. it's like an old-school paris. everything is really old and quaint. the restaurants and shops had so much character, and the people were amazing! so friendly. i will never forget that place. we sat outside and had a cafe and watched the people selling portraits and paintings. it was like out of a movie!

we finally made it to the louvre. i'm in love with the louvre! i usually get tired of museums after awhile but i never wanted to leave it. and this place is so big i think you could take 3+ days to see the entire thing. we definitely had to miss a lot.

even the rooms themselves were so perfect. everything was super clean and they organized everything perfectly! i think my favorite part was all the egyptian stuff. they even had a real dead person's body that was completely preserved and all wrapped up like a mummy. it kind of freaked me out!

and we saw the mona lisa! i love to be able to say that :)

i don't even remember what else we did that day... but it was a good day!

the last day we went to the eiffel tower and decided to climb it. we wanted to do the stairs but there were soooooooo many and we wanted to go to the very very top and you need to catch the elevator on the second floor, so we just took the elevator from the bottom. so we went up and it took us 2 hours waiting outside. then another like 45 minutes on the second floor because you have to switch elevators. then at the top was magic!

it was such a beautiful day out, sun shining for once! and the city just looked so peaceful and pretty. you could see all the gardens and everything we had gone to before, and the river was beautiful! it's right next to the eiffel tower.

we had to wait to get down also and by the time we got down it had taken us the whole day! we only had time enough to eat one last good meal before we caught our plane. we were just in time for our plane and made it home at about 10pm. what a whirlwind!

i will never forget that place, i have to go back one day when i have a lot of time and i can just sit and relax for a few days.

PARIS cont...

DAY 2!!!

okay so i don't really remember exactly what happened on day 2, but i will try. we woke up semi-early. we wanted to go to the louvre but we decided to save it for the end again because we wanted to be out in the "warmth" during the day!

we went to the notre dame first thing. wow, i can't even describe it. it's really really pretty. and right in the middle of the seine river. which is awesome! we didn't go on a boat tour or anything but we walked along it and it was so nice and peaceful.

we got in the notre dame for free and i don't know how people can concentrate in there while all the tourists are walking around. it's kind of sad. but the place was gorgeous! and huge. in the back they had a room where they had all the models of the building. there was this one wooden one that was so cool, it was so detailed and so perfect i looked like if you touched it it would break.

we walked up 297 stairs to the top of the tower on the notre dame. it was exhausting! they were spiral stairs and really really narrow, and if someone was coming down, you had to hold on for dear life to let them pass. but it was so worth it. at the top you could see the whole seine and all the pretty white buildings.

so after that we made our way to the street called champ de elysees. it's a really famous street there that has tons of shops and restaurants and it's like 3 or 4 lanes each way and just full of people. really exciting!

we walked down the street, which ended up being super long, and at the end is the arc de triomf. it's so big!!! it's just a huge arc in the middle of the street and you have to go underground to come up underneath it. so we went in and paid to walk up. another 300+ stairs. but it was getting dark by this time and the view was unbelievable. you looked down champ de elysees and all the cars and people just flashing by, all the lights looked so cool. and really close was the eiffel tower and we decided we had to get close to it!

so we walked down all the stairs and headed towards the eiffel tower. it ended up being a little farther than it looked. i guess being up that high makes everything seem closer :)

but, we made it, although this time it didn't sparkle :( but it was still beautiful! we took like 20 pictures infront of it. the only thing i didn't like is that there were SO MANY guys in the street trying to sell you keychains of the eiffel tower. they all have the same ones and they are all screaming, "three for one euro!!!" in your face. they are all in the same area and they all come at you! so i was just running away yelling at them to leave us alone. but then when we were taking pictures, one of the guys gave me a keychain for free because he said he liked my smile haha.

sooooo after that we were exhausted  and super hungry, and really wanted some crepes! but of course, at the time of need, we couldn't find any stands. imagine! we were in a more residential area though. so we decided to find a metro and head back towards our place. but once we found one, we saw across the street this really cool looking restaurant. i can't really explain it but it just had a good vibe and atmosphere. but it was weird because inside they played latin music! it was cool though, and we got the biggest meals i think of the whole trip. perfect timing after all that walking we did! such good food too, french cheese is great ;)

i will write more, but i just wanted to say this weekend, i have another little trip. march madness i tell you! on friday i'm going with a bunch of friends from school to valencia, a city south of here. it's like 3 hours away and we're going by bus. it was all organized by this guy who puts trips together for study abroad students, and he has 10 buses going! so it should be a good time.

the trip is special though, because friday night is the last night of "Las Fallas." in valencia, they have a huge festival everytime at this year. it started as a one-day feast for St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. but now, it's turned into this huge 5 day fiesta! all year long, people build these little "ninots," these wooden or paper mache or cardboard statues. they are usually of spanish celebrities or politicians and they create scenes which kind of make jokes about them. they spend so much time on these and it costs them thousands and thousands of euros. and on friday night, at 12am, they burn them all! some of them are stuffed with fireworks and they set them off all at the same time. it's a huge huge even where millions of people come out into the streets to see it. i can't wait!!!