As I’ve been home in the U.S. for almost two weeks now, I feel it’s time to write one more blog post to wrap the wonderful, awful, crazy, awesome, terrifying, ridiculous, unfathomable experience I have just completed.
The trip home went tolerably well – I’ll spare you the boring details, but suffice it to say that after over forty hours of being awake and living through eight hours that didn’t exist on our transatlantic flight, Kristen M. and I were more than ready to see our family and our beds! And America was looking pretty sweet when we got there, that’s for sure. Though it definitely felt surreal to think that I hadn’t seen my homeland and most of the people I know for nearly five months. It still feels weird to think about it now.
I’ve been hearing that several of my friends have really been missing their European places of study now that they’re back, but I’m not really sure I share the sentiment, or at least not at this point. Sure, I’ll have my moments, like when I saw the red-roofed buildings at the end of Chocolat, when I wish I could take another walk around the Ciudadela, when a Tyrone Wells song makes me miss a good friend I met at school, or when I remember that my stash of Euro-chocolate is dwindling. Sometimes it’ll hit me and I’ll miss Spain, but it usually doesn’t hit hard. For now, I’m super content to be back in the States. I’m enjoying so many things that I used to miss in Spain that I have little time to miss Spanish things, even though many of those things are worth missing. But maybe it’s okay to be content with where you are, even though it’s not some exciting place in Europe. Maybe one thing I learned from being away for so long is how much I love home. And I daresay that’s no bad thing.
Sometimes I feel like it was all one big dream. I’ll catch myself thinking, “Did I really just spend four and a half months in Europe? How is that possible?” But then I think about all the good and bad times I had (and how much stuff I bought) and I know that it was real and that I’ll never forget it.
Okay, so before I start getting too mawkish (isn’t that a great word?), I’m gonna finish this up with a huge thank-you to all of you wonderful people who followed my blog this semester. I know it wasn’t easy, since most of the posts got pretty novel-ish, but I knew that would be the best way to really share what was going on during my adventure to Spain, since I definitely won’t remember all of those details when I’m talking to you in person (or even when I’m going through my own memories). So if you made it this far, kudos to you! I’m glad you joined me on this ride. I may be posting off and on here in the future, though the posts will be of the random-thought variety, so only the most interested (or bored) of you will be back to visit this site, but that’s okay.
So for now, I leave you with one last LOTR reference (of course!). Just remember that “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” May you choose well, and may you follow the never-ending road onward to the adventures into which it leads you!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
London = A Dream Come True
We arrived in London feeling pretty tired, but kept on keeping on. We found our hostel, again without a lot of trouble, and dropped our bags off. We weren’t able to check in yet since it was too early, so we decided to go right back out again and get to the free London tour we’d heard about – it was through the same company that did our Paris tour. It was a good time – we saw the Wellington Arch, a bit of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, St. James’ Palace, the London Eye, the Parliament Building, and etc. And our tour guide was very entertaining and told us stories, like about the time a drunk Irishman broke into Buckingham Palace and made it all the way into the Queen’s bedroom, or about Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot (which included a very detailed description of exactly how drawing and quartering is performed :-S).
After the tour, we got some tea at a nearby coffee shop, and then went to Evensong at Westminster Abbey. It was so beautiful! The Abbey is amazing, of course, and the boy’s/men’s choir there was fantastic. It was a little difficult to stay awake during the service, even though it was only an hour long, since sitting down for such a long time made us realize how tired we really were. Nevertheless, we managed it, and were really glad that we’d had the chance to go. Once the service was over, we headed back to our hostel to check in, sleep, and make plans for the following day.
Day two was wonderful – the first stop was at Westminster Abbey again, this time to take a tour. The Abbey was definitely one of my favorite parts of London. The most awesome audio-guides known to man were included in the price, and they made the tour so much more interesting than it would have been otherwise. The Abbey was so beautiful, and we saw the graves/memorials of a ton of famous people, including Queen Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, several kings, David Livingstone, Handel, and Oliver Cromwell (Cromwell is not there anymore, however, as his body was exhumed and mutilated later on…). We also saw the graves and monuments of a bunch of my favorite writers, like Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, John Keats, the Brontë sisters, and George Eliot, among others. No big deal :-P
Next, we were planning to go to Stonehenge, so we hurried over to Victoria Station to get tickets. Unfortunately, we discovered that the tour was sold out for that afternoon. At first, we thought that this would mean we wouldn’t be able to make it to Stonehenge at all, since the rest of our days in London were booked pretty full. However, we thought about it over lunch, and decided that we could switch our Wednesday and Monday afternoon plans around and go to Stonehenge on Wednesday morning instead. Thank goodness, because we would have been very sad to miss it!
Anyway, next on the agenda was now the Globe Theatre, which is located in a really cool, older part of London that put me in mind of Dickens novels and such. The Globe itself was really neat. Our tour guide was okay, and the exhibition was really cool – it was fun to learn some more about the theatre and how it was built. I was surprised to learn that it was only finished in 1997 – I knew it was a replica, as the original burned down, but I didn’t realize the new one was built so recently. Another fun thing about the tour was seeing the stones with the names of both famous and non-famous people who have donated to the Globe. We even saw John Cleese’s and Laurence Olivier’s stones among those covering the floor in the courtyard.
After a trip to the Globe’s gift shop to get some Shakespeare-related paraphernalia, it was off to the Tate Modern art museum, right next door to the theatre. I’m never too sure about modern art, but I really enjoyed it – some of it was cool, some of it was moving, and some of it was just plain disturbing, but all of it was really interesting. We spent a couple of hours there taking everything in, and then crossed the Millennium Bridge to take a look at St. Paul’s Cathedral. We didn’t go in since it’s really expensive and since we’ve seen a ton of cathedrals at this point, but the outside was very impressive – it’s so absolutely huge and gorgeous! And we saw the staircase from Mary Poppins…I wanted to start singing “feed the birds, tuppence a bag,” but I refrained.
After the obligatory red phone booth photo and a yummy sandwich at a nearby patisserie, we dashed over to King’s Cross Station in search of Platform 9¾. Yes, we are officially nerds. We had to ask like four people how to find it because it’s pretty hidden, and they all gave us a sly little smile as though they were thinking, “Oh yes, we know. We know who you are, you silly college-age fangirls” But we finally found it tucked away on the left side of platform 9, and sure enough, there was the half-a-luggage-trolley “submerged” into the brick wall, with the “Platform 9¾” sign above it. We took a few going-to-Hogwarts photos and had a grand old time. The funny thing was that we were probably the youngest people there…so we didn’t feel bad about being nerds. Not that we would have anyway :-P
Tuesday was our day to meet up with Briana – May 11th was her last day in London with her May-sem group, and she had a free day, so we decided to take advantage of it and spend the day with her. We planned to meet her at the British Museum entrance at 9:00, but were a good fifteen minutes late (dang Spanish culture, rubbing off on me) and got there just as she was starting to leave. Thankfully, we caught her in time, but it was close! I felt so bad…but it worked out. And I was so happy to see her! 4 months is really too long to be without your best friends. Anyway, we’d decided not to go to the British Museum with Briana since she’d been there like 3 times already, so we all headed off to the Tower of London together. It was very cool! So huge and imposing. And we got a great tour from one of the Yeoman warders that live at the Tower and take care of it. He was a lot of fun and had lots of great stories to tell us about murder and intrigue and people getting their heads chopped off. After the tour we went to look at the Crown Jewels, including the world’s biggest diamond. It was intense, let me tell you. Soooo shiny…next we saw the armory and the torture chamber, which were super interesting as well.
Once we’d seen our fill of the Tower, Kristen M. went to meet a friend of hers from home, and Briana and I went to take a look the Globe, since she hadn’t seen it yet. I was proud of my skills in navigating us there successfully :-) We then went shopping at a couple of thrift stores (or “charity stores,” as they call them in England) and also in some places around the Picadilly Circus and Theatre District areas. We didn’t really find anything to buy other than some yummy chocolate, but that was okay.
Next, it was time to go to the Queen’s Theatre to see Les Miserables! Let me tell you, it was probably the most amazing theatre production I’ve ever seen in my life (except for maybe Beauty and the Beast, but I saw that when I was four and don’t remember it, so it doesn’t really count)! I absolutely loved it. The actors were incredible, and the set and effects were nothing short of genius! There was a big circle on the stage that rotated sometimes, making it appear as though the actors were walking long distances. It’s hard to explain, but gosh, did it look cool. And everyone had amazing voices – which is good, because when they said the play was a musical, they meant it. I didn’t realize that virtually every line in Les Mis is sung! It was cool, though. We were flying pretty high when we left the theatre – what an experience!
We were hoping to end the night with a pint at one of the pubs, but unfortunately we forgot that pubs close at 11:30 instead of about 3:00 in the morning like in Spain (weird, right?) so we had to content ourselves with some fish and chips. A hardship, I know. Briana headed back to her hotel (I definitely didn’t want to say goodbye) and we went to our hostel, where we ate our fish and chips as a second dinner and went to bed.
Wednesday was our last full day in London. We got up early to get to our bus for Stonehenge, tickets at the ready. After about an hour-and-a-half ride through the English countryside (which looked oddly like Minnesota), we were there. It was impressive, and definitely worth the trip! Though I have to make the quintessential “I thought it would be bigger” comment. But no matter. I took about a million pictures of it and had lots of fun listening to the (again included!) audio-guide to learn about the history of the place. The surrounding area was very striking as well; lots of large, open, rolling fields, some vibrantly yellow mustard crops, and some cute sheep. It was quite a good time, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen like, every major European landmark now, so I’m feeling pretty good about myself.
Upon returning to London, it was time to go to the British Museum. We didn’t have tons of time there, but it was cool as museums go. And I got to see some Anglo-Saxon relics and some artifacts from the Sutton Hoo ship burial! That was exciting. Seriously, this trip gratified my nerdy English-major-ness in so many ways. After the museum, we made a trip over to Abbey Road Studios, because making an homage to the Beatles is just what you do when you go to London. It took us a couple of jaunts up and down the road to find it, but we finally saw the white wall full of signatures and song lyrics and knew we had arrived. We added our own names to the wall, and then a guy sitting by the famous crosswalk said he’d take a picture of us walking across the road if we’d take one of him. Unfortunately, we were only two instead of four so it isn’t truly like the Beatles’ picture, but it was still fun.
By this time, it was getting late and we had another play to get to, so we rushed over to the Globe Theatre once again. Yes, that’s right. I saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the Globe Theatre. Did I mention that this trip was like English-major heaven? Because it was. The play was so much fun! Definitely the coolest Shakespearean experience (wow…that’s a mouthful) I’ve had thus far. At first I was disappointed that the actors weren’t decked out in full Renaissance regalia…I wasn’t in the mood for any of this “let’s reinterpret Shakespeare with 1920’s costuming” nonsense. But it worked well for the play, and they did a great job with it, so I got over it. It’s weird, though – I’ve seen a few live Shakespeare productions at this point in my life, but every single one of them has used 1800’s or early 1900’s costumes instead of Shakespeare-era clothing…weird. Someday I’ll see one with Renaissance costumes. Perchance.
Anyway, the play was a hoot – at the Globe, since a fair portion of the audience (the groundlings, as they are called) is up close and personal in the stage and since the actors can see every single face in the theatre, they interact with the crowd a lot, which is always hilarious. For example, an actor would pull someone up onto the stage with them, or an actress would touch a male audience member in a flirtatious manner. So funny! And the actors were all amazing, and really drew you into the story. Bottom stole the show with his hilariousness, and Lysander was a total cutie. And Puck was a vampy, jazz-age gal with a cabaret-type outfit on. Definitely a new interpretation there! Also, the LED-wings that the fairies had were a nice touch :-P
The next day was our last day in London – we finished it off with a trip to Trafalgar Square to get pics by one of the lions, and the nearby National Gallery. So we got our historical art fix as well as our modern one. There were lots of cool things to see there, and we had time to see the majority of the paintings. After that, we went to find Harrod’s, since we’d heard that the über-expensive merchandise was worth a look. It took us a bit to find it, but find it we did. What a place! I could hardly believe the extravagance. Floors and floors of expensive perfume and designer clothing and posh furniture and everything else under the sun. They even have a pet store! Among the other amazing things we saw were a £95,000 necklace and a bride with a huge rock on her hand trying on a beautiful wedding dress. After a while of feeling very poor, we went on a walk through the very lovely Hyde Park to get back to our hostel to grab our bags and get going.
We had planned on taking the 3:05 bus to the airport, but there were severe delays on the very line that would have gotten us to Liverpool station the fastest. After inching slowly along on the Central line for a while, we decided it would be faster to take a roundabout way, so we got off and figured out an alternative route. We finally got to the station, when it was nearly time for the 4:35 bus to leave, and after a lot of frantic running about and searching, we finally found the bus, which, thankfully, was late and so we were able to catch it. I had to buy another ticket since I couldn’t find my return-trip ticket (which I have since found during my clean-out session in my room…typical.), and Kristen M. and I had just enough pounds between the two of us to get me a new one. So we made it on the bus – unfortunately, it was now rush hour, so it took the bus almost an hour and a half to get to the airport instead of 55 minutes, meaning that Kristen M. now had approximately half an hour to catch her plane to Rome. We were both getting anxious – I wasn’t so worried that I wouldn’t catch my plane since my gate didn’t close until 6:30, but I was worried that my flight would be cancelled or something due to ash.
Anyway, after the bus finally got there, Kristen M. and I said a quick goodbye and she made a break for it – she texted me later to say that she had made it just fine, so thank goodness for that – while I got the bag and hurried off to check in to my own flight. It was to be my first experience flying alone. I waited in line at a RyanAir counter only to find out that my check-in was at the other counter, the one with no line. Of course. This always seems to happen, somehow. Anyway, check-in and security went pretty quickly, and I made it with lots of time to spare. Turns out, I had a lot more time than I thought I would – my plane was over two hours late – due to traffic, not to ash, as it happened. I was still worried, though – this would mean that I’d have less than an hour to catch my bus to Pamplona instead of the original three. I was getting unbearably antsy as I waited for the plane to come, but it finally did, and I was off to Spain once again. When we landed, I prepared myself to dash. Customs and baggage claim went blessedly fast, but I found out at the information desk that I needed to go to Terminal 4 for my bus. I was currently in Terminal 1. The lady advised me to take a taxi, since it was far away. “You have very little time,” she told me. Boy, was I ever aware of it.
So I ran outside and got into a taxi, quickly telling the driver in Spanish where I needed to go, somehow getting it out in spite of the fact that my mouth was dry because I was so nervous that I’d miss my bus and be stuck in the airport all night. He zoomed me on over to the terminal (I couldn’t believe how far away it was…thank God I didn’t try to walk there) and after paying a steep 22-euro fare (too scared to care at that point…), he told me where I needed to go to get to the bus platform, and I literally made a run for it. After asking at another info desk to figure out where the right door was, I ran again (keep in mind that I had a large backpack and a heavy duffel bag hanging off of me at this point…let’s hear it for adrenalin!), and made it to the platform with fifteen minutes to spare. Sweet relief! So that crisis was averted. It definitely took me some time to calm down, but once I was on the bus, I was basically home free. So after yet another night of travel, I made it safely back to Pamplona. I was pretty proud of my ability to make it from London to Pamplona by myself without getting stuck anywhere! Though I’m sure that God was helping me out through all of it, so I can’t really take any of the credit.
And here I am, with fewer than five days left in Pamplona! I can hardly believe it. I plan to spend these next days relaxing and preparing myself to go home, both materially and mentally. A few more goodbyes to say, a few more places to visit one last time, a few more euros to get rid of (that last will not be a hardship…:-P), and I’m off to the States once again! I’ll be sad to go, but I’m ready to be home, as I have probably already told you. I’ll probably write one more blog post, but for now, know that I’m thinking of you, and I’ll see you soon!
After the tour, we got some tea at a nearby coffee shop, and then went to Evensong at Westminster Abbey. It was so beautiful! The Abbey is amazing, of course, and the boy’s/men’s choir there was fantastic. It was a little difficult to stay awake during the service, even though it was only an hour long, since sitting down for such a long time made us realize how tired we really were. Nevertheless, we managed it, and were really glad that we’d had the chance to go. Once the service was over, we headed back to our hostel to check in, sleep, and make plans for the following day.
Day two was wonderful – the first stop was at Westminster Abbey again, this time to take a tour. The Abbey was definitely one of my favorite parts of London. The most awesome audio-guides known to man were included in the price, and they made the tour so much more interesting than it would have been otherwise. The Abbey was so beautiful, and we saw the graves/memorials of a ton of famous people, including Queen Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, several kings, David Livingstone, Handel, and Oliver Cromwell (Cromwell is not there anymore, however, as his body was exhumed and mutilated later on…). We also saw the graves and monuments of a bunch of my favorite writers, like Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, John Keats, the Brontë sisters, and George Eliot, among others. No big deal :-P
Next, we were planning to go to Stonehenge, so we hurried over to Victoria Station to get tickets. Unfortunately, we discovered that the tour was sold out for that afternoon. At first, we thought that this would mean we wouldn’t be able to make it to Stonehenge at all, since the rest of our days in London were booked pretty full. However, we thought about it over lunch, and decided that we could switch our Wednesday and Monday afternoon plans around and go to Stonehenge on Wednesday morning instead. Thank goodness, because we would have been very sad to miss it!
Anyway, next on the agenda was now the Globe Theatre, which is located in a really cool, older part of London that put me in mind of Dickens novels and such. The Globe itself was really neat. Our tour guide was okay, and the exhibition was really cool – it was fun to learn some more about the theatre and how it was built. I was surprised to learn that it was only finished in 1997 – I knew it was a replica, as the original burned down, but I didn’t realize the new one was built so recently. Another fun thing about the tour was seeing the stones with the names of both famous and non-famous people who have donated to the Globe. We even saw John Cleese’s and Laurence Olivier’s stones among those covering the floor in the courtyard.
After a trip to the Globe’s gift shop to get some Shakespeare-related paraphernalia, it was off to the Tate Modern art museum, right next door to the theatre. I’m never too sure about modern art, but I really enjoyed it – some of it was cool, some of it was moving, and some of it was just plain disturbing, but all of it was really interesting. We spent a couple of hours there taking everything in, and then crossed the Millennium Bridge to take a look at St. Paul’s Cathedral. We didn’t go in since it’s really expensive and since we’ve seen a ton of cathedrals at this point, but the outside was very impressive – it’s so absolutely huge and gorgeous! And we saw the staircase from Mary Poppins…I wanted to start singing “feed the birds, tuppence a bag,” but I refrained.
After the obligatory red phone booth photo and a yummy sandwich at a nearby patisserie, we dashed over to King’s Cross Station in search of Platform 9¾. Yes, we are officially nerds. We had to ask like four people how to find it because it’s pretty hidden, and they all gave us a sly little smile as though they were thinking, “Oh yes, we know. We know who you are, you silly college-age fangirls” But we finally found it tucked away on the left side of platform 9, and sure enough, there was the half-a-luggage-trolley “submerged” into the brick wall, with the “Platform 9¾” sign above it. We took a few going-to-Hogwarts photos and had a grand old time. The funny thing was that we were probably the youngest people there…so we didn’t feel bad about being nerds. Not that we would have anyway :-P
Tuesday was our day to meet up with Briana – May 11th was her last day in London with her May-sem group, and she had a free day, so we decided to take advantage of it and spend the day with her. We planned to meet her at the British Museum entrance at 9:00, but were a good fifteen minutes late (dang Spanish culture, rubbing off on me) and got there just as she was starting to leave. Thankfully, we caught her in time, but it was close! I felt so bad…but it worked out. And I was so happy to see her! 4 months is really too long to be without your best friends. Anyway, we’d decided not to go to the British Museum with Briana since she’d been there like 3 times already, so we all headed off to the Tower of London together. It was very cool! So huge and imposing. And we got a great tour from one of the Yeoman warders that live at the Tower and take care of it. He was a lot of fun and had lots of great stories to tell us about murder and intrigue and people getting their heads chopped off. After the tour we went to look at the Crown Jewels, including the world’s biggest diamond. It was intense, let me tell you. Soooo shiny…next we saw the armory and the torture chamber, which were super interesting as well.
Once we’d seen our fill of the Tower, Kristen M. went to meet a friend of hers from home, and Briana and I went to take a look the Globe, since she hadn’t seen it yet. I was proud of my skills in navigating us there successfully :-) We then went shopping at a couple of thrift stores (or “charity stores,” as they call them in England) and also in some places around the Picadilly Circus and Theatre District areas. We didn’t really find anything to buy other than some yummy chocolate, but that was okay.
Next, it was time to go to the Queen’s Theatre to see Les Miserables! Let me tell you, it was probably the most amazing theatre production I’ve ever seen in my life (except for maybe Beauty and the Beast, but I saw that when I was four and don’t remember it, so it doesn’t really count)! I absolutely loved it. The actors were incredible, and the set and effects were nothing short of genius! There was a big circle on the stage that rotated sometimes, making it appear as though the actors were walking long distances. It’s hard to explain, but gosh, did it look cool. And everyone had amazing voices – which is good, because when they said the play was a musical, they meant it. I didn’t realize that virtually every line in Les Mis is sung! It was cool, though. We were flying pretty high when we left the theatre – what an experience!
We were hoping to end the night with a pint at one of the pubs, but unfortunately we forgot that pubs close at 11:30 instead of about 3:00 in the morning like in Spain (weird, right?) so we had to content ourselves with some fish and chips. A hardship, I know. Briana headed back to her hotel (I definitely didn’t want to say goodbye) and we went to our hostel, where we ate our fish and chips as a second dinner and went to bed.
Wednesday was our last full day in London. We got up early to get to our bus for Stonehenge, tickets at the ready. After about an hour-and-a-half ride through the English countryside (which looked oddly like Minnesota), we were there. It was impressive, and definitely worth the trip! Though I have to make the quintessential “I thought it would be bigger” comment. But no matter. I took about a million pictures of it and had lots of fun listening to the (again included!) audio-guide to learn about the history of the place. The surrounding area was very striking as well; lots of large, open, rolling fields, some vibrantly yellow mustard crops, and some cute sheep. It was quite a good time, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen like, every major European landmark now, so I’m feeling pretty good about myself.
Upon returning to London, it was time to go to the British Museum. We didn’t have tons of time there, but it was cool as museums go. And I got to see some Anglo-Saxon relics and some artifacts from the Sutton Hoo ship burial! That was exciting. Seriously, this trip gratified my nerdy English-major-ness in so many ways. After the museum, we made a trip over to Abbey Road Studios, because making an homage to the Beatles is just what you do when you go to London. It took us a couple of jaunts up and down the road to find it, but we finally saw the white wall full of signatures and song lyrics and knew we had arrived. We added our own names to the wall, and then a guy sitting by the famous crosswalk said he’d take a picture of us walking across the road if we’d take one of him. Unfortunately, we were only two instead of four so it isn’t truly like the Beatles’ picture, but it was still fun.
By this time, it was getting late and we had another play to get to, so we rushed over to the Globe Theatre once again. Yes, that’s right. I saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the Globe Theatre. Did I mention that this trip was like English-major heaven? Because it was. The play was so much fun! Definitely the coolest Shakespearean experience (wow…that’s a mouthful) I’ve had thus far. At first I was disappointed that the actors weren’t decked out in full Renaissance regalia…I wasn’t in the mood for any of this “let’s reinterpret Shakespeare with 1920’s costuming” nonsense. But it worked well for the play, and they did a great job with it, so I got over it. It’s weird, though – I’ve seen a few live Shakespeare productions at this point in my life, but every single one of them has used 1800’s or early 1900’s costumes instead of Shakespeare-era clothing…weird. Someday I’ll see one with Renaissance costumes. Perchance.
Anyway, the play was a hoot – at the Globe, since a fair portion of the audience (the groundlings, as they are called) is up close and personal in the stage and since the actors can see every single face in the theatre, they interact with the crowd a lot, which is always hilarious. For example, an actor would pull someone up onto the stage with them, or an actress would touch a male audience member in a flirtatious manner. So funny! And the actors were all amazing, and really drew you into the story. Bottom stole the show with his hilariousness, and Lysander was a total cutie. And Puck was a vampy, jazz-age gal with a cabaret-type outfit on. Definitely a new interpretation there! Also, the LED-wings that the fairies had were a nice touch :-P
The next day was our last day in London – we finished it off with a trip to Trafalgar Square to get pics by one of the lions, and the nearby National Gallery. So we got our historical art fix as well as our modern one. There were lots of cool things to see there, and we had time to see the majority of the paintings. After that, we went to find Harrod’s, since we’d heard that the über-expensive merchandise was worth a look. It took us a bit to find it, but find it we did. What a place! I could hardly believe the extravagance. Floors and floors of expensive perfume and designer clothing and posh furniture and everything else under the sun. They even have a pet store! Among the other amazing things we saw were a £95,000 necklace and a bride with a huge rock on her hand trying on a beautiful wedding dress. After a while of feeling very poor, we went on a walk through the very lovely Hyde Park to get back to our hostel to grab our bags and get going.
We had planned on taking the 3:05 bus to the airport, but there were severe delays on the very line that would have gotten us to Liverpool station the fastest. After inching slowly along on the Central line for a while, we decided it would be faster to take a roundabout way, so we got off and figured out an alternative route. We finally got to the station, when it was nearly time for the 4:35 bus to leave, and after a lot of frantic running about and searching, we finally found the bus, which, thankfully, was late and so we were able to catch it. I had to buy another ticket since I couldn’t find my return-trip ticket (which I have since found during my clean-out session in my room…typical.), and Kristen M. and I had just enough pounds between the two of us to get me a new one. So we made it on the bus – unfortunately, it was now rush hour, so it took the bus almost an hour and a half to get to the airport instead of 55 minutes, meaning that Kristen M. now had approximately half an hour to catch her plane to Rome. We were both getting anxious – I wasn’t so worried that I wouldn’t catch my plane since my gate didn’t close until 6:30, but I was worried that my flight would be cancelled or something due to ash.
Anyway, after the bus finally got there, Kristen M. and I said a quick goodbye and she made a break for it – she texted me later to say that she had made it just fine, so thank goodness for that – while I got the bag and hurried off to check in to my own flight. It was to be my first experience flying alone. I waited in line at a RyanAir counter only to find out that my check-in was at the other counter, the one with no line. Of course. This always seems to happen, somehow. Anyway, check-in and security went pretty quickly, and I made it with lots of time to spare. Turns out, I had a lot more time than I thought I would – my plane was over two hours late – due to traffic, not to ash, as it happened. I was still worried, though – this would mean that I’d have less than an hour to catch my bus to Pamplona instead of the original three. I was getting unbearably antsy as I waited for the plane to come, but it finally did, and I was off to Spain once again. When we landed, I prepared myself to dash. Customs and baggage claim went blessedly fast, but I found out at the information desk that I needed to go to Terminal 4 for my bus. I was currently in Terminal 1. The lady advised me to take a taxi, since it was far away. “You have very little time,” she told me. Boy, was I ever aware of it.
So I ran outside and got into a taxi, quickly telling the driver in Spanish where I needed to go, somehow getting it out in spite of the fact that my mouth was dry because I was so nervous that I’d miss my bus and be stuck in the airport all night. He zoomed me on over to the terminal (I couldn’t believe how far away it was…thank God I didn’t try to walk there) and after paying a steep 22-euro fare (too scared to care at that point…), he told me where I needed to go to get to the bus platform, and I literally made a run for it. After asking at another info desk to figure out where the right door was, I ran again (keep in mind that I had a large backpack and a heavy duffel bag hanging off of me at this point…let’s hear it for adrenalin!), and made it to the platform with fifteen minutes to spare. Sweet relief! So that crisis was averted. It definitely took me some time to calm down, but once I was on the bus, I was basically home free. So after yet another night of travel, I made it safely back to Pamplona. I was pretty proud of my ability to make it from London to Pamplona by myself without getting stuck anywhere! Though I’m sure that God was helping me out through all of it, so I can’t really take any of the credit.
And here I am, with fewer than five days left in Pamplona! I can hardly believe it. I plan to spend these next days relaxing and preparing myself to go home, both materially and mentally. A few more goodbyes to say, a few more places to visit one last time, a few more euros to get rid of (that last will not be a hardship…:-P), and I’m off to the States once again! I’ll be sad to go, but I’m ready to be home, as I have probably already told you. I’ll probably write one more blog post, but for now, know that I’m thinking of you, and I’ll see you soon!
In the Land of Eire...Or However You Spell That
Well, I am officially done as a University of Navarra student! All four finals are accounted for, and I’m hoping that they went reasonably well…I guess we’ll see. It’s still a bit hard to believe, but it feels great to be finished, I must say.
I have also completed my final side trip – to Galway, Ireland and London, England with Kristen M. – and it was absolutely wonderful! I’m probably going to have to divide this post up, though, because I’m afraid it’s going to get long again…what else is new, eh? Anyway, I’m excited to revisit the memories I have of the trip – I knew I’d love the UK, and I was only too right :-).
The trip started off very smoothly and comfortably – we took a bus to Santander on the 5th, the town from which our plane would be leaving the next morning. It was nice to have a 3-hour bus ride instead of the customary 5-hour one to Madrid, and the scenery was amazing – we even got a peek at the Atlantic coast! Once in Santander, we had a very easy time finding our hostel – definitely the fastest hostel search yet. And the hostel was more like a hotel; we had our own room and bathroom, and even our own TV! Needless to say, we were feeling quite proud of our hostel-booking skills. We had thought about going out to explore Santander a little, but it was pretty late in the evening by the time we got there, so we opted to hang out in our comfy room and rest up for the next leg of our journey.
The next morning, we caught the bus to the airport and checked in with about two hours to spare. We hung out in the very tiny airport until it was time for our plane to leave. Thankfully, the menacing ash cloud that’s been undulating over Europe for the past three weeks didn’t affect our flight to Dublin at all, and we were able to leave on time with no problems. And pretty much as soon as we got off the plane, I knew that I liked Ireland. And it was so weird to hear English all around me…for a while, it was information overload, because, although I understand Spanish quite well now, I’m not used to being able to fully understand every word I hear/see. But let me tell you, it was music to my ears!
Once in Dublin, we took our (1 euro!!) bus to Galway, and got to see a bit of the Irish countryside on the way. Pretty soon, we were at the Galway bus station, where Anne was waiting for us. It was so good to see her! I loved being able to see a friend from home, other than the ones who are with me in Spain. After hugs and introductions (Kristen M. and Anne hadn’t met before we visited), Anne asked us if we were hungry, which we definitely were. She took us to a restaurant for some dinner, where we had some delicious tomato-basil soup. It was weird but refreshing to eat dinner at a normal hour instead of after 10:00 at night. And the little place we ate at was great – think of your idea of a typical Irish pub, and that’s pretty much what the place was like. Loved it!
After dinner, Anne showed us around Galway a little bit – even after just a short time in the town, I already felt at home. Something about the place just seemed so welcoming and familiar, and I loved the picturesque streets, the pretty river, and the colorful houses. Speaking of houses, it was so great to see real houses again instead of only apartments and duplexes! After a grocery run, we trekked to Anne’s apartment, located in the student living community. We got settled in for the night, and watched some TV, which was of course in English – so wonderful!
The next day, we got up late and then went out to explore the town and do some shopping (well, more looking than shopping, really, but just as fun). Anne showed us her favorite stores, and they were very cool indeed. I liked the used bookstore the most – it’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to browse for a while in a bookstore, and it was great fun. I wanted to buy a book, but I refrained since I already have waaaay more books then I came with…we did convince Anne to get a gorgeous old edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, however :-) Later on, we got to see the river again and more cool houses, including one with a thatched roof.
That evening, Anne and Kristen’s friend Nick and several of their friends who also studied in Galway took us to a bona-fide Irish pub. It was such a great time! Anne had us try Bulmer’s pear cider, which is one of her favorite drinks in Ireland, and it was very good. And we chatted (or shouted over the (American!!) music, more like) and danced and took in the overall atmosphere. After the pub, we stopped at a pizza place for a huge slice of very yummy pizza, and then it was home to bed. It was definitely one of my best going-out nights in Europe!
The next day, we woke up late once again, and then went to the very cool market that they have every weekend in Galway. I think I liked it the best of all the markets I’ve seen so far. It had a lot to see, but it wasn’t ridiculously big, and everything there was interesting. We got very delicious doughnuts and some farm-pressed apple juice, and I bought a handmade wooden Celtic cross necklace from a nice French lady who’s been living in Galway for a long time.
After the market, we took the long way back to Anne’s apartment, and we saw more of the river, the gorgeous bay, and some extremely fancy houses. I took a great deal of lovely pictures :-) Once we were back at Anne’s apartment, we all (Anne, Nick, Alex, Alex’s friend Erin, and us) hung out until it was time to go into town – we were leaving on a 1:00 bus to Dublin that night, since our plane to London left very early in the morning and it was easier to just go straight to the airport instead of getting a hostel and all that. Anyway, Anne and Nick took us into town, where Anne bought Kristen and I a half-pint of Guinness to share, as we had yet to try it. They had been telling us stories about how intense Guinness is and how most people don’t like it at first, but to my surprise, I actually thought it was pretty good. I doubt I could handle a whole pint of it, but still. I felt kind of BA about it.
Pretty soon, it was time to say goodbye to Anne, Nick, and Galway. I was sad to leave, since I loved the town so much and because it was difficult to say goodbye to Anne again, but it wasn’t so bad since I knew I’ll be seeing her again very soon. After a quick bus ride, we were back at the Dublin airport. I was feeling surprisingly good after having traveled through the night – maybe my body’s getting used to it, as that was night number five or so of night travel this semester. Anyway, our plane left as scheduled once again, and we were in London!
I have also completed my final side trip – to Galway, Ireland and London, England with Kristen M. – and it was absolutely wonderful! I’m probably going to have to divide this post up, though, because I’m afraid it’s going to get long again…what else is new, eh? Anyway, I’m excited to revisit the memories I have of the trip – I knew I’d love the UK, and I was only too right :-).
The trip started off very smoothly and comfortably – we took a bus to Santander on the 5th, the town from which our plane would be leaving the next morning. It was nice to have a 3-hour bus ride instead of the customary 5-hour one to Madrid, and the scenery was amazing – we even got a peek at the Atlantic coast! Once in Santander, we had a very easy time finding our hostel – definitely the fastest hostel search yet. And the hostel was more like a hotel; we had our own room and bathroom, and even our own TV! Needless to say, we were feeling quite proud of our hostel-booking skills. We had thought about going out to explore Santander a little, but it was pretty late in the evening by the time we got there, so we opted to hang out in our comfy room and rest up for the next leg of our journey.
The next morning, we caught the bus to the airport and checked in with about two hours to spare. We hung out in the very tiny airport until it was time for our plane to leave. Thankfully, the menacing ash cloud that’s been undulating over Europe for the past three weeks didn’t affect our flight to Dublin at all, and we were able to leave on time with no problems. And pretty much as soon as we got off the plane, I knew that I liked Ireland. And it was so weird to hear English all around me…for a while, it was information overload, because, although I understand Spanish quite well now, I’m not used to being able to fully understand every word I hear/see. But let me tell you, it was music to my ears!
Once in Dublin, we took our (1 euro!!) bus to Galway, and got to see a bit of the Irish countryside on the way. Pretty soon, we were at the Galway bus station, where Anne was waiting for us. It was so good to see her! I loved being able to see a friend from home, other than the ones who are with me in Spain. After hugs and introductions (Kristen M. and Anne hadn’t met before we visited), Anne asked us if we were hungry, which we definitely were. She took us to a restaurant for some dinner, where we had some delicious tomato-basil soup. It was weird but refreshing to eat dinner at a normal hour instead of after 10:00 at night. And the little place we ate at was great – think of your idea of a typical Irish pub, and that’s pretty much what the place was like. Loved it!
After dinner, Anne showed us around Galway a little bit – even after just a short time in the town, I already felt at home. Something about the place just seemed so welcoming and familiar, and I loved the picturesque streets, the pretty river, and the colorful houses. Speaking of houses, it was so great to see real houses again instead of only apartments and duplexes! After a grocery run, we trekked to Anne’s apartment, located in the student living community. We got settled in for the night, and watched some TV, which was of course in English – so wonderful!
The next day, we got up late and then went out to explore the town and do some shopping (well, more looking than shopping, really, but just as fun). Anne showed us her favorite stores, and they were very cool indeed. I liked the used bookstore the most – it’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to browse for a while in a bookstore, and it was great fun. I wanted to buy a book, but I refrained since I already have waaaay more books then I came with…we did convince Anne to get a gorgeous old edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, however :-) Later on, we got to see the river again and more cool houses, including one with a thatched roof.
That evening, Anne and Kristen’s friend Nick and several of their friends who also studied in Galway took us to a bona-fide Irish pub. It was such a great time! Anne had us try Bulmer’s pear cider, which is one of her favorite drinks in Ireland, and it was very good. And we chatted (or shouted over the (American!!) music, more like) and danced and took in the overall atmosphere. After the pub, we stopped at a pizza place for a huge slice of very yummy pizza, and then it was home to bed. It was definitely one of my best going-out nights in Europe!
The next day, we woke up late once again, and then went to the very cool market that they have every weekend in Galway. I think I liked it the best of all the markets I’ve seen so far. It had a lot to see, but it wasn’t ridiculously big, and everything there was interesting. We got very delicious doughnuts and some farm-pressed apple juice, and I bought a handmade wooden Celtic cross necklace from a nice French lady who’s been living in Galway for a long time.
After the market, we took the long way back to Anne’s apartment, and we saw more of the river, the gorgeous bay, and some extremely fancy houses. I took a great deal of lovely pictures :-) Once we were back at Anne’s apartment, we all (Anne, Nick, Alex, Alex’s friend Erin, and us) hung out until it was time to go into town – we were leaving on a 1:00 bus to Dublin that night, since our plane to London left very early in the morning and it was easier to just go straight to the airport instead of getting a hostel and all that. Anyway, Anne and Nick took us into town, where Anne bought Kristen and I a half-pint of Guinness to share, as we had yet to try it. They had been telling us stories about how intense Guinness is and how most people don’t like it at first, but to my surprise, I actually thought it was pretty good. I doubt I could handle a whole pint of it, but still. I felt kind of BA about it.
Pretty soon, it was time to say goodbye to Anne, Nick, and Galway. I was sad to leave, since I loved the town so much and because it was difficult to say goodbye to Anne again, but it wasn’t so bad since I knew I’ll be seeing her again very soon. After a quick bus ride, we were back at the Dublin airport. I was feeling surprisingly good after having traveled through the night – maybe my body’s getting used to it, as that was night number five or so of night travel this semester. Anyway, our plane left as scheduled once again, and we were in London!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Things My Travels Have Taught Me
So, it seems that you can’t globe-trot over three countries (soon to be five, once the semester ends!) without learning some things. Here are a few examples…
1. If you want to save money, you will probably have to travel during the night. Possibly multiple times.
2. Spain trains and France trains are pretty nice. Italy trains…not so much.
3. There are a LOT of skeezy people in this world.
4. If you are an American girl traveling in Europe, you definitely will get whistled at, called beautiful, or otherwise pseudo-accosted by random men, no matter how ugly you happen to look at that moment.
5. I can fit everything I need for approximately 10 days (minus food) into my backpack and purse. WIN.
6. Not showering for over 24 hours will, in fact, not kill you.
7. Bring Kleenex everywhere, because two out of three bathrooms will not have toilet paper in them.
8. On that note – if a bathroom is clean and has toilet paper, soap, hot water, and some way or other to dry your hands, you have clearly died and gone to heaven. One or more of these things is always missing. In fact, if there even IS a bathroom, you better count yourself lucky. Bonus points if you don’t have to pay for it. Let’s just say that I’ve gotten good at holding it/taking advantage of my opportunities when they arise.
9. RyanAir’s strict weight and space limits can make a person extremely creative. Wearing three shirts, anyone?
10. Europeans reeeally love ceilings with ridiculously elaborate paintings all over them. REALLY love them.
11. No matter how much you plan ahead, there will always be desperate moments when you have no idea what the crap you’re doing and manage to get through by the very skin of your teeth.
12. When all hope is lost, McDonald’s will always come through for you. Always. Judge if you must; McDonald’s has earned my love forever.
13. Also, McDonald’s is way fancier in Europe, and has different things in every country. Toblerone McFlurries in Spain (America has seriously got to get in on this), delicious bakery-worthy pastries in France, and the McToast and Kiwi on a Stick in Italy (what??).
14. In a pinch, Italian has enough cognates to be almost understandable, if you speak Spanish. Thank goodness.
15. How to navigate the metro. Seriously – if you come to Paris with me, I could probably get us around quite successfully.
16. You will see all sorts of great pieces of art and culture, but you will probably have no idea what they are. Take advantage of every informative plaque that you can, because they are mighty few and far between. And if you have the means (I currently do not), invest in an audioguide whenever possible. Worth it! It gets really boring after a while to walk around and say “Huh…no idea what that is, but it sure is pretty.”
17. It is entirely possible to get tired of seeing great works of art, castles, and cathedrals. Am I a snob or what?
18. Take a mid-day break. Don’t believe me? Do without one and then see how long you can go without ripping someone’s head off or becoming nothing more than a numb pair of legs and uncaring eyes.
19. Don’t try to see everything in one day. Take a chill pill! You’ll enjoy it more if you have time to linger and really take everything in. Otherwise, you get filled up really fast, and the excess sight-seeing and historical information just spills right over the top, never to be seen again.
20. You really don’t have to take pictures of every little thing. For one thing, you’ll get tired of it quickly, and then when you see something truly amazing, you won’t feel like snapping any photos of it.
21. The pictures you took of that random building or this random piece of art meant something to you at the time, but no one else will care or understand. And even you will probably look at your photos later and think, “Why the heck did I take a picture of that? I don’t even know what it is.” So unless you really have the desire for a picture to remember something by forever, you might as well not bother.
22. When you walk by someone in a big city, you never know what language will come out of their mouth.
23. It’s standard to hear 5 or more languages spoken throughout the course of a day.
24. No matter where you go, there will ALWAYS be a group of Asian tourists. Probably lots of them. Those peeps are hardcore about their traveling!
25. Every country has its own unique feel, and it’s not always what you would have expected it to feel like.
26. People from a certain country have their own unique look – I feel like I’m getting to the place where I could make a guess at where someone is from, just by looking at them.
27. You have to learn to let things go. Sometimes you have to miss something for sake of time or money, and sometimes you have to shell out more than you were planning on, and sometimes things will get messy and take way longer than you think they will. But you just have to go with it and hope that things will turn out better next time. Because, inevitably, they will.
And the most important…
28. God loves me. A whole lot. And He’ll never, ever let me down or stop guiding and protecting me! There have been uncountable moments when I’ve succeeded with God’s help alone.
There probably are/will be more than this, but this is what I remember for now. Honestly, I think I’ve learned more outside of class than in it!
1. If you want to save money, you will probably have to travel during the night. Possibly multiple times.
2. Spain trains and France trains are pretty nice. Italy trains…not so much.
3. There are a LOT of skeezy people in this world.
4. If you are an American girl traveling in Europe, you definitely will get whistled at, called beautiful, or otherwise pseudo-accosted by random men, no matter how ugly you happen to look at that moment.
5. I can fit everything I need for approximately 10 days (minus food) into my backpack and purse. WIN.
6. Not showering for over 24 hours will, in fact, not kill you.
7. Bring Kleenex everywhere, because two out of three bathrooms will not have toilet paper in them.
8. On that note – if a bathroom is clean and has toilet paper, soap, hot water, and some way or other to dry your hands, you have clearly died and gone to heaven. One or more of these things is always missing. In fact, if there even IS a bathroom, you better count yourself lucky. Bonus points if you don’t have to pay for it. Let’s just say that I’ve gotten good at holding it/taking advantage of my opportunities when they arise.
9. RyanAir’s strict weight and space limits can make a person extremely creative. Wearing three shirts, anyone?
10. Europeans reeeally love ceilings with ridiculously elaborate paintings all over them. REALLY love them.
11. No matter how much you plan ahead, there will always be desperate moments when you have no idea what the crap you’re doing and manage to get through by the very skin of your teeth.
12. When all hope is lost, McDonald’s will always come through for you. Always. Judge if you must; McDonald’s has earned my love forever.
13. Also, McDonald’s is way fancier in Europe, and has different things in every country. Toblerone McFlurries in Spain (America has seriously got to get in on this), delicious bakery-worthy pastries in France, and the McToast and Kiwi on a Stick in Italy (what??).
14. In a pinch, Italian has enough cognates to be almost understandable, if you speak Spanish. Thank goodness.
15. How to navigate the metro. Seriously – if you come to Paris with me, I could probably get us around quite successfully.
16. You will see all sorts of great pieces of art and culture, but you will probably have no idea what they are. Take advantage of every informative plaque that you can, because they are mighty few and far between. And if you have the means (I currently do not), invest in an audioguide whenever possible. Worth it! It gets really boring after a while to walk around and say “Huh…no idea what that is, but it sure is pretty.”
17. It is entirely possible to get tired of seeing great works of art, castles, and cathedrals. Am I a snob or what?
18. Take a mid-day break. Don’t believe me? Do without one and then see how long you can go without ripping someone’s head off or becoming nothing more than a numb pair of legs and uncaring eyes.
19. Don’t try to see everything in one day. Take a chill pill! You’ll enjoy it more if you have time to linger and really take everything in. Otherwise, you get filled up really fast, and the excess sight-seeing and historical information just spills right over the top, never to be seen again.
20. You really don’t have to take pictures of every little thing. For one thing, you’ll get tired of it quickly, and then when you see something truly amazing, you won’t feel like snapping any photos of it.
21. The pictures you took of that random building or this random piece of art meant something to you at the time, but no one else will care or understand. And even you will probably look at your photos later and think, “Why the heck did I take a picture of that? I don’t even know what it is.” So unless you really have the desire for a picture to remember something by forever, you might as well not bother.
22. When you walk by someone in a big city, you never know what language will come out of their mouth.
23. It’s standard to hear 5 or more languages spoken throughout the course of a day.
24. No matter where you go, there will ALWAYS be a group of Asian tourists. Probably lots of them. Those peeps are hardcore about their traveling!
25. Every country has its own unique feel, and it’s not always what you would have expected it to feel like.
26. People from a certain country have their own unique look – I feel like I’m getting to the place where I could make a guess at where someone is from, just by looking at them.
27. You have to learn to let things go. Sometimes you have to miss something for sake of time or money, and sometimes you have to shell out more than you were planning on, and sometimes things will get messy and take way longer than you think they will. But you just have to go with it and hope that things will turn out better next time. Because, inevitably, they will.
And the most important…
28. God loves me. A whole lot. And He’ll never, ever let me down or stop guiding and protecting me! There have been uncountable moments when I’ve succeeded with God’s help alone.
There probably are/will be more than this, but this is what I remember for now. Honestly, I think I’ve learned more outside of class than in it!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
The End Is Near
Here I am in the Ciudadela! I found a good spot where I can see a good portion of the park and a mountain, so I’m happy. And there’s a group of dudes near me who I thought were playing fútbol, but who are actually playing American football! I could hardly believe my eyes. Anyway, it’s a beautiful day, and I FINALLY finished my newspaper article project, so now I have some free time, and it was high time I took advantage of the wonderful weather! I haven’t written in quite a while again…mostly because I’ve been trying to focus on getting my last projects done for school (when I’m not procrastinating…). But now they’re done! My only responsibility for the rest of my time here is to study for finals. Which are pretty darn scary, but it feels good to be mostly through with school.
These last two weeks have consisted of a LOT of sitting at my desk and going stir-crazy in my room, so it’s so nice to finally be doing something different! My host mom has probably been thinking, “Why doesn’t she get out?? I’m getting tired of her being underfoot.”
However, it hasn’t been all drudgery – I’ve gotten to do some pretty fun things! Let’s see…I made it back to Taconera again, which was even prettier with the gorgeous new flowers in every color. And I’ve gotten to go to a couple of parties, which were lots of fun. They were both birthday parties, incidentally, and both for people I didn’t really know very well; they were friends of friends – I was invited by a couple of friends that knew the ones having the parties, and got to meet a few more cool people, so it’s all good :-) The first was for the roommates of a friend of Lise’s and mine named Basilio. He’s from Taiwan, and a lot of the other Taiwanese students were there as well. Love those kids! Totally some of the nicest, friendliest people I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. After the party wound down, we all headed to Bar Castillo, which does in fact look like a castle, with stone walls and a bunch of swords and Scottish shields inside. Kinda cool! The other party was last night, at the piso of a friend of Megan’s that I met recently. It was a lot of fun! We got all dressed up, which is always a good time, and we met lots of fun people, including a funny Spanish guy with an Antonio Banderas-esque accent who was a bit older than your usual party-goer, and a hilarious Irish guy who had the most awesome accent ever, which made him even funnier!
Before you think I’ve been partying all the time, my other main activity lately has been going to Bible study. Finally! Megan had told me about it before, and I wish I could have gone for a bigger part of the semester, but I’ve had dance class at the same time that Bible study meets, up till now, so I haven’t been able to. So it goes, I guess. Anyway, I’ve loved having the chance to go, even if just for a little while! It’s such an awesome group of people, and I felt comfortable with them right away. The brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ thing will do that for you, I daresay. The group is mostly students – a mixture of American and Spanish ones, and a few older members. It’s been so nice to have such great fellowship and a little spiritual food to chew on! God continues to bless me. I’m sad that I still seem to have an uncanny knack for finding a group of awesome Christian friends when it’s time to move on to the next place, but maybe someday I’ll get it figured out. And at least I got to know them for a little while!
Yesterday, we (the Bible study group) had an American-style barbecue at Dom’s (the leader) house. It was a blast! It was nice to be at not-a-piso, where there was actually a yard! We ate great food, played some games, sat and talked, and played with Dom’s adorable bilingual children (his wife is Spanish)! Loved it. I think my favorite part was playing with the kids – I honestly don’t remember having interacted with children since Christmas, before yesterday. I think I forgot how much I’d missed it! College students generally don’t see a lot of kids, that’s for sure – even when they’re not 4,000 miles away.
I think those are the main points from the last two weeks. The rest of the stuff is boring and I’m sure you don’t care to know :-P I have found myself in a new state of mind, though – with only three weeks before I’m home in the States again (which still seems so crazy), I feel like I’m starting to mentally prepare myself to go. I’m working on finishing up all those little things I’ve been meaning to do all semester, finishing up my last projects for my classes, and trying to imagine what it will be like to be back home. I’m failing at the latter – I mean, I can picture it, and I’m looking forward to so many things, but I have a feeling that the transition is going to be harder than I think it is. So many things that were once familiar are going to take some getting used to again. And I know I’ve changed, but I don’t think I’ll realize to what extent or in exactly what ways I’ve done so until I get home and back into normal life again. So I’ll have to ask you to bear with me until I get it all sorted out again :-) And it’ll definitely be bittersweet to leave – I know already that I’m going to miss Spain so much and it’s going to be very hard to leave, but I also know that I miss all of you back home quite desperately, and I can’t wait to see everyone again and share my stories with you!
I’m sure I’ll have a few more blog posts, as I have one more trip left (to Galway, Ireland and London, England!!! I’m more excited for this one than any other so far, I think, and there will be lots to share with you) and a few more days to chill in Pamplona before I head home, so don’t go away yet! The journey’s not quite over. But I’m so excited to see all of your beautiful faces in three weeks :-)
See you very soon!
These last two weeks have consisted of a LOT of sitting at my desk and going stir-crazy in my room, so it’s so nice to finally be doing something different! My host mom has probably been thinking, “Why doesn’t she get out?? I’m getting tired of her being underfoot.”
However, it hasn’t been all drudgery – I’ve gotten to do some pretty fun things! Let’s see…I made it back to Taconera again, which was even prettier with the gorgeous new flowers in every color. And I’ve gotten to go to a couple of parties, which were lots of fun. They were both birthday parties, incidentally, and both for people I didn’t really know very well; they were friends of friends – I was invited by a couple of friends that knew the ones having the parties, and got to meet a few more cool people, so it’s all good :-) The first was for the roommates of a friend of Lise’s and mine named Basilio. He’s from Taiwan, and a lot of the other Taiwanese students were there as well. Love those kids! Totally some of the nicest, friendliest people I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. After the party wound down, we all headed to Bar Castillo, which does in fact look like a castle, with stone walls and a bunch of swords and Scottish shields inside. Kinda cool! The other party was last night, at the piso of a friend of Megan’s that I met recently. It was a lot of fun! We got all dressed up, which is always a good time, and we met lots of fun people, including a funny Spanish guy with an Antonio Banderas-esque accent who was a bit older than your usual party-goer, and a hilarious Irish guy who had the most awesome accent ever, which made him even funnier!
Before you think I’ve been partying all the time, my other main activity lately has been going to Bible study. Finally! Megan had told me about it before, and I wish I could have gone for a bigger part of the semester, but I’ve had dance class at the same time that Bible study meets, up till now, so I haven’t been able to. So it goes, I guess. Anyway, I’ve loved having the chance to go, even if just for a little while! It’s such an awesome group of people, and I felt comfortable with them right away. The brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ thing will do that for you, I daresay. The group is mostly students – a mixture of American and Spanish ones, and a few older members. It’s been so nice to have such great fellowship and a little spiritual food to chew on! God continues to bless me. I’m sad that I still seem to have an uncanny knack for finding a group of awesome Christian friends when it’s time to move on to the next place, but maybe someday I’ll get it figured out. And at least I got to know them for a little while!
Yesterday, we (the Bible study group) had an American-style barbecue at Dom’s (the leader) house. It was a blast! It was nice to be at not-a-piso, where there was actually a yard! We ate great food, played some games, sat and talked, and played with Dom’s adorable bilingual children (his wife is Spanish)! Loved it. I think my favorite part was playing with the kids – I honestly don’t remember having interacted with children since Christmas, before yesterday. I think I forgot how much I’d missed it! College students generally don’t see a lot of kids, that’s for sure – even when they’re not 4,000 miles away.
I think those are the main points from the last two weeks. The rest of the stuff is boring and I’m sure you don’t care to know :-P I have found myself in a new state of mind, though – with only three weeks before I’m home in the States again (which still seems so crazy), I feel like I’m starting to mentally prepare myself to go. I’m working on finishing up all those little things I’ve been meaning to do all semester, finishing up my last projects for my classes, and trying to imagine what it will be like to be back home. I’m failing at the latter – I mean, I can picture it, and I’m looking forward to so many things, but I have a feeling that the transition is going to be harder than I think it is. So many things that were once familiar are going to take some getting used to again. And I know I’ve changed, but I don’t think I’ll realize to what extent or in exactly what ways I’ve done so until I get home and back into normal life again. So I’ll have to ask you to bear with me until I get it all sorted out again :-) And it’ll definitely be bittersweet to leave – I know already that I’m going to miss Spain so much and it’s going to be very hard to leave, but I also know that I miss all of you back home quite desperately, and I can’t wait to see everyone again and share my stories with you!
I’m sure I’ll have a few more blog posts, as I have one more trip left (to Galway, Ireland and London, England!!! I’m more excited for this one than any other so far, I think, and there will be lots to share with you) and a few more days to chill in Pamplona before I head home, so don’t go away yet! The journey’s not quite over. But I’m so excited to see all of your beautiful faces in three weeks :-)
See you very soon!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Part V: V is for Venice!
The last leg of our journey had finally arrived. It was amazing how many Italian trains we’d seen the inside of at this point. We got to the Venice train station at 5:30 in the morning – exhausted, freezing cold, and in dire need of showers. We waited in the lobby until 6:00, when a café in the station opened. We went in to warm up and have a little breakfast (of things we had packed, of course…we needed to eat stuff up before flying back home), and make our plan of attack. After checking our big luggage into the drop-off place, it was off to explore the main island of Venice! Which is apparently where all the action is…there’s nothing of interest on the mainland, as we found out later. Anyway, even though we were extremely exhausted, it was still fun to see the canals-for-streets and watch people getting around on vaporettos and water-taxis. We took a look at the Rialto Bridge and the cool-looking houses, and pondered what on Earth ever possessed Italians to build a city on 117 tiny islands in the Adriatic Sea. I guess we’ll never know…
We also took a look at some gondolas! We didn’t ride one, though, because we weren’t willing to shell out the bucks for something that would probably be really awkward anyway. Gondolas seem to be the realm of cute coupley-ness, which we most certainly didn’t qualify for.
After doing a good deal of entertaining shopping for glass jewelry, it was time to head to the hotel. It had been the longest morning EVER, but 2:00 had to come sometime. And boy, were we ready for it. After crossing over to the mainland on yet another train, we found the bus we needed and got on. We quickly found out that the bus had a lot more stops than we originally thought, and also that our hotel was apparently way out in the boonies, so much so that it didn’t really feel like Venice anymore. And thank goodness that there were two nice Italian ladies on the bus to help us (they didn’t speak English, but with our knowledge of Spanish, the very few Italian words we collectively know, and some hand gestures, we figured it out), because we never would have found the hotel without them – poor European signage strikes again. But we made it, nonetheless. The check-in lady also did not speak English, but since we were mostly talking numbers, cognates came to our rescue again. After getting our money figured out, we headed up to our room.
The hotel was quite nice – the first legit hotel I’ve stayed in since arriving in Madrid, I think, and when it’s at a hostel price, how can you go wrong? We had our own little room and bathroom, decorated in a pretty antique style. This was somewhat lost on us, however, as all we wanted to do was sleep. Which we promptly did. For fourteen hours. It was glorious! We went to sleep at 3:00, fully intending to get up at 6:00, but didn’t wake up to the alarm and slept until 9:00 p.m.! We stayed awake for three hours to re-pack once again and get everything in order for leaving in the morning, and went back to bed at 12:00, sleeping until it was time to get up, take wooonderful showers (finally!!) and then get to the airport to fly back to Spain.
We were almost home! We couldn’t wait. Unfortunately, however, we had to do so for longer than we were expecting. When we got to Barcelona, we had to hurry to catch the last bus of the night back to Pamplona. After going to the wrong station and then scrambling to find the bus company’s office, we arrived there only to find out that every bus back to Pamplona that night was crammed full. And we hadn’t bought tickets beforehand, since we didn’t know for sure when we would land and what bus exactly we would be able to take. Perfect. After feeling desperate for a while and hoping in vain that the waiting list would come through for us, we ended up buying tickets for the 7:30 bus the next morning and making plans to wait out the night. Megan and I were ready to hole up in the station and take turns sleeping through the night since we didn’t want to pay for yet another hostel, but Lauren really wanted to try to find a room. The lady at the bus station gave us the name of a hostel close by, and we figured we might as well go check it out. This turned out to be a good decision – in any case, I could totally feel God’s guiding hand in the whole experience. He’s working overtime with us this semester, let me tell you! And I’m so very grateful for it. When we got to the hostel and buzzed in, this nice older lady came down to talk to us – I can’t explain it, but I got this weird feeling like she knew we were coming! Kinda cool. She was super nice when we told her that we had nowhere to sleep for the night, and told us that she had a triple for us for 20 euro apiece, which is a great price on such short notice. Especially since we overheard other people who checked in who had to pay 35 euro for a room. So we were very blessed! I ended up being quite glad that we hadn’t opted to stay in the station – a full night’s sleep was so needed at that point.
The next morning, we got up early and made SURE our butts were on that 7:30 bus. We made it with no trouble (we could see the station from our hostel window) and were finally, finally on our way home to Pamplona. And one long bus ride later, we were there! I’ve never been so happy to see the inside of that bus station.
So after a long, amazing adventure, we were finally back! A little more tired, a little wiser, and a lot poorer, we were back among familiar things again. The trip had its difficulties, but it also had some wonderful moments! There are so many things that I know I’ll never forget.
We also took a look at some gondolas! We didn’t ride one, though, because we weren’t willing to shell out the bucks for something that would probably be really awkward anyway. Gondolas seem to be the realm of cute coupley-ness, which we most certainly didn’t qualify for.
After doing a good deal of entertaining shopping for glass jewelry, it was time to head to the hotel. It had been the longest morning EVER, but 2:00 had to come sometime. And boy, were we ready for it. After crossing over to the mainland on yet another train, we found the bus we needed and got on. We quickly found out that the bus had a lot more stops than we originally thought, and also that our hotel was apparently way out in the boonies, so much so that it didn’t really feel like Venice anymore. And thank goodness that there were two nice Italian ladies on the bus to help us (they didn’t speak English, but with our knowledge of Spanish, the very few Italian words we collectively know, and some hand gestures, we figured it out), because we never would have found the hotel without them – poor European signage strikes again. But we made it, nonetheless. The check-in lady also did not speak English, but since we were mostly talking numbers, cognates came to our rescue again. After getting our money figured out, we headed up to our room.
The hotel was quite nice – the first legit hotel I’ve stayed in since arriving in Madrid, I think, and when it’s at a hostel price, how can you go wrong? We had our own little room and bathroom, decorated in a pretty antique style. This was somewhat lost on us, however, as all we wanted to do was sleep. Which we promptly did. For fourteen hours. It was glorious! We went to sleep at 3:00, fully intending to get up at 6:00, but didn’t wake up to the alarm and slept until 9:00 p.m.! We stayed awake for three hours to re-pack once again and get everything in order for leaving in the morning, and went back to bed at 12:00, sleeping until it was time to get up, take wooonderful showers (finally!!) and then get to the airport to fly back to Spain.
We were almost home! We couldn’t wait. Unfortunately, however, we had to do so for longer than we were expecting. When we got to Barcelona, we had to hurry to catch the last bus of the night back to Pamplona. After going to the wrong station and then scrambling to find the bus company’s office, we arrived there only to find out that every bus back to Pamplona that night was crammed full. And we hadn’t bought tickets beforehand, since we didn’t know for sure when we would land and what bus exactly we would be able to take. Perfect. After feeling desperate for a while and hoping in vain that the waiting list would come through for us, we ended up buying tickets for the 7:30 bus the next morning and making plans to wait out the night. Megan and I were ready to hole up in the station and take turns sleeping through the night since we didn’t want to pay for yet another hostel, but Lauren really wanted to try to find a room. The lady at the bus station gave us the name of a hostel close by, and we figured we might as well go check it out. This turned out to be a good decision – in any case, I could totally feel God’s guiding hand in the whole experience. He’s working overtime with us this semester, let me tell you! And I’m so very grateful for it. When we got to the hostel and buzzed in, this nice older lady came down to talk to us – I can’t explain it, but I got this weird feeling like she knew we were coming! Kinda cool. She was super nice when we told her that we had nowhere to sleep for the night, and told us that she had a triple for us for 20 euro apiece, which is a great price on such short notice. Especially since we overheard other people who checked in who had to pay 35 euro for a room. So we were very blessed! I ended up being quite glad that we hadn’t opted to stay in the station – a full night’s sleep was so needed at that point.
The next morning, we got up early and made SURE our butts were on that 7:30 bus. We made it with no trouble (we could see the station from our hostel window) and were finally, finally on our way home to Pamplona. And one long bus ride later, we were there! I’ve never been so happy to see the inside of that bus station.
So after a long, amazing adventure, we were finally back! A little more tired, a little wiser, and a lot poorer, we were back among familiar things again. The trip had its difficulties, but it also had some wonderful moments! There are so many things that I know I’ll never forget.
Part IV: Pisa and Cinque Terre – A Few Hours in Paradise
Once again, we got up early to catch our next connection, an hour-long train ride to Pisa. This was a quick stop, as the only thing we cared about seeing here was the Leaning Tower, of course. We weren’t sure where to go and the map at the train station was somewhat misleading, but we followed the signs and made it there just fine. The tower was fantastic! We loved it. It’s actually smaller than you might think it would be (is that the way everything is here? I wonder sometimes), but so pretty! The cathedral behind it was gorgeous as well, but we were too distracted by the Tower to notice. We had a grand old time taking funny pictures of ourselves “holding up” the Tower, and other such things. Once we’d had our fill of that, it was time to walk back to the station, grab some lunch, and get onto our next train, heading for Cinque Terre. In all, we spent a grand total of about two hours in Pisa. Definitely my fastest city-visit yet!
The ride to Cinque Terre was a series of long tunnels and ear-popping, but overall not too bad. And when the gaps in the tunnels started giving me split-second views of rocky shore and turquoise water, I wanted to start jumping up and down or shrieking or some equally un-Kristen-like display of excitement. Somehow I managed to restrain myself, but the sea/ocean never fails to make me ecstatic!
I feel like I’ve explained what Cinque Terre is a million times, but I don’t remember if I did so on here or not yet. So if I have, just skip ahead. Anyway, it’s a group of five smallish towns on the western coast of Italy, and you can hike between them and such. The town we visited was called Levanto, and it was wonderful! It was so nice to be in a place that didn’t have jillions of people everywhere, forcing one to shove through the crowd to get anywhere. For some reason, it had a similar feeling for me as being in Joliet, Montana. If Joliet were on the Mediterranean Sea. With exotic-looking houses. The atmosphere was just very relaxing, and there was so much natural beauty everywhere! I feel like we don’t always get a lot of that here.
Once we got off the train, the first thing we did was find the beach! We then proceeded to change into our bikinis (Yes, you heard me right. I have now been more exposed in public than I have ever been O.o) and stayed on the beach for the rest of the afternoon! We soaked in the sun (I didn’t get very tan, though, because I covered myself copiously in the rather expensive sunscreen I had thankfully bought in Florence – being sunburned that night would’ve been unimaginably awful, and you’ll soon see why), got covered by rocky sand, waded in the freezing yet refreshing water, and took in the general splendor as the afternoon grew slowly. Megan introduced me to the wonderfulness that is the music of Tyrone Wells, and we all watched the antics of the most adorable little Italian boy ever, who was hanging out nearby us with his equally adorable family. Later on, Megan and I walked down the beach a bit and through a couple of the (freezing!) tunnels down the road. The scenery was AMAZING – definitely high on my top-ten list of Beautiful Places Kristen Has Seen. Lots of rocky hills with pretty houses on them, and water that was actually blue – not just reflecting the sun so that it looks blue; no, it was really and truly blue! I’ve never seen anything like it. And while Megan and I watched the water, we saw some animals jumping around a ways off, and there was something moving around in the water quite close to us! It was still too far to see what it was, and the thing refused to jump out and show itself, but we decided it was a whale. We wanted it to be, at least. Does the Mediterranean Sea have whales in it? I don’t know, but it was cool. And gosh, I can’t say enough about how gorgeous the place was. I would so love to go back someday!
After a few gorgeous hours on the Levanto shore, sunset had arrived and it was time to head back to the train station, as our train to Venice was leaving at 8:30 p.m. We stopped to pick up some sustenance at a grocery store on the way back, since we knew that we had a very long night ahead of us. To save money once again, we decided not to stay the night in Cinque Terre and instead go straight on to Venice that night. We knew it would be rough, but again, you just have to make the best of it sometimes. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if we could have taken a direct train, but unfortunately, Levanto is small enough that the guy at the ticket office gave us a funny look when we told him we wanted tickets for Venice. We explained to him that we knew it wasn’t direct, but we didn’t quite realize what this would mean at the time. Our first connection was from Levanto to Parma, where we arrived at a bit after 11:00. Next up was Parma to Bologna.
By then it was about 1:00. Unfortunately, we had to wait until 3:00 for our final connection to Venice, which was exceedingly unpleasant. Thankfully, there was an indoor waiting-room (which the Parma station hadn’t had, and neither had a bathroom that didn’t cost money to use – how is this not illegal?? I miss that about the States – here, you can’t always pee for free!), though we were still very cold because we had that after-nap feeling of being deeply chilled even though the weather was only a bit brisk. And there were very few people in the room that weren’t skeezy-looking men, which was quite unnerving. But we stuck together and were okay. After two very long hours, it was finally time for our train to leave. We found our compartment, which had some weird old lady in it who wouldn’t take her feet off of one of the seats we were supposed to have (thankfully, one of the men in our compartment left and then there was enough room), and which was very dark and stuffy. It was approximately 2 hours until we would arrive in Venice, so we settled in and tried to sleep a little. We had moderate success, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
At around 5:15, I woke up, used the nasty train bathroom because I didn’t know how long it would be until I’d find another one (at this point, it had been about 48 hours since we’d seen a bathroom with toilet paper in it…thank goodness for Kleenex. What I would have given for a clean bathroom with toilet paper and soap…), got my stuff together, and got ready to get off. We waited until the train station that was on the main island so that we would only have to pay for one transport to the mainland instead of two.
And so, after a long, difficult night, we were finally there! Even though the ride had been unpleasant, however, we just had to remind ourselves that it had meant we could spend half the day in Cinque Terre, and we knew that it had all been worth it.
Final chapter – Venice!
The ride to Cinque Terre was a series of long tunnels and ear-popping, but overall not too bad. And when the gaps in the tunnels started giving me split-second views of rocky shore and turquoise water, I wanted to start jumping up and down or shrieking or some equally un-Kristen-like display of excitement. Somehow I managed to restrain myself, but the sea/ocean never fails to make me ecstatic!
I feel like I’ve explained what Cinque Terre is a million times, but I don’t remember if I did so on here or not yet. So if I have, just skip ahead. Anyway, it’s a group of five smallish towns on the western coast of Italy, and you can hike between them and such. The town we visited was called Levanto, and it was wonderful! It was so nice to be in a place that didn’t have jillions of people everywhere, forcing one to shove through the crowd to get anywhere. For some reason, it had a similar feeling for me as being in Joliet, Montana. If Joliet were on the Mediterranean Sea. With exotic-looking houses. The atmosphere was just very relaxing, and there was so much natural beauty everywhere! I feel like we don’t always get a lot of that here.
Once we got off the train, the first thing we did was find the beach! We then proceeded to change into our bikinis (Yes, you heard me right. I have now been more exposed in public than I have ever been O.o) and stayed on the beach for the rest of the afternoon! We soaked in the sun (I didn’t get very tan, though, because I covered myself copiously in the rather expensive sunscreen I had thankfully bought in Florence – being sunburned that night would’ve been unimaginably awful, and you’ll soon see why), got covered by rocky sand, waded in the freezing yet refreshing water, and took in the general splendor as the afternoon grew slowly. Megan introduced me to the wonderfulness that is the music of Tyrone Wells, and we all watched the antics of the most adorable little Italian boy ever, who was hanging out nearby us with his equally adorable family. Later on, Megan and I walked down the beach a bit and through a couple of the (freezing!) tunnels down the road. The scenery was AMAZING – definitely high on my top-ten list of Beautiful Places Kristen Has Seen. Lots of rocky hills with pretty houses on them, and water that was actually blue – not just reflecting the sun so that it looks blue; no, it was really and truly blue! I’ve never seen anything like it. And while Megan and I watched the water, we saw some animals jumping around a ways off, and there was something moving around in the water quite close to us! It was still too far to see what it was, and the thing refused to jump out and show itself, but we decided it was a whale. We wanted it to be, at least. Does the Mediterranean Sea have whales in it? I don’t know, but it was cool. And gosh, I can’t say enough about how gorgeous the place was. I would so love to go back someday!
After a few gorgeous hours on the Levanto shore, sunset had arrived and it was time to head back to the train station, as our train to Venice was leaving at 8:30 p.m. We stopped to pick up some sustenance at a grocery store on the way back, since we knew that we had a very long night ahead of us. To save money once again, we decided not to stay the night in Cinque Terre and instead go straight on to Venice that night. We knew it would be rough, but again, you just have to make the best of it sometimes. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if we could have taken a direct train, but unfortunately, Levanto is small enough that the guy at the ticket office gave us a funny look when we told him we wanted tickets for Venice. We explained to him that we knew it wasn’t direct, but we didn’t quite realize what this would mean at the time. Our first connection was from Levanto to Parma, where we arrived at a bit after 11:00. Next up was Parma to Bologna.
By then it was about 1:00. Unfortunately, we had to wait until 3:00 for our final connection to Venice, which was exceedingly unpleasant. Thankfully, there was an indoor waiting-room (which the Parma station hadn’t had, and neither had a bathroom that didn’t cost money to use – how is this not illegal?? I miss that about the States – here, you can’t always pee for free!), though we were still very cold because we had that after-nap feeling of being deeply chilled even though the weather was only a bit brisk. And there were very few people in the room that weren’t skeezy-looking men, which was quite unnerving. But we stuck together and were okay. After two very long hours, it was finally time for our train to leave. We found our compartment, which had some weird old lady in it who wouldn’t take her feet off of one of the seats we were supposed to have (thankfully, one of the men in our compartment left and then there was enough room), and which was very dark and stuffy. It was approximately 2 hours until we would arrive in Venice, so we settled in and tried to sleep a little. We had moderate success, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
At around 5:15, I woke up, used the nasty train bathroom because I didn’t know how long it would be until I’d find another one (at this point, it had been about 48 hours since we’d seen a bathroom with toilet paper in it…thank goodness for Kleenex. What I would have given for a clean bathroom with toilet paper and soap…), got my stuff together, and got ready to get off. We waited until the train station that was on the main island so that we would only have to pay for one transport to the mainland instead of two.
And so, after a long, difficult night, we were finally there! Even though the ride had been unpleasant, however, we just had to remind ourselves that it had meant we could spend half the day in Cinque Terre, and we knew that it had all been worth it.
Final chapter – Venice!
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