Don't Say Forever...

Oh Barcelona... I can't believe that three and a half months have already passed. It really feels like yesterday that I just got here and was getting lost on the street I live on. My friends and I went out last night to have a farewell drink. We were all having a great time until it hit us that we really are leaving and who knows when we all will be together again.
Veronica and I at El bosque de las hadas (the forest of the fairies), one of my favorite bars in Barcelona!

This morning I woke up early to say goodbye to my roommate and then a little later I met up with my friends Elsa, Katelyn, Calli and Veronica to go with Veronica and Katelyn to the airport (Elsa, Calli and I weren't leaving until later) and say goodbye to them as well. After, Calli and I went out for our last cafe con leches and churros con chocolate (Elsa couldn't join because she had to return to her home-stay to get ready for her flight later in the afternoon) and then we all had a tearful goodbye.

I walked around the city for awhile to get one last good look at my neighborhood and also walked down to the beautiful Mediterranean and thought about all the good times I had here, the crazy adventures I went on, and how much I learned... especially how much I learned about myself. It's weird what almost four months in another country does to you.

I went back to my home-stay to pack up the last of my things and to get everything organized for my flight in the morning. I then realized I needed to go back to my favorite vinoteca for one last glass of my favorite wine here! I walked in and sat at the end of the bar, ordered my vino tinto and thought more about my semester here. About halfway through my wine it was like a slap in the face: I was just in Barcelona for almost four months and now it's over. I couldn't hold it back anymore... I started to cry. As excited as I am to come home and see all my family and friends that I have been missing it also reminds me of the family and friends that I have to leave and say goodbye to. Only one word to describe this moment: Bittersweet. I finished my wine, asked for the check and headed back home before I started bawling. I little later my host mom taught me how to make Paella and Mussles for dinner... and then pineapple with jamon serrano (pretty much prosciutto) for dessert. My favorite. She's the best.

After finishing a wonderful meal, told that I will always have a home here in Barcelona, with this family, I sit here now writing my last blog, with tears streaming down my face. I just can't believe this over. There are so many things I am going to miss about Spain. Eating the best tomatoes of my life, having jamon serrano almost everyday, drinking wine before noon with no judgement, my beloved cafe con leches, the friends I've made here, being able to travel almost anywhere in Europe easily, the Mediterranean...and just the European way of life.

So I ask you all of back home to bear with me for a bit as I adjust back to "American life". I thank you all for your support during my time here. I am not looking forward to the long journey home, but I am looking forward to seeing everyone!

And to Spain, you'll always have a place in my heart... It's come time to say goodbye. But it's not forever. Goodbye... for now...

Milano!

How was it that I stayed away from this country for so long?! Italy was so much fun. I had the time of my life there. Hanna and I got into Milan around 7:00pm or so Friday night and went straight to our hotel to check-in, set our things down and went to go eat dinner. We went to a small ristorante just around the corner and had pizza and wine! We went back to the hotel after dinner to crash. It was quite a long journey from the airport to the center of Milan.

The next morning we got up and went straight to the fashion district! Obviously we couldn't afford a thing, but it was still fun to look around and see some of the most gorgeous pieces of clothing (and shoes!). Strappy, black leather sling-backs anyone?Ooo sparkly! What is it about handbags and shoes that women love so much?!

We also went to visit Il Duomo, the Castello Sforzesco, and little markets they had set up all over the streets.

Il Duomo. Love how detailed it is.

Castello Sforzesco. And yes, that is me shoving my face into a giant cotton candy.

Later that night, one of the men working at the hotel recommended a street to us that has really fun bars and restaurants. They have amazing specials at some of the bars in Milan (perhaps it was just that particular street)! During their "happy hour" (6-9:30), you pay for a drink (around 6 euros or so) and then you get a free "all-you-can-eat" buffet! Nothing extravagant, but usually olives, bread, cheeses, and prosciutto! Hey, good enough for me!

The bartender who made Hanna and me these amazing martinis! They're raspberry flavored and are called "River Berries". I got the recipe from them!

The street we were on that night (with a small river down the center). So beautiful.

And now for the best part of the trip... Cuggiono!!! The next morning Hanna and I got up, checked out of the hotel and started our journey towards the town. However, getting there was quite an adventure. Well, no buses go to Cuggiono. We went to the central station in Milan and asked around. Most of the people have never heard of Cuggiono and the ones who did laughed and said, "Cuggiono?! That is so small! Haha, you want to go to Cuggiono?!" We finally talked to one woman who suggested that we go to the Malpensa airport (it's about 20 minutes from Cuggiono) and either take a bus or taxi from there. We got to the airport and... no buses! Some of the taxi drivers we talked to have never heard of the city. One of them was very helpful and called the nearest hotel to Cuggiono (where we had a reservation) and a man from that hotel came to the airport and took us to Cuggiono. Once we got in town, he was able to hook us up with a guy who works at the Immigration Museum in Cuggiono and (a long story very short!) he called the family for me and within minutes they showed up at the museum! It really was a dream come true (as cheesy as that sounds). They welcomed me with open arms and were incredibly kind!

Graziella immediately took us to her house and you know what the first question she asked was...? "Are you girls hungry? Okay, well I am making you something to eat!" (this was in Italian though. But we were able to communicate okay through my Spanish).Graziella, Matteo, and myself (meeting for the first time!)

Matteo spoke a little English (and also Spanish, which he is a little better at) so we were able to communicate with each other fairly well.(from left to right): Daniella, Antonio, Chiara (in red), myself, Marco, Angela, Gaetano, Viviana, Graziella, and Matteo

After hanging out with the famiy for awhile, updating them with everything of the family back in America, it was off to the local ristorante for pizza!

At the local ristorante for some of the best pizza of my life! Brie and speck (similar to prosciutto. And regardless of what anyone says, pizza IS from Italy! (Napoli to be exact). The family made sure Hanna and I knew that!

The next day, Hanna and I got up early (we stayed at the hotel) and Antonio and Matteo picked us up and took us about an hour out of Cuggiono to these Islands (by the Swiss border). I forget the name of the city, (I will make sure I know it before coming back home) but it was so beautiful! Antonio kept saying, "Your mom and dad were here in the 80s! And now you're here!!"Currently on Isola Bella, looking at Isola Madre. (Don't worry, I have many more pictures)

Looking at this part of the country was so breath-taking. Some day, I will have a small house here! Later that day, Gaetano and his wife Morena took us to a town about 30 minutes from Cuggiono called Novara. Again, so amazing! We stopped for espresso, walked around the city, and they insisted on buying us chocolate! After we left, it was back to the local ristorante, but this time for fish! Hana and I ate so much! By the end of the night we were so painfully, uncomfortably full!! (And you guys think Aunt Cleo is bad?! Just wait!) As much as we wanted to spend more time with them, they took Hana and I back to the hotel because we were fighting to keep our eyes open. Oh yah, after they walked us inside.. they paid for our room! We told them no, we had it covered, but they insisted! (and trust me, don't argue with them!) SO generous!

The next morning, Graziella and Viviana picked Hanna and me up to see more of Cuggiono. They took us to to a local department store (that's right... department store right outside of Cuggiono!) and told us they wanted to buy Hanna and me a gift! They said "Do you guys want a scarf or a handbag?" When Hana said "No, thank you though! You guys have been too nice, you don't need to buy us anything!" She got smacked by Graziella! (in a playful way of course, but just hard enough to hurt!) And Graziella replied, "NO! You two.. pick something out! NOW!" See what I mean? Don't argue with them! They bought us both beautiful scarves with matching gloves.

After leaving the department store and seeing the church, it was off to Gaetano and Morena's house for lunch with more of the family before they took Hana and me to the airport. Pasta, prosciutto, chocolate, espresso, wine, family... does life really get any better than that? After we finished, Graziella handed me a letter. I opened it up and it said how happy they were that I showed up (unexpectedly!), how much they love me, the rest of the family from America needs to visit, and that I will always have a home in Cuggiono. After I read that I couldn't hold it in anymore. I bawled. (Hanna teared up also. They really enjoyed having her as well... they told her she is part of the family too!) Gaetano, Morena, and Graziella took us to the airport and it was another tearful goodbye. I will never forget this experience.Saying "goodbye" to Samuelle (4 yrs). He is Gaetano's grandson. So adorable! He loves giving hugs and kisses (and Disney movies!).

After spending some time with the relatives in Cuggiono, it really made me realize just how important family is and how you need to tell them how much you love them and do whatever it takes to stay together. They kept reminding me how important that is.

I have so many more pictures to show and more things to tell all of you once I get back home! Also, Hanna was so amazing and had a good time in Cuggiono as well. She speaks Portuguese fluently, Spanish very well and so she was able to understand Italian pretty good and was able to help translate. The relatives were so good to her... treated her as family and before we left told her that she is part of the family now! So... with everything said... to all my family and friends: I love you all very much and never forget that.Please know how much you all mean to me. A great lesson learned from the Cuggiono relatives. I can't wait to see you all back home and I have some very exciting things to show you! This really has been one of the best trips of my life. Seeing Italy, eating prosciutto for breakfast, amazing espresso, visiting the sites, and discovering family... amazing.

Oh yeah, I don't just want to learn Italian now... I HAVE to!

Okay, next journey....Wales! The search for more family continues...

Flamenco

Finally! I've finally attended a flamenco show! And yes, it was everything I thought it could be... and more! So emotional, so passionate, so sad, and yet so graceful. The dance is so beautiful.This was the first part of the show. These two bailaores danced in unison. This dancer was so beautfil. After seeing her dance I felt like crying after "watching" her story. Her dance was so emotional and tragic. She was my favorite. Her dance wasn't as sad, she smiled and laughed a lot while she danced. She danced so passtionately that her hair came undone! I loved her dress too. It was long and everytime she spun around she would kick it up!There were also two men, who were extremely talented, that danced as well. I loved it so much that I wanted to stay for the next show!

Berlin

I must say, this is one of my favorite cities. So much history and culture! And of course, I had some of the best beer of my life in Berlin.

I traveled to Berlin with my friends Hana and Calli and we decided to do a bike tour of the city (which we did on Saturday). It was a nice way to get a brief history of some of the most famous sites of the city! Our guide, Nil, really knew his stuff and was also hilarious! At the beginning he asked, "Are Americans here? Ok. Irish? Ok. Spanish? Ok. English? Ok. French? No French? Alright, it's safe to make jokes about the French!" Then we got started! We visited Brandeburg Gate, Checkpoint Charile, the site of Hitler's bunker, (what's left of) the Berlin Wall, Tiergarten Park (and had lunch at a beer garden there), the site of the Nazi book-burning, Reichstag, Humboldt University and so many other buildings I can't remember them all!

On Sunday, we went to a flea market that's very popular, and you can find everything from clothes to records to furniture to hand-made crafts. After, we visited the graffiti-painted portion of the wall which was so cool to see!

Enjoying a Berliner Pilsner!

By the meeting spot of the bike tour

Trying to get on my bike- the shortest one they had and I still had trouble touching my feet to the ground!

The site of the Nazi book-burning. The memorial is a glass top that overlooks a room with empty bookshelves underground.

Calli and I by a section of the Wall.

A memorial to all the Jews killed. Before, there was an idea to build a giant oven that would be constantly burning in this space here (as a memorial)... a little too out there, don't ya think?

Brandenburg Gate. "The American embassy is very close to here... wait, that's a Starbucks! The American Embassy is down a little further." Our guide had a great sense of humor!

Calli, Hana and myself at the graffiti-painted part of the Wall.

El desayuno! = Breakfast!

Caroline and I had the honor of cooking our host family a traditional American breakfast. (Well, it was actually breakfast for dinner). We made pancakes (and had real maple syrup), scrambled eggs with cheese, fruit salad, and of course bacon! (made by yours truly- which was a hit!). And to drink we made them mimosas and we were able to find Ben & Jerry's ice cream which we served for dessert.

They loved it! They were so fascinated by maple syrup and the fact that it comes from trees. They asked Caroline and me if everyone in the United States knows about pancakes and syrup. And we said, "Yeah, pretty much everyone." They couldn't believe it! They were so shocked that (almost) everyone in the United States has eaten a meal like this before, but they enjoyed it! They enjoyed it so much we decided to leave them the rest of the pancake mix with them (yes, I know- it was a mix, we didn't make them from scratch, but how American to do it the easy way though!). Scrambled eggs and bacon aren't foreign to them, but they ate all of the bacon I made- all three packages of it! They also loved the mimosas, however we had to make them with Cava (the Spanish champagne) instead of "real" champagne- but again, they loved it so much they polished off the bottle! (Our host parents did- we gave the kids just orange juice).

Unfortunately, I have no pictures to share at the moment, I am waiting to get them from my host-dad, but I can't wait to show all of you them when I'm back home!

The City of Lights!

Ah... Paris! What a wonderful city. Unfortunately, it wasn't at first. My friends and I had quite the rocky start! Three of the girls flew to Paris out of different airport (it's about an hour from Barcelona). They had to catch a bus to get to the airport at 4 a.m. but there was a bus strike going on so they needed to find a different way to get there. They had to leave the night before around 10:30 p.m. and take a train to the airport since that was the last one of the night (and the one that started in the morning wasn't early enough), so they had to wait in the airport for a solid 7 hours for their flight!

My friend Hana and I flew out of El Prat (the main airport here), but our flight got delayed. After waiting awhile and finally arriving in Paris, we were all able to meet up at the Arc de Triomphe at 2:30 p.m. And right off the bat, we met someone who did not like Americans. We were called lazy and were told that there was a McDonalds down the street if we wanted our "own cuisine". Ouch.

We didn't let that bother us and were determined not to judge Paris off of that one person, so we decided to explore the city and try to get a feel for the other locals. We walked around a lot and stopped for fresh pastries. Once it became dark, we took a boat tour that took us down and back up the river in Paris, which was a lot of fun. It soon became midnight and we all started to get really tired and wanted to get some rest. Well, our living arrangements for the weekend fell through (an extremely long story!) so there we were: five American girls on the streets of Paris after midnight, with nowhere to go, and not sure what to do. There were no hostels located in the center of the city and we had no access to a computer took look up the nearest, cheap hotel or hostel. We walked around a little bit and found a Best Western hotel and went inside, hoping the person at the front desk could help us. He looked up some hostels for us and even called them, but we were having no luck trying to get one for the night. We didn't really want to stay at the Best Western because it was fairly expensive and all of us were on a very tight budget. Well, the tension grew between each of us and the arguing started. The man saw how frustrated and scared we were and gave us a hotel room for half the price! We were all so grateful and took the room.

We had a good nights sleep and took advantage of the free breakfast in the morning and we were all in a much, much better mood. After we checked out, we were able to find a different hotel that was very affordable (but far from luxurious!) that we were all very comfortable with.

So we finally got to sight seeing! We started out with Notre Dame and then the Eiffel Tower. We bought the ticket that took us all the way to the top and the view was unbelievable. It was getting fairly late and we decided to go out to a nice restaurant to celebrate our friend Hana's birthday that was the following Monday. We picked a random Italian restaurant and we had the best time! The wait staff was so much fun and made us laugh the entire night! We told them it was Hana's birthday and they turned down the lights and put on a "pop" Happy Birthday song and came out dancing with tirmisu and a round of limoncello! We stayed there until the restaurant closed because these guys we're so friendly and hilarious and we were having the best time with them! This definitely made up for our bad experience from the day before. By this time it was close to 2 a.m. so we went back to our hotel and went to bed.

We got up the next morning and had to check out of our hotel room and go to the one next door (they were partner hotels). The woman at the front desk told us our room wasn't finished being cleaned so she told us to put our stuff down in the lobby and we could wait if we wanted. She asked if we had eaten breakfast yet and when we told her that's what we were going to do next she sat us down at a table and insisted on feeding us. She brought us fresh orange juice, coffee, and croissants with jam! By the time we were finished eating, our room was ready and we put our luggage there and headed for the Louvre! Since it was a holiday on that Sunday the museum was free. We figured we would be standing in line forever waiting to get in, but the whole process only took about a half hour! (Not too bad, huh?)

We were in the Louvre for hours and hours and were only in one wing of the entire museum. Of course, we had to see some of the most famous pieces of art like the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Walking through the museum and admiring all the art, I couldn't believe I was in the place that was home to some of the greatest masterpieces of all time. Later, we went out for dinner and headed back to the hotel to veg out for a little bit. All the girls fell asleep (we had to get up at the crack of dawn to catch our flight) besides my friend Calli and me so we went out for a glass of wine to toast the city of Paris!

Ireland!

I don't even know where to begin! This country is so amazing, why didn't I study abroad here?! (Hehe just kidding... kind of!) I left Friday morning with my friends Hana, Veronica, and Elsa and flew RyanAir into Dublin. We arrived around 12:30 p.m., and right away stopped at an Irish Pub for a hearty meal and a beer! The food here is so delicious, meat and potatoes are so simple, yet the Irish know how to put their own unique twist on it and make it into one of the best things I've tasted!

(Hana and I in our room at the hostel)

After we checked into our hostel, we walked around the city and signed up for a bus tour for the next day that took us to the countryside. Next, we walked along the main streets and around Trinity College. After awhile, it started to get late and the pubs started to get lively. We went to The Temple Bar (one of the bars Dublin is known for) and immediately met some of the l locals! And I must say, the Irish have such a great sense of humor and are some of the nicest and friendly people that I have met! We met a group of guys that had us laughing the whole night!


The next morning, we got up early since we had to meet at a place called "Paddy Wagon's" and get onto to the bus that took us out of the city. We first stopped at a small city called Glendalough, which is about 45 minutes or so from Dublin. We got off the bus and immediately stopped for tea and fresh scones! (It was so cold out, we needed something to warm us up first before exploring!)



Enjoying Irish Breakfast Tea while waiting for the scones to come out of the oven!








Glendalough was one of the most beautiful cities that I have ever visited. I absolutely love Ireland's countryside! Our guide was really nice and knowledgeable and gave us a small history lesson on the Celtic Cross. It's symbol of Christianity (obviously) and the circle in it represents the joining together of Paganism and Christianity since Ireland was mostly Pagan before Christianity arrived. Oh and another fun little fact: 80% of the movie "Braveheart" was filmed here!

The next city we stopped at was Kilkenny, and it was just as beautiful as Glendalough. We had lunch at a place called "Paris Texas" (don't judge the name!) and had another wonderful, traditional Irish meal. We also had the "Kilkenny beer" which apparently isn't very popular in Ireland, but more so in Australia (random). I thought it was really good though. We walked around the city again and took in the breath-taking scenery. We returned to Dublin shortly after and then hit up the pubs again to go out for the drink that Ireland is famous for... Guinness! I had such blast here, I enjoyed every second of my time in Ireland (except going back to the airport), I know that I will be returning to Ireland in the near future!


Dublin at night... the picture does not do justice for how it actually looks though!