Oops

Meant to start this up again, but got distracted by wedding planning. Maybe someday 7 months in the future I will have free time to blog again.

Marrakech, Morocco, Africa

I spent last weekend in Morocco with Katie. It is so close to Spain that I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to go, and I am glad I didn't! We had an amazing time, and it is definitely the most unique trip I have taken this semester. We arrived on Thursday night, and after finding our hotel which was located right off of the main square, Djemaa el Fna, we went back out in to the square for dinner. Fortunately I had read up on Marrakech before we left and knew to expect some aggressive tactics to try to get us to sit down at their food stalls. They would jump in front of you and try to figure out what language you speak, French or English or Spanish, then say things like "Oh but you are so skinny, you need to eat here." But it was all worth it since the food was excellent. The tagines, which are meat and vegetables stewed in a conical pan also called a tagine, were great. And they had kebabs and couscous and lots of other stuff that I don't know the names of, but that tasted great anyway. After dinner we listened to some of the musicians who set up in the square every night. They were very friendly and always put out stools and offered us seats in the front. It was funny though because after playing a couple songs they would stop and start asking for money from the crowd. In the US if this happened everyone would just walk away, but everyone stayed and paid up, and when they thought they had enough money they started playing again.

The next day we spent shopping in the souks. They had so many things for sale, it was amazing! Lots of jewelry, handmade wood items, babouches (the traditional leather slippers,) carpets, spices, scarves, and so much more. Everything was cheap too. Well not at first. At first they tell you some outrageous price since you are a tourist, but you can haggle them down, or just go to one of the other hundreds of shops. I bought a lot of great souvenirs. It's a good thing that we didn't go to the souks for the next two days or I would have bought even more stuff.

Instead we went on an excursion into the Sahara Desert. We drove for a whole day from Marrakech down to Zagora (if you want to GoogleEarth it or anything.) We stopped along the way to take some pictures and have lunch, but mostly the day was just spent looking out the car window. That was fine though, since the scenery was so beautiful, it went from the Atlas Mountains to the Sahara Desert. And there were lots of little Berber towns along the way. I was feeling kind of nauseated though, from the winding roads and the edges of the mountains. When we arrived in Zagora we got on camels and rode for two hours out in to the desert. It was incredibly uncomfortable. Basically a camel is the opposite of something you would want to ride, b/c instead of a nice saddle to sit on like a horse, you have to sit on it's hump. But we got out to the Berber camp after what seemed like an eternity and had dinner in the main tent. Then our guides played music for us, then it was time to go to bed in our tents. The next morning were up at 7am for breakfast, then back on the camels to head back. I was amazed at how hot it was already. Since the sun was actually out this time I could see all of the surroundings. Lots of little kids from the villages came out to say "bonjour" and try to sell us little things they had made while we were riding by on our camels. Back in Zagora we had some mint tea (a Moroccan specialty) and had Berber carpets explained to us. I looked around in the shop a little bit and one of the guys who had taught me how to tie my scarf the night before offered for me to stay with him in the desert for a bit, and when I was ready to go home he would send me back on a magic carpet. We spent that day driving back to Marrakech, stopping for lunch in Ourzazate where we checked out the kasbah.

I was amazed by how cheap everything was. 10 Dirhams are equal to 1 euro, and you could get and ice cream cone for 2 Dh, a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice for 3 Dh, and a piece of the circular bread that they eat at every meal for 1 Dh! Dinner at the stands in the square were about 25 DH. I was also surprised at how friendly the people were. We met so many people either in the souks or the square and they were all very nice. And they spoke so many languages. Everyone spoke at least Arabic and French, and most spoke English and/or Spanish as well.

We only ran in to a few problems as two girls traveling alone. On the last night the square was packed and there were no local women out. We felt really uncomfortable and were being followed around by a group of guys so we just left and went back to our hotel for the night. It was strange that that night was so different from the others. But overall it was an amazing trip! Make sure to check out my pictures.

MC Escher

At the beginning of the semester, Evelyn and I heard about a special exhibition of MC Escher's work here in Madrid. We kept planning to go, but never made the time, and were very upset when we realized it had ended. However, because the exhibit was so popular it was extended by two weeks. So we of course could not let this second chance pass by and went to the exhibit last weekend. I can see why it was so popular; the art was amazing!

The line was out the door, and there were crowds in front of every work. But it was worth waiting to get my own chance to study this incredibly mind-bending work up close. Some of the incredible drawing we saw were:

Relativity


Hand with Reflecting Sphere


Ascending and Descending


Belvedere


Waterfall


And many of his Regular Division of a Plane studies
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_Division_of_the_Plane

The gallery in which the exhibit was housed was also very unique. Upon entering you descended into a completely dark, large room which was sectioned off into different periods of Escher's work. The prints and drawings were illuminated individually. And on the floor was a huge reproduction of Escher's Metamorphosis II;


This was definitely my favorite collection of art that I have seen this semester.

The rest of Italy

On our last day in Florence we went to the two famous museums, the Accademia and the Uffizi. The Accademia is where Michelangelo´s David is, and it was amazing to see. I never realized how huge the sculpture is! The rest of the works there were not that interesting though. The Uffizi is considered to be one of the best collections of Renaissance paintings in the world. And I'm sure that I would have loved it if I were a fan of Renaissance art, but I actually found it to be rather monotonous.

That night we had a great pasta dinner in a restaurant recommended by Rick Steves, the writer of our guidebook, to whom we are greatly devoted and even talk about as if he is travelling with us. For example; "Rick Steves said we should go to this museum in the morning." "I´m going to try the rice gelatto because Rick Steves recommends it." It was pretty funny because we saw about 4 other tables of Americans with a Rick Steves book in the restaurant. He never steers you wrong (unless you have the 2006 version like we did, and the gelatto shop he recommends has since closed.) But he is right about everything else, even the bus that my camera got stolen on! He said bus 64 is full of pickpockets, and I should have listened.

Anyway, the next morning we got up at 4:45 am to catch a 6:10 train to Cinque Terre in order to maximize our time there. For those of you who dont know, Cinque Terre means Five Lands in Italian, and it is basically 5 little towns on the coast of the Mediterranean connected by hiking trails, and trains for the less adventurous. By the time we got there, got our luggage stored and bought stuff for a picnic lunch it was about 11:00. Adrian, Dave and I started off the hike at the fifth town, Monterosso, because we heard that the last 2 sections are the most difficult. That proved to be very true. We started off by immediately ascending nearly 300 rough-hewn stone stairs. I was worried that the rest of the hike would be that difficult and I wouldn't make it. But fortunately there weren't too many more stairs and while it was difficult, the beautiful views definitely made it worth it. I definitely can't describe how gorgeous the Mediterranean was, I will just have to let my pictures speak for themselves (whenever I can get them posted, the internet isn't working in my apartment.)

Cinque Terre was by far my favorite place that we visited. It was so nice to be out of the city and get some exercise in a natural environment. I also loved the little town we stayed in that night. It is called Biassa, and in order to get there we had to take a bus that only came every 2 hours. The bus took us up this mountain side that was too steep to go straight up, so the road curved back and forth. We went back and forth so many times in this huge bus that felt like it was hanging off the mountain that Dave, Adrian and I were all questioning where the heck we were going. But we got safely to the top and ended up in this quiet little town where all of the locals were so friendly. We ate a little local pizza place for dinner, then went back to the hostel and basically just went to bed, since the town was dead and we were exhausted.

The next day we got up at 5:45am to get a 7:10 train to Venice. Lets just say we had some problems getting there. We nearly missed the first train, then we had to transfer 3 times, and at the last transfer we got off one stop too soon and had to run about a kilometer across a town called Prato in order to get what we thought would be our last train. But when we got to Venice the train stopped at the wrong station so we got on another train to go to the right one, which we thought we had bought our tickets for initially. Turns out we hadn't, and got fined 26€ by the conductor for what would have been about a 2€ ticket had we known to buy one. But we finally made it to Venice at about 1:00 and after checking in to the hostel we started our sightseeing.

The first thing we saw was the Doge's Palace, which is where the ruler of Venice lived, the houses of government met, and prisoners were kept. It was a really interesting place to see, especially since they had good descriptions of each of the rooms. It also contains the largest oil painting in the world. By that night our strenuous pace was catching up with us and we were pretty tired. So we just made dinner and then sat by the grand canal. The next day was our final day in Italy, and we started off by taking a "vaporetto" (water bus) to the island of Murano, where Murano glass is produced. We got to see a demonstration, then walked around and looked in all of the showrooms. When we got back to Venice we went in to St. Mark's cathedral and looked around, then we headed to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. It is her private art collection, housed in her home of 30 years. The art there was more contemporary and interesting than everything else we had seen all week, and I think everybody enjoyed it the most. That night we were all so exhausted that we didn't want to walk too far to find a restaurant for dinner. So when we got out the door of our hostel we saw a Chinese restaurant and decided to go in. Pretty poor decision I must say, since it was the worst Chinese food I have had in my life. But I guess what can you expect from Chinese food in Italy?

The next day I went to the airport and after a long day of traveling arrived back in Madrid. It was a very exhausting, but extremely memorable trip.

Update from Italy

I am half way through my spring break trip through Italy right now. We decided to take it easy this evening and rest, so I thought I would take this opportunity to update everyone, since the post will be incredibly long if I wait until I get back.

On Friday morning I arrived in Rome and met up with my traveling companions who are my friend from U of R, Dave, who is studying in Barcelona this semester and his roommates Adrian and Kevin, along with an assortment of other people from Barcelona and/or U of R. We got checked in to our hostel, then met our friend Heather from U of R, who is studying in Rome this semester. We ate lunch at her apartment, then she took us out to see all of the sights. We saw the Coliseum, the forum, the Pantheon, the Spanish steps and the Trevi Fountain. She also took us into a church that she had visited with her architecture class that is painted to look like it has a dome when it actually doesn't. So when you walk in and look up it looks like a dome, but when you walk directly beneath it the perspective is skewed. It is hard to explain, but very cool to see. I was glad that she showed us that, since we never would have gone in there on our own. That night we went to a neighborhood called Trastevere for a great pizza dinner. But oh yeah, on the bus on the way there my camera got stolen from my pocket. Major bummer, but nothing I can do about it, so I just bought another for the rest of the trip.

The next morning we got up early to get in line at the Vatican Museum. Apparently we didnt get up early enough though, since we had to wait for 3 hours. But at least we got in at all. The whole museum was great, but obviously the Sistine Chapel was the highlight. We spent a long time in there looking at each of the panels. But I thought that the atmosphere was kind of ruined by the guards. Every few minutes they would clap their hands loudly and yell at everyone to stop talking and stop taking pictures. After that we grabbed some lunch then got in line for St Peters. Thankfully that line was not nearly as long since it was incredibly hot by that time. St Peters was also incredibly beautiful. We used a guidebook that we had to explain many of the things in the cathedral, like the tradition of rubbing the foot of the statue of St Peter. That night we went in to a random restaurant for dinner. We noticed that many dishes on the menu included pumpkin ( I had tortellini in pumpkin sauce) and when we left we saw that there was a pumpkin on the sign, so that must have been their specialty. The food was excellent! Then we went and sat by the Trevi fountain, which is lit up at night, which was beautiful (yet unfortunately full of people.)

On Sunday we went inside the Coliseum and Palatine Hill, which were really cool to see and imagine what it was like during the height of the Roman empire. We then walked to a flea market that we heard was supposed to be cool, but really it was just more of the junk that is sold on pretty much every street. But on the way we got to walk past Circus Maximus, and through some nice residential areas. That night we were exhausted from the insanity of Rome, so we cooked dinner in the hostel and relaxed. That night I got to see Colleen for about an hour because she had just arrived from London.

The next morning we got an early train to Florence. After checking in to our hostel we headed back to the train station to go to Siena. I think my favorite part of the trip so far was Siena, because it was beautiful, but most importantly not crawling with tourists. I definitely enjoy the smaller cities much more. In Siena we saw the duomo, San Domenico church, and the sanctuary of St Catherine, which contains here actual head and finger preserved in glass cases! That was pretty disgusting and also a strange thing to have in a church, I thought. We then climbed the city tower for a beautiful view of the city and beyond. Then we sat in the main square, Il Campo for a while to just people watch and enjoy. For dinner we went to a little hole in the wall restaurant where we ordered what the waiter suggested, which was the typical pasta of Siena, pisci, and a meat and potatoes dish, which were both incredibly good and cheap. Then we caught the last bus back to Florence.

Today in Florence we saw the duomo (which I thought wasnt as good as the duomo in Siena) and then walked over to the Pitti Palace. We had a picnic outside, then went into the gardens which were absolutely beautiful. The views of Tuscany were unbeatable. We spent most of the afternoon exploring the gardens, then got some excellent gelato. We walked around the city and explored a little bit, then came back to our hostel. Everyone was exhausted, so we ordered pizza and decided to rest for the rest of the evening.

So far this has been an incredible spring break trip, and it is only half way over! I am really looking for forward to Cinque Terre on Thursday. I will update again and post pictures when I get back to Madrid.

Segovia

Yesterday I took a day trip with my school to Segovia, which is a city about an hour and a half outside of Madrid. It was a beautiful, sunny day, with clear blue skies, but it was still a little chilly, since Segovia is located next to the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains.

The first thing we saw were the Roman aqueducts that the city is famous for. They were built in the 1st century, which absolutely amazes me. I have certainly never seen any structures that old in the US. From there we walked through the city to el Alcazar, which is the castle/palace which was built in the 11th century. I loved the fact that it still had all the original furnishings, just as they were when King Philip II lived there in the 16th century. We climbed an almost never-ending spiral staircase (which was even worse than the one at the catacombs b/c people were coming up and down, so you had to squeeze by) to go on top of el alcazar. It was worth it though, because the view of the city with the countryside and mountain range in the background was beautiful.

After that we went inside el catedral which I thought looked extremely similar to the cathedral in Toledo. I dont have any pictures inside of this one either, but this time because we weren't allowed. It was a huge and very ornate building. After that we had a lunch of tortilla y croquetas that were very good. Then we headed back to the bus to drive us back behind the city to the Iglesia de Vera Cruz. This is a church that was built by the Knights Templar. Inside the church was a circular room made out of stone that you were supposed to stand inside to experience the energy of God. I had never seen anything like that in a church before, but then again, I have not been in many churches. Since the church is outside the city walls there was a great view of the city from there. After that we headed back to Madrid.

There was only one negative aspect to the day, and that was a very obnoxious group of students who were with us. They were from Kalamazoo College and had just arrived in Spain that week. The group appeared to be composed of mostly football players (I say this not b/c of their behavior which I am about to describe, but b/c they were wearing shirts that said Kalamazoo Football.) They had a special guide to give them their tour in a lower level of Spanish, which is fine, but I didn't hear any of them speak Spanish at all the entire time, so it seemed like they weren't really making an effort. And their behavior was very poor. They were just your stereotypically loud, obnoxious Americans. We were walking inside the cathedral and they were talking very loudly, and one of them actually burped really loudly, then the others laughed. By the end of the day, after hearing conversations such as (and I quote) "Dude, gamegear was so sweet, but dreamcast sucked" I was extremely annoyed. I was embarrassed that not only are they Americans, but they are from Michigan. But when I was able to distance myself from this group I enjoyed the city.

U of R Invasion Part III: Dublin

After a couple of hours of sleep at Katie's apartment on Friday night we got up on Saturday for St Patrick's Day in Dublin! We met up with 3 other U of R students to go watch the parade. By the time we got to the parade route it was pretty packed, and the best we could do was about 8 deep. So we didn't have the best view of the parade. But the atmosphere was enough of a show, with people wearing green as far as you could see. From the parade the 6 of us left to go to a double header of Gaelic football and Hurling. Gaelic football was awesome, it is like soccer, but with football, rugby and basketball all mixed in. Hurling was like lacrosse, but with some baseball in there too. They also had Irish dancing and music during halftime. The games were really interesting, but it was pretty cold out, so we left before the Hurling match was over. From there we just walked around the city center and checked out the celebrations. When we were hungry for dinner we couldn't find anywhere that wasn't packed, so we ended up eating at an Indian restaurant, which was kind of funny. After dinner we checked out a carnival, and some pubs, looking for live music, but everywhere was packed and crazy, so Adam and I called it a night.

Adam left for New York early the next morning. I spent the day with Katie, and her friend from home who had just gotten in for the week. We walked in to the city center again and went into St Stephen's Green, which was beautiful. It was kind of hard to enjoy though, because it was absolutely frigid. After that we walked around Merrion Square and looked at the Georgian Houses and rode the ferris wheel at the carnival. Then it started violently hailing, so we took cover in one of Dublin's free museums, where we checked out the bog bodies (bodies that had been incredibly preserved by the bogs.) At another museum we saw tons of stuffed animals (not the cute kind, the taxidermied kind.) It was such a strange museum, with every animal you could ever think of preserved in there.

After that we had a really good dinner at a pub called The Duke, then went to hang out at a pub called The Bleeding Horse. We met some locals in there, and Katie ended up singing a rousing (and Irish-accented) rendition of Piano Man with them, which was really strange.

The next day I caught a bus to the airport and was very glad to finally get back to mild-weathered Madrid. Overall an excellent trip that I will not soon forget.

U of R Invasion Part II: Paris

Adam and I finally arrived in Paris at 8:00am on Thursday morning, and by the time we took the bus in to the city and the metro to our hotel it was around noon. So we dropped our bags, grabbed some lunch and got started on the sight-seeing. Our first stop was Montparnasse Tower because it has great views of the city. From there we walked to the catacombs, which I thought would be really cool. You enter by descending the tightest spiral staircase I have ever been on for what seems like forever. Once you are 86 feet below the streets of Paris you enter an old limestone quarry. After walking under the low ceiling (Adam hit his head) in very little light for a very long time you enter a room where the bones begin. At this point I was pretty creeped out because on both sides of you for as far as you can see are rows of skulls and bones stacked neatly against the walls. It was interesting to see, but I was not interested in lingering too long, so we finished the walk and climbed back up into the daylight.

We then decided to walk from the catacombs to Notre Dame. On the way there we stopped at the Luxembourg Gardens and the Pantheon to look around and take pictures. I thought that the Luxembourg Gardens looked a lot like El Parque de Buen Retiro in Madrid. Adam thought the Pantheon looked like Rush Rhees Library on Meliora Weekend because of the yellow banners hanging on it. It was being decorated for a special event for Marie Curie, who is buried inside. We went inside Notre Dame and looked around and also sat outside and studied the facade for a little bit. We then tried to go into Sainte-Chapelle, which is nearby, but it had just closed. Same goes for the Deportation Memorial which is behind Notre Dame. That was a bummer, but at least we got to see them from the outside. After that we were hungry for dinner, so we went off in search of a restaurant. We turned down a little street and ran in to two other U of R students who were in Paris for spring break, how crazy! We then had dinner at a Parisian restaurant with a bunch of Scottish men in kilts sitting behind us.

After that we followed the Seine from Notre Dame back to our hotel which was by the Eiffel Tower and Ecole Militaire. It was kind of a long walk, but very beautiful. Then we put on some warmer clothes and went to see the Eiffel Tower lit up and sparkling at night and took a cruise down the Seine River.

The next morning we were in line at the Eiffel Tower when it opened. This was a good idea because the line was short and it wasn´t crowded once we ascended, but a bad idea because it was so foggy out in the morning that we couldn´t even see the top of the tower. So we rode the elevator up to the first level, then walked up to the second level. It was a nice view and there was interesting information, but I don´t think either of us enjoyed it very much because it was freezing.

From there we met for a bike tour of the city. It was basically a group of 30 Americans trying to fight Paris traffic on bikes, which a recent college grad from Texas as our guide. It was an excellent way to see a lot of the city quickly, since we didn´t have very much time left. We stopped at Napolean's Tomb, Ecole Militaire, Place de la Concorde, Les Invalides, Assembly Nationale, among other things, had crepes at a cafe in the Tuileries Gardens then saw the Louvre and then headed back. That took about 4.5 hours because there were so many people and everyone had to have to guide take their picture at every single stop. We only had time to do one more thing really, so we took the Metro up to Montmarte to climb the stairs and see Sacre-Couer. The inside of the church, as well as the view were beautiful. We sat down on the steps to listen to some guys singing and playing guitar and rest for a little bit. Then we bought some souvenirs and headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags. We realized that one of the things we hadn´t seen, the Arc de Triomphe, was a few blocks away from where we needed to catch the bus to the airport. The metro ended up taking longer than we had planned though, so when we got out at the Arc we had about 30 seconds to snap a picture before we had to take off Amazing Race style for the bus. We ended up making it on time to the bus and got to the airport only to have to wait in line for 2 hours to get through security at Beauvais airport (which has only 2 gates.) Our flight was delayed, so we didn´t get in to Dublin until around 2:00am and were definitely exhausted at that point.