WHAT WOULD RICK DO?

Ok. I know that I suck at blogging. I kind of figured this would happen. But, along with traveling and studying comes a shortage of time and internet. So really, it makes sense.

WHERE. IN. THA WORLD. IS. MA RA ZANDIEGO? If you didn’t grow up watching PBS, you won’t understand that.

This is where I’ve been for the past weeks. Contrary to popular belief, I haven’t just been frying myself at the beach.

Barcelona, followed by Valencia (which included a trip to Baeza and Úbeda[scubeda-dubeda]), and 9 days in Italy, including Pisa, Cinque Terre, and ROMA! I just got home yesterday. I am still trying to get all the pasta and gelato out of my small intestine.

Ok, we’ll go in order here.

Barcelona. Hands down one of the coolest cities in Spain. Although the people there are a little stand-offish (people there speak Cátalan, which is a Spanish dialect, but you can’t understand it. If you ask someone a question in Spanish, they will answer you in English), but the city has a lot to offer. We saw all of the incredible architecture of Gaudí, which if you’ve never heard of him, look him up. He died before finishing one of his biggest projects, Sagrada familia, which is an insane cathedral. It won’t be done for about another 75 years because of the amount of detail that goes into it. Seriously. Insane. He also has 2 apartment buildings, equally amazing, and a park, where he lived for a while. Besides all of that, we spent a lot of time walking around, exploring las ramblas, which is a main stretch of street covered in little booths and about a million street performers (which, by the way, freak the fuck out of me). Along here you’ll also run into the most amazing market in the world, filled with fresh fruit and veggies, fresh squeezed fruit juice, meat fish, and all of that. There’s more to see around the city and port, too much to write. Guess you’ll have to go see it for yourself.

The nightlife there was amazing too. Although we had a little mishap the first night, which resulted in us jumping about 23 metro gates and being lost for 2 hours underground, the second night made up for it. We saw Girl Talk, live in concert, in the best club in Barcelona, Razzmatazz. If I could write about how cool that guy is, I would, but I can’t. You just gotta see him.

Valencia. We took a group trip here with all the people from our program. By “trip.” I mean 10 hour bus ride that left at 1 am and made us all want to kill ourselves. Once there, we made up for it in having fun together. We played some drinking games the first night, and a group of about 5 of us headed out to try and find some nighttime activities to participate in. Apparently, Valencia doesn’t do anything on Thursday nights. We ended up stumbling upon a bar called Beer (probably the best name I could ever think of for a bar. It’s really all you need to know), and stayed there about 30 minutes when we realized we were the only people in the joint. The walk home consisted of us throwing oranges across the road to see if we could hit the other side of the median, and failing at this. The next day, we went to an amazing aquarium, which I couldn’t get enough of, and saw a dolphin show. It’s not as stupid as you think. I am now seriously considering changing my career path to dolphin trainer, easily the sweetest job in the world. You hang out with dolphins all day, get tan and fit and hot, and they throw you up in the air and do flips with you. Think of a better job, I dare you. After that was the science museum, and a quiet afternoon. We stayed in the new part, which resembled something out of the Jetsons, and later explored the old part, about 30 minutes away and WAY sweeter looking at night. If you go there, stay in the old part. The new part kind of makes you wonder what planet you’re on.

Whew. Ok, Baeza and Úbeda (Jimmy nicknamed Úbescubeda, because calling it that is the coolest thing you can associate with the city) which are essentially two little mountain towns that probably hate having anyone under the age of 50 in their presence. We found this out when we arrived at around 7 pm, and some old Spanish guy warned us that if we made any noise, he would call the cops on us. Mind you, we were opening our doors to our rooms, and we were under the influence of water and bocadillos, dead sober. We tried to go out that night, but we ended up sitting around in a gazebo and having some drinks and deep conversation in the pouring rain. I only wish I were joking about that.

So, finally, ITALIA. We lived and breathed Rick Steves: the best of Italy during this trip. He is a god among men, and he told us all of the best places to go, and how to not spend money. He was right. Because he is a god. A group of about 10 of us went for Semana Santa, which is a crazy festival (festival in Cádiz? NEVER!) they hold here to celebrate all the pre-funk to Easter. We started out our journey on RyanAir, the shittiest airline in the universe. Somehow my bag made weight for the plane (you can only take 1 carry on, meaning I had to stuff my purse into one bag, and this bag can only weigh 10 kilos, or about 20 pounds. I was packing for 9 days. Let’s just say I wore the same thing a lot, and smelled REAL bad), but they somehow sucked 20 euro out of me for checking in at the airport? I was livid. Lauren looks at me when I come back from the counter and says, “Mara, you got some color from the beach this week!” “Nope, just really fucking pissed,” says I. I could write an entire other blog about how much I hate that airline, but I’ll spare you. So, we get to Pisa, where we stay in the nicest little B&B. It even had a CAT, with 3 legs mind you, but still cute. We only spent a night there, just long enough to experience our first encounter with real Italian food, and see the leaning tower of Pisa and all that jazz. I’m glad I didn’t study abroad in Italy. I would come back weighing at least 80 pounds more.

From Pisa, we headed up to Cinque Terre. If you’ve never heard of it, wiki that too. It’s this small coastal town that consists of 5 pueblitos, which you can hike to and from. It’s the kind of place that makes you believe that there is a god out there somewhere. Incredibly beautiful, right on the Mediterranean, trees, greenery, the most amazing hiking (and hard too, Rick didn’t lie when he said they were strenuous), AND, it’s the birth place of PESTO, so lord knows I ate about 2 times my body weight every day. We ended the amazing 5 days of hiking, eating, and having an all around blast by jumping in the Mediterranean at 9 in the morning. Probably could have though this through a little better, I’ve never felt so close to hypothermia in my life, but it was also quite refreshing. And luckily, it’s really salty, so when I lost control of my limbs and my heart stopped, I kind of just floated to the shore. Marisa said it best, right before her, Lauren, and I jumped off our little rock. “1, 2, 3…” (jump off ledge and look at each other) “Fuck.”
If you ever go to Italy that is one place you have to see.

Lauren and I ended our trip in ROMA where we met up with Yumi, when Paul and Marisa broke off and went to go play in the adult candy land, Amsterdam. Rome is one of the most incredible cities on the planet. Being there blew my mind, seeing ruins from hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and just trying to fathom how much history it held. We saw everything, thanks to Rick, we bought the Roma Pass, which allowed us to get into 2 places free (Coliseum and Forum, which are both around 10 euro) and then we got discounts on all of the rest. We also visited the museum of Rome, which is filled with the largest collection of artifacts, old coins, statues, even pieces of paintings and walls, mosaics, the craziest things ever. Also, the Trevi fountain and Spanish steps. Seeing all of these places is impossible to describe. It made me want to time travel. That’s really all I can say. I took over 200 pictures, so you’ll all see what I did. We also got to go on an awesome pub crawl, and meet lots more people from all over the U.S. and U.K. The only downfall was that I went to bed at around 4 that night, and then woke up at 6 to go sit outside the Vatican until it opened. As pissed off as I was that I was awake, it was totally worth it. We got to see everything without waiting in any 3 hour lines, which we saw as we were leaving. The Sistine Chapel, the statue collections, the Vatican museum, and the biggest cathedral in the world. I tried to find the pope, but it was harder than I thought it was going to be. I did find the dead one they have in the cathedral though, that counts right?

We flew back, making a 3 hour stopover in Frankfurt, where we had a beer and a brat (DUH), and spent most of our 20-hour day of travel trying to sleep on the food trays on the plane and on cement floors.

And I didn’t get mugged ONCE. Knock on wood..

So here I am, back in the Diz. I leave for Lagos, Portugal on Thursday. I’ll be sure and let you know how that goes, and anything else cool that may happen in between.

Ciao! Italia! Grazie! Tos! Pizza! Latte! Penne! Arrabiatta!

That’s all of the Italian I picked up. I’m basically a polyglot now.