Semana Santa 1 - Italy

Wow, so much to update! 12 days worth of non-stop travel to be exact. Eeek. Better get started!

Semana Santa kicked off for me a couple days early, on Wednesday night. Thanks to la huelga general  scheduled to take place on Thursday throughout all of Spain, I headed to Madrid a night early to make sure that my bus actually arrived. I was really glad I did, because the public transportation on Thursday was awful!! The Madrid metro only ran once every 15-30 minutes, and almost all of the buses going in and out of the city were cancelled. It was a mess.

"THE LABOR REFORM: Unjust, inefficient, useless" [Source]

This was more or less my experience with the metro.[Source]

I met Lisa and Brian at the airport, and the trip promptly took a turn for the worse as Brian learned that his checked bag had been sent to Atlanta, Georgia instead of Madrid. Brian is a tall guy. 6'11" to be exact. So while Lisa or I would have been thrilled with the reimbursement money from the airline to go shopping, it wasn't exactly as easy for him. It took some intense store-scouring to find 2 shirts that were long enough for him.

Other than that though, Thursday was pretty uneventful. The 3 of us met another friend in Madrid, and we went out exploring for a while. I had my first experience in a Museo del Jamón! So delicious! I had never gone to one before, so I assumed that it was literally just a museum of different types of ham. I was very pleasantly surprised to learn it was also a bar and restaurant. With delicious, ginormous, ham and cheese bocadillos. Yummmmm.

Friday morning was when our real Semana Santa adventure started. Lisa, Kaitlin, Brian and I hopped on a flight to Rome, me for the 3rd time, and them for the 1st time. We totally lucked out when we grabbed a taxi to the city center, because our driver immediately joyfully told us that we were in for a treat, because he was a tour guide as well! His driving was a little erratic: slowing down in the middle of traffic to point out a famous ruin, swerving in and out of traffic as all good Italians do, and one time, straight up stopping and reversing in the middle of the street because he had forgotten to point something out. It was Lisa, Kaitlin and Brian's first experience with an Italian driver, and I think its safe to say they won't forget it.

Now, I wouldn't normally write about the hostel we stayed in, because normally there's not much to say. But this one... was too weird to not mention. The owner is a flamboyant gay man who lives with his mother and (most likely also gay) brother, in the hostel. When he first opened the door to greet us, I think its safe to say that our jaws literally dropped. And then when the bubbly Italian greeted us with "Hello! Would you like some champagne?" the guards started to go up. And then when he held up a large pink-foil wrapped...thing... and said "And I have an easter egg for you!" We were about ready to turn around and run for another hostel.

As he showed us around the hostel and explained that there was a free buffet breakfast that included yogurt, eggs, fruit, bread, granola bars, cookies and coffee, and also as we say that there were other people staying in the hostel, we started to feel a little less nervous.

After settling in, they left to visit the Vatican, and I took a well-deserved nap. We met back up that night for dinner, where I had the best pasta carbonara of my life!  Then we saw the Colosseum at night.

On Saturday we did a tour of the Colosseum, and then visited Palatine Hill and the Forum. Then we did the Rick Steve's Heart of Rome walk to see Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps and the Pantheon.

The gravestone looking thing was a marker that was found in front of every house telling passersby who lived there. 

Standing in front of the ruins of a house on Palatine Hill.

Trevi Fountain. They say when you throw a coin in it means that you'll return to Rome one day. It worked for me, since this was my 3rd trip to Rome in 2 years!

Piazza Navona was originally the site of the city racetrack, which is why it has such an unusually long shape.

I also ate way way way too much delicious food. It was like I had a never-ending-pit instead of a stomach. Kaitlin and I joked that we were plumping up before the Swiss famine, since we wouldn't be able to afford to eat anything in Switzerland.

Then on Sunday we headed off for Florence. I had been to Florence in 2010, but my jaw still dropped a little when we rounded the corner to see the Duomo. It is a spectacular piece of architecture! We made a stop at a Rick Steve's suggested restaurant, where we ate the best pasta of our entire trip. We also hiked ran up the hill to Michealangelo's Plaza, just in time to catch the sunset. This plaza gives, by far, the best view of the city, especially near sunset.

The Florence Duomo. A spectacular piece of architecture.

I love Italy, and if I can ever find an actual reason to move there, I will in a heart beat. (However if that ever happens I will need to live next door to a gym to counteract all the eating I'll doing.) Kaitlin and I  started calling our adventure the Food Tour 2012, because our whole vacation revolved around what kind of delicious local food we could find next. In Italy, that included Rick Steve's recommended pasta, freshly made pizza from street vendors, unusual gelato flavors like rose, lavender and cactus, and some of the most delicious fruit tarts I have ever eaten. Stay tuned to find out what I ate in Switzerland! 

Oh...you don't care about that? Well...I guess I can throw in a couple pictures and funny stories too :)

Aloha from Madrid!

Oops, I mean hola. I guess I'm just in an international sort of mood, after having spent the weekend wolfing down any sort of non-Spanish food I could find. (Because in Algeciras the only exotic food is schawarma...we do have Chinese restaurants too, but apparently their food is comparable to dog food.)

I've been in Madrid now for 3 days, and I'm slowly falling in love. I was here for a weekend last december, but this time I had more time to stroll around and really appreciate and get to know the city. Gran Via at night reminds me of what (I think) New York City is like. (I've never actually been..). There are bright lights everywhere, people flooding the streets, and a general feeling of importantness and excitedness. I like it.

So Emily and I more or less (literally) spent the weekend searching out any sort of non-Spanish food we could find. I mean yeah, we saw Parque del Buen Retiro, el Palacio Real, Parque Oeste, Puerta del Sol, Plaza España, and all the usual suspects.

However, the highlights for me where eating chicken tikka massala and garlic nan at an Indian restaurant, having bacon/eggs/French toast and mimosas for lunch, a milkshake for desert, pizza for dinner, and a REAL cheeseburger with french fries the next night. The beauty of parque Retiro just paled in comparison.

Besides the food, though, I had SUCH a good weekend seeing friends! My friend Emily, a co-auxilar and precious study abroad friend, and I came up from Andalucia on Friday. There we met one of my roommates from college, who is an auxiliar in Madrid, and her best friend from home who was studying abroad in Germany. I also found an old co-worker from Culvers, who I would like to take the credit for convincing to come study abroad in Spain. (Tell me if I'm wrong...but what can I say, I'm a very persuasive person.)
It was great to see familiar faces for the weekend and feel special that even though I was living 3,000 miles from home, I could still find pockets of familiarity among the foreign.

Here is the saddest thing that has happened to me so far: I bought a coconut ice cream cone to enjoy as I walked down Gran Via at night. I was so happy, cause coconut is by far my favorite ice cream flavor. I must have licked it a little to enthusiastically though, because one second I was licking it and the next second I was watching it fall, in slow motion, to the sidewalk. It was so sad. At least the cone was a waffle come so I could still enjoy a little bit of deliciousness.

Tomorrow is our last day in Madrid, and I can't wait to spend it holed up in Kaitlin's apartment eating McDonalds and watching movies in English on the computer. Don't judge me.

(I typed all that on my iPod touch by the way, that's dedication.)

In between being busy searching out delicious food, I did take time to snap a couple pictures. Enjoy!

Gate outside of el Palacio Real.

Enjoying some macaroons in Mercado San Miguel. Probably one of my favorite deserts ever...

This is my favorite building in Madrid. Not sure what it is, but its all white and looks like a castle.

"I love you Carlos." Awwww! This was scrawled on the steps by the lake in Parque del Buen Retiro.

Classic Andaluz.

Madrid, Alcalá de Henares y Segovia

This last week was jam-packed with traveling, and I have to admit, it's nice to be back home. As I was my butt was going numb from sitting on the bus for the past 5 hours, with another 4 hours to look forward to, I caught myself thinking "I can't wait to be home again." But this time, home didn't refer to the states. I was thinking about my piso in Algeciras. It's nice to finally feel that comfortable, here in a strange country.

As you might have read, I went to Germany last weekend. And then I was back in Algeciras for a whole 24 hours before bussing off to Madrid for the next weekend. Kaitlin, one of my roommates from college, lives in Madrid and so myself and Vanessa, another friend from college, decided to meet up and crash on her couch/extra mattress.

This was the first time I had been to Madrid to actually see the city, instead of just going to the bus station or airport. You tend to have a slightly pessimistic view of a place when you're only there for short periods in between 7 hour flights or 5 hour bus rides. So it was nice to actually get to know the city a little bit. Conclusion? Gorgeous! Amazing! Exciting! Not somewhere I would want to live, but definitely some place I want to go back and visit.

I had taken the overnight bus Wednesday, so I got in bright and early at 7am. Yuck. I detest the overnight bus. We went back to sleep until 11. Much better.

Thursday we spent the day walking around the city. We walked past Palacio Real, Plaza Mayor, Plaza España, Puerta de Sol, and some other touristy places that I had seen before, but not in a long time. Plaza Mayor had Spain's version of a Christmas Market going on. Very disappointing after being spoiled by Munich's Christmas Market. The stalls were full of mass-produced stuffed animals and reindeer antler headbands. (Which people wore proudly, both during the day and night.) However, they did have some 'make your own Christmas wreath' stalls that I thought were really cool.
And then there was the 'buy your Christmas tree here' stall, that was just really....different. The Christmas trees were tiny! And potted. So wrong.

That night Kaitlin introduced us to something really cool. It's called microteatro. It's like a play and a movie combined. The first floor is a bar and a ticket office, and then down in the basement there are 4 salas. Each room has a different play, that is performed about 10 times each night, in 20 minute intervals.
We went to the play Victoria. It was a comedy, and it was very very funny, but if I try to explain it it probably won't make any sense because I only understood about 75% of what was going on. (Which is still pretty good if you ask me...it was all in rapid-fire Spanish.)
There are only 15 audience members at each showing, which is because its held in a very small room with standing room only. We stood around the sides of the room and then the 3 actors used the space in middle. It was very personal and intimate, and such a unique experience.
Read here to find out directions and times!

[Source]

Kaitlin and Vanessa, before the show

Friday was a day trip to Alcalá de Henares. The whole of Alcalá can be explored in about 3 hours, and it was a nice chance to get out of the city for the day. We saw the house were Cervantes was born, and in Vanessa's words saw a "clusterf*** of old stuff". The old city is divided up into parts, the old Jewish quarter, the old Christian quarter, and the old Muslim quarter. Each quarter is very different and still has many of the original churches/buildings.

Alcalá is famous for its stork population. They like to make nests on top of the highest points of the tallest churches.

The highlight of Friday was going to see Cirque du Soleil Zarkana that night. For those of you who haven't had the chance to experience a Cirque show yet, DO IT!!! The level of thought and precision and execution put into each show is insane. Every second, every moment, every breathe of each person is planned out to a tee. I always feel like I'm missing something because there is not a single person on stage who isn't moving. The things they can do with their bodies are incredible, and just when you think "that's it, they must be done now" the up the act to the next level.

[Source]
This wasn't in Zarkana, but I did see something similar to this in Mystére. 

Saturday we splurged a little and slept in. Then at 11:15 we realized if we wanted to go to Segovia we had to take the 12:15 train. And it took 45 minutes to get to the train station. Shit. We jumped into over-drive, and somehow 3 girls (with 1 bathroom) got it together and left the house 15 minutes later. We ran to the platform just as the sign said 'next train: 1 minute." Ohhh yeah, we gots skillz.


I had been to Segovia before, but it was about 6 years ago. I think I had idealized the city in my mind, and Kaitlin had done the same thing. Sure, it was gorgeous and a nice day trip, but it was nowhere near the idyllic-most-beautiful-town-i'd-ever-seen-must-go-back-asap town that I had stored in my memory.
However, that is not to say that it wasn't gorgeous. Segovia is well worth the day trip from Madrid. I left my heart somewhere between the aqueduct and the fairytale-esque Castle.

That night we watched the Barca/Real Madrid game (well they watched, while I tried to keep updated on the NFL scores), ate the biggest fruit/cheese/bread platter I've ever seen in my life, and drank tinto. It was a good end to a good week. (The Packers are still undefeated, btw :) )

Yep, 3 girls ate allllllll of that. 

This poster came with Kaitlin's house. Look at those smoldering eyes ;)

Kaitlin told me "if you put your hand riiiiight here, you get...UNIBROW!"

Then all of Sunday was spent wishing I could kill myself as I took the 9 hour bus ride back to Algeciras. Tall people and Spanish buses are just not a good mix.
But I survived.
And now I'm home again :)