July 23, 2010
We decided kind of last minute to go to Granada for a day-trip. We bought our Alhambra tickets in advance, but there were a lot of seats left on the bus so we decided just to wait til we left to buy our tickets--not a great idea. We got to the bus station realllyyyy early in the morning to catch the first bus out to Granada. For some reason, we couldn’t buy tickets for the bus we wanted. We stood in line forever to talk to the people at the ticket booth, but they ended up telling us that they couldn’t do anything about it. We left the Avenida de America Station and went to the South Station to see if they had anything. We got there, and they actually had a bus leaving within ten or fifteen minutes. It cost double but it was a super economy ticket so it was a shorter bus ride, we had comfier seats, we got to watch a couple movies, they served us snacks and drinks a few times, and they gave us a book as a gift when we left. The extra money was definitely worth it--it gave us a lot more time in Granada too. Driving down through the southern part of Spain was incredible. It felt a lot more Spanish to me than Madrid or Barcelona. The mountains and cliffs were so gorgeous! We got to see the countryside of Spain so I loved it :)
When we first got to Granada, we had to take a different bus to get to the city center. That bus dropped us off right at the Cathedral of Granada and at the Royal Chapel. The Royal Chapel has the tombs of King Ferdinand and Queen IsabellaBoth were beautiful. I loved the style of the cathedral--especially the doorways. There were spice markets right outside the cathedral with hundreds of different spices it seemed like. It smelt soo good to walk by them. I should have bought my saffron there--it was a better deal than what I got it for in Madrid and it looked better. There were quite a few women walking around trying to read our palms too--they tried to put herbs in our hands and then they wanted money but I just said no gracias. After we were done exploring the beautiful exterior of the church, we walked down to Plaza Isabel la Catolica. There was a huge statue of Queen Isabella in the middle with fountains and flowers surrounding it. It was really pretty. Granada itself is really just a beautiful city. A lot of people go there just for the Alhambra--which is breathtaking--but the city itself is really cute too. There are lanterns hanging on the side streets, flowers everywhere, sheets hanging from one building to the next across the street to block out the sun, beautiful buildings--I really liked it.
We started walking around and saw La Iglesia y Convento de San Anton (Saint Anthony's Church and Convent) and Palacio de Pavos (Duck Palace). We were trying to find the flower garden (El Carmen de los Martires), but that didn’t happen. It ended up being reallyyy far away and we didn’t have a whole lot of time. We went to the Corral del Carbon—a deposit of merchandise and shelter of merchants. It was adapted after the 16th century for theater plays.
Afterward, we walked around the city a little more and went to get tapas in Plaza Nueva LAS NAVAS???? It is one of the best places to get tapas in Granada. We had a great view of the Albaicin from there. The Albaicin is the ancient Arab quarter of Granada, containing many original houses from the 16th century. We got tapas at a restaurant in the plaza. It was a really cute place. It had glass tables with purple neon lights underneath. I had some Alhambra beer. They brought us meat, bread, olives, and tomatoes that were all delicious.
After our tapas, we took a bus up to the Albaicin. There was no way we were walking that—tiny, winding roads & steep hills. We spent the entire day with the same bus driver pretty much. He always ended up being the bus driver to pick us up and take us to the next spot. We explored the beautiful Albaicin for awhile & admired all of the cute white houses. Then, we went to El Mirador de San Nicolas—where you can get the best view of La Alhambra. It was incredible (& enormous!). It was sooo hot out that it was hard to believe there was snow on top of the mountains in the background. We had a great view of the city of Granada and the Albaicin too. We took a bunch of pictures, sat down for a bit, then took the bus to La Alhambra.
Words can’t describe how amazing La Alhambra is. Every small detail in the intricately designed buildings was amazing in itself—not to mention the beautiful gardens and the view of Granada. La Medina—a garden—was like paradise. We saw the Palace of Carlos V. We went inside the Palacios Nazaries (The Nasrid Palace), which displays Muslim architecture at its finest. The finely molded plaster catches the light along with the honeycomb ceilings. The palace rooms border patios with pools and water cascades, reflecting the preciousness of water in the Arab world. We saw the Court of Myrtles, the Court of Lions, the Hall of Ambassadors, and every other room in the palace. The stucco walls were so fragile—they really didn’t want anyone touching them because stucco is really sensitive to the oils on our hands. We saw Barrio Castrense of the Alcazaba (the castle) and Torre de la Vela (Viewing Tower). The tiny winding staircase up to the top of the viewing tower was tough to go up after a long day of walking in the heat. Barrio Castrense (Castrense neighborhood) looked like a maze on top of the Alcazaba. My favorite part was probably Palacio del Portico (probably the most famous palace of La Alhambra). The reflecting pool and the arches and the landscaping around it were gorgeous. We sat in La Alhambra for as long as we could, and then headed back to the bus to get back to the city center. We had to catch our bus back home to Madrid, and we didn’t want to miss it.
On the bus, I saw a girl who looked IDENTICAL to my cousin Kaity. Besides her having short hair, she was seriously identical to Kaity. I wanted to take a picture, but she got off the bus at the next stop. I never really believed it when people said that we supposedly have an identical twin half way across the world, but now I’m starting to think it’s true. We got back to the city center and had enough time to grab more tapas. We went to a restaurant close to the church. I got really good tapas and a beer for just a euro—it was great! We headed back to the bus stop, went to the bus station, and boarded our bus back home to Madrid. I had my first Spanish dream on the bus ride home. I can only remember a little part of it—I was talking about how I wanted bread from the oven and someone tried offering me other bread but I insisted on the one from the oven. Not a very interesting dream, but it was my first Spanish dream! We made a half hour pit stop on the way and got out at a rest stop. It was such a gorgeous night. There was a full moon and a cool breeze—it felt so much like summer. It made me miss home a lot. I only had one week left though so I just enjoyed the mountains of southern Spain while I could :)
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Barcelonaaa
July 16-19, 2010
I took an overnight bus up to Barcelona on Thursday night (or Friday morning). We left a little after 1 a.m. and arrived in Barcelona around 10 a.m. I didn’t get much sleep the night before, and I thought that would help me sleep on the overnight ride there. Unfortunately, it didn’t help at all. I slept a little on the bus, but we made stops every couple hours and I was freezzziinngggg so it was a little difficult. The bus dropped us off at Nord Station—where allll of the pick-pocketers hang out. I was extra careful with my stuff, walked across the street to the metro, and took the metro to our hostel.
Our hostel was an interesting experience in itself. There was no sign for it at all, and it was an actual apartment building. We were lucky that someone was coming out when we were trying to get in. But even then, we had no idea where to go once we were inside. I asked someone on the elevator, and they told us where to go though. It was so strange. I rang the doorbell to the apartment on the second floor, and a little Spanish lady cracked the door to see who it was. She was expecting Dee and Sophie to be with us, so she was a little confused why we were there. I told her who we were, and she let us in. I guess she rents out an actual apartment to people traveling to Barcelona. It was a huge apartment though and pretty nice. She was just finishing cleaning the rooms, then she checked us in. The room was pretty big, had a twin and queen-sized bed inside, a shower that opened to the room (with pretty clear doors), and a bathroom. There was a little balcony that opened up to the street. Other than the shower and it being really noisy because of the street outside, it was perfect. Luckily, I had a couple hours to kill before Dee and Sophie got there. I fell down on the bed closest to the door and fell asleep.
Dee called when she thought she and Sophie were outside. They were! I was so excited to see Dee again and too meet Sophie! After putting our stuff away, we headed out for the day. We stopped to get some lunch first. We walked down the road and around the corner and found a cute restaurant that had a bunch of posters of famous American musicians/actors/actresses. They had a little bit of everything to choose from. I ended up getting noodles with veggies. It was kind of plain, but still okay.
After lunch, we walked to Placa de Catalunya—a circular plaza with fountains & sculptures that sits at the top end of Las Ramblas. Some of the most important streets and avenues meet at Placa de Catalunya: Passeig de Gracia, Rambla de Catalunya, Las Ramblas, in addition to Ronda de Sant Pere, Carrer de Vergara. It’s a really cute area—I liked it.
After Placa de Catalunya, we walked Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is a gorgeous tree-lined pedestrian walkway and also the busiest and most lively street of the city. It connects Placa de Catalunya with Port Vell. Along this street, you can find Barcelona’s renowned opera house—Gran Teatre del Liceu. It is among one of the world’s finest. Centre d’Art Santa Monica, a public museum of contemporary art, is also on this street, as well as Mercat de la Boqueria (de Sant Josep), which is the city’s most iconic street market. Las Ramblas are always so busy! They take you from rich at Placa Catalunya to rough at thep ort. You can find almost anything on this street—elegant cafes, retread prostitutes, con artists, street mimes, an outdoor bird market, & lots of great shopping. We saw a guy getting a tattoo on the street—it was nuts! It definitely had to be illegal. They were standing behind a tent, and the guy giving the tattoo had papers in his back pocket with designs to choose from. After he was done, we saw him shove the needle in his pants to hide it—crazyyy!
We stopped at Port Vell at the end of Las Ramblas. There’s a monument of Christopher Columbus right at the end of Las Ramblas. There are a lot cool sculptures and statues down at the Port & close by, like a Roy Lichtenstein sculpture. There were millions of boats there, and the water was beautiful.
After sitting at the port for awhile, we walked to the Picasso Museum. There are more than 3,800 works of Picasso in that museum. It was so cool to see how his style changed over the years—from classic to his famous style. We saw everything from his learning sketches to his masterpieces. Some of my favorites were his versions of Velazquez’s Las Meninas. His versions are so different than Velazquez’s, but the colors and the moods that Picasso uses are consistent with those of Velazquez. They had a Picasso vs. Rusinol exhibition going on when we were there. Rusinol taught Picasso for many years.
After we walked through all 6 or 7 buildings of the Picasso Museum, we walked through Barri Gotic (the Gothic neighborhood). We saw the beautiful bridge above Carrer del Bisbe (a street in the Gothic neighborhood). There are courtyards, grand squares, schoolyards, little flea markets, antique shops, street musicians, balconies—gorgeous. It was dinnertime by the time we finished in the Gothic neighborhood, so we stopped at a Wok to Walk on the way home. I got spicy noodles and chicken that were yummyyy. We went back to our hostel to get ready to go out and ended up passing out at like 8:00. We woke up around 2 and decided it was a little too late to get ready and go out, so we just went back to bed. We had to get up early anyway, so I’m kind of glad we went to bed.
We woke up early on Saturday morning. We got breakfast at a little place right down the road from our hostel and on the way to the metro. I got a huge pastry covereddd in chocolate :) After we got done eating and I finished cleaning all the chocolate off of me, we took the metro to Barceloneta beach! It was packed the whole time we were there, but the water was incredible—I could have stayed in it all day. The sand was dark brown and the water almost a navy blue with huge stones at the bottom. It wasn’t as relaxing as beaches usually are because there were so many vendors coming around bugging us, but I still loved it. There were either Asian women coming up to us saying “Masaje, massage, 5 euros, muy bien”, or other vendors coming up to us selling “Cerveza, coca-cola, agua”. There were people selling towels, scarves, everything. There were a few people topless or with speedos & thongs, but other than that, most people were pretty covered. I wish we would have time to stay there for awhile—they were setting up a skate ramp and a stage for some event.
We went back to the hostel to shower & get all of the sand off of us before we went out to dinner at a cute Italian restaurant down the road. I had some really good spaghetti. It was nice to sit in the restaurant for a little while to cool off. Afterward, we took the metro out toward Castell de Montjuic (Montjuic Castle). We took the lift (Funicular de Montjuic) up to the top of the mountain where the castle is. Of course, I loved seeing the whole city from up on the lift. The Sagrada Familia stood out in the skyline higher than anything else, and the water was beautiful. I think Dee and Sophie started feeling their sunburns by this point. I felt so bad for them. We loved when the lift took off because it went so fast and got a breeze going. We got to the castle and started exploring. The outside of it was sooo gorgeous. There wasn’t a whole lot to the inside of it, but it was fun to go on top of the castle to enjoy the view. Montjuic means hill of the Jews. The fortress served as a prison and was also the site of many executions. We had a photo shoot all around the castle then took the lift back down the mountain.
We walked to the Olympic Park after we got off the lift. It was really cool to see where the 1992 Olympics were held—the first Olympic Games I was alive for :) The stadium was enormous! We walked around for a little while, then decided to head down to Museu Nacinoal d'Art de Catalunya (National Art Museum of Catalunya), which is hugeee and looks like a palace. We rode our first outdoor escalator on the way! We could see Placa d’Espanya from the steps of the museum. There are fountains and waterfalls running from the very top of the steps all the way to the street (& even lining the street). It was a beautiful area. There was some kind of dance class going on in front of the museum. There were probably fifty or sixty people dancing around. We almost jumped in with them, but decided not to interrupt.
We walked around Placa d’Espanya for awhile and then decided to look for gelato. We saw it everywhereee the whole trip, and when we actually wanted some, we couldn’t find it anywhere. We decided to go back to the Magic Fountain of Montjuic to see the light show. We got there when it first started, which was too early because it wasn’t dark enough to see the lights. We went to get dinner down the road so that it would be dark by the time we finished eating. I got a couple croquettes and a huge sandwich. After dinner, it was pitch black so we headed back to the fountain. It was gorgeous! The lights and the water and the music…it was one of my favorite things about Barcelona. I took a bajillion pictures of it, we sat and watched it for awhile, then decided to go back to the hostel. We were going to go to Scobie’s Irish Pub down the road from our hostel, but we passed out early again.
We dedicated Sunday to Gaudi. We woke up early again and got breakfast at this little 24/7 place down the street. I got a cranberry muffin with some kind of berry yogurt on the inside—it was sooo good! The yogurt inside was delicious :) We walked to Gaudi’s Casa Batllo—my other favorite thing about Barcelona. I definitely felt like I was in a fairy tale when I was standing in front of the house. The house was amazing! I want to live there. We walked a little further to La Pedrera, another one of Gaudi’s works that he built for a married couple—Rosario Segimon and Pere Mila. Gaudi wanted the people living in the flats to all know each other so he only put lifts on every second floor so people had to communicate with one another on different floors. I love Gaudi!
We took the metro to La Sagrada Familia afterward—Gaudi’s masterpiece! It is a massive, Roman-Catholic church. It has been under construction since 1882 and is expected to be completed in around 2050. I loved everything about the church—especially the doors and the ceiling. It was breath-taking. We sat inside for awhile and looked at all of the details. We went downstairs and saw where the construction workers make plans and models. We saw the exhibit that showed how nature affected Gaudi’s work.
We took the metro to Park Guell after we explored La Sagrada Familia. We had no idea what a hike it was going to be to get there though. It is basically on top of a mountain. It got to the point that we were walking up such a steep hill that we were leaning forward so much that we could basically kiss the sidewalk. We luckily chose the right side of the mountain to go up though. They had a bunch of outside escalators to help us up. We walked up the back side of the park—to the highest peak, where a giant wooden cross stood tall. We had an amazing view of Barcelona from there. We started hiking down the mountain to see Gaudi’s buildings in the park. The park reminded me a little of the movie Tropical Thunder and a lot of Candyland. We saw a guy playing music on a metal plate thing, and it sounded amazing! The entrance to the park was so neat too, with the lizard statue and buildings that looked like they were topped with icing. We were kind of running out of time, so we headed back down the mountain to find the metro. That took forever. We took the metro back toward Las Ramblas to pick up a few souvenirs and to get lunch. We sat down at a nice restaurant and got some sangria, pizza, and paella. We headed back to the hostel, picked up our bags, and went to the bus station. I was so sad to say bye to Dee and Sophie! I felt like we had just gotten there and were already leaving. I had so much fun, and I really loved Barcelona :)
I took an overnight bus up to Barcelona on Thursday night (or Friday morning). We left a little after 1 a.m. and arrived in Barcelona around 10 a.m. I didn’t get much sleep the night before, and I thought that would help me sleep on the overnight ride there. Unfortunately, it didn’t help at all. I slept a little on the bus, but we made stops every couple hours and I was freezzziinngggg so it was a little difficult. The bus dropped us off at Nord Station—where allll of the pick-pocketers hang out. I was extra careful with my stuff, walked across the street to the metro, and took the metro to our hostel.
Our hostel was an interesting experience in itself. There was no sign for it at all, and it was an actual apartment building. We were lucky that someone was coming out when we were trying to get in. But even then, we had no idea where to go once we were inside. I asked someone on the elevator, and they told us where to go though. It was so strange. I rang the doorbell to the apartment on the second floor, and a little Spanish lady cracked the door to see who it was. She was expecting Dee and Sophie to be with us, so she was a little confused why we were there. I told her who we were, and she let us in. I guess she rents out an actual apartment to people traveling to Barcelona. It was a huge apartment though and pretty nice. She was just finishing cleaning the rooms, then she checked us in. The room was pretty big, had a twin and queen-sized bed inside, a shower that opened to the room (with pretty clear doors), and a bathroom. There was a little balcony that opened up to the street. Other than the shower and it being really noisy because of the street outside, it was perfect. Luckily, I had a couple hours to kill before Dee and Sophie got there. I fell down on the bed closest to the door and fell asleep.
Dee called when she thought she and Sophie were outside. They were! I was so excited to see Dee again and too meet Sophie! After putting our stuff away, we headed out for the day. We stopped to get some lunch first. We walked down the road and around the corner and found a cute restaurant that had a bunch of posters of famous American musicians/actors/actresses. They had a little bit of everything to choose from. I ended up getting noodles with veggies. It was kind of plain, but still okay.
After lunch, we walked to Placa de Catalunya—a circular plaza with fountains & sculptures that sits at the top end of Las Ramblas. Some of the most important streets and avenues meet at Placa de Catalunya: Passeig de Gracia, Rambla de Catalunya, Las Ramblas, in addition to Ronda de Sant Pere, Carrer de Vergara. It’s a really cute area—I liked it.
After Placa de Catalunya, we walked Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is a gorgeous tree-lined pedestrian walkway and also the busiest and most lively street of the city. It connects Placa de Catalunya with Port Vell. Along this street, you can find Barcelona’s renowned opera house—Gran Teatre del Liceu. It is among one of the world’s finest. Centre d’Art Santa Monica, a public museum of contemporary art, is also on this street, as well as Mercat de la Boqueria (de Sant Josep), which is the city’s most iconic street market. Las Ramblas are always so busy! They take you from rich at Placa Catalunya to rough at thep ort. You can find almost anything on this street—elegant cafes, retread prostitutes, con artists, street mimes, an outdoor bird market, & lots of great shopping. We saw a guy getting a tattoo on the street—it was nuts! It definitely had to be illegal. They were standing behind a tent, and the guy giving the tattoo had papers in his back pocket with designs to choose from. After he was done, we saw him shove the needle in his pants to hide it—crazyyy!
We stopped at Port Vell at the end of Las Ramblas. There’s a monument of Christopher Columbus right at the end of Las Ramblas. There are a lot cool sculptures and statues down at the Port & close by, like a Roy Lichtenstein sculpture. There were millions of boats there, and the water was beautiful.
After sitting at the port for awhile, we walked to the Picasso Museum. There are more than 3,800 works of Picasso in that museum. It was so cool to see how his style changed over the years—from classic to his famous style. We saw everything from his learning sketches to his masterpieces. Some of my favorites were his versions of Velazquez’s Las Meninas. His versions are so different than Velazquez’s, but the colors and the moods that Picasso uses are consistent with those of Velazquez. They had a Picasso vs. Rusinol exhibition going on when we were there. Rusinol taught Picasso for many years.
After we walked through all 6 or 7 buildings of the Picasso Museum, we walked through Barri Gotic (the Gothic neighborhood). We saw the beautiful bridge above Carrer del Bisbe (a street in the Gothic neighborhood). There are courtyards, grand squares, schoolyards, little flea markets, antique shops, street musicians, balconies—gorgeous. It was dinnertime by the time we finished in the Gothic neighborhood, so we stopped at a Wok to Walk on the way home. I got spicy noodles and chicken that were yummyyy. We went back to our hostel to get ready to go out and ended up passing out at like 8:00. We woke up around 2 and decided it was a little too late to get ready and go out, so we just went back to bed. We had to get up early anyway, so I’m kind of glad we went to bed.
We woke up early on Saturday morning. We got breakfast at a little place right down the road from our hostel and on the way to the metro. I got a huge pastry covereddd in chocolate :) After we got done eating and I finished cleaning all the chocolate off of me, we took the metro to Barceloneta beach! It was packed the whole time we were there, but the water was incredible—I could have stayed in it all day. The sand was dark brown and the water almost a navy blue with huge stones at the bottom. It wasn’t as relaxing as beaches usually are because there were so many vendors coming around bugging us, but I still loved it. There were either Asian women coming up to us saying “Masaje, massage, 5 euros, muy bien”, or other vendors coming up to us selling “Cerveza, coca-cola, agua”. There were people selling towels, scarves, everything. There were a few people topless or with speedos & thongs, but other than that, most people were pretty covered. I wish we would have time to stay there for awhile—they were setting up a skate ramp and a stage for some event.
We went back to the hostel to shower & get all of the sand off of us before we went out to dinner at a cute Italian restaurant down the road. I had some really good spaghetti. It was nice to sit in the restaurant for a little while to cool off. Afterward, we took the metro out toward Castell de Montjuic (Montjuic Castle). We took the lift (Funicular de Montjuic) up to the top of the mountain where the castle is. Of course, I loved seeing the whole city from up on the lift. The Sagrada Familia stood out in the skyline higher than anything else, and the water was beautiful. I think Dee and Sophie started feeling their sunburns by this point. I felt so bad for them. We loved when the lift took off because it went so fast and got a breeze going. We got to the castle and started exploring. The outside of it was sooo gorgeous. There wasn’t a whole lot to the inside of it, but it was fun to go on top of the castle to enjoy the view. Montjuic means hill of the Jews. The fortress served as a prison and was also the site of many executions. We had a photo shoot all around the castle then took the lift back down the mountain.
We walked to the Olympic Park after we got off the lift. It was really cool to see where the 1992 Olympics were held—the first Olympic Games I was alive for :) The stadium was enormous! We walked around for a little while, then decided to head down to Museu Nacinoal d'Art de Catalunya (National Art Museum of Catalunya), which is hugeee and looks like a palace. We rode our first outdoor escalator on the way! We could see Placa d’Espanya from the steps of the museum. There are fountains and waterfalls running from the very top of the steps all the way to the street (& even lining the street). It was a beautiful area. There was some kind of dance class going on in front of the museum. There were probably fifty or sixty people dancing around. We almost jumped in with them, but decided not to interrupt.
We walked around Placa d’Espanya for awhile and then decided to look for gelato. We saw it everywhereee the whole trip, and when we actually wanted some, we couldn’t find it anywhere. We decided to go back to the Magic Fountain of Montjuic to see the light show. We got there when it first started, which was too early because it wasn’t dark enough to see the lights. We went to get dinner down the road so that it would be dark by the time we finished eating. I got a couple croquettes and a huge sandwich. After dinner, it was pitch black so we headed back to the fountain. It was gorgeous! The lights and the water and the music…it was one of my favorite things about Barcelona. I took a bajillion pictures of it, we sat and watched it for awhile, then decided to go back to the hostel. We were going to go to Scobie’s Irish Pub down the road from our hostel, but we passed out early again.
We dedicated Sunday to Gaudi. We woke up early again and got breakfast at this little 24/7 place down the street. I got a cranberry muffin with some kind of berry yogurt on the inside—it was sooo good! The yogurt inside was delicious :) We walked to Gaudi’s Casa Batllo—my other favorite thing about Barcelona. I definitely felt like I was in a fairy tale when I was standing in front of the house. The house was amazing! I want to live there. We walked a little further to La Pedrera, another one of Gaudi’s works that he built for a married couple—Rosario Segimon and Pere Mila. Gaudi wanted the people living in the flats to all know each other so he only put lifts on every second floor so people had to communicate with one another on different floors. I love Gaudi!
We took the metro to La Sagrada Familia afterward—Gaudi’s masterpiece! It is a massive, Roman-Catholic church. It has been under construction since 1882 and is expected to be completed in around 2050. I loved everything about the church—especially the doors and the ceiling. It was breath-taking. We sat inside for awhile and looked at all of the details. We went downstairs and saw where the construction workers make plans and models. We saw the exhibit that showed how nature affected Gaudi’s work.
We took the metro to Park Guell after we explored La Sagrada Familia. We had no idea what a hike it was going to be to get there though. It is basically on top of a mountain. It got to the point that we were walking up such a steep hill that we were leaning forward so much that we could basically kiss the sidewalk. We luckily chose the right side of the mountain to go up though. They had a bunch of outside escalators to help us up. We walked up the back side of the park—to the highest peak, where a giant wooden cross stood tall. We had an amazing view of Barcelona from there. We started hiking down the mountain to see Gaudi’s buildings in the park. The park reminded me a little of the movie Tropical Thunder and a lot of Candyland. We saw a guy playing music on a metal plate thing, and it sounded amazing! The entrance to the park was so neat too, with the lizard statue and buildings that looked like they were topped with icing. We were kind of running out of time, so we headed back down the mountain to find the metro. That took forever. We took the metro back toward Las Ramblas to pick up a few souvenirs and to get lunch. We sat down at a nice restaurant and got some sangria, pizza, and paella. We headed back to the hostel, picked up our bags, and went to the bus station. I was so sad to say bye to Dee and Sophie! I felt like we had just gotten there and were already leaving. I had so much fun, and I really loved Barcelona :)
Lisbon!
July 2-5, 2010
I left for my flight reallyyyy early on Friday morning. The flight was only about an hour, so I got into Lisbon early enough to sleep for a couple hours. I was so excited to see my family! Almost started crying when I first saw Ren and dad waiting for me outside of the gate. We took a taxi back to the hotel, said hi to Mike W sitting in the lobby, said hi to mom and Mikey in the hotel room, and crawled into bed with mom to sleep for a couple hours. We woke up, got ready, and went to breakfast at a McDonald's down the road. Mom got her birthday beer and Big Mac, but Mikey and I ended up drinking her beer. It was Mikey's first legal beer! It was the first time I heard Portuguese too. Portuguese is a really interesting language. It looks like a Spanish/French mix, but sounds like an Italian/Russian mix. I was sooo excited to see my family, I wanted to take pictures of them right away, so I have pictures of everyone with their Mickey D's :) While we were eating, beggars came inside to ask for money and food. One girl poked mom’s sandwich and another time a guy touched my arm. This was the first time this had happened to me. They stood there for a long time, and it was hard because we couldn’t really understand them since none of us spoke Portuguese. They eventually left us and went to the guy sitting next to us. When they asked him for something, all he did was hold up his index finger and moved it back and forth as he turned up his nose and shook his head no. Dad said that must be the trick—all we have to do is hold up our finger and shake our head. His imitation was so funny!
After breakfast, we took the metro to a plaza called Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square). In the middle of the square is the statue of King José I (first monumental statue dedicated to a King in Lisbon). At one end stands the Arco Triunfal (Triumph Arch). The square is surrounded by beautiful, yellow buildings. It was gorgeous there. It smelled so much like the ocean there. We walked out onto some stones that went down into the Atlantic Ocean. We could see the Ponte 25 de Abril (25th of April Bridge) from there. The 25 de Abril Bridge is one of the sister bridges to the Golden Gate in San Francisco. It connects the city of Lisbon to the municipality of Almada. The 1.6 mile long suspension bridge across Tagus River has the longest central span in Europe and is longer than San Fransico's Golden Gate Bridge. It's also one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. We could also see the Monumento ao Cristo Rei (Catholic monument overlooking Lisbon), which is a picture of Jesus Christ standing with his arms up so that he looks like a cross.
We walked up and down tiny streets and hills to get to Igreja Conceicao (church). I loved the engravings around the door at this church. We walked to Casa dos Bicos – a 16th century "House of Spikes" faced with 1,125 diamond-shaped stones. The Palace belonged to Afonso de Albuquerque and is one of the few buildings that survived the 1755 earthquake (spikey house). Afterward we walked to Igreja de Madalena – a 1783 church that incorporates the Manueline portico of a previous church that was built on this site. Right next to Igreja de madalena was Sé de Lisboa - the cathedral of Lisbon and oldest church in the city. It was so easy to get lost in Lisbon because there were so many tiny roads and most of the names of the roads weren’t even on the map. We were lost for at least an hour, but we stumbled upon a beautiful belvedere (viewpoint) on our Alfama walking excursion with an amazing view of the antique houses and Tagus River. All of the antique houses were white with orange roofs. It was incredible.
We finally found our way to St. Vincent - a Renaissance church with royal tombs and an ivory statue of Jesus. When we were walking, we saw a crazy guy on crutches. He hit this girl walking by him with his crutch! Then he kind of followed us as we were walking and started talking to Dad. He was trying to figure out where he was from, and dad didn’t want to talk to him so as the guy was guessing where he from, dad just kept saying no, no, no. Eventually, he told him he was from Illinois, and the guy was trying to figure out what country that was. We ended up leaving, and he didn’t keep following us. I bought a painting there while dad was being questioned by the crazy guy. We saw another crazy lady too. We were walking down a street and this lady just came up and started yelling at everyone. We have no idea what it was about because she was yelling in Portuguese. There were three or four local teenagers sitting down smoking, and at first we thought she was yelling about them smoking, but the teens looked at her like she was crazy too. She flicked Michael in the ear, and started yelling at everyone she saw. She was freaking out! We saw her the next day in a different spot and she was still yelling and flailing her arms. It was so weird. I think she might have been schizophrenic. Anyway, it was sooo hot that day, and after walking in circles we all needed a little break. We stopped at a little place to sit down, get ice cream, and cool off. They had this cool Cornetto Soft machine. The ice cream was frozen in a little package. We put the package in the machine and hold the cone underneath and then just push out the ice cream. It was neat! We saw ice cream and fish everywhere in Lisbon. There were windows full of huge fish of all different kinds.
After we cooled off, we kept walking through the city. We saw a Statue of St. Vincent with St. Vincent's Church in the background. We went to Castelo de São Jorge (St. George’s Castle). This castle sits atop the highest hill in Lisbon to overlook the city and Tagus River. We walked to a plaza called Praça D. Pedro IV, the principal square of Baixa from the 1200s. It is more commonly known as the Rossio, and used to be the scene of bull fights and revolts. Today, the square is very popular as a meeting place. Here we saw Praça da Figueira – an equestrian statue of King John I and a beautiful Baroque fountain. I loved the sidewalks in this plaza. They were optical illusions—they looked like they were wavy but were actually flat. There was a statue at Praça D. Pedro IV - on top of the column is Pedro IV, King of Portugal and first Emperor of Brazil. At the base of the column are four feminine figures representing Justice, Wisdom, Power and Moderation. Across the street from the plaza was Estação do Rossio - Lisbon's main rail terminus. The unique architectural complex houses the rail terminal. The little, yellow funiculars were so cute. We saw Elevador de Lavra - the world's first funicular powered by water and opened in 1884. It is also one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. We rode the Elevador da Glória-which opened in 1885 and is the second funicular powered by water. It links Baixa and Bairro Alto. Lauren, Mom, Michael, and I rode it up the steep hill while Mike and Dad walked up. We thought the hill was going to be a lot longer, and Mike and Dad ended up beating us to the top. We stopped for drinks another time at this little place outside. The drinks there were soo good. We got floats, and fresh squeezed orange juice. It was awesome :)
Once we were at the top, we walked to Igreja de São Roque (Church of Saint Roch) – the earliest Jesuit church in the Portuguese world. It is also one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. It has a plain façade, but a very rich interior. Each of the chapels inside is a masterpiece of Baroque art, and the church houses the "world's most expensive chapel”. There was a ridiculous amount of gold in that church. All of the chapels were covered with it. We saw Our Lady of Piety Chapel in Igreja de São Roque. The central theme is "Calvary" and the 17th century chapel is surrounded by lace-like angels in upholstered wood. We also saw the Chapel of St. John the Baptist in in Igreja de São Roque – which is the "world's most expensive chapel." It was ordered by King John V of Portugal from Rome in 1740, the neo-classic rocaille work was executed in Italy by architects Luigi Vanvilelli and Nicola Salvia. It is constructed of precious metals such as gilt and bronze, marbles, amethyst, jade, etc. The Main Chapel at Igreja de São Roque consists of a retable that includes 17th century images of the four greatest saints of the Society of Jesus: Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Luis de Gonzaga, and Francisco de Borja. In the crypt are the tombs of D. Joao de Borja and Francisco Tregian. We saw the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in Igreja de São Roque, which was founded in 1636 with a central piece dedicated to Our Lady of Assumption. This chapel preserves the Holy Sacrament and is protected by a 16th century forged iron grill. We walked around some more, found a great view of St. George’s castle, and went to the Carmo Convent and Church. We saw the remains of the Gothic Convento do Carmo (Carmo Convent and Church) from the 1755 earthquake. After a long day of walking, we decided to go back to the hotel and rest for a little bit. We freshened up and went out to dinner afterward.
We went out to dinner at this restaurant (I think it was called Changa) down the road from our hotel. We went around 6 or 7, which was really early for dinner so the restaurant was empty besides two other Americans. The two guys working there were really nice. They brought us out some tapas first—some ham and really good cheese and olives and bread. We ended up getting 4 or 5 entrees and splitting everything so that we could all try different things. We had chicken, pork, ribs, fish, salad, and potatoes. It was delicious! We got a pitcher of their house wine, which I actually liked. I don’t like a lot of wine, but this was really good. Mom was feeling a little tipsy by the end of dinner & decided to give one of the waiters a hug as we were leaving. She about fell on the walk back to the hotel, then she ran into the side of the elevator and said “Ooooopss”. It was hilarious :) We all hung out in mom and dad’s room watching the world cup games, then went to bed.
The next day, we woke up, got breakfast, and went to the beach! We took the metro to the stop where they also have the train station. It took us foreverrrr to get train tickets to the beach. The line was so long for tickets, and the machines were all in Portuguese. This guy tried to help us, but he bought 6 trips on one ticket (for one person) instead of 6 trips for 6 people. We had to go upstairs to a person working and get everything switched around. We finally got on the train and headed to Praia da Rainha beach in Cascais. The beaches in Lisbon were really different from every other beach I’ve been to. It was like there were little patches of beach spread out along the water instead of one long beach all along the coast. We stared out the window admiring the scenery on the way there. The Atlantic Ocean was beautiful. We got lunch at a restaurant overlooking the beach. I got some calamari that was sooo good. Mike Wallace got fish, and he decided to eat its eye just like he saw on tv! It was pretty gross. He had a “jaegerism” as he calls it just before we ordered. He thinks Jaeger is dumb so anytime someone does or says something dumb, he says they are having a jaegerism. He thought Bolognese Spaghetti had bologna in it, so after we told him that it was just a type of spaghetti, he said that he was having a jaegerism. After lunch, we explored the caves on the beach. It was unbelievably beautiful there. We took some pictures & accidentally got some topless girls in the background. We climbed up on a cliff to look out into the ocean. It was awesome. We laid out on the beach for awhile, then decided it was time for more ice cream!
There were a bunch of shops around the area we were at. So after looking around for awhile, we stopped at Santini Ice Cream – a family business since 1907 with ties to the royal family. It is the best ice cream in Portugal! I got a scoop of passionfruit and a scoop of nata (cream). The passionfruit tasted kind of funny—it was really tangy. But I loved the cream! We looked at some more shops & souvenirs. My mom and I went into this one shop that had some of Dahli’s works in it for sale. It’s insane how expensive they are. We walked down Rua da Raita – a pedestrian street in Cascais. Then we decided to go back to the hotel to rest and freshen up again before dinner.
For dinner, we went to a different restaurant a little farther away from the hotel. The restaurant was pretty empty again because we were eating early again. Everything we had was delicious. Mom got tortilla Espanola that was really good. At the end of dinner, the waiter gave us each a little glass of port, which is half wine and half brandy so it tastes like really strong wine. Mom said she felt it when she stood up. We went to the grocery store after dinner to get some Milka chocolates and Magnum After Dinner Frac ice cream. I feel like we ate sooo much chocolate and ice cream while we were in Lisbon. We bought some beer and wine too, and headed back to the hotel. We hung out in mom and dad’s room again until they went to bed, then we all moved to Mike and Ren’s room to watch the world cup and hang out for awhile, and called it a day.
The next morning, we woke up and went back to McDonald’s for our McCafe breakfast. Then we headed to Oriente Station – the most stunning modern sight in Lisbon. Oriente Station is a terminus for the metro, train, and bus. It's one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. Master architect Santiago Calatrava built it with a roof of glass and steel made to look like a row of trees. Right near Oriente Station is a shopping center. The ceiling of Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama (shopping center) was really cool—water is collected on the roof to help cool the building. We could see the water pouring over the glass ceiling. We went to the back of the shopping center which faced the water. We saw Honem Sol (Man Sun), an iron sculpture by Jorge Vieira, inspired by a fusion of Man and the Sun. We walked around Parque das Nações – a park developed in 1998 for the World Exhibition. There are flags and country descriptions of most of the world's countries there, with a cable car line traveling over the park. We saw Torre Vasco da Gama – a 476 ft. high tower built over Tagus River in 1998 for the Expo 98 World's Fair. It is named after Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who was the first European to arrive in India by sail, in 1498.
One thing that was really amazing was Ponte Vasco da Gama (Vasco da Gama Bridge) - Europe's longest bridge at 11 miles long. It opened in 1998 right before Expo 98, the World's Fair that celebrated the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Vasco da Gama. It spans the Tagus River and is one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. We found a park while we were walking along the water with a bunch of huge instruments made out of glass and wood. The park was called Garcia d'Orta. Mikey and I played the xylophone and the triangles. We stepped on squares to make the drum sound. It was really cool! Nearby, we saw Tágides Lake, an art exhibit by João Cutileiro - constructed of marble in 1998. It had a huge boat in the middle of a pool with naked women bathing.
We enjoyed the view for awhile, then headed back toward Oriente Station. We saw Portugal Pavilion - a gravity-defying structure designed by Alvaro Siza Vieira. The sagging concrete roof weighs 1,400 tons and measures 167 ft. by 223 ft. It resembles a sailcloth and is one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. In the picture I took, it looks like the poles are holding it up, but the poles are actually in front of it. We took the metro back to the station we came from, then took a hot & crowded, awful bus to another area we wanted to explore.
We got off the hot bus and got some cold drinks at Starbucks to cool off with. When we finished, we walked past Monument to Afonso de Albuquerque in front of Belém Palace. We headed toward the Monument to the Discoveries - one of the symbols of Lisbon that was originally built in 1940 for display during the Portuguese World Exhibition. This was awesome. We could see sooo much from the top of it. I loved the world map outside of it too. It had the trippy sidewalk around it. From the top of the Monument to the Discoveries, we could see Doca de Belem (the marine dock of Belem), Monumento ao Cristo Rei, Pont 25 de Abril, Jeronimos Monastery, Estadio de Restelo (multi-purpose stadium built in 1956), Belem Cultural Center, Berardo Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and the Tower of Belem. Tower of Belém - a monument to Portugal's Age of Discovery built between 1515 and 1520. The Manueline-style tower is Portugal's classic landmark and often serves as a symbol of the country. A monument to Portugal's great military and naval past, the tower stands on or near the spot where the caravels once set out across the sea. We stayed at the top of the monument for a long time because the view was so breathtaking.
Afterward, we headed to Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Jerónimos Monastery) - Manuel I, the Fortunate, ordered this monastery to be built to commemorate Vasco da Gama's voyage to India and give thanks to the Virgin Mary for its success. The Manueline style architect is combined with Gothic, Moorish, and Renaissance influences. Many of the greatest figures in Portuguese history are said to be entombed at the monastery. Inside the monastery is the tomb of Luis Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest Portuguese poets, author of the maritime epic "Os Lusíadas," which is an account of the exploits of the Portuguese navigators, particularly of Vasco da Gama, and the history of the Portuguese people. Vasco da Gama's tomb in also inside Jerónimos Monastery - he was a Portuguese navigator who established the sea link between Portugal and India (1497-1498), thus setting a new trade route which, for over a century, would grant the Portuguese supremacy in the Indian Ocean.
We went to a market that was near the monastery afterward. I got a really cool ring from this guy who makes jewelry and other stuff. We walked around for awhile and headed back to the hotel. Instead of taking the hot bus, we decided to take the tram. Unfortunately, it was just as hot and crowded. It was pretty miserable. We took the metro back to the stop near the hotel, and as we were leaving, Mike got caught in metro door. We had been making fun of mom all day because she swiped her metro ticket and just stood there and watched the doors open. If we wouldn’t have yelled at her to go through, she would have to go buy another ticket. It was hilarious because Mike was making fun of mom for it too, then he got attacked by the doors! I felt bad for him though because it looked pretty painful. We did what we normally do—went back to the hotel, rested for a little bit, freshened up, and went to our last dinner in Lisbon.
We went back to the restaurant that we all first ate at—the one where mom gave the waiter a hug. As soon as we walked in, they started laughing and smiling at us. We had another awesome dinner, said bye to our friends at the restaurant, and headed back to the hotel. We went to bed early because we had to be up early for our flights. It was soooo sad to say bye to my family. Lauren, Mike, and I went to the airport realllyyyy early together to catch our flights. We had breakfast in the airport, then parted ways.
I had such a good time with them & they couldn’t have come see me at a better time. I was getting pretty homesick by that point, so they really boosted my spirits. I love my family soo much!
I left for my flight reallyyyy early on Friday morning. The flight was only about an hour, so I got into Lisbon early enough to sleep for a couple hours. I was so excited to see my family! Almost started crying when I first saw Ren and dad waiting for me outside of the gate. We took a taxi back to the hotel, said hi to Mike W sitting in the lobby, said hi to mom and Mikey in the hotel room, and crawled into bed with mom to sleep for a couple hours. We woke up, got ready, and went to breakfast at a McDonald's down the road. Mom got her birthday beer and Big Mac, but Mikey and I ended up drinking her beer. It was Mikey's first legal beer! It was the first time I heard Portuguese too. Portuguese is a really interesting language. It looks like a Spanish/French mix, but sounds like an Italian/Russian mix. I was sooo excited to see my family, I wanted to take pictures of them right away, so I have pictures of everyone with their Mickey D's :) While we were eating, beggars came inside to ask for money and food. One girl poked mom’s sandwich and another time a guy touched my arm. This was the first time this had happened to me. They stood there for a long time, and it was hard because we couldn’t really understand them since none of us spoke Portuguese. They eventually left us and went to the guy sitting next to us. When they asked him for something, all he did was hold up his index finger and moved it back and forth as he turned up his nose and shook his head no. Dad said that must be the trick—all we have to do is hold up our finger and shake our head. His imitation was so funny!
After breakfast, we took the metro to a plaza called Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square). In the middle of the square is the statue of King José I (first monumental statue dedicated to a King in Lisbon). At one end stands the Arco Triunfal (Triumph Arch). The square is surrounded by beautiful, yellow buildings. It was gorgeous there. It smelled so much like the ocean there. We walked out onto some stones that went down into the Atlantic Ocean. We could see the Ponte 25 de Abril (25th of April Bridge) from there. The 25 de Abril Bridge is one of the sister bridges to the Golden Gate in San Francisco. It connects the city of Lisbon to the municipality of Almada. The 1.6 mile long suspension bridge across Tagus River has the longest central span in Europe and is longer than San Fransico's Golden Gate Bridge. It's also one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. We could also see the Monumento ao Cristo Rei (Catholic monument overlooking Lisbon), which is a picture of Jesus Christ standing with his arms up so that he looks like a cross.
We walked up and down tiny streets and hills to get to Igreja Conceicao (church). I loved the engravings around the door at this church. We walked to Casa dos Bicos – a 16th century "House of Spikes" faced with 1,125 diamond-shaped stones. The Palace belonged to Afonso de Albuquerque and is one of the few buildings that survived the 1755 earthquake (spikey house). Afterward we walked to Igreja de Madalena – a 1783 church that incorporates the Manueline portico of a previous church that was built on this site. Right next to Igreja de madalena was Sé de Lisboa - the cathedral of Lisbon and oldest church in the city. It was so easy to get lost in Lisbon because there were so many tiny roads and most of the names of the roads weren’t even on the map. We were lost for at least an hour, but we stumbled upon a beautiful belvedere (viewpoint) on our Alfama walking excursion with an amazing view of the antique houses and Tagus River. All of the antique houses were white with orange roofs. It was incredible.
We finally found our way to St. Vincent - a Renaissance church with royal tombs and an ivory statue of Jesus. When we were walking, we saw a crazy guy on crutches. He hit this girl walking by him with his crutch! Then he kind of followed us as we were walking and started talking to Dad. He was trying to figure out where he was from, and dad didn’t want to talk to him so as the guy was guessing where he from, dad just kept saying no, no, no. Eventually, he told him he was from Illinois, and the guy was trying to figure out what country that was. We ended up leaving, and he didn’t keep following us. I bought a painting there while dad was being questioned by the crazy guy. We saw another crazy lady too. We were walking down a street and this lady just came up and started yelling at everyone. We have no idea what it was about because she was yelling in Portuguese. There were three or four local teenagers sitting down smoking, and at first we thought she was yelling about them smoking, but the teens looked at her like she was crazy too. She flicked Michael in the ear, and started yelling at everyone she saw. She was freaking out! We saw her the next day in a different spot and she was still yelling and flailing her arms. It was so weird. I think she might have been schizophrenic. Anyway, it was sooo hot that day, and after walking in circles we all needed a little break. We stopped at a little place to sit down, get ice cream, and cool off. They had this cool Cornetto Soft machine. The ice cream was frozen in a little package. We put the package in the machine and hold the cone underneath and then just push out the ice cream. It was neat! We saw ice cream and fish everywhere in Lisbon. There were windows full of huge fish of all different kinds.
After we cooled off, we kept walking through the city. We saw a Statue of St. Vincent with St. Vincent's Church in the background. We went to Castelo de São Jorge (St. George’s Castle). This castle sits atop the highest hill in Lisbon to overlook the city and Tagus River. We walked to a plaza called Praça D. Pedro IV, the principal square of Baixa from the 1200s. It is more commonly known as the Rossio, and used to be the scene of bull fights and revolts. Today, the square is very popular as a meeting place. Here we saw Praça da Figueira – an equestrian statue of King John I and a beautiful Baroque fountain. I loved the sidewalks in this plaza. They were optical illusions—they looked like they were wavy but were actually flat. There was a statue at Praça D. Pedro IV - on top of the column is Pedro IV, King of Portugal and first Emperor of Brazil. At the base of the column are four feminine figures representing Justice, Wisdom, Power and Moderation. Across the street from the plaza was Estação do Rossio - Lisbon's main rail terminus. The unique architectural complex houses the rail terminal. The little, yellow funiculars were so cute. We saw Elevador de Lavra - the world's first funicular powered by water and opened in 1884. It is also one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. We rode the Elevador da Glória-which opened in 1885 and is the second funicular powered by water. It links Baixa and Bairro Alto. Lauren, Mom, Michael, and I rode it up the steep hill while Mike and Dad walked up. We thought the hill was going to be a lot longer, and Mike and Dad ended up beating us to the top. We stopped for drinks another time at this little place outside. The drinks there were soo good. We got floats, and fresh squeezed orange juice. It was awesome :)
Once we were at the top, we walked to Igreja de São Roque (Church of Saint Roch) – the earliest Jesuit church in the Portuguese world. It is also one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. It has a plain façade, but a very rich interior. Each of the chapels inside is a masterpiece of Baroque art, and the church houses the "world's most expensive chapel”. There was a ridiculous amount of gold in that church. All of the chapels were covered with it. We saw Our Lady of Piety Chapel in Igreja de São Roque. The central theme is "Calvary" and the 17th century chapel is surrounded by lace-like angels in upholstered wood. We also saw the Chapel of St. John the Baptist in in Igreja de São Roque – which is the "world's most expensive chapel." It was ordered by King John V of Portugal from Rome in 1740, the neo-classic rocaille work was executed in Italy by architects Luigi Vanvilelli and Nicola Salvia. It is constructed of precious metals such as gilt and bronze, marbles, amethyst, jade, etc. The Main Chapel at Igreja de São Roque consists of a retable that includes 17th century images of the four greatest saints of the Society of Jesus: Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Luis de Gonzaga, and Francisco de Borja. In the crypt are the tombs of D. Joao de Borja and Francisco Tregian. We saw the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in Igreja de São Roque, which was founded in 1636 with a central piece dedicated to Our Lady of Assumption. This chapel preserves the Holy Sacrament and is protected by a 16th century forged iron grill. We walked around some more, found a great view of St. George’s castle, and went to the Carmo Convent and Church. We saw the remains of the Gothic Convento do Carmo (Carmo Convent and Church) from the 1755 earthquake. After a long day of walking, we decided to go back to the hotel and rest for a little bit. We freshened up and went out to dinner afterward.
We went out to dinner at this restaurant (I think it was called Changa) down the road from our hotel. We went around 6 or 7, which was really early for dinner so the restaurant was empty besides two other Americans. The two guys working there were really nice. They brought us out some tapas first—some ham and really good cheese and olives and bread. We ended up getting 4 or 5 entrees and splitting everything so that we could all try different things. We had chicken, pork, ribs, fish, salad, and potatoes. It was delicious! We got a pitcher of their house wine, which I actually liked. I don’t like a lot of wine, but this was really good. Mom was feeling a little tipsy by the end of dinner & decided to give one of the waiters a hug as we were leaving. She about fell on the walk back to the hotel, then she ran into the side of the elevator and said “Ooooopss”. It was hilarious :) We all hung out in mom and dad’s room watching the world cup games, then went to bed.
The next day, we woke up, got breakfast, and went to the beach! We took the metro to the stop where they also have the train station. It took us foreverrrr to get train tickets to the beach. The line was so long for tickets, and the machines were all in Portuguese. This guy tried to help us, but he bought 6 trips on one ticket (for one person) instead of 6 trips for 6 people. We had to go upstairs to a person working and get everything switched around. We finally got on the train and headed to Praia da Rainha beach in Cascais. The beaches in Lisbon were really different from every other beach I’ve been to. It was like there were little patches of beach spread out along the water instead of one long beach all along the coast. We stared out the window admiring the scenery on the way there. The Atlantic Ocean was beautiful. We got lunch at a restaurant overlooking the beach. I got some calamari that was sooo good. Mike Wallace got fish, and he decided to eat its eye just like he saw on tv! It was pretty gross. He had a “jaegerism” as he calls it just before we ordered. He thinks Jaeger is dumb so anytime someone does or says something dumb, he says they are having a jaegerism. He thought Bolognese Spaghetti had bologna in it, so after we told him that it was just a type of spaghetti, he said that he was having a jaegerism. After lunch, we explored the caves on the beach. It was unbelievably beautiful there. We took some pictures & accidentally got some topless girls in the background. We climbed up on a cliff to look out into the ocean. It was awesome. We laid out on the beach for awhile, then decided it was time for more ice cream!
There were a bunch of shops around the area we were at. So after looking around for awhile, we stopped at Santini Ice Cream – a family business since 1907 with ties to the royal family. It is the best ice cream in Portugal! I got a scoop of passionfruit and a scoop of nata (cream). The passionfruit tasted kind of funny—it was really tangy. But I loved the cream! We looked at some more shops & souvenirs. My mom and I went into this one shop that had some of Dahli’s works in it for sale. It’s insane how expensive they are. We walked down Rua da Raita – a pedestrian street in Cascais. Then we decided to go back to the hotel to rest and freshen up again before dinner.
For dinner, we went to a different restaurant a little farther away from the hotel. The restaurant was pretty empty again because we were eating early again. Everything we had was delicious. Mom got tortilla Espanola that was really good. At the end of dinner, the waiter gave us each a little glass of port, which is half wine and half brandy so it tastes like really strong wine. Mom said she felt it when she stood up. We went to the grocery store after dinner to get some Milka chocolates and Magnum After Dinner Frac ice cream. I feel like we ate sooo much chocolate and ice cream while we were in Lisbon. We bought some beer and wine too, and headed back to the hotel. We hung out in mom and dad’s room again until they went to bed, then we all moved to Mike and Ren’s room to watch the world cup and hang out for awhile, and called it a day.
The next morning, we woke up and went back to McDonald’s for our McCafe breakfast. Then we headed to Oriente Station – the most stunning modern sight in Lisbon. Oriente Station is a terminus for the metro, train, and bus. It's one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. Master architect Santiago Calatrava built it with a roof of glass and steel made to look like a row of trees. Right near Oriente Station is a shopping center. The ceiling of Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama (shopping center) was really cool—water is collected on the roof to help cool the building. We could see the water pouring over the glass ceiling. We went to the back of the shopping center which faced the water. We saw Honem Sol (Man Sun), an iron sculpture by Jorge Vieira, inspired by a fusion of Man and the Sun. We walked around Parque das Nações – a park developed in 1998 for the World Exhibition. There are flags and country descriptions of most of the world's countries there, with a cable car line traveling over the park. We saw Torre Vasco da Gama – a 476 ft. high tower built over Tagus River in 1998 for the Expo 98 World's Fair. It is named after Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who was the first European to arrive in India by sail, in 1498.
One thing that was really amazing was Ponte Vasco da Gama (Vasco da Gama Bridge) - Europe's longest bridge at 11 miles long. It opened in 1998 right before Expo 98, the World's Fair that celebrated the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Vasco da Gama. It spans the Tagus River and is one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. We found a park while we were walking along the water with a bunch of huge instruments made out of glass and wood. The park was called Garcia d'Orta. Mikey and I played the xylophone and the triangles. We stepped on squares to make the drum sound. It was really cool! Nearby, we saw Tágides Lake, an art exhibit by João Cutileiro - constructed of marble in 1998. It had a huge boat in the middle of a pool with naked women bathing.
We enjoyed the view for awhile, then headed back toward Oriente Station. We saw Portugal Pavilion - a gravity-defying structure designed by Alvaro Siza Vieira. The sagging concrete roof weighs 1,400 tons and measures 167 ft. by 223 ft. It resembles a sailcloth and is one of Lisbon's top 10 architectural sites. In the picture I took, it looks like the poles are holding it up, but the poles are actually in front of it. We took the metro back to the station we came from, then took a hot & crowded, awful bus to another area we wanted to explore.
We got off the hot bus and got some cold drinks at Starbucks to cool off with. When we finished, we walked past Monument to Afonso de Albuquerque in front of Belém Palace. We headed toward the Monument to the Discoveries - one of the symbols of Lisbon that was originally built in 1940 for display during the Portuguese World Exhibition. This was awesome. We could see sooo much from the top of it. I loved the world map outside of it too. It had the trippy sidewalk around it. From the top of the Monument to the Discoveries, we could see Doca de Belem (the marine dock of Belem), Monumento ao Cristo Rei, Pont 25 de Abril, Jeronimos Monastery, Estadio de Restelo (multi-purpose stadium built in 1956), Belem Cultural Center, Berardo Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and the Tower of Belem. Tower of Belém - a monument to Portugal's Age of Discovery built between 1515 and 1520. The Manueline-style tower is Portugal's classic landmark and often serves as a symbol of the country. A monument to Portugal's great military and naval past, the tower stands on or near the spot where the caravels once set out across the sea. We stayed at the top of the monument for a long time because the view was so breathtaking.
Afterward, we headed to Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Jerónimos Monastery) - Manuel I, the Fortunate, ordered this monastery to be built to commemorate Vasco da Gama's voyage to India and give thanks to the Virgin Mary for its success. The Manueline style architect is combined with Gothic, Moorish, and Renaissance influences. Many of the greatest figures in Portuguese history are said to be entombed at the monastery. Inside the monastery is the tomb of Luis Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest Portuguese poets, author of the maritime epic "Os Lusíadas," which is an account of the exploits of the Portuguese navigators, particularly of Vasco da Gama, and the history of the Portuguese people. Vasco da Gama's tomb in also inside Jerónimos Monastery - he was a Portuguese navigator who established the sea link between Portugal and India (1497-1498), thus setting a new trade route which, for over a century, would grant the Portuguese supremacy in the Indian Ocean.
We went to a market that was near the monastery afterward. I got a really cool ring from this guy who makes jewelry and other stuff. We walked around for awhile and headed back to the hotel. Instead of taking the hot bus, we decided to take the tram. Unfortunately, it was just as hot and crowded. It was pretty miserable. We took the metro back to the stop near the hotel, and as we were leaving, Mike got caught in metro door. We had been making fun of mom all day because she swiped her metro ticket and just stood there and watched the doors open. If we wouldn’t have yelled at her to go through, she would have to go buy another ticket. It was hilarious because Mike was making fun of mom for it too, then he got attacked by the doors! I felt bad for him though because it looked pretty painful. We did what we normally do—went back to the hotel, rested for a little bit, freshened up, and went to our last dinner in Lisbon.
We went back to the restaurant that we all first ate at—the one where mom gave the waiter a hug. As soon as we walked in, they started laughing and smiling at us. We had another awesome dinner, said bye to our friends at the restaurant, and headed back to the hotel. We went to bed early because we had to be up early for our flights. It was soooo sad to say bye to my family. Lauren, Mike, and I went to the airport realllyyyy early together to catch our flights. We had breakfast in the airport, then parted ways.
I had such a good time with them & they couldn’t have come see me at a better time. I was getting pretty homesick by that point, so they really boosted my spirits. I love my family soo much!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
More Recipes
So even though I hate flan, Encarnita taught me how to make it today. I can make it for other people, but I don't think I'll be eating any of it.
-Heat the metal mold
-Add 3 spoonfuls of sugar and 1 of water & heat until it caramelizes in the mold
-Heat 2 cups of milk in separate pan
-Put 3 eggs in a bowl & stir
-Can add a little bit of liquor to the milk or if you want to make coffee flavored you can put coffee in with the milk
-Put 6 spoonfuls of sugar in milk that is heating up
-Stir milk & sugar slowly always stirring in the same direction
-Let sugar & water boil for a little bit until it caramelizes & turns brown--the browner it is, the better
-Move caramelized sugar around mold so it covers & coats the whole mold
-Pour milk mixture into eggs little by little & mix, then pour it into the mold
-Put aluminum foil on top of mold & put lid on mold
-Put mold in double boiler (oja de presion--pan w/ holes & water in bottom of bigger pot)
-Cook on low for 1 hour over flame
-Let it cool to room temperature--put in fridge after
-Cut around edges later & flip onto plate
Arroz (Rice)
I love this rice that senora makes, so I asked her to teach me how to make it. I seriously could eat it every day!
-Cover the bottom of a big pan with virgin olive oil, then put cut up onion and green peppers in oil
-Heat in another pot water, cut up carrots, cut up cauliflower, bay leaves, saffron coloring (pot should be full of water)
-Add cut up garlic clove to green peppers & onion
-Put big plate of rice in with the oil, peppers, onion, & garlic, then stir
-Add one big spoonful of salt to the pot with the rice
-Add cup of peas to the pot with the carrots & water, etc. then carefully pour this pot into the big pot with the rice on high flame
-Add lemon juice from one lemon & a little bit of water (to rinse lemon juice container)
-Cook on low flame for 20 min
Berenjenas Fritas (Fried Eggplant) --can also cook apples or bananas this way
-Wash eggplant and cut into thin pieces
-Place pieces of eggplant in salt for 30 min (no more) to soak up the liquid
-In a dish, put 1 egg, some flour & milk and stir until it is creamy (but a still a little runny)
-Put eggplant in the mixture in the dish--cover both sides of each piece
-Put olive oil in bottom of pan & heat the oil until it is really hot
-Put eggplant pieces in the oil and fry them
Senora said something about putting a pepper in the oil so it doesn't turn black, but I'm not sure what she was talking about. Hopefully mom or someone already knows this trick.
-Heat the metal mold
-Add 3 spoonfuls of sugar and 1 of water & heat until it caramelizes in the mold
-Heat 2 cups of milk in separate pan
-Put 3 eggs in a bowl & stir
-Can add a little bit of liquor to the milk or if you want to make coffee flavored you can put coffee in with the milk
-Put 6 spoonfuls of sugar in milk that is heating up
-Stir milk & sugar slowly always stirring in the same direction
-Let sugar & water boil for a little bit until it caramelizes & turns brown--the browner it is, the better
-Move caramelized sugar around mold so it covers & coats the whole mold
-Pour milk mixture into eggs little by little & mix, then pour it into the mold
-Put aluminum foil on top of mold & put lid on mold
-Put mold in double boiler (oja de presion--pan w/ holes & water in bottom of bigger pot)
-Cook on low for 1 hour over flame
-Let it cool to room temperature--put in fridge after
-Cut around edges later & flip onto plate
Arroz (Rice)
I love this rice that senora makes, so I asked her to teach me how to make it. I seriously could eat it every day!
-Cover the bottom of a big pan with virgin olive oil, then put cut up onion and green peppers in oil
-Heat in another pot water, cut up carrots, cut up cauliflower, bay leaves, saffron coloring (pot should be full of water)
-Add cut up garlic clove to green peppers & onion
-Put big plate of rice in with the oil, peppers, onion, & garlic, then stir
-Add one big spoonful of salt to the pot with the rice
-Add cup of peas to the pot with the carrots & water, etc. then carefully pour this pot into the big pot with the rice on high flame
-Add lemon juice from one lemon & a little bit of water (to rinse lemon juice container)
-Cook on low flame for 20 min
Berenjenas Fritas (Fried Eggplant) --can also cook apples or bananas this way
-Wash eggplant and cut into thin pieces
-Place pieces of eggplant in salt for 30 min (no more) to soak up the liquid
-In a dish, put 1 egg, some flour & milk and stir until it is creamy (but a still a little runny)
-Put eggplant in the mixture in the dish--cover both sides of each piece
-Put olive oil in bottom of pan & heat the oil until it is really hot
-Put eggplant pieces in the oil and fry them
Senora said something about putting a pepper in the oil so it doesn't turn black, but I'm not sure what she was talking about. Hopefully mom or someone already knows this trick.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Another weekend in Madrid
July 8-11, 2010
I had another awesome weekend in Madrid a couple weeks ago! This is what it was like...
Friday
Since every store in Madrid has 50-70% off on practically the entire store, we decided to do a little shopping in Sol to get a few things we have been needing. We picked up some souvenirs for friends, and finallyyyyy got churros con choolate! They were so good! I could have drank the chocolate straight--it was so creamy. We went to Plaza Mayor afterward to try to find some paintings of Madrid, but didn't have any luck so we bought some prints instead. Our last stop before we had to head back for dinner was La Almudena. On the way there, we found this cuteeee market called Mercado de San Miguel. You could see everything inside through the huge windows, and it all looked amazing! I heard the dried fruit stand there is awesome, so I'm hoping to go back and try it before we leave Madrid. We walked through a really pretty plaza called Plaza de la Villa. It has the statue A Don Alvaro de Bazan and is right next to the church Iglesia Catedral Castrense.
We got to La Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena, which is the cathedral right behind Palacio Real. It almost looks like two different churches when you are standing on different sides of it. Most of it is baby blue and white, but one side is brown and tan. Felipe, Prince of Asturias (heir to the Spanish throne) married Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano (a reporter) in this church. We took a little peak inside the church, and headed back home for dinner.
Saturday
I spent the entire day with Encarnita on Saturday :) It was cute! We went to el cine (the cinema) to see a movie called El Concierto. Encarnita lovesssss classical music, and she was humming the songs during the movie. Before we went, she told me if I don't understand the movie completely, I could at least enjoy the music. I didn't think I would like the movie much at first because I didn't really understand the main character's obsession with directing orchestras until the plot developed more. By the end, though, I really liked it. I surprisingly could understand the whole movie without English or Spanish subtitles. It made me realize how much my Spanish really has improved since I've been here. At school, when we watched movies in Spanish class, I used to always need at least Spanish subtitles to understand anything. The voices were dubbed over too (I think it was a French movie originally), which made it a little more difficult because I couldn't read their lips while listening to them speak. If I didn't look at their lips and just listened to them, it was much easier. Encarnita told me I was the first student to go to the movies with her. That was hard to believe because she has had sooo many students over the years. She said other students would watch movies in English or with English subtitles after she watched the movie in the cinema and then they would talk about it afterward, but I was the first to actually go to the cinema with her.
After the movie, we walked home. We stopped in a few stores so Encarnita could look around on the way. It was nice to just spend some time with her--walking & talking. We stopped at a couple of plant stores and she told me how much she loved magnolias. When we got home, we only had about 20 minutes to cool off and rest before it was time to walk to church. We went to her church--La Basilica de la Merced. During mass, all of the old Spanish ladies were fanning themselves the whole time because it was so hot in there--it was adorable :) The church was huge, and it seems like they have service allll of the time(as soon as our service finished, another one started, so the church wasn't even 1/4 full. At the front of the church, there was a really modern looking sculpture of Jesus made out of metal. It was really neat--I've never seen anything like it in a church before. The prayers we said were exactly like the ones we say in Catholic churches in the U.S. (other than it being in a different language).
Encarnita LOVES the priest there. She is knitting him a scarf right now. During mass, she kept talking about how great of a speaker he was. She was so funny during mass too. when it was time to stand up, she was always the first to stand up. When it was time to sit down, she was always the first one in her seat. When we were saying a prayer, she would say it so loudly & say it a couple words ahead of everyone else there. She reminded me of a little kid proud of what she knew, kind of trying to show off how she knew everything by heart. It was so funny :) When they needed another person to help collect the offering, she was the first person to run up there. As soon as mass was over, she skipped over to the door to the back, and we went in the back room to talk to the priests. We talked to them for awhile--about the scarves she was knitting, the classes I am taking, sayings that are really unique to Spain, food, art, and all sorts of things. Afterward, we walked back home. ON the way, we ran into a bunch of people she knew. She was telling me about how she knows everyone in the world when we passed a couple guys & they said "Holaaaaa". We both said "Hola", then she said, "Wait, I don't know them. Anytime you get an 'Holaaaa' from someone you don't know like that, he is saying, 'I want to be with you.'" She's so funny~ We got home, had dinner, & stayed in for the night.
Sunday
Sunday was a busy, and exciting day. We walked to Museo de Sorolla first. This museum has the majority of Sorolla's paintings and drawings. It is so neat because the museum actually used to be Sorolla's house! There was a cute, little garden/patio in the front. Some of his paintings that we saw were The White Slave Trade, The Pink Robe, and Siesta. I love his stuff. Seeing all of his paintings made me want to paint something with water in it. So right now I'm painting one of Monet's landscapes with water in the background. I think it is going to be my favorite painting I've ever done. I want to do a painting sometime with kids in the water--kind of similar to some of Sorolla's paintings. Sorolla used one of the rooms in his house to hang all of his most recent paintings and those that were for sale. He used it as an exhibition room. This was the room that was dedicated to all of his beach scenes. The furniture in this room is the exact same furniture that Sorolla had in it. So cool! He painted the fruit and leaves that bordered his dining room too. The basement was full of his pottery--there was sooo much of it! It is such an awesome museum :) :) :)
Next, we went to the Reina Sofia (Queen Sophie--the current Spanish queen) art museum. The first thing we saw at the Reina Sofia were the cool, glass elevators on the outside. They were awesome! They had Reina Sofia written down the side of them. We went inside and went to the second floor--where the permanent collection starts. We saw a lot of Miro, Dali, and Picasso here. Some specific paintings we saw were Manuel Angeles Ortiz's Still-Life, Dali's El Enigma de Hitler, and Picasso's Crying Heads. The Reina Sofia also has La Guernica!!! We learned all about this painting in my Spanish classes at SLU, and I couldn't believe I was standing in front of it. Picasso painted it in response to the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian warplanes by request of the Spanish Nationalist forces in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. This painting shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts on innocent people. The shape and posture of the bodies express protest. The black, white, and gray colors give it a somber feel. Incredible...
We saw some of Dali's work before he really developed his own style, like Girl at the Window. It's the most realistic painting I think I have seen of his. We saw Angeles Santos Torroella's A World and Robert Delaunay's Portrait of Tristan Tzara. There was a square in the middle of the museum with gorgeous trees and some interesting sculptures. There was this one room in the museum that was kind of strange. It was this room that looked like it could be someone's office. It had a wall full of beautiful wooden cabinets, two leather chairs in the middle, and right in front of the cabinets was a wooden, spiral staircase. At the top of the staircase there were only two paintings hanging on the white walls--one of Bugs Bunny and one of Mickey Mouse. It was interesting.
We went to the first floor of the museum where all of the modern art was. I love modern art, but it makes it really difficult for me because I always want to touch the artwork or play with it. There was a boat made out of clay thumbs, a painting of footsteps of how to do a dance, and so many other cool things! There was one that was hanging from the ceiling that had a bunch of random things on it and some pots and pans, and every once in awhile it would drop down or move up and make so much noise that everyone would jump--especially the people walking underneath it! We went to ground zero of the museum too, which was verryyyyy interesting. It had a model Chinese house in the middle of the room, some disturbing nude photos that looked like they could be the cover of a porno, lifeguard chairs spaced randomly around the room so you could climb up onto the chairs to look at the huge pieces of art, random books hanging from the ceiling with magnifying glasses/binoculars attached to them, a video playing at the top of the platform, and so many other random things! After we were done on this floor, we decided to go out onto the terrace. It was so nice up there, and there was a great view.
After the Reina Sofia, we decided to get some tapas at a nearby restaurant called Los Zuritos. We had potatoes in spicy sauce (that wasn't really spicy at all but still delicious), and a little kebab with bread. It was so good! We went back home after the Reina Sofia to get ready for final game of the world cup! Then we headed back to the Prado for round two. We finished seeing all of the masterpieces there, we headed out to join the crazy fans on their way to Plaza de Cibeles! I already wrote a blog about what happened the rest of the night and all of the craziness of the World Cup, so if you read that, you can see how my night ended! :)
A couple random things at the house....
So usually I love Encarnita's cooking, and I eat all of my food and even some of Preethi's, but lately, we've found ourselves having to sneak food to the trash can on the street. The bread she gives me for breakfast has been as hard as a rock these past couple weeks. At first, I just threw it in the garbage. Then she asked me how my breakfast was (which she never does) so I'm guessing she saw it. Then I tried breaking the bread into pieces and flushing it down the toilet, but some pieces were so hard that they wouldn't flush, so I had to look for a different option. Then I thought about the homeless people I pass by on the way to school & decided to wrap the bread in toilet paper or a napkin and give it to them. So that's what I've been doing practically every day. It's a little more difficult to do now, though, because she is on vacation from work so she is home all the time. She never used to be home when I ate breakfast. I have to wrap the bread in a napkin and shove it in my bra or in my shorts when she isn't looking to sneak back to my room until I leave for class haha! It's pretty funny. I felt bad about wasting the bread before, so now I'm glad that I can give it to someone who needs it. I still get out a knife and my jam and dip the knife in the jar to make it look like I used it. I didn't do it at first because I thought the bread was just going to be hard that one time, but now that it is every day, I have to make it look like I'm eating it.
One time for dinner, Preethi couldn't eat her peas & potatoes & bacon because she thought they tasted funny. There were a little overcooked, but I ate them anyway. I had to eat like the whole pot because Preethi wouldn't eat any though, so I couldn't eat my dessert. 1) Because I was too full and 2) Because it was flan! I hateeeee flan. It is so disgusting to me--something about the consistency just makes me want to vomit. Preethi loves it, though, and she ate her flan but not her dinner. So we had basically an entire dinner that we couldn't eat. We decided to eat slowly and wait until Encarnita was snoring to sneak it out to the trash can on the street. We looked pretty ridiculous wearing our PJ's and carrying our trays of food out on the street to empty into the trash can. I felt like I was 10 years old all over again.
Another time, Preethi and I got back late after Encarnita was in bed. She left us dinner in the fridge to heat up since we knew we would be back late. It was salad, tortilla espanola, and fruit with milk and cinnamon for dessert. All of it was really good, but we just weren't hungry. I don't know if it was the heat or what. It was in the 100's that day and we have no AC or fans here. I stuffed down the dinner anyway, but couldn't eat the dessert. Preethi didn't eat anything really, so we had so much food to get rid of. We decided to give it to the kittens down the street that I found when Encarnita and I went to church! We put the food that would rot in the sun in the trash can and gave the rest to the little kittens and their mom and dad. I hope she didn't walk by and see our dinner sitting on a Blanco bag (a bag from a store we like). She would have known it was us for sure!
Another thing I wanted to write down was something Encarnita told me the other day. I thought it was so cute. I don't remember how we got on the topic, but she was telling me that the person who will always love me the most is my mother. She said a mother loves her child no matter what. She said that first it is the mother, then it is the father, then the grandparents, and then sometimes the siblings, and that friends come and go, but family is there for you always.
We were talking about what Spanish soccer players we loved another time. Preethi likes Torres, and I love Villa and Casillas. We were talking about them and about how Casillas met his journalist girlfriend, and she told us that we need different careers. She said that the only people Preethi would meet would be cancer patients, and the only people I'd meet would be the fathers of the kids I saw. She said this is no good--we need different careers! Later on she asked me if I didn't know how to answer her or what. She said I should be telling her that I don't need a man to make me happy in life. She doesn't have kids of her own, which is why she has students live with her all of the time. She was with a man for about 10 years, but machismo is really big over here. Machismo is basically like sexism--guys think they are better than girls so they treat women like objects. She said the guy she was with was like that--not in his actions but in thought, so it didn't work out. She said it was a good thing that it didn't work out, though, because otherwise she never would have met me.
Random Europe things...
One thing that is extremely different here than it is in the States is the time waiters/waitresses give you at restaurants. People in Europe usually take their time when they eaet and will stay in restaurants after they finish eating for hours. They will sit and talk and have coffee. The waiters and waitresses won't rush you out or even bring you the check until you ask for it. It's nice, unless you are in a hurry--then you have to like chase them down to get the check. Spanish time is kind of like Honduran time too--it's custom to be late. Tipping is different here too. It doesn't really exist, actually. We didn't find this out until a couple weeks in after we had been tipping everywhere. We wondered why the taxi driver was so surprised when we told him to keep the change, and why another driver called us beautiful only after we tipped him. Most people who live here told us that the only time you tip is if you really like the service and food, you can leave a euro or two. The only place I went to where people tipped regularly was Lisbon.
Another thing that is different is the amount of personal space people give each other. It is normal to give a stranger a kiss on each cheek when you first meet them (besos). I's not really a kiss, more like rubbing your cheeks against theirs. People stand so close to each other when they talk too. It almost looks like they are trying to tell each other secrets, but it's just custom here. Just a couple things that are different here.
I had another awesome weekend in Madrid a couple weeks ago! This is what it was like...
Friday
Since every store in Madrid has 50-70% off on practically the entire store, we decided to do a little shopping in Sol to get a few things we have been needing. We picked up some souvenirs for friends, and finallyyyyy got churros con choolate! They were so good! I could have drank the chocolate straight--it was so creamy. We went to Plaza Mayor afterward to try to find some paintings of Madrid, but didn't have any luck so we bought some prints instead. Our last stop before we had to head back for dinner was La Almudena. On the way there, we found this cuteeee market called Mercado de San Miguel. You could see everything inside through the huge windows, and it all looked amazing! I heard the dried fruit stand there is awesome, so I'm hoping to go back and try it before we leave Madrid. We walked through a really pretty plaza called Plaza de la Villa. It has the statue A Don Alvaro de Bazan and is right next to the church Iglesia Catedral Castrense.
We got to La Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena, which is the cathedral right behind Palacio Real. It almost looks like two different churches when you are standing on different sides of it. Most of it is baby blue and white, but one side is brown and tan. Felipe, Prince of Asturias (heir to the Spanish throne) married Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano (a reporter) in this church. We took a little peak inside the church, and headed back home for dinner.
Saturday
I spent the entire day with Encarnita on Saturday :) It was cute! We went to el cine (the cinema) to see a movie called El Concierto. Encarnita lovesssss classical music, and she was humming the songs during the movie. Before we went, she told me if I don't understand the movie completely, I could at least enjoy the music. I didn't think I would like the movie much at first because I didn't really understand the main character's obsession with directing orchestras until the plot developed more. By the end, though, I really liked it. I surprisingly could understand the whole movie without English or Spanish subtitles. It made me realize how much my Spanish really has improved since I've been here. At school, when we watched movies in Spanish class, I used to always need at least Spanish subtitles to understand anything. The voices were dubbed over too (I think it was a French movie originally), which made it a little more difficult because I couldn't read their lips while listening to them speak. If I didn't look at their lips and just listened to them, it was much easier. Encarnita told me I was the first student to go to the movies with her. That was hard to believe because she has had sooo many students over the years. She said other students would watch movies in English or with English subtitles after she watched the movie in the cinema and then they would talk about it afterward, but I was the first to actually go to the cinema with her.
After the movie, we walked home. We stopped in a few stores so Encarnita could look around on the way. It was nice to just spend some time with her--walking & talking. We stopped at a couple of plant stores and she told me how much she loved magnolias. When we got home, we only had about 20 minutes to cool off and rest before it was time to walk to church. We went to her church--La Basilica de la Merced. During mass, all of the old Spanish ladies were fanning themselves the whole time because it was so hot in there--it was adorable :) The church was huge, and it seems like they have service allll of the time(as soon as our service finished, another one started, so the church wasn't even 1/4 full. At the front of the church, there was a really modern looking sculpture of Jesus made out of metal. It was really neat--I've never seen anything like it in a church before. The prayers we said were exactly like the ones we say in Catholic churches in the U.S. (other than it being in a different language).
Encarnita LOVES the priest there. She is knitting him a scarf right now. During mass, she kept talking about how great of a speaker he was. She was so funny during mass too. when it was time to stand up, she was always the first to stand up. When it was time to sit down, she was always the first one in her seat. When we were saying a prayer, she would say it so loudly & say it a couple words ahead of everyone else there. She reminded me of a little kid proud of what she knew, kind of trying to show off how she knew everything by heart. It was so funny :) When they needed another person to help collect the offering, she was the first person to run up there. As soon as mass was over, she skipped over to the door to the back, and we went in the back room to talk to the priests. We talked to them for awhile--about the scarves she was knitting, the classes I am taking, sayings that are really unique to Spain, food, art, and all sorts of things. Afterward, we walked back home. ON the way, we ran into a bunch of people she knew. She was telling me about how she knows everyone in the world when we passed a couple guys & they said "Holaaaaa". We both said "Hola", then she said, "Wait, I don't know them. Anytime you get an 'Holaaaa' from someone you don't know like that, he is saying, 'I want to be with you.'" She's so funny~ We got home, had dinner, & stayed in for the night.
Sunday
Sunday was a busy, and exciting day. We walked to Museo de Sorolla first. This museum has the majority of Sorolla's paintings and drawings. It is so neat because the museum actually used to be Sorolla's house! There was a cute, little garden/patio in the front. Some of his paintings that we saw were The White Slave Trade, The Pink Robe, and Siesta. I love his stuff. Seeing all of his paintings made me want to paint something with water in it. So right now I'm painting one of Monet's landscapes with water in the background. I think it is going to be my favorite painting I've ever done. I want to do a painting sometime with kids in the water--kind of similar to some of Sorolla's paintings. Sorolla used one of the rooms in his house to hang all of his most recent paintings and those that were for sale. He used it as an exhibition room. This was the room that was dedicated to all of his beach scenes. The furniture in this room is the exact same furniture that Sorolla had in it. So cool! He painted the fruit and leaves that bordered his dining room too. The basement was full of his pottery--there was sooo much of it! It is such an awesome museum :) :) :)
Next, we went to the Reina Sofia (Queen Sophie--the current Spanish queen) art museum. The first thing we saw at the Reina Sofia were the cool, glass elevators on the outside. They were awesome! They had Reina Sofia written down the side of them. We went inside and went to the second floor--where the permanent collection starts. We saw a lot of Miro, Dali, and Picasso here. Some specific paintings we saw were Manuel Angeles Ortiz's Still-Life, Dali's El Enigma de Hitler, and Picasso's Crying Heads. The Reina Sofia also has La Guernica!!! We learned all about this painting in my Spanish classes at SLU, and I couldn't believe I was standing in front of it. Picasso painted it in response to the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian warplanes by request of the Spanish Nationalist forces in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. This painting shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts on innocent people. The shape and posture of the bodies express protest. The black, white, and gray colors give it a somber feel. Incredible...
We saw some of Dali's work before he really developed his own style, like Girl at the Window. It's the most realistic painting I think I have seen of his. We saw Angeles Santos Torroella's A World and Robert Delaunay's Portrait of Tristan Tzara. There was a square in the middle of the museum with gorgeous trees and some interesting sculptures. There was this one room in the museum that was kind of strange. It was this room that looked like it could be someone's office. It had a wall full of beautiful wooden cabinets, two leather chairs in the middle, and right in front of the cabinets was a wooden, spiral staircase. At the top of the staircase there were only two paintings hanging on the white walls--one of Bugs Bunny and one of Mickey Mouse. It was interesting.
We went to the first floor of the museum where all of the modern art was. I love modern art, but it makes it really difficult for me because I always want to touch the artwork or play with it. There was a boat made out of clay thumbs, a painting of footsteps of how to do a dance, and so many other cool things! There was one that was hanging from the ceiling that had a bunch of random things on it and some pots and pans, and every once in awhile it would drop down or move up and make so much noise that everyone would jump--especially the people walking underneath it! We went to ground zero of the museum too, which was verryyyyy interesting. It had a model Chinese house in the middle of the room, some disturbing nude photos that looked like they could be the cover of a porno, lifeguard chairs spaced randomly around the room so you could climb up onto the chairs to look at the huge pieces of art, random books hanging from the ceiling with magnifying glasses/binoculars attached to them, a video playing at the top of the platform, and so many other random things! After we were done on this floor, we decided to go out onto the terrace. It was so nice up there, and there was a great view.
After the Reina Sofia, we decided to get some tapas at a nearby restaurant called Los Zuritos. We had potatoes in spicy sauce (that wasn't really spicy at all but still delicious), and a little kebab with bread. It was so good! We went back home after the Reina Sofia to get ready for final game of the world cup! Then we headed back to the Prado for round two. We finished seeing all of the masterpieces there, we headed out to join the crazy fans on their way to Plaza de Cibeles! I already wrote a blog about what happened the rest of the night and all of the craziness of the World Cup, so if you read that, you can see how my night ended! :)
A couple random things at the house....
So usually I love Encarnita's cooking, and I eat all of my food and even some of Preethi's, but lately, we've found ourselves having to sneak food to the trash can on the street. The bread she gives me for breakfast has been as hard as a rock these past couple weeks. At first, I just threw it in the garbage. Then she asked me how my breakfast was (which she never does) so I'm guessing she saw it. Then I tried breaking the bread into pieces and flushing it down the toilet, but some pieces were so hard that they wouldn't flush, so I had to look for a different option. Then I thought about the homeless people I pass by on the way to school & decided to wrap the bread in toilet paper or a napkin and give it to them. So that's what I've been doing practically every day. It's a little more difficult to do now, though, because she is on vacation from work so she is home all the time. She never used to be home when I ate breakfast. I have to wrap the bread in a napkin and shove it in my bra or in my shorts when she isn't looking to sneak back to my room until I leave for class haha! It's pretty funny. I felt bad about wasting the bread before, so now I'm glad that I can give it to someone who needs it. I still get out a knife and my jam and dip the knife in the jar to make it look like I used it. I didn't do it at first because I thought the bread was just going to be hard that one time, but now that it is every day, I have to make it look like I'm eating it.
One time for dinner, Preethi couldn't eat her peas & potatoes & bacon because she thought they tasted funny. There were a little overcooked, but I ate them anyway. I had to eat like the whole pot because Preethi wouldn't eat any though, so I couldn't eat my dessert. 1) Because I was too full and 2) Because it was flan! I hateeeee flan. It is so disgusting to me--something about the consistency just makes me want to vomit. Preethi loves it, though, and she ate her flan but not her dinner. So we had basically an entire dinner that we couldn't eat. We decided to eat slowly and wait until Encarnita was snoring to sneak it out to the trash can on the street. We looked pretty ridiculous wearing our PJ's and carrying our trays of food out on the street to empty into the trash can. I felt like I was 10 years old all over again.
Another time, Preethi and I got back late after Encarnita was in bed. She left us dinner in the fridge to heat up since we knew we would be back late. It was salad, tortilla espanola, and fruit with milk and cinnamon for dessert. All of it was really good, but we just weren't hungry. I don't know if it was the heat or what. It was in the 100's that day and we have no AC or fans here. I stuffed down the dinner anyway, but couldn't eat the dessert. Preethi didn't eat anything really, so we had so much food to get rid of. We decided to give it to the kittens down the street that I found when Encarnita and I went to church! We put the food that would rot in the sun in the trash can and gave the rest to the little kittens and their mom and dad. I hope she didn't walk by and see our dinner sitting on a Blanco bag (a bag from a store we like). She would have known it was us for sure!
Another thing I wanted to write down was something Encarnita told me the other day. I thought it was so cute. I don't remember how we got on the topic, but she was telling me that the person who will always love me the most is my mother. She said a mother loves her child no matter what. She said that first it is the mother, then it is the father, then the grandparents, and then sometimes the siblings, and that friends come and go, but family is there for you always.
We were talking about what Spanish soccer players we loved another time. Preethi likes Torres, and I love Villa and Casillas. We were talking about them and about how Casillas met his journalist girlfriend, and she told us that we need different careers. She said that the only people Preethi would meet would be cancer patients, and the only people I'd meet would be the fathers of the kids I saw. She said this is no good--we need different careers! Later on she asked me if I didn't know how to answer her or what. She said I should be telling her that I don't need a man to make me happy in life. She doesn't have kids of her own, which is why she has students live with her all of the time. She was with a man for about 10 years, but machismo is really big over here. Machismo is basically like sexism--guys think they are better than girls so they treat women like objects. She said the guy she was with was like that--not in his actions but in thought, so it didn't work out. She said it was a good thing that it didn't work out, though, because otherwise she never would have met me.
Random Europe things...
One thing that is extremely different here than it is in the States is the time waiters/waitresses give you at restaurants. People in Europe usually take their time when they eaet and will stay in restaurants after they finish eating for hours. They will sit and talk and have coffee. The waiters and waitresses won't rush you out or even bring you the check until you ask for it. It's nice, unless you are in a hurry--then you have to like chase them down to get the check. Spanish time is kind of like Honduran time too--it's custom to be late. Tipping is different here too. It doesn't really exist, actually. We didn't find this out until a couple weeks in after we had been tipping everywhere. We wondered why the taxi driver was so surprised when we told him to keep the change, and why another driver called us beautiful only after we tipped him. Most people who live here told us that the only time you tip is if you really like the service and food, you can leave a euro or two. The only place I went to where people tipped regularly was Lisbon.
Another thing that is different is the amount of personal space people give each other. It is normal to give a stranger a kiss on each cheek when you first meet them (besos). I's not really a kiss, more like rubbing your cheeks against theirs. People stand so close to each other when they talk too. It almost looks like they are trying to tell each other secrets, but it's just custom here. Just a couple things that are different here.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Brussels
June 26 & 27, 2010
We arrived at the Bruxelles-Midi/Brussel-Zuid station Saturday morning. Belgium has 3 official languages: Dutch, French, and German. Since we were in the south, they spoke mostly French. Most people could speak a little English too, so we got around fine. We followed the directions that the hostel gave us and found Hotel Van Belle. We had a not so pleasant surprise once we got there, though. Preethi had booked the hostel for the wrong night (the 25th instead of the 26th), so her card was charged for the 25th, and the guy working said there was no way to transfer the payment. He said he had an opening, but we would have to pay for that night too. We spent a good two or three hours in the lobby and on the computer in the backroom trying to figure out what we were going to. When we told him we were going to sleep in the airport, he said that he could transfer the payment to a single room if we wanted. Of course we took that offer! We had to share a twin bed for the night, but as long as we had a place to sleep and shower, I was happy.
The hotel problem made us have a late start, but we still saw a lot for the first day. The first thing we did was walk in town to the city center to get some lunch. We ended up eating at this doner kebab place. I had this pot pie kind of thing, a taco that wasn't really a taco but was still good, and vlaamse frites. While we were downtown, we ran into this parade that I'm guessing was for Luxembourg since Manneken-Pis was wearing the traditional costume of Luxembourg that day. There were people wearing these massive costumes (that are really hard to describe)and were dancing and twirling in circles. There were other people dressed up too, and a funny old guy kept coming up to random people to dance with them :)
After lunch, we went to Grand Place (Grote Markt), which is where the parade ended. Some people consider Grand Place to be the most beautiful square in the world. It is surrounded by Flemish Renaissance-baroque guild houses from the 17th century, the neo-Gothic King's House, and the 15th-century Gothic Town Hall. The 300-ft tower of the Town Hall bears a spire, on which perches the archangel Michael--patron saint of the city. The Museum of the City of Brussels is also in the square and has some of Manneken Pis's 570 colorful costumes on display. I was kind of bummed that we didn't get to see the flower carpet, but it is only there for one weekend out of the entire year so I guess I can't be too disappointed. I saw pictures of it though, and it looks incredible! The first flower carpet was created in 1971 by E. Stautemens. The carpet is usually about 77 x 24 m--huge!! We spent some time looking around the square, admiring the buildings, and looking at paintings. We ended up buying some artwork there when we came back to the square later on.
Right outside of the square and under the arches of the Maison de l'Etoile is the gold statue of Everard 't Serclaes, a hero of 14th century Brussels. Touching the arm of the statue is said to bring good luck so people were like stroking her arm up and down foreverrr (haha!). Definitely had to wash my hands after that.
Our next stop was Manneken-Pis (Little Boy Peeing). We saw tons of cute shops on the way there though. We drooled as we passed the Belgian waffle shops and went into the Belgian chocolate shops to try some samples! We passed a lot of cute lace shops on the way too. Manneken-Pis is a statue/fountain of a little boy peeing. He is the "oldest citizen of Brussels", dating back to 1619. They dress him up in one of his 570 costumes on holidays (& it seems like there's a holiday every day in Brussels!).
We decided to find Jeanneke Pis (Little Girl Peeing) afterward. She's not as well known and is set within a wall, hidden behind bars. She was in the back of a little alley called Impasse de la Fidelite (Fidelity Alley) that was hard to find! I think her pig tails make her look like an elf, and for some reason she reminded me of characters from Peter Pan. We took a wrong turn before we found her, walked through a little outdoor mall, and bought souvenirs. Jeanneke is right next to Delirium cafe (Pink Elephant Bar), which was super convenient! Delirium Cafe is a bar that offers 2004 different beers from all over the world! They even hold the Guinness world record for most beers available. You should see their menu of beers--it's the size of an encyclopedia or a dictionary or something! It is a really cute place! Beer bottles line the wall along the spiral-like staircase on the way to the basement. They have a bunch of old signs hanging up tool I loved their huge barrels down in the basement that they used as tables, and the pink elephants and giant beer caps all over the ceiling! I got a Floris Framboise (strawberry beer) that was delicious! Preethi and I went up to the bar to the order, and when we came back to our big barrel table, there were 6 guys sitting there. The place was packed and there wasn't anywhere else to sit, so we decided to share the barrel. They were actually having a bachelor party for one of the guys getting married. The groom had us sign his white tee with signatures all over it. Of the six guys, 4 of them got strawberry beer which I thought was pretty funny. One of the two guys who didn't get a strawberry beer let me try his Delirium Tremens (the other beer I was thinking about getting). It was pretty good, but I'm glad I got my strawberry beer :) Yummyyy Belgian beer! They shared some of their Paprika Lay's with us, then we headed out to do some more sightseeing.
On our way to the Royal Palace, we saw a gorgeous library and art museum. We also saw the sculpture made by Alxander Calder for the US pavilion of the 1958 Brussels expo. The black, rotating sculpture sits in a fountain overlooking Mont des Arts. The view of the garden is absolutely amazing! After enjoying the view for awhile, we went to the Royal Palace--the official palace of the King of the Belgians in the centre of the nation's capital. It isn't used as a royal residence, though. The king and his family live in the Royal Castle of Laeken.
We went to Park van Brussel next, which is right behind the Royal Palace. It was nice, quiet park with lots of secluded places, statues, and fountains. I loved it :) We went to St. Michael's Cathedral afterward--aka the fake Notre Dame. I swear Brussels is trying to Paris. They had a fake Notre Dame, a fake Arc de Triomphe, they speak French, and they had little carts for escargot near the square. I don't get it. They had these funny looking benches face the cathedral that we laid on for awhile.
It was dinnertime by then, so we stopped at this Thai restaurant that we hoped would be the Wok to Walk of Brussels. It was good! Preethi and I split a sampler plate and some noodles, and I had a Jupiler beer. We went to Grand Place again on our way back to the hotel to buy some artwork, then we called it a night. I passed out as soon as we got to our room, and Preethi worked on her speech until late that night so we really only had to share the twin sized bed for a few hours. I was sound asleep so I didn't even notice.
We woke up early Sunday morning to enjoy the day before we had to catch the bus back to the airport. We were hesitant to eat the breakfast at the hotel in the morning since the guy already gave us the room pretty much for free, but he saw us in the lobby and told us not to miss out on breakfast. We headed to the dining area and enjoyed the all you can eat breakfast, coffee, and tea. It was great! One of the better breakfasts that we've had at a hostel. We filled up our water bottles, and left for Atomium!
Atomium is the symbol of Brussels--just as the Eiffel Tower is the symbol of Paris. It is a cluster of giant metal-clad spheres that was built for the 1958 World's Fair. It is enormous! Very unique too--I haven't seen anything like it before. They were setting up for a festival/party when we were there, but unfortunately we didn't have time to stick around for it. We took the metro to go see the Arc de Triomphe-Triomfboog. By the way, the metro in Brussels is an even bigger joke than the one in Paris. You can only pay in coins or with a credit card--no matter how much whatever you're buying costs. After spending 20 minutes finding a place to exchange money for coins, we bought our all day passes, walked down to the platform, and realized that we didn't need to buy one at all. Some people were scanning their passes on this little machine at the bottom of a pole, but most people were just getting on and off without tickets. There was nothing regulating who comes in or leaves. I don't know if it is just accepted that nobody buys tickets there or if they have people come around randomly to check if you have a ticket or what.
Anyway, we stopped at the EU headquarters on the way to Arc de Triomphe-Triomfboog. It was kind of anticlimatic--the building wasn't anything special. There's a really cute park in front of the arch though. There were a lot of people laying out and reading books there. The cinquantenaire arch was built to mark the 50th anniversary of Belgium's independence from the Netherlands. There was a green energy festival thing going on in front of the arch. They had this huge solar panel laying out that I think was powering everything there.
Our last stop was a final trip to Grand Place to buy chocolate and Belgian waffles. I got some chocolates that didn't have any traces of gluten in them for my family (gave it to them in Lisbon), and Preethi and I each got a gigantic waffle with strawberries, bananas, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup! We should have just split one. It was too much for one person! It was delicious!! They gave us these little bitty forks to eat them with, so we had chocolate and cream ALLL over! We were eating them on this step in front of a church across from Manneken-Pis, and this creepy 40 year old guy kind of started ruining the experience. He walked next to us, smiling and staring. It was weird. Preethi asked if he needed to get into the church, and he just shook his head and kept smiling. When he didn't leave, she asked him if he needed anything, and he shook his head and thankfully left. Manneken-Pis was wearing a maroon costume that day. Sorry I got to cut this one a little short--I'm late for class!
We arrived at the Bruxelles-Midi/Brussel-Zuid station Saturday morning. Belgium has 3 official languages: Dutch, French, and German. Since we were in the south, they spoke mostly French. Most people could speak a little English too, so we got around fine. We followed the directions that the hostel gave us and found Hotel Van Belle. We had a not so pleasant surprise once we got there, though. Preethi had booked the hostel for the wrong night (the 25th instead of the 26th), so her card was charged for the 25th, and the guy working said there was no way to transfer the payment. He said he had an opening, but we would have to pay for that night too. We spent a good two or three hours in the lobby and on the computer in the backroom trying to figure out what we were going to. When we told him we were going to sleep in the airport, he said that he could transfer the payment to a single room if we wanted. Of course we took that offer! We had to share a twin bed for the night, but as long as we had a place to sleep and shower, I was happy.
The hotel problem made us have a late start, but we still saw a lot for the first day. The first thing we did was walk in town to the city center to get some lunch. We ended up eating at this doner kebab place. I had this pot pie kind of thing, a taco that wasn't really a taco but was still good, and vlaamse frites. While we were downtown, we ran into this parade that I'm guessing was for Luxembourg since Manneken-Pis was wearing the traditional costume of Luxembourg that day. There were people wearing these massive costumes (that are really hard to describe)and were dancing and twirling in circles. There were other people dressed up too, and a funny old guy kept coming up to random people to dance with them :)
After lunch, we went to Grand Place (Grote Markt), which is where the parade ended. Some people consider Grand Place to be the most beautiful square in the world. It is surrounded by Flemish Renaissance-baroque guild houses from the 17th century, the neo-Gothic King's House, and the 15th-century Gothic Town Hall. The 300-ft tower of the Town Hall bears a spire, on which perches the archangel Michael--patron saint of the city. The Museum of the City of Brussels is also in the square and has some of Manneken Pis's 570 colorful costumes on display. I was kind of bummed that we didn't get to see the flower carpet, but it is only there for one weekend out of the entire year so I guess I can't be too disappointed. I saw pictures of it though, and it looks incredible! The first flower carpet was created in 1971 by E. Stautemens. The carpet is usually about 77 x 24 m--huge!! We spent some time looking around the square, admiring the buildings, and looking at paintings. We ended up buying some artwork there when we came back to the square later on.
Right outside of the square and under the arches of the Maison de l'Etoile is the gold statue of Everard 't Serclaes, a hero of 14th century Brussels. Touching the arm of the statue is said to bring good luck so people were like stroking her arm up and down foreverrr (haha!). Definitely had to wash my hands after that.
Our next stop was Manneken-Pis (Little Boy Peeing). We saw tons of cute shops on the way there though. We drooled as we passed the Belgian waffle shops and went into the Belgian chocolate shops to try some samples! We passed a lot of cute lace shops on the way too. Manneken-Pis is a statue/fountain of a little boy peeing. He is the "oldest citizen of Brussels", dating back to 1619. They dress him up in one of his 570 costumes on holidays (& it seems like there's a holiday every day in Brussels!).
We decided to find Jeanneke Pis (Little Girl Peeing) afterward. She's not as well known and is set within a wall, hidden behind bars. She was in the back of a little alley called Impasse de la Fidelite (Fidelity Alley) that was hard to find! I think her pig tails make her look like an elf, and for some reason she reminded me of characters from Peter Pan. We took a wrong turn before we found her, walked through a little outdoor mall, and bought souvenirs. Jeanneke is right next to Delirium cafe (Pink Elephant Bar), which was super convenient! Delirium Cafe is a bar that offers 2004 different beers from all over the world! They even hold the Guinness world record for most beers available. You should see their menu of beers--it's the size of an encyclopedia or a dictionary or something! It is a really cute place! Beer bottles line the wall along the spiral-like staircase on the way to the basement. They have a bunch of old signs hanging up tool I loved their huge barrels down in the basement that they used as tables, and the pink elephants and giant beer caps all over the ceiling! I got a Floris Framboise (strawberry beer) that was delicious! Preethi and I went up to the bar to the order, and when we came back to our big barrel table, there were 6 guys sitting there. The place was packed and there wasn't anywhere else to sit, so we decided to share the barrel. They were actually having a bachelor party for one of the guys getting married. The groom had us sign his white tee with signatures all over it. Of the six guys, 4 of them got strawberry beer which I thought was pretty funny. One of the two guys who didn't get a strawberry beer let me try his Delirium Tremens (the other beer I was thinking about getting). It was pretty good, but I'm glad I got my strawberry beer :) Yummyyy Belgian beer! They shared some of their Paprika Lay's with us, then we headed out to do some more sightseeing.
On our way to the Royal Palace, we saw a gorgeous library and art museum. We also saw the sculpture made by Alxander Calder for the US pavilion of the 1958 Brussels expo. The black, rotating sculpture sits in a fountain overlooking Mont des Arts. The view of the garden is absolutely amazing! After enjoying the view for awhile, we went to the Royal Palace--the official palace of the King of the Belgians in the centre of the nation's capital. It isn't used as a royal residence, though. The king and his family live in the Royal Castle of Laeken.
We went to Park van Brussel next, which is right behind the Royal Palace. It was nice, quiet park with lots of secluded places, statues, and fountains. I loved it :) We went to St. Michael's Cathedral afterward--aka the fake Notre Dame. I swear Brussels is trying to Paris. They had a fake Notre Dame, a fake Arc de Triomphe, they speak French, and they had little carts for escargot near the square. I don't get it. They had these funny looking benches face the cathedral that we laid on for awhile.
It was dinnertime by then, so we stopped at this Thai restaurant that we hoped would be the Wok to Walk of Brussels. It was good! Preethi and I split a sampler plate and some noodles, and I had a Jupiler beer. We went to Grand Place again on our way back to the hotel to buy some artwork, then we called it a night. I passed out as soon as we got to our room, and Preethi worked on her speech until late that night so we really only had to share the twin sized bed for a few hours. I was sound asleep so I didn't even notice.
We woke up early Sunday morning to enjoy the day before we had to catch the bus back to the airport. We were hesitant to eat the breakfast at the hotel in the morning since the guy already gave us the room pretty much for free, but he saw us in the lobby and told us not to miss out on breakfast. We headed to the dining area and enjoyed the all you can eat breakfast, coffee, and tea. It was great! One of the better breakfasts that we've had at a hostel. We filled up our water bottles, and left for Atomium!
Atomium is the symbol of Brussels--just as the Eiffel Tower is the symbol of Paris. It is a cluster of giant metal-clad spheres that was built for the 1958 World's Fair. It is enormous! Very unique too--I haven't seen anything like it before. They were setting up for a festival/party when we were there, but unfortunately we didn't have time to stick around for it. We took the metro to go see the Arc de Triomphe-Triomfboog. By the way, the metro in Brussels is an even bigger joke than the one in Paris. You can only pay in coins or with a credit card--no matter how much whatever you're buying costs. After spending 20 minutes finding a place to exchange money for coins, we bought our all day passes, walked down to the platform, and realized that we didn't need to buy one at all. Some people were scanning their passes on this little machine at the bottom of a pole, but most people were just getting on and off without tickets. There was nothing regulating who comes in or leaves. I don't know if it is just accepted that nobody buys tickets there or if they have people come around randomly to check if you have a ticket or what.
Anyway, we stopped at the EU headquarters on the way to Arc de Triomphe-Triomfboog. It was kind of anticlimatic--the building wasn't anything special. There's a really cute park in front of the arch though. There were a lot of people laying out and reading books there. The cinquantenaire arch was built to mark the 50th anniversary of Belgium's independence from the Netherlands. There was a green energy festival thing going on in front of the arch. They had this huge solar panel laying out that I think was powering everything there.
Our last stop was a final trip to Grand Place to buy chocolate and Belgian waffles. I got some chocolates that didn't have any traces of gluten in them for my family (gave it to them in Lisbon), and Preethi and I each got a gigantic waffle with strawberries, bananas, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup! We should have just split one. It was too much for one person! It was delicious!! They gave us these little bitty forks to eat them with, so we had chocolate and cream ALLL over! We were eating them on this step in front of a church across from Manneken-Pis, and this creepy 40 year old guy kind of started ruining the experience. He walked next to us, smiling and staring. It was weird. Preethi asked if he needed to get into the church, and he just shook his head and kept smiling. When he didn't leave, she asked him if he needed anything, and he shook his head and thankfully left. Manneken-Pis was wearing a maroon costume that day. Sorry I got to cut this one a little short--I'm late for class!
Monday, July 12, 2010
2010 FIFA WORLD CUP CHAMPIONS: SPAIN!!
July 11, 2010
I don't even know where to begin!! It keeps getting crazier every single time I think that crazier isn't possible! I don’t think words can even describe the complete madness that is going on in Spain right now, but I’ll try….
We went to the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium for every other game except the finals. The stadium is always packed and always crazy, but we wanted to see what other places were like. For the finals, we went to Plaza de Cibeles, then to a bar near Sol, then to Sol. Cibeles and Sol were just as packed as the stadium has been, and all three places were equally crazy. We saw a girl at Plaza de Cibeles walking around topless with her boobs painted like soccer balls and guys kept coming up to her to take a picture with her--haha! Everyone is going nuts no matter where you are at—so you could really watch the game from anywhere. Even in your house, you can hear the entire neighborhood cheering and honking. You can even hear them gasping at exciting parts of the game! I thought being at the bar was perfect, though. I could see the entire big screen TV without people’s heads or arms blocking my view, it was air conditioned so I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out, and I had nice pint of cold beer in my hands with the bar just two feet behind me. It was awesome! We have made so many friends with people at the bars. Everyone is so friendly so we just talk with everybody around us. Someone dropped a beer bottle at the bar & it cut my toe open, but I was too involved in the game to notice/care.
I bet Spain was shaking when Iniesta scored the goal or when the game was over! Iniesta scored with only a couple minutes left of overtime! Everyone was jumping up and down, screaming at the top of their lungs, hugging and kissing each other on the cheeks. I got the chills when he scored. Actually, I have gotten the chills a lot in the past few weeks watching Spain play. It is so exciting!
After the game was over, we ran to Sol where red and yellow flooded the entire plaza! People were going insane! They were in the fountain, splashing water on everyone around. So many people were in it that it didn’t even look like a fountain anymore. People were climbing up on the horse statue (which is actually REALLY tall and would be scary to be up on). They were just hoisting each other up & everyone helped everyone else--didn't matter if you were a boy or a girl, if you wanted to go up or down, everyone helped each other and didn't complain. There were some guys playing African music so everyone started dancing to that, along with their constant cheering :) The big police vans came to Sol, but they didn’t care what people were doing. I think they were just there in case something reallyyy bad were to happen. Cars were trying to drive through, but people surrounded the cars cheering and shaking their cars. The drivers just laughed and kept cheering. There was a white car spray painted like the Spanish flag too—it was awesome! People were climbing on light posts, on top of the huge glass metro station, just everywhere!
The metro was the most packed metro I have ever seen or taken! People were packed on the platform like sardines and flooding into the hallways. Everyone kept cheering the whole time we were waiting for the metro (which was like an hour! I have no idea why it took so long). There were 3 Holland fans on the other side of the metro, and the Spanish fans didn’t even boo them or anything. I figured someone drunk would pick a fight with them or something, but they just pointed at them when they first saw them, kind of gave them this “sorryyyy” look, and then started cheering for Spain. The Holland fans put their arms in acknowledgement then started cheering for Spain too. It was so funny!
There is literally a party everywhere we go--every plaza, every street, every metro stop, seriously everywhere! The street we live by, Bravo Murillo, was packed and going crazy when we were heading home!
Walking to class the next day, there was a smile on EVERYONE'S face! By the way,
nobodyyyy went to class the next day. It was just me and my professor. I was actually pretty glad because I paint so slowly that I’m behind so I got to catch up a little bit.
There was also a huge parade & celebration the day after the game! The entire Spanish soccer team came to Madrid and circled the capital!! So much for running with the bulls in Pamplona--try running through the streets of Madrid with hundreds of thousands of crazy Spanish fans, chasing after the national team! Spain's entire soccer team was literally ten feet away from my face!!! And I made eye contact with Jesus Navas!! I was too busy drooling and enjoying the moment to take pictures when they were closest to us, so I hope my memory will last me a long time! I had my camera up in the air and was snapping pictures without looking. Even my friends who tried to take good pictures didn’t really get any good ones so I’m glad I got a good look at each of them and absorbed what I could from the moment.
After they passed by us, we chased their bus with thousands and thousands of other fans! We were running right next to their bus when I lost my shoe (I forgot to change shoes before I left the house!). I knew if I bent down to get it, I would have gotten taken out, so I left it behind. I thought I was going to get trampled even without bending over—it was absolute madness! The streets are so trashed by the end of the night, I don't know how they clean up so well by the next day. It’s a week-long party in Spain!!! They might as well just wait to clean up until the end of the week. The news said that workers collected 52 tons of trash after the parade--crazy!! The parade ended at el Puente del Rey (King’s Bridge), the team got on stage, and they set off fireworks! There were sooo many people, and we were so far away, so we climbed onto this trash can on wheels, up onto a tent, and onto the top of this little building to see the stage. The news reporters were up in this little stand right in front of us. We all have some battle wounds from getting up there though. Katrina fell into the middle of the tent when she was trying to get up and there were people running around her—she was so scared! We felt sooo bad, but she made it up fine after they stopped running.
After the fireworks, we went to a bar where we tried pig's ear. It was pretty chewy—I’m not a big fan. We made more friends, and the drunk ones were so funny! One of them told me I was from Holland after I told him I was from the United States. Then he made a sad face at me and started cheering for Spain. After about five minutes of telling him I wasn't from Holland, I was from the United States, he started cracking up and said "ohhhh los estados unidos!". I taught his drunk friend the difference between the United States and the Empire State building--he kept wanting to say empire states haha!
I love the drunk people everywhereeee cheering and singing!! And I love when they pretend that they are a matador and their friend or the car driving by is the bull, so they wave the flag in front of them and the car will drive at it or their drunk friends will put their fingers on the side of their heads and pretend to be the bull and charge after it! It usually ends with them falling down after they charge after it—it’s hilarious!! People surround cars on the streets cheering, and nobody gets pissed off. They just honk and wave their flags and cheer back. Everyone is so happy!!!
Here’s the team line-up for the 2010 World Cup Champs!
1 Iker Casillas
2 Raul Albiol
3 Gerard Pique
4 Carlos Marchena
5 Carles Puyol
6 Andres Iniesta
7 David Villa
8 XAVI
9 Fernando Torres
10 Cesc Fabregas
11 Joan Capdevila
12 Victor Valdes
13 Juan Manuel Mata
14 Xabi Alonso
15 Sergio Ramos
16 Sergio Busquets
17 Alvaro Arbeloa
18 Pedro
19 Fernando Llorente
20 Javier Martinez
21 David Silva
22 Jesus Navas
23 Pepe Reina
I’m in love with about half of them--actually all of them :) but especially Villa & Casillas!! I don't think Spain has stopped cheering for days. Preethi’s teacher was telling her about how the Spanish flag wasn’t really a symbol of unity like the American flag is to us in the U.S. before winning the world cup, but winning has brought so much unity to Spain that they waving the flag everywhere. Some people think that it is kind of like an anesthetic from all of Spain’s economic problems. The big question now is whether or not it is temporary or if Spain will unite under one flag. Either way, everyone is so happy right now, and I’m having the time of my life!
I don't even know where to begin!! It keeps getting crazier every single time I think that crazier isn't possible! I don’t think words can even describe the complete madness that is going on in Spain right now, but I’ll try….
We went to the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium for every other game except the finals. The stadium is always packed and always crazy, but we wanted to see what other places were like. For the finals, we went to Plaza de Cibeles, then to a bar near Sol, then to Sol. Cibeles and Sol were just as packed as the stadium has been, and all three places were equally crazy. We saw a girl at Plaza de Cibeles walking around topless with her boobs painted like soccer balls and guys kept coming up to her to take a picture with her--haha! Everyone is going nuts no matter where you are at—so you could really watch the game from anywhere. Even in your house, you can hear the entire neighborhood cheering and honking. You can even hear them gasping at exciting parts of the game! I thought being at the bar was perfect, though. I could see the entire big screen TV without people’s heads or arms blocking my view, it was air conditioned so I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out, and I had nice pint of cold beer in my hands with the bar just two feet behind me. It was awesome! We have made so many friends with people at the bars. Everyone is so friendly so we just talk with everybody around us. Someone dropped a beer bottle at the bar & it cut my toe open, but I was too involved in the game to notice/care.
I bet Spain was shaking when Iniesta scored the goal or when the game was over! Iniesta scored with only a couple minutes left of overtime! Everyone was jumping up and down, screaming at the top of their lungs, hugging and kissing each other on the cheeks. I got the chills when he scored. Actually, I have gotten the chills a lot in the past few weeks watching Spain play. It is so exciting!
After the game was over, we ran to Sol where red and yellow flooded the entire plaza! People were going insane! They were in the fountain, splashing water on everyone around. So many people were in it that it didn’t even look like a fountain anymore. People were climbing up on the horse statue (which is actually REALLY tall and would be scary to be up on). They were just hoisting each other up & everyone helped everyone else--didn't matter if you were a boy or a girl, if you wanted to go up or down, everyone helped each other and didn't complain. There were some guys playing African music so everyone started dancing to that, along with their constant cheering :) The big police vans came to Sol, but they didn’t care what people were doing. I think they were just there in case something reallyyy bad were to happen. Cars were trying to drive through, but people surrounded the cars cheering and shaking their cars. The drivers just laughed and kept cheering. There was a white car spray painted like the Spanish flag too—it was awesome! People were climbing on light posts, on top of the huge glass metro station, just everywhere!
The metro was the most packed metro I have ever seen or taken! People were packed on the platform like sardines and flooding into the hallways. Everyone kept cheering the whole time we were waiting for the metro (which was like an hour! I have no idea why it took so long). There were 3 Holland fans on the other side of the metro, and the Spanish fans didn’t even boo them or anything. I figured someone drunk would pick a fight with them or something, but they just pointed at them when they first saw them, kind of gave them this “sorryyyy” look, and then started cheering for Spain. The Holland fans put their arms in acknowledgement then started cheering for Spain too. It was so funny!
There is literally a party everywhere we go--every plaza, every street, every metro stop, seriously everywhere! The street we live by, Bravo Murillo, was packed and going crazy when we were heading home!
Walking to class the next day, there was a smile on EVERYONE'S face! By the way,
nobodyyyy went to class the next day. It was just me and my professor. I was actually pretty glad because I paint so slowly that I’m behind so I got to catch up a little bit.
There was also a huge parade & celebration the day after the game! The entire Spanish soccer team came to Madrid and circled the capital!! So much for running with the bulls in Pamplona--try running through the streets of Madrid with hundreds of thousands of crazy Spanish fans, chasing after the national team! Spain's entire soccer team was literally ten feet away from my face!!! And I made eye contact with Jesus Navas!! I was too busy drooling and enjoying the moment to take pictures when they were closest to us, so I hope my memory will last me a long time! I had my camera up in the air and was snapping pictures without looking. Even my friends who tried to take good pictures didn’t really get any good ones so I’m glad I got a good look at each of them and absorbed what I could from the moment.
After they passed by us, we chased their bus with thousands and thousands of other fans! We were running right next to their bus when I lost my shoe (I forgot to change shoes before I left the house!). I knew if I bent down to get it, I would have gotten taken out, so I left it behind. I thought I was going to get trampled even without bending over—it was absolute madness! The streets are so trashed by the end of the night, I don't know how they clean up so well by the next day. It’s a week-long party in Spain!!! They might as well just wait to clean up until the end of the week. The news said that workers collected 52 tons of trash after the parade--crazy!! The parade ended at el Puente del Rey (King’s Bridge), the team got on stage, and they set off fireworks! There were sooo many people, and we were so far away, so we climbed onto this trash can on wheels, up onto a tent, and onto the top of this little building to see the stage. The news reporters were up in this little stand right in front of us. We all have some battle wounds from getting up there though. Katrina fell into the middle of the tent when she was trying to get up and there were people running around her—she was so scared! We felt sooo bad, but she made it up fine after they stopped running.
After the fireworks, we went to a bar where we tried pig's ear. It was pretty chewy—I’m not a big fan. We made more friends, and the drunk ones were so funny! One of them told me I was from Holland after I told him I was from the United States. Then he made a sad face at me and started cheering for Spain. After about five minutes of telling him I wasn't from Holland, I was from the United States, he started cracking up and said "ohhhh los estados unidos!". I taught his drunk friend the difference between the United States and the Empire State building--he kept wanting to say empire states haha!
I love the drunk people everywhereeee cheering and singing!! And I love when they pretend that they are a matador and their friend or the car driving by is the bull, so they wave the flag in front of them and the car will drive at it or their drunk friends will put their fingers on the side of their heads and pretend to be the bull and charge after it! It usually ends with them falling down after they charge after it—it’s hilarious!! People surround cars on the streets cheering, and nobody gets pissed off. They just honk and wave their flags and cheer back. Everyone is so happy!!!
Here’s the team line-up for the 2010 World Cup Champs!
1 Iker Casillas
2 Raul Albiol
3 Gerard Pique
4 Carlos Marchena
5 Carles Puyol
6 Andres Iniesta
7 David Villa
8 XAVI
9 Fernando Torres
10 Cesc Fabregas
11 Joan Capdevila
12 Victor Valdes
13 Juan Manuel Mata
14 Xabi Alonso
15 Sergio Ramos
16 Sergio Busquets
17 Alvaro Arbeloa
18 Pedro
19 Fernando Llorente
20 Javier Martinez
21 David Silva
22 Jesus Navas
23 Pepe Reina
I’m in love with about half of them--actually all of them :) but especially Villa & Casillas!! I don't think Spain has stopped cheering for days. Preethi’s teacher was telling her about how the Spanish flag wasn’t really a symbol of unity like the American flag is to us in the U.S. before winning the world cup, but winning has brought so much unity to Spain that they waving the flag everywhere. Some people think that it is kind of like an anesthetic from all of Spain’s economic problems. The big question now is whether or not it is temporary or if Spain will unite under one flag. Either way, everyone is so happy right now, and I’m having the time of my life!
Friday, July 9, 2010
Amsterdam
June 25, 2010
We took the metro the airport & stayed the night there again. Soo exhausting! Preethi and I ran through side streets in the ran to get to Nuevos Ministerios on time. we got a few hours of sleep in the airport and a couple on the flight. We got to Amsterdam with the sun shining ( of course :] ), got ready in the airport bathroom, admired how nice the Amsterdam airport was (it had huge paitnings on the walls, lounges as big as a terminal with red couches filling the room, and modern decorations everywhere--even in the bathroom!), & we were on our way. We picked up lunch at the supermarket in the airport and ate it on our bus ride to the city. Finding our hostel was probably our most difficult task to accomplish in Amsterdam. The directions the hostel gave us were FAR from correct and no map we found had the street (Bloemstraat) we were looking for on it. If that wasn't enough to confuse us, in Amsterdam, each side of the same street has a different name! I don't understand the point of that, unless they were trying to get people lost. In that case, Amsterdam succeeded. We ended up calling our hostel so that they could give us directions from where we were at. We finallyyy found Shelter Jordan--the Christian hostel we were staying at--and checked in. Other than their inviting us to bible study at 8 p.m. and it being very quiet, Shelter Jordan was no different than any other hostel we have stayed at. Actually, it was probably better. It was quiet, clean, & the people were so friendly. We put our bags in luggage storage and left to explore.
I fell in love with Amsterdam as soon as we started walking around. All of the canals are simply gorgeous--every corner we turned, we found another canal that was prettier than all of the other ones we had seen. I think it would be awesome to live in one of the house boats on a canal! They are adorable. Oh & I loved how EVERYONE rode their old-fashioned bikes through the streets, dinging their bells to let people know they were coming. It gives so much character to the city. Their bikers can get pretty intense though. Their bike paths are absolutely not allowed for people to walk on--you'll get run over if you are on it! They are like cars in Amsterdam--they even have smaller stop lights for bikes :)
Our first sight to see was the Anne Frank House. Actually, we saw Zuiderkerk (Southern Church) first. It is a 17th century Protestant church that played an important part in Rembrandt's life and was the subject of one of Monet's paintings. We could see that from the road of our hostel. We went to the Anne Frank House, saw how long the line was, and decided to come back later. It fit into our schedule better that way anyway. We took a few pictures of it, then decided we wanted a picture of the two of us in front of one of the house boats. We asked a cute, old guy walking by if he could take it for us. He told us that he didn't think he could, and that he has tried so many times but can never get it right. We weren't really sure what he was talking about until he started trying to take the picture. It was hilarious! He held the camera up to his face, then realized there was a screen instead of a hole for his eye and he looked so shocked! Then he started moving the camera back and forth toward us then toward him, toward us then toward him, with the most focused/confused face :) He was adorable! He ended up taking a good picture, but we were cracking up in it!
We went to the Tulip Museum afterward (Amsterdam is known for tulips). We just walked around the first floor. If you pay to go to the basement, you can learn about how to grow tulips. They had a lot of cool stuff inside, especially the pictures of the fields of tulips! We started walking through the city, and I don't know if I have said this before, but I love walking through the cities we visit. I feel like I get to know the city so much better when we walk because we run into so many different things and we can get a sense of direction of the city so that by the time we leave, we can go places without a map. We walked by a few "coffee shops" and could smell the weed from outside of them. Some of the popular ones there were Bulldog Cafe and Feels Good Cafe. We found shop with a wall FULL of wooden shoes, which is another thing that Amsterdam is famous for. We tried on a pair, and I don't know how anybody could actually wear those things! They are so big and uncomfortable. I'd fall down as soon as I started walking.
We went to see the National Monument in Dam Square, which also has Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in it. Their National Monument is so unique--I love the birds sculpted like they are flying into the back of it. We headed to the Red Light District next. Getting there was so awkward. Of course it isn't on the map, so we had to ask some girl working at an ice cream shop where it was. It consists of many streets and canals, but prostitution is limited to a few streets. It was mind-blowing to see the girls in the windows or standing on the streets. I can't even imagine what that kind of lifestyle is like. With the signs for live porn, the girls, and the sex shops, it was hard to believe we were in the same cute, little city with their bikes and canals.
After the RLD, we stopped at the park in front of the Iamsterdam sign, took a picture of me insdie the giant d, then headed to the Van Gogh Museum! The museum was incredible! I didn't want to leave. We kept trying to pick out our favorite, but it was impossible. Although, we both really loved Almond Blossom. The museum has the world's largest collection of van Gogh's work. It has over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 700 letters. Some of the paintings include The Potato Eaters, Wheatfields under Thunderclouds, and Sunflowers. I know you are probably thinking "I thought you saw the Sunflowers in London", and I did! Van Gogh wanted to capture the blooming August sunflowers in a series of 12 paintings. He finished four sunflower still lifes, but thought only 2 were good enough to hang in Gauguin's bedroom. He later painted three copies of them, one of which is in Amsterdam.
We headed to the Heineken Brewery after the Van Gogh Museum. We looked around the outside, took some pictures, and decided to eat dinner. We ate at a Chinese place called Wok to Walk--delicious! I got noodles with chicken, which I finished in about 5 minutes. We walked by a Vlaamse Frites stand--French fries in mayonnaise--but were too full to get any then (we did get some in Brussels though!).
After dinner, we went back to the Anne Frank House. It was a chilling experience--to think about her story and how we were walking in her footsteps. We went through the secret entrance behind the bookcase, saw her and her family's rooms, and almost every other corner in the house. The hiding place is a labyrinth of hallways, stairs, and little rooms. The steep staircases had such small stairs that I had to walk sidways just to get up them. I remember specifically the one that ran from the ground floor, to the first, and straight up to the second. The eight people hiding in the secret annex depended entirely on the five helpers. Anne Frank often played the clown because she was too scared to show her serious side ("I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart"--Anne Franke). Her diary reveals that side of her, however. She was so intelligent for only 13 years old--I couldn't believe that some of the quotes we read came from such a young girl. ("And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren't any other people living in the world"). It is amazing how positive she was throughout it all ("Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart"; "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world"; "I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains"). Otto Frank, Anne's father, was the leader: when any decision needed to be made, all eyes were on him. Anne's mother Edith was often gloomy in the secret annex, but found comfort in her faith. Margot was Anne's sister who was calm and serious. She also kept a diary, but it was never found. The Franks were in hiding with Fritz Pfeffer as well as another familiy: father Hermann, mother Auguste, and son Peter van Pels. Anne Frank wrote her world-famous diary while in hiding in occupied Holland. After two years, however, the people hiding in the secret annex were betrayed and arrested. Otto Frank was the only one to make it back.
The Anne Frank House was the last thing on our list. It was still pretty early, so we went back to the hostel so that Preethi could get her computer and went to a cafe so she could work on her speech. Everyone inside was so friendly, and the waitress was so helpful. We decided to walk to the train station to make sure we knew exactly where we were going the next morning since we had to catch an early train to Brussels. After that, we pretty much called it a day.
I thought it was kind of funny how Amsterdam is so small that you can only get certain things in certain areas. Like if you wanted to buy a shot glass, you could only get them on a side street near Dam Square. If you wanted Vlaamse Frites, there was only one part of town where you could get them. Another thing about Amsterdam is that I love hearing people speak Dutch (most people there can speak English too so we got around fine). It sounds kind of goofy, and I just love it because most of the people we encountered were so happy and friendly. I love listening to other languages in general. I'm always amazed at how so many different languages have developed over time. That is why I love being in airports in Europe. I hear countless different languages there--English, Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, African, Russian--it seems like I hear them all! In the States, I really only hear English--maybe Spanish if I'm lucky. Just another thing I've noticed. Anyway, I (of course) LOVED Amsterdam overall! It is definitely one of my favorites.
We took the metro the airport & stayed the night there again. Soo exhausting! Preethi and I ran through side streets in the ran to get to Nuevos Ministerios on time. we got a few hours of sleep in the airport and a couple on the flight. We got to Amsterdam with the sun shining ( of course :] ), got ready in the airport bathroom, admired how nice the Amsterdam airport was (it had huge paitnings on the walls, lounges as big as a terminal with red couches filling the room, and modern decorations everywhere--even in the bathroom!), & we were on our way. We picked up lunch at the supermarket in the airport and ate it on our bus ride to the city. Finding our hostel was probably our most difficult task to accomplish in Amsterdam. The directions the hostel gave us were FAR from correct and no map we found had the street (Bloemstraat) we were looking for on it. If that wasn't enough to confuse us, in Amsterdam, each side of the same street has a different name! I don't understand the point of that, unless they were trying to get people lost. In that case, Amsterdam succeeded. We ended up calling our hostel so that they could give us directions from where we were at. We finallyyy found Shelter Jordan--the Christian hostel we were staying at--and checked in. Other than their inviting us to bible study at 8 p.m. and it being very quiet, Shelter Jordan was no different than any other hostel we have stayed at. Actually, it was probably better. It was quiet, clean, & the people were so friendly. We put our bags in luggage storage and left to explore.
I fell in love with Amsterdam as soon as we started walking around. All of the canals are simply gorgeous--every corner we turned, we found another canal that was prettier than all of the other ones we had seen. I think it would be awesome to live in one of the house boats on a canal! They are adorable. Oh & I loved how EVERYONE rode their old-fashioned bikes through the streets, dinging their bells to let people know they were coming. It gives so much character to the city. Their bikers can get pretty intense though. Their bike paths are absolutely not allowed for people to walk on--you'll get run over if you are on it! They are like cars in Amsterdam--they even have smaller stop lights for bikes :)
Our first sight to see was the Anne Frank House. Actually, we saw Zuiderkerk (Southern Church) first. It is a 17th century Protestant church that played an important part in Rembrandt's life and was the subject of one of Monet's paintings. We could see that from the road of our hostel. We went to the Anne Frank House, saw how long the line was, and decided to come back later. It fit into our schedule better that way anyway. We took a few pictures of it, then decided we wanted a picture of the two of us in front of one of the house boats. We asked a cute, old guy walking by if he could take it for us. He told us that he didn't think he could, and that he has tried so many times but can never get it right. We weren't really sure what he was talking about until he started trying to take the picture. It was hilarious! He held the camera up to his face, then realized there was a screen instead of a hole for his eye and he looked so shocked! Then he started moving the camera back and forth toward us then toward him, toward us then toward him, with the most focused/confused face :) He was adorable! He ended up taking a good picture, but we were cracking up in it!
We went to the Tulip Museum afterward (Amsterdam is known for tulips). We just walked around the first floor. If you pay to go to the basement, you can learn about how to grow tulips. They had a lot of cool stuff inside, especially the pictures of the fields of tulips! We started walking through the city, and I don't know if I have said this before, but I love walking through the cities we visit. I feel like I get to know the city so much better when we walk because we run into so many different things and we can get a sense of direction of the city so that by the time we leave, we can go places without a map. We walked by a few "coffee shops" and could smell the weed from outside of them. Some of the popular ones there were Bulldog Cafe and Feels Good Cafe. We found shop with a wall FULL of wooden shoes, which is another thing that Amsterdam is famous for. We tried on a pair, and I don't know how anybody could actually wear those things! They are so big and uncomfortable. I'd fall down as soon as I started walking.
We went to see the National Monument in Dam Square, which also has Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in it. Their National Monument is so unique--I love the birds sculpted like they are flying into the back of it. We headed to the Red Light District next. Getting there was so awkward. Of course it isn't on the map, so we had to ask some girl working at an ice cream shop where it was. It consists of many streets and canals, but prostitution is limited to a few streets. It was mind-blowing to see the girls in the windows or standing on the streets. I can't even imagine what that kind of lifestyle is like. With the signs for live porn, the girls, and the sex shops, it was hard to believe we were in the same cute, little city with their bikes and canals.
After the RLD, we stopped at the park in front of the Iamsterdam sign, took a picture of me insdie the giant d, then headed to the Van Gogh Museum! The museum was incredible! I didn't want to leave. We kept trying to pick out our favorite, but it was impossible. Although, we both really loved Almond Blossom. The museum has the world's largest collection of van Gogh's work. It has over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 700 letters. Some of the paintings include The Potato Eaters, Wheatfields under Thunderclouds, and Sunflowers. I know you are probably thinking "I thought you saw the Sunflowers in London", and I did! Van Gogh wanted to capture the blooming August sunflowers in a series of 12 paintings. He finished four sunflower still lifes, but thought only 2 were good enough to hang in Gauguin's bedroom. He later painted three copies of them, one of which is in Amsterdam.
We headed to the Heineken Brewery after the Van Gogh Museum. We looked around the outside, took some pictures, and decided to eat dinner. We ate at a Chinese place called Wok to Walk--delicious! I got noodles with chicken, which I finished in about 5 minutes. We walked by a Vlaamse Frites stand--French fries in mayonnaise--but were too full to get any then (we did get some in Brussels though!).
After dinner, we went back to the Anne Frank House. It was a chilling experience--to think about her story and how we were walking in her footsteps. We went through the secret entrance behind the bookcase, saw her and her family's rooms, and almost every other corner in the house. The hiding place is a labyrinth of hallways, stairs, and little rooms. The steep staircases had such small stairs that I had to walk sidways just to get up them. I remember specifically the one that ran from the ground floor, to the first, and straight up to the second. The eight people hiding in the secret annex depended entirely on the five helpers. Anne Frank often played the clown because she was too scared to show her serious side ("I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart"--Anne Franke). Her diary reveals that side of her, however. She was so intelligent for only 13 years old--I couldn't believe that some of the quotes we read came from such a young girl. ("And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren't any other people living in the world"). It is amazing how positive she was throughout it all ("Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart"; "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world"; "I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains"). Otto Frank, Anne's father, was the leader: when any decision needed to be made, all eyes were on him. Anne's mother Edith was often gloomy in the secret annex, but found comfort in her faith. Margot was Anne's sister who was calm and serious. She also kept a diary, but it was never found. The Franks were in hiding with Fritz Pfeffer as well as another familiy: father Hermann, mother Auguste, and son Peter van Pels. Anne Frank wrote her world-famous diary while in hiding in occupied Holland. After two years, however, the people hiding in the secret annex were betrayed and arrested. Otto Frank was the only one to make it back.
The Anne Frank House was the last thing on our list. It was still pretty early, so we went back to the hostel so that Preethi could get her computer and went to a cafe so she could work on her speech. Everyone inside was so friendly, and the waitress was so helpful. We decided to walk to the train station to make sure we knew exactly where we were going the next morning since we had to catch an early train to Brussels. After that, we pretty much called it a day.
I thought it was kind of funny how Amsterdam is so small that you can only get certain things in certain areas. Like if you wanted to buy a shot glass, you could only get them on a side street near Dam Square. If you wanted Vlaamse Frites, there was only one part of town where you could get them. Another thing about Amsterdam is that I love hearing people speak Dutch (most people there can speak English too so we got around fine). It sounds kind of goofy, and I just love it because most of the people we encountered were so happy and friendly. I love listening to other languages in general. I'm always amazed at how so many different languages have developed over time. That is why I love being in airports in Europe. I hear countless different languages there--English, Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, African, Russian--it seems like I hear them all! In the States, I really only hear English--maybe Spanish if I'm lucky. Just another thing I've noticed. Anyway, I (of course) LOVED Amsterdam overall! It is definitely one of my favorites.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Dublin
June 21 & 22, 2010
We left our hostel in London at 5 a.m. to get to Victoria Station on time. We took a bus to the airport, and flew into Dublin. Dublin glowed a gorgeous green from the plane. In the airport, we saw signs written in Gaelic, heard Irish accents, and saw the sky blue Irish eyes :) We took a bus to our hostel--Ashfield House. Ashfield House wasn't one of the best hostels we have stayed in. It was cheap, though, and it was only for one night. We got ready in the bathroom in the lobby because it wasn't time to check in, put our stuff in luggage storage, got lunch at a grocery store down the street, and ate it in front of O'Connell statue. We got out our map and planned out our day after we finished eating.
We went to the Dublin Spire first, a large, stainless steel pin-like monument that soars into the Dublin sky. It is the world's tallest sculpture at 398 feet tall, and it cost €4 million to construct! We went to the Garden of Remembrance afterward--a memorial garden dedicated to the all of those who gave their lives fighting for Irish freedom. It was a cute little area with a cross-shaped fountain/pool with a statue at the end and flowers all over. We headed to the Custom House afterward, which is an impressive building that houses the departments of environment, heritage, and local government. The square near O'Connell Bridge had Heineken and Bailey's buildings in it. I saw three older women, one with a baby in the stroller, taking swigs out of a brown bottle at 12:30 in the afternoon. Starting early! We walked across O'Connell Bridge over the Liffey River to head toward Trinity College. We stopped at The Steine, a little monument in the middle of an intersection, to double check that we were going the right way. A guy riding by on his bike stopped, got off his bike, and asked if we were lost and needed directions. It was so nice of him! This was the first time that morning that someone offered to help us either. Everyone there was so unbelievably friendly!
The Bank of Ireland is right across the street from Trinity College and is one of the "Big Four" on the island and used to be the parliament house. It is a huge bank with an amazing interior. Trinity College was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth and is Ireland's oldest university. The history found at that college is incredible! We took a quick look around the first day, and went back for a tour the next. We went to the National Museum: Archaelogy & History Branch afterward, but it was closed :( It is supposed to be really impressive.
We went to St. Stephen's Green afterward-- a 27 acre city centre park landscaped with flowerbeds, trees, lakes, and fountains. Beautiful doesn't even begin to describe it. I could have spent the entire day there! We walked toward the National Gallery and saw the Georgian style houses, with their fan shaped windows above their brightly colored doors. The story behind why each door is painted a different color is that a man came home drunk one night, went into the wrong house and got in bed with the wrong woman. When her husband came home he found the man in bed with his wife and shot him. After that night, the women painted their front doors different colors to help their drunk husbands find their way into the right home.
We went into the National Gallery. It was a little confusing to navigate. It seemed like we would leave one room, walk down a set of stairs, and somehow end up in the place we were coming from. The collection spans from the 14th to the 20th centuries. We spent so much time trying to find van Gogh's Rooftops of Paris, and once we found where it was supposed to be, they told us it had been moved to the Taking Stock Exhibition (which we thought we already saw, but only saw half of it). While searching for the Rooftops, one of the workers at the Gallery told us the story about Vermeer's Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid. Three men and one woman drove out to the Russborough House (where Sir Alfred and Lady Beit installed an art collection) and stole the painting along with 18 others. Stolen paintings usually disappear for a long time, but this one was retrieved in just a few weeks. The recovered paintings were sent to the National Gallery of Ireland to be inspected and to be repaired if there was any damage. They were returned to the Russborough House, but the Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid was stolen again--just 12 years after the first robbery. People talked about it being hidden in the mountains, but police swooped on a car parked at Antwerp airport and recovered the stolen painting once again. Crazy!
We saw the unique structure of Central Bank after seeing the National Gallery, and we got our first glimpse of the Temple Bar area. We went to Dublin Castle next--the former seat of British rule in Ireland. It was awesome!
After looking at all sides of the castle, we went to the Guinness Storehouse!! It was soo much fun! It's a self-guided tour, so you can go at your own pace--with information and interactive things to do in every room. We played in the mountain of barley and with the old machinery; we saw the hops and the waterfall; we learned the history of Guinness and the steps and ingredients it takes to make Guinness beer. I went through the taste experience, played a few games, and sent a picture to Nick on one of their computers. I loved their advertising room "Guinness is good for you!" and "My goodness, my Guinness!". It was adorable! They had old black and white Guinness commercials playing, with a pint shaped door entrance and posters covering the walls. The tour ended with a free pint of Guinness at the Gravity Bar! For me, it ended with 2 pints of Guinness because Preethi gave hers to me. We had a bird's eye view of Dublin from the Gravity Bar which was incredible! We took sooo many pictures here!
After our Guinness experience, we walked allll the way out to Kilmainham Gaol--a cool old jail on the outskirts of town. Our next stop was Phoenix Park--the largest enclosed urban park in Europe, spanning 1,750 acres! We saw the huge Wellington Monument in Phoenix Park, took a walk through the gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous park, and headed to the Jameson Distillery. After those 2 pints of Guinness, I had to pee sooo bad so we stopped at a bar down the road from Phoenix Park. I went in to use the restroom, and we checked out the game while we were in there. The bartender asked if we needed anything, and we said no. Then a customer said if we weren't buying anything, we needed to leave. We said sorry and left, but then they all started laughing and told us they were just kidding. We were too embarrassed to go back in though--haha! We were so exhausted and were running short on time so we decided to try to take a bus to Jameson. We found the closest bus stop and asked the bus driver if he was going toward the Jameson Distillery. He said yes, and we asked him how much the fare was, and he tols us to hop on and not to worry about it ( in a cute Irish accent :] ). That's what I'm saying about everyone being soooo nice in Dublin! He made a special stop just for us and called to us when we were there. We took some pictures outside of Jameson and started walking back toward the city center to see a few more sites.
We saw the Four Courts of Dublin--the Republic of Ireland's main courts building. We went to Christ Church Cathedral, which is the seat of the archbishop of Dublin and also has underground crypts. It was beautiful, of course. The church extended to the other side of the road, with a bridge overhead connecting the two parts of the cathedral. At Christ Church Cathedral is Dublinia, the location of The Viking World on site at St. Michael's Hill. It is also Dublin's oldest building founded c. 1030 by Sitric, King of the Dublin Norsemen. It is the mother church of the dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough in the Church of Ireland.
We walked a little further to find St. Patrick's Cathedral--the largest church in Ireland! It was way past dinnertime when we got back to the city center. We found a nice, little authentic Irish restaurant called O'Neill's. It was delicious! We had roasted, broiled, and mashed potatoes, with some meat and gravy. For dessert, we had this apple pie type thing with amazingggg cream on top! The restaurant part was closing, so we were the only ones left in the room eating. The bar upstairs was pretty crowded though--they had a live band that everyone was enjoying. I remember them playing "I Would Walk 500 Miles" :) We listened to the band for a little while, then headed out to Temple Bar. For a Monday night, it was pretty crazy. We walked past countless bars and clubs, a show with half naked dancing cowboys that was going on for Dublin's gay pride festival, and found Stag's Head Pub. The pub had a really cute, Victorian interior. I had my 3rd pint of Guinness for the day, and we decided to head back to the hostel because we were about to pass out!
We were sharing a room with 4 other girls who were all sleeping by the time we got home, so we tried to sneak around the room and the bathroom to get ready for bed (I think we woke them all up anyway). The next morning, we woke up, had breakfast at the hostel, and went back to Trinity College. The Long Hall of the Old Library at the college makes it the largest single corridor library. When you walk into the campus, there are two buildings on each side of you that are mirror images of each other (except the left one is accidently 8 m longer than the other). In the middle of the quad is an arch/statue that they built so that the campus wouldn't look so empty. Behind it are two of the largest maple trees ever. The seeds were brought to the campus from Oregon, and for some reason they grew really well there. The college also has a replica of "A Sphere Within a Sphere". It looks just like the one at the Vatican and represents the new world coming out of the old world. The main attraction at Trinity College is the Book of Kells, which is a decorated latin manuscript of the four gospels of the new testament--very cool! After we finished at Trinity College, all we had time for was to buy souvenirs and head to the bus stop. I was sad to leave so soon, but I loved every minute I was in Dublin! It didn't quite feel like Ireland though. I wish we would have been able to go driving out in the country--I think it would have felt more like Ireland if we would have done that. Maybe one day!
We left our hostel in London at 5 a.m. to get to Victoria Station on time. We took a bus to the airport, and flew into Dublin. Dublin glowed a gorgeous green from the plane. In the airport, we saw signs written in Gaelic, heard Irish accents, and saw the sky blue Irish eyes :) We took a bus to our hostel--Ashfield House. Ashfield House wasn't one of the best hostels we have stayed in. It was cheap, though, and it was only for one night. We got ready in the bathroom in the lobby because it wasn't time to check in, put our stuff in luggage storage, got lunch at a grocery store down the street, and ate it in front of O'Connell statue. We got out our map and planned out our day after we finished eating.
We went to the Dublin Spire first, a large, stainless steel pin-like monument that soars into the Dublin sky. It is the world's tallest sculpture at 398 feet tall, and it cost €4 million to construct! We went to the Garden of Remembrance afterward--a memorial garden dedicated to the all of those who gave their lives fighting for Irish freedom. It was a cute little area with a cross-shaped fountain/pool with a statue at the end and flowers all over. We headed to the Custom House afterward, which is an impressive building that houses the departments of environment, heritage, and local government. The square near O'Connell Bridge had Heineken and Bailey's buildings in it. I saw three older women, one with a baby in the stroller, taking swigs out of a brown bottle at 12:30 in the afternoon. Starting early! We walked across O'Connell Bridge over the Liffey River to head toward Trinity College. We stopped at The Steine, a little monument in the middle of an intersection, to double check that we were going the right way. A guy riding by on his bike stopped, got off his bike, and asked if we were lost and needed directions. It was so nice of him! This was the first time that morning that someone offered to help us either. Everyone there was so unbelievably friendly!
The Bank of Ireland is right across the street from Trinity College and is one of the "Big Four" on the island and used to be the parliament house. It is a huge bank with an amazing interior. Trinity College was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth and is Ireland's oldest university. The history found at that college is incredible! We took a quick look around the first day, and went back for a tour the next. We went to the National Museum: Archaelogy & History Branch afterward, but it was closed :( It is supposed to be really impressive.
We went to St. Stephen's Green afterward-- a 27 acre city centre park landscaped with flowerbeds, trees, lakes, and fountains. Beautiful doesn't even begin to describe it. I could have spent the entire day there! We walked toward the National Gallery and saw the Georgian style houses, with their fan shaped windows above their brightly colored doors. The story behind why each door is painted a different color is that a man came home drunk one night, went into the wrong house and got in bed with the wrong woman. When her husband came home he found the man in bed with his wife and shot him. After that night, the women painted their front doors different colors to help their drunk husbands find their way into the right home.
We went into the National Gallery. It was a little confusing to navigate. It seemed like we would leave one room, walk down a set of stairs, and somehow end up in the place we were coming from. The collection spans from the 14th to the 20th centuries. We spent so much time trying to find van Gogh's Rooftops of Paris, and once we found where it was supposed to be, they told us it had been moved to the Taking Stock Exhibition (which we thought we already saw, but only saw half of it). While searching for the Rooftops, one of the workers at the Gallery told us the story about Vermeer's Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid. Three men and one woman drove out to the Russborough House (where Sir Alfred and Lady Beit installed an art collection) and stole the painting along with 18 others. Stolen paintings usually disappear for a long time, but this one was retrieved in just a few weeks. The recovered paintings were sent to the National Gallery of Ireland to be inspected and to be repaired if there was any damage. They were returned to the Russborough House, but the Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid was stolen again--just 12 years after the first robbery. People talked about it being hidden in the mountains, but police swooped on a car parked at Antwerp airport and recovered the stolen painting once again. Crazy!
We saw the unique structure of Central Bank after seeing the National Gallery, and we got our first glimpse of the Temple Bar area. We went to Dublin Castle next--the former seat of British rule in Ireland. It was awesome!
After looking at all sides of the castle, we went to the Guinness Storehouse!! It was soo much fun! It's a self-guided tour, so you can go at your own pace--with information and interactive things to do in every room. We played in the mountain of barley and with the old machinery; we saw the hops and the waterfall; we learned the history of Guinness and the steps and ingredients it takes to make Guinness beer. I went through the taste experience, played a few games, and sent a picture to Nick on one of their computers. I loved their advertising room "Guinness is good for you!" and "My goodness, my Guinness!". It was adorable! They had old black and white Guinness commercials playing, with a pint shaped door entrance and posters covering the walls. The tour ended with a free pint of Guinness at the Gravity Bar! For me, it ended with 2 pints of Guinness because Preethi gave hers to me. We had a bird's eye view of Dublin from the Gravity Bar which was incredible! We took sooo many pictures here!
After our Guinness experience, we walked allll the way out to Kilmainham Gaol--a cool old jail on the outskirts of town. Our next stop was Phoenix Park--the largest enclosed urban park in Europe, spanning 1,750 acres! We saw the huge Wellington Monument in Phoenix Park, took a walk through the gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous park, and headed to the Jameson Distillery. After those 2 pints of Guinness, I had to pee sooo bad so we stopped at a bar down the road from Phoenix Park. I went in to use the restroom, and we checked out the game while we were in there. The bartender asked if we needed anything, and we said no. Then a customer said if we weren't buying anything, we needed to leave. We said sorry and left, but then they all started laughing and told us they were just kidding. We were too embarrassed to go back in though--haha! We were so exhausted and were running short on time so we decided to try to take a bus to Jameson. We found the closest bus stop and asked the bus driver if he was going toward the Jameson Distillery. He said yes, and we asked him how much the fare was, and he tols us to hop on and not to worry about it ( in a cute Irish accent :] ). That's what I'm saying about everyone being soooo nice in Dublin! He made a special stop just for us and called to us when we were there. We took some pictures outside of Jameson and started walking back toward the city center to see a few more sites.
We saw the Four Courts of Dublin--the Republic of Ireland's main courts building. We went to Christ Church Cathedral, which is the seat of the archbishop of Dublin and also has underground crypts. It was beautiful, of course. The church extended to the other side of the road, with a bridge overhead connecting the two parts of the cathedral. At Christ Church Cathedral is Dublinia, the location of The Viking World on site at St. Michael's Hill. It is also Dublin's oldest building founded c. 1030 by Sitric, King of the Dublin Norsemen. It is the mother church of the dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough in the Church of Ireland.
We walked a little further to find St. Patrick's Cathedral--the largest church in Ireland! It was way past dinnertime when we got back to the city center. We found a nice, little authentic Irish restaurant called O'Neill's. It was delicious! We had roasted, broiled, and mashed potatoes, with some meat and gravy. For dessert, we had this apple pie type thing with amazingggg cream on top! The restaurant part was closing, so we were the only ones left in the room eating. The bar upstairs was pretty crowded though--they had a live band that everyone was enjoying. I remember them playing "I Would Walk 500 Miles" :) We listened to the band for a little while, then headed out to Temple Bar. For a Monday night, it was pretty crazy. We walked past countless bars and clubs, a show with half naked dancing cowboys that was going on for Dublin's gay pride festival, and found Stag's Head Pub. The pub had a really cute, Victorian interior. I had my 3rd pint of Guinness for the day, and we decided to head back to the hostel because we were about to pass out!
We were sharing a room with 4 other girls who were all sleeping by the time we got home, so we tried to sneak around the room and the bathroom to get ready for bed (I think we woke them all up anyway). The next morning, we woke up, had breakfast at the hostel, and went back to Trinity College. The Long Hall of the Old Library at the college makes it the largest single corridor library. When you walk into the campus, there are two buildings on each side of you that are mirror images of each other (except the left one is accidently 8 m longer than the other). In the middle of the quad is an arch/statue that they built so that the campus wouldn't look so empty. Behind it are two of the largest maple trees ever. The seeds were brought to the campus from Oregon, and for some reason they grew really well there. The college also has a replica of "A Sphere Within a Sphere". It looks just like the one at the Vatican and represents the new world coming out of the old world. The main attraction at Trinity College is the Book of Kells, which is a decorated latin manuscript of the four gospels of the new testament--very cool! After we finished at Trinity College, all we had time for was to buy souvenirs and head to the bus stop. I was sad to leave so soon, but I loved every minute I was in Dublin! It didn't quite feel like Ireland though. I wish we would have been able to go driving out in the country--I think it would have felt more like Ireland if we would have done that. Maybe one day!
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