Futbol

One last London update before I leave tomorrow!

So yesterday, since I didn't have class I caught up on things around here being that I didn't have much time Monday to catch up from break...and then I ventured to "brick lane" which I have heard a lot about but was kind of disappointed in. The street is filled with vintage shops and cool furniture stores but for some reason the way people had "talked it up" I expected something different. I ended up enjoying the area around this street more than the street itself, there were lots of markets which were unfortunately closing because I didn't make it until about 5, but I'm glad I went nonetheless, found good restaurants to take the 'rents when they come next week!

Tuesday night I went to a futbol game with my 'sociology of sport' class--it was a Queen Park Rangers game in west London...this team doesn't draw as big a crowd as Arsenal or Liverpool, but it was still cool to finally see a futbol game in a country obsessed with the sport. Next weekend we're going to our last class-sporting event, a Fulham game which should be a little bigger of a crowd than this game.

It started raining before the game, but luckily our seats were covered, halfway through the game I realized the rain had turned into snow, and by the time we were walking back from the stadium it was coming down pretty heavy...SNOW? IN LONDON? it wasn't even snowing in syracuse!

Dont think I was going to get through a whole entry without mentioning EATING...after the game we were so cold, and conveniently walking by a cinnabun, soooooo...
the weather has gotten COLD...I didn't sign up for this! Today I went to drop our rent off at the real estate office and asked if the heat had been turned on, and then learned that the boiler hadn't been turned on yet, so now i'm sitting in shorts and a tshirt! It will be nice to not sleep with a sheet, comforter, and 2 blankets and in sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

Tomorrow night I'm off to meet Bri in Dublin for the night--Friday we'll spend the day in Dublin, tour the Guiness factory and take a bus back to Galway where Bri is staying until Sunday...i'm excited for some sheep and countryside!

I'm in the process of uploading fall break pictures to snapfish so hopefully some will be up before I leave tomorrow.

adios!

Madrid

Sooooo, last stop: Madrid...i figured I should finish my fall break updates before i leave for Ireland tomorrow...oops!

So Bri and I got to Madrid Friday night, dropped off our things, and headed off for some tapas...continuing the trend of food. Since I seem to be cursed in restaurant ordering (other than this week), I thought I'd play it safe and get the prawns with garlic and oil again...but once again, BAD LUCK, for some reason, the SAME thing i got a few days before looked like this:

So, for fear of mayonaise being involved I called it quits soon after this landing on my place setting.

The next morning Bri and I did some research and headed to Plaza Mayor, which was this big square with restaurants and shops around it, with a big horse statue in the middle...

We then ventured to the Royal Palace, which turned out to be right next to this really nice fountain/garden area and a cathedral which we went into.

We soon learned that Madrid basically just consisted of a bunch of squares, with nothing specific to do/tour, so we mostly walked around Saturday before meeting with Bri's friend from BC who met us in spain. We then walked around some more and found this spot overlooking the whole city...

That night I had my first Paella in spain! mmmmm

Sunday we went to the Del Prado museum for the Rembrant exhibit--which I had no idea what it was but is apparently cool if you're an art buff, then we ventured over to the botannical gardens next door and walked around, the weather was AMAZING--I was walking around in flip flops, which was also handy because by that point in the week I had the worst blisters ever, details I'm sure you wanted to know...and then I got back to London to delayed tube lines and freezing temperatures!

Barcelonaaaaa

so, lucky for you, my pictures are now uploaded onto my computer (but not yet snapfish), so the barcelona and madrid posts will include pictures!

So I got to barcelona around midnight, and cabbed it to the hostel since the trains were no longer running...the ride into the city was so strange because I had done the exact same thing almost exactly 3 months before with the fam.

This place was REALLY nice and in an AMAZING location, which i've learned is the most important feature of a hostel...so I checked in and met up with everyone else who had gotten there that morning from Paris.

The next morning we had a late morning, and met up with everyone at La Sagrada Familia...the Gaudi church that they've been building for over 200 years. I had done this 2 summers ago with the fam but this time we went inside...which turned out to be kind of a waste of 8 euro, but oh well. The place is obviously still under construction, so the inside is just filled with scaffolding, tools, and lots of huge pieces of plastic to keep dust off of everything, but it was good to see none theless.

Afterwards we ventured to the chocolate musuem...but first I had a freak run-in with someone I went to high school with who's studying in barcelona for the semester. So we're on the metro, and i'm just looking around trying to figure out where the hell we are when our train stops at the next stop...so i'm still looking around not paying attention and the train across the tracks going the other direction stops at the same stop...the next thing I know everyone I'm with was like "nicole, do you know that kid waving"...and I look over to the other train and it's Tyler Kitson, waving like crazy trying to get my attention, literally the second after I saw him the train started moving and that was that...we ended up getting in touch via facebook and meeting up twice real quick but, come on, HOW WEIRD IS THAT!

Anyway, so we continued to the chocolate museum, which we found cheap and included a chocolate bar! score! I think the best part of the museum was watching everyone eat (not drink...eat) the hot chocolate in the museum cafe...this looked like they just held the cup underneath one of those chocolate fountains and handed them out...you couldn't even drink it, you had to scoop it out because it was so think. Well, actually I wouldn't know, i had no lactate pills on me and that would have been BAD NEWS, but I took everyone's word for it.

We then decided to just walk around for the rest of the day, Maggie and I headed towards the water, where I found the hotel we stayed at this summer, and the restaurant where we got gross eggs! The weather was a little overcast, but, who cares, we were in spain! After doing some shopping along the way, we walked along the water and made our way to Las Ramblas, the big shopping/tourist area. We walked around some more, then headed back to get ready for our dinner of tapas and sangria.

Yes, time for more eating! Spanish food was so good, everyone was making fun of me because I said last time I was in barcelona we just ate italian food...oops...but this time I got some good spanish food--here are my prawns (shrimp) with garlic and oil...mmmm

Thursday the weather was amazing, nice and sunny, so we did more wandering, and then bri arrived! Thursday we were all guilty of not eating spanish food...instead we ateeeeee...

...yup, we did it, and it was DELICIOUS. After lunch we did some more walking around Las Ramblas and by the water, then walked around the tiny backstreets which were beautiful

that night everyone kind of split up for dinner but met back up down my Port Olympia, right on the beach! Being able to see palm trees in october just made my week, especially when we found out that snow was forecasted for syracuse...oh well!

We all ended up at this "discotecca", because apparently that's the thing to do in spain, the best part was the music they were playing, it was the cheesiest american music, including musicals...mamma mia, grease lightning, it's raining men...all the classics. these poor europeans must think that this is what americans listen to 24/7...no wonder they're bitter at us, they have to listen to it even when they go out, oh well.

Friday we ventured to Park Guell, which is a park that overlooks all of Barcelona, with one area of the park designed by Gaudi, the architect who designed la Sagrada Familia, I think this was my favorite part of Baracelona...the sun was shining and we hiked up the park, then just hung out taking in our surroundings (this may have been the only part of the week where eating was not directly involved)...but then we got lunch!

After lunch I went with Bri to show her the Sagrada Familia, then went down to Port Olympia for one last walk on the beach...again, perfect weather, palm trees, doesn't get much better than this

...then it was time for Madrid!!

Venezia

So, due to the fact that we forgot about daylight savings time this morning, it´s now 9:12 instead of 10:12, so i thought i´d try to write a quick update on venice.

Arielle and I arrived Sunday night--and i think one of my favorite parts of Venice was taking the night water bus on the main canal to the stop of our hostel. It was so quiet and calm, yet beautiful, i forgot how much i loved this place. I also loved experiencing it again with someone who had never been, so it was just an overall good way to start our few days.

We walked into the hostel where we were met by a bunch of very drunk,but very friendly australian guys. These australians are everywhere, i think the US needs the same system Australia has that lets all of these people travel for months on end...i think i´ll propose this at the next meeting of congress.

Anyway, so we checked in and then it was time for what we´d been waiting for....PASTA! You have no idea how much I was looking forward to these few days full of italian food, especially after being in Paris I realized how much the food in London SUCKS. So we found this cute restaurant close by, sat outside and ATE. Spaghetti bologonese...mmmmmm

The next morning we slept in, which was nice because this week was VERY BUSY so I jumped at any chance to sleep in. We then made our way over to Saint Mark´s Square, basically the only big thing to do in Venice, which was really nice because there was no pressure to go here, and there and rush around to museums, etc. like in Paris.

So once again I got to see Arielle´s face when she saw the 2499238585 pidgeons that just chill in Saint Mark´s Square...usually you can find some dumb American standing in the middle of the square with breadcrumbs in both hands just waiting for pidgeons to come so their dumb american relatives can take a picture...NO THANK YOU!

I then showed Arielle the Grand Canal area, which, although its crowded, was one of my favorite parts. We just sat on the dock watching the boats wizz by, and tourists load into Gondola´s, while eating Italian cookies...mmmm

The plan was to wait for Dana to arrive, then grab foccacia or something from the stands and eat it outside, but we got too hungry so I got this personal pizza...I walked up to the stand and asked if it was cold or hot, because sometimes they´ll just hand it to you cold...and we all know how i feel about cold cheese! So he said ´hot´and i said ´done´...then i began to wonder how i was going to walk around eating this hot pizza...well, the little, old italian man pulled the pizza out of the oven, folded it in half and shoved it in my face with a napkin...once again...mmmm. So we went back to the dock and ate our lunch, probably one of the most perfect moments ever.

Soon Dana arrived and after a gelato stop (for them...more cookies for me) we went back to the hostel so Dana could drop off her bag, then walked around the area our hostel was in, which was pretty amazing. The hostel had its own bridge leading up to the front door, and a terrace off of the main room looking out over a tiny canal--where people would take pictures of you if you were standing out there, pretty funny.

We did some more walking around, some more sitting on canals, then it was time for dinner. There was only one requirement for a restaurant...they had to have PENNE ARRABBIATTA.

This was probably the BEST penne arrabbiatta ever, i FINALLY found it! Screw you London, you let me down!

After a leisurely dinner we made our way back to the hostel, hung out a bit more and called it a night. Arielle and Dana left super early the next morning for their train to hike Chinkuatara (spelling?), so I had the day to myself...in the rain. It was nice to have alone time, but I don´t think I could ever just backpack around by myself, I´ve found that part of the fun of traveling is experiencing things with other people.

That night I enjoyed my last Italian meal and made my way to the airport for...BARCELONA!