Spring BREAK!!!!

"SPAIN"

So we woke up early from sleeping in the airport after Barcelona to head to the Canary Islands!!! These are islands right off Spain. It took around three hours to get from Madrid to the Islands and they couldn’t have lasted any longer! We were so anxious to get on the beach and get a little color for once! We arrived and went straight to the bathroom to change into our swimsuits right away before we got on the bus! Don’t worry mom we wore cover-ups over our swimsuits haha (my family could totally see me just going in my suit) I love being in my swimsuit! So we hopped on a bus that went to the south side of the island we were on, where our hostel and other friends were awaiting our arrival! We had quite the experience getting to where we were staying. We followed the directions and got to be where we were supposed to be, then we went into the bar area where we were first to check in, (first red flag, checking in at an outdoor bar). Then we went in and they had papers, food and other trash all over this tiny bar area/ workers lounge. So anyway we were to get a taxi to this one address and then we had to pay in cash on arrival. We did as we were instructed and found Shayna and Robert waiting for us at the address we were given! It turned out that we were staying in apartments, the boys had one and the girls had one. We had our own kitchen, living room and bedrooms. The only downfall was that we had to walk about 10 minutes to the pool and 20 to the beach and only the boy’s apartment had internet, but other than that it worked out great! And for only 14 Euro a night! So after we got all settled in we went to the pool to get our sun on! We laid out for a couple of hours and then wrapped it up and decided to get some groceries on the way back to the apartment. The guys went back early so it was just us girls to go get groceries. So we all stalked up on groceries for the week which were super cheap on the island! We all had lots of bags so we decided, oh, we’ll just take a taxi back. First obstacle: getting a taxi to take 5 girls when they were only allowed to have 4 in their taxi. We probably stopped 6 taxis before we found a taxi driver that would take us as long as we paid him 2 euro extra. Second obstacle that we didn’t think about until we all got situated inside the taxi with steph laying over our legs hiding… “does anyone know the address to our apartments?” So not only was the taxi driver so annoyed with us for having one extra person but we had no idea what the address was haha. So we try and just point to things and describe to him where we are staying. Then I pulled out a map from my baggie, Shayna grabs it and says “Maggie! You had a map this whole time!?” She looks at it, “This is of Barcelona!” throws it back at me and we all bursted out laughing. Then we continue to call the boys to ask them for the address as they are at the apartments while we called them. One of them answers, we ask “Hey what’s our address?” They reply, “Oh we don’t know!” “Well… could you take 4 steps outside and look?” They were too lazy to so we were once again on our own. Even though all three boys were there we decided we would only blame Robert for all of our struggles because he’s always just trying to get under everyone’s skin and loves doing it. So since we had no idea where we were going we just told the driver to pull over and we would walk back. He dropped us off at a place that we recognized but were sick of trying to explain where we needed to go so we got out and were once again on foot. We were getting close to the apartments so we thought we would take a shortcut through the back of this hotel. It turns out there was no way of getting to the other side except for going through the hotel. We started down the steps toward the pool area and did not realize until we had gone too far that there were shows going on and a supper where everyone was watching a tv that was directly next to us, so as we descended from the stairs about 80 pairs of eyes were on us as we carried 4 grocery bags each through their evening entertainment. As we walked though everyone we just kept saying how we were going to kill Robert and then kept laughing. We got lost inside the hotel and couldn’t find our way out so finally Shayna went up to one of the ladies working and goes “um we accidently walked into the hotel, this one isn’t ours, how do we get out of here? The lady laughed at us and told us how to get out. So finally we got out, went the right way and got back to our apartments in time to start supper before going out.
The next day we got up bright and early to try and go to the beach. We got there and it was literally a sand storm. We couldn’t walk four steps without getting sand in our eyes and our mouth. So we decided that we would hit up the pool again and try the beach again the next day. We went to the pool and just relaxed all day. Then we took sweet pictures of us forming “SPAIN” with our bodies. But basically lying out was basically the only thing we did that day. Later that night we went back, showered made really good pizzas, and then just played cards and hung out. Thursday was our last full day and was just as windy as the other days so instead of even trying the beach again we just went straight to the pool. This day Robert went missing, we didn’t know where he went. And then Chris was at the pool with us and then left for a second and didn’t come back when he had left his shoes and bad with us at the pool. Steph started freaking out like it was out of a movie and we were being taken one by one. Ben volunteered to go look around for chris and steph was like “NO BEN!” We can’t afford to lose you too! Haha it was really funny. –well not really at the time because both boys had been gone for a while. But now it is because Ben found Chris on some random couch in the lobby of the hotel of the pool we were using, sleeping. And then Robert showed up later, he had just left and decided he was going to rent a bike and take a ride around the island for the day. That night we decided to go out to eat for our last night, so we classed it up and went to good ol hooters to eat. On our way back we found a huge palm and Caitlin and Chris carried it for a while saying it was their cross to bear. (it was funny at the time.) Our last day, we got up early and hit the pool again. After the pool we went to the beach and I got to swim in the ocean! From there we went and walked through the sand dunes which literally looked like we were in a desert- it was really cool t-minus the fact that sand was flying EVERYWHERE and it hurt our eyes a lot. That evening we got on our bus to go to the airport and flew to Madrid! What we didn’t account for was the hour difference from the Canaries to Madrid. When we got to Madrid it was too late to get a bus back to Granada, so one again we SLEPT IN THE AIRPORT haha.

Barcelona

We started off our spring break by heading to Barcelona. Ben, Chris, Shayna and Robert all left for the Canary’s early while we went to Barcelona and Steph went to Madrid to stay with some foreign exchange students she use to host. We were all to meet up in the Canary Islands that following Tuesday. Paige, Caitlin and I left for Barcelona on the Saturday after midterms. We flew straight from Granada to Barcelona. Once we got to Barcelona we had to buy a 22 euro round trip bus ticket to even get into the city. Once we got into the city we had to figure out the metro system on our own this time!!! We got to the ticket machine to purchase a ticket and we read the screen, it wasn’t in English or Spanish… it was in Catalan. This is a mixture of Spanish and some other village language together…very hard to understand. But we made some guestemations and got tickets. We somehow got on this train thing instead of the metro because its what the directions from the hostel said to do but we got all mumble jumbled and we were going the wrong way not to mention-we figured this out because some guy reading a book looked up at us and asked what we were looking for “in English not to mention” and we told him and he’s like…you need to be going the opposite direction. So we hopped off and got on a new one and somehow with a little bit of luck we finally reached our hostel. We got settled in and then went to go tour the city. We started off our adventure by going to the market, which is an outdoor market for fresh fruit, meats, candy, all sorts of good stuff! We continued down las ramblas and got to a plaza and decided to go to the grocery store, get some food for lunch, and then sit in the sun and have a picnic. While we were sitting in the plaza relaxing with the sun beating harshly through our jeans, we got lost in the moment and we were not aware of what was going on around us. Paige had bought a pack of diet Pepsis at the grocery store and they were sitting next to her- while there are beggers all around in Spain, one in particular caught our eye. Out of nowhere Paige looks up and there is an older lady reaching down, picks up one of Paige’s diet Pepsis, takes the cap off and starts to drink it. We are all in such shock we couldn’t say anything, then the begger proceeds to try and give the pop back to Paige thinking she would still want it. Paige was still speechless so I just told her “tomalo” which means take it. When she left all we could do was laugh! After basking in the sun for a very long time, we decided to go back and take naps so that we were well rested to see the light show that night. Later that night we went to go find the light show- we owned the metro station and got there without any problems! The light show was sweet, it was a huge water fountain that had water moving in different directions and designs and changed different colors! There was also music that it went along with it. We sat around once it was over hoping for another show later but there wasn’t one. But we did meet a nice man from Miami, Ohio who was there on business so we chatted it up with him for a while. He was talking about how he had wished he studied abroad when he was in college, and Paige turned to him and goes, “Well I wouldn’t study abroad either if I lived in Miami!” Caitlin turned to her and whispered Miami, Ohio not Florida. The man just smiled and let out a giggle because knew that she had clearly missed that memo. On our way back to the metro we were in between crosswalks and Paige felt something tug on her purse so she whipped it around and looked- someone had unzipped her purse pocket with her ipod and passport. She turned around to see who it was and the guy had taken off the other way. Paige had a rough day. To finish off our first day in Barcelona we had an interesting incident on the metro as well-nothing like finishing up the day with a little action. We had just gotten on the metro when we saw a group of like 6 guys get into a tussle with a couple people on the metro, we didn’t realize right away what was going on but what had happened was a couple of the guys grabbed a womans purse and were yanking it from her- her husband was trying to fight them off but more gang members joined in and successfully they stole her purse and jumped off the metro right as the doors were closing. The woman’s little girl next to her was bawling and everyone was sort of just in shock. Not to mention there was another gang member right behind us that making sure everything went well and then he jumped off when they did, we didn’t realize this until later. From then on we did not carry purses anymore and we also did not go out once it got dark out. We didn’t have boys with us so we just felt safer going out in the day and then going back and reading or going on the computers once it got dark. Day 2 in Barcelona was much more successful. Palm Sunday! No one is going to rob us on Palm Sunday right??? That’s like asking for an invitation straight to hell. Just kidding… But really. We went to see the Sagrada familia on Palm Sunday and got to sit in on an outdoor service. The Sagrada familia is a huge church designed by Gaudi as well and is very famous in Spain. Everyone was waving different types of palms and singing songs in Catalan. After the church service we just walked around the city some more and then ate a delicious lunch at Hard Rock Café- Paige didn’t get to eat it in Madrid. So we all took one for the team and “forced” ourselves to eat the food and even went as far as getting ranch with it. We are such team players. (Jk) It was delicious, we also saw the tallest men ever at Hard Rock and Paige was convinced they were famous so as they were leaving I asked if they were basketball players… and they were! They played for a team in Spain or they were playing Spain, we weren’t quite sure but they were from America. That night we went to go see Gaudi’s work. He has like crazy abstract buildings and different art works around Barcelona. So we went and saw some of it lit in the street, took pics, got ice cream and then went back to the hostel. That Monday was our last day so we went up to Park Guell which is all uphill to get to and all designed by Gaudi once again. We walked around took pics and then got these 10 min massages that were free and then you put a tip in at the end. I don’t know who enjoyed it more, us getting the massages or the guys that got to give us the massage- o well it was free haha. And there was a long line so that meant they were legit…? The last thing we did was go through a chocolate factory which was really cool, they had tons of different art made out of chocolate! Then we went back packed up all of our stuff and headed to the bus station to take us to the airport. We flew into the Madrid airport that night and prepared our beds because we once again got to spend the night at the airport! We made beds and then had heart to hearts before we fell asleep. At one point Caitlin got laughing so hard that a lady like 40 feet away from us shushed her haha. The next morning we were on our way to the Canaries! Canaries are to be continued...

Paris

We went to Paris all of last weekend!!!!!! We left thursday night on a plane to Barcelona, Spain, and spent the night at the airport because we had an early flight out the next morning to Paris. We claimed an area and camped out. There was about 9 of us, so we took up some room. We all studied, or played cards. One of the boys in our group went and got a bottle of wine and about an hour later we asked him why he had purchased it his reponse was, ¨i thought everyone was getting one.¨ This struck us all as really funny because no one had once mentioned getting any. So we continued to either study because of midterms or played Hearts. We got there at like 7pm so we had about 12 hours to kill haha. Some of us slept, and some didn´t but we all got up to catch a 7 am flight to PARIS!!! We flew in and had to take a bus from the airport to the city. Once we arrived, my friend Taylor who studies in paris picked us up! We took the metro to get to the hostel that about 16 of our friends were all staying at!!! Some of our friends were studying in London, and some had come to visit from central for spring break. We got to at about 11am to learn that we couldn´t get into our rooms until 3. The girls just put their bags in Ashley and Felicia´s room and the guys put thiers in Joey and Joels room. From there our huge group went to the Sacre Coeur which is this huge church and has massive steps that overlook the whole city. There was a really good performer that was singing songs so we all sat there for about 2 hours and watched! This guy knew like 6 different languages, he would ask where people were from and then he would talk to them in their language. There was one lady that went up close to him from Russia to video him and he called her britney spears because she was a blonde- she started to dance around while he sang and then moved to taping herself dance around- it was pretty funny. His songs were mostly in english so we all sang along and just enjoyed the view. We walked around the city and got a feel of the area - there were also really good artists that we walked by that could literally sketch a person perfectly- one picture was one of britney spears so i obviously took a pic by it. Then headed back to the Hostel to take naps and then to get cleaned up. We went to the Arc de Triomphre that night- it was huge and really fun to see- from the arc we could see a great view of the Eiffel Tower and we got to see it sparkle- its always lit up but every hour on the hour it sparkles!!! That night we all went out dancing!!! -obviously my favorite part of paris. The next day we went to see the Eiffel tower close up and personal. We took a thousand pictures and then decided to hit up the Louvre. This is one of the largest museums in the world and contains the good ol lady herself...Mona Lisa. We went to see her specifically. Caitlin and I were standing by eachother staring at her, and then I turned to Caitlin and said... you know, she´s kinda homely looking. and she goes, oh! she´s real homely looking. Then I asked her if she was a real person, and Caitlin goes oh ya, I don´t know exactly what she did but she´s real. So we discussed for some time about that she probably did good works like mother teresea and that´s why she´s so famous. OOOOOOOnly to find out- she isn´t a real person at all. She´s Leonardo´s vision of himself as a female-so its like half man half woman or something. So we looked around for a little bit and then headed out to take more ridiculous pictures outside of the Louvre. After the photo shoot, we went to see the Notre Dame cathedral and we got to witness a service going on. After touring around it for a little while we went and ate at Subway...mmm eat fresh, except this subway wasn´t all that fresh-but for some reason we just love american food when we get our hands on it. We went back to the hostel and got ready for our last night there. We all got dolled up, took pics and then headed out in the POORING RAIN to go to a pub, only problem was, on the way there-both of my brand new heels broke! I turned to the group as they were laughing at me holding the two heels and i said, ¨so this is why my mom always told me to buy good quality shoes...who knew.¨ The next day we said our goodbyes to the American folk and headed back to españa!!!!

Madrid

We spent the weekend in Granada 2 weekends ago haha!! First time in a while. That Friday night we went to a place called poe and they have Jamaican flavored tapas- kind of like appetizers. When you order a drink of any type you get a free tapa!!! This place had delicious ones!!! Then we went to another pub and there was a guy wearing a t-shirt that said 83th with some other english words, try saying that out loud, we were like eighty thirdth??? We of course snapped a pic of it. Then we went to a botellon, we had read about these in Spanish class so i was really excited to see what it was all about. It was a huge street absolutely PACKED WITH PEOPLE. Mostly spaniard college kids. It was a great chance for us to be embraced into the culture and practice our spanish! That Sunday we went to the Santa Maria Cathedrial to go to a church service and it is actually where Queen isabel and King Fernando were burried. This was a Catholic service so when Caitlin whipped out a lunch before she entered the pew, you could imagine the panic in my face. But I got through the whole thing pretty well, I let Caitlin and Chris kneel, sit, kneel and then sit again haha. They told me I didn't have to do all of that. But it was really interesting to go to a Spanish service. The following week we got two girls from France that were going to stay with us. The girls were really sweet and a lot nicer than most of the girls we have had from France so Caitlin and I took them out to Tapas and befriended them- but then they started to get too comfortable with us and crossed the line when they asked to wear our high heels to go out at night-we made up some excuses because the streets ruin your shoes so quickly -we hardly wear our heals!!! So anyway - that weekend we went to Madrid-which make it last weekend. We left Friday and went to Toledo first actually. This is my favorite city in all of Spain- it is so cute and clean. We got to go see where swords were made and Gold into necklaces and other jewelery. I had seen all of the same things when I had come in high school but it was really fun to see the stuff again and recognize different things that I saw. I am pretty sure the guy who demonstrates the sword making was the same exact one as 4 years ago, and I am also pretty sure that all he does is sit there and when groups come in he gets up- lights the metal, pounds it a little and once we leave he sits back down again. I need to get that job. But any way that night we got into Madrid and we all went to a disco called Joy. Coca-cola was sponsoring it so there was a ton of fancy stuff and different dancers. But the later the night went the crazier the disco got- there were people in costumes walking around in stilts and then there were people bungy jumping from the ceilings!!! it was crazy! There were dancers on different rings in the air and lot's of other stuff- it was like out of a movie so it was pretty sweet. We all got in free because we had passes from our Hotel but usually this disco is 20$ to get into. The next day we went to the royal palace where the king and queens have parties, it was beautiful!!!! Then we went to the park of retiro- which has a big pond and boats on it- gorgeous! There was a ton of entertainment in the park too! That night we went HARD ROCK CAFE- we had eaten Mc Donalds with all of our weekend money for food so that we could go all out at Hard Rock Cafe- we could not wait to eat ranch dressing and american meat!!!!!! We got burgers, ribs, and A TON OF RANCH!!!!!!!! It was a very expensive meal about 20$-30$ per person but it was SOOOO WORTH IT!!!! Then with our college group we went to a play- it was supposed to be a scary one but since they talked so fast- we couldn't understand them and it just got kind of boring- but it was still fun to go to! Sunday we went through the Prado Museum - there are a ton of famous art pieces there and has a higher concentration of masterpieces than any other museum in the world. It was huge!!!! Caitlin and Shayna were determined to hit every room- Ben and I were spent after 2 hours so we "accidentally" lost them and went to find other people so that we could leave haha. Alex (another girl from our group) and I went back to the park to people watch, got some pizza, icecream, and nuts and then went back to meet the group to head back to Granada!!! Now we have mid-terms next week so this week has and will be consumed with studying!!!! And this weekend we go to Paris!!! We actually have a lot of Central kids visiting Europe for their spring break and all of us are actually meeting up in Paris, so there will be like 18 of us I think!!!

Granada

hoooola, como estan! This week has been full of booking and planning. So we thought we were going to Italy for Spring break, but it turns out, if you wait to book your tickets- the prices get jacked up. We didn't really feel like spending 1,000 dollars on spring break so we switched up our plans a little bit. We are now going to Barcelona (a really pretty and historical city in Spain) for a couple days and then we are heading to the Canary Islands for a couple days as well. Which are islands off the south coast of Spain. We got a hostel/apartment for all 8 of us right by the beach!!! We each pay 14 Euro a night, and this place has a pool!!!! We are all so excited. But as all trips go for us, something will go wrong haha. Then we are heading back a little early to come back to Granada for Semana Santa. Which is a religious week here for the week before easter. The city I guess is all decorated and there's like parades and stuff. But I do go to school, if I haven't mentioned that yet. All of my classes are in Spanish and they are an hour and a half long EACH!!! But they are all going pretty well. Last night we went to this disco called Camborio, and it over looks the Alhambra- if you don't know what that is, google it, its gorgeous at night! I'm not sure what the rest of the weekend entails, but i'm pretty sure on Sunday we are going to this huge cathedral for church! I can't believe we are almost half way done! It is all going by so fast. Next weekend we go to Madrid for the weekend, the weekend after that we go to France, then spring break, then next month is Ireland and Italy! We go go go, it's draining but SO WORTH IT!!! This morning Caitlin and I got to sleep in for the first time in - i don't remember the last time we got to sleep in- and we woke up and were like OH MY GOSH< THAT FELT SO GOOD. I have been so drained, so tired yadayada- and then we looked at each other and were like, are we seriously complaining right now about traveling hahahahaa. and Bursted out laughing!!!!

London

So we just got back from LONDON!!!! We left last Thursday bright and early!!! Caitlin and I got up at about 6:45 got everything together, ate breakfast, said our goodbyes to mama Carmen and flew out the door by 7! We caught a city bus outside our house to take us to the main bus station which took us to Madrid to the airport. While on the bus we coincidentally ran into Steph Brammer who was going to meet us at the bus station. All three of us got on a 9:00 am bus to Madrid, got on a plane and headed to the golden city of London!!! Naturally our flight was delayed, ryan air- once again the one with the stupid jingle with the congratulations for riding on the flight with the highest percentage of flight arrival times. So we were delayed and got into an airport outside of London at 7:15 pm- we pushed and shoved our way out of the plane and sprinted through the airport- and when I say sprinted I mean like 6^th grade 50 yard dash sprinting- I had a layer of sweat all through my body. We were going through customs by 7:25- our bus was set to leave at 7:30. We sprinted left, right, up and down and for some magical reason we made it to the bus by 7:30. We are notorious for giving ourselves a ton of time when planning ahead and then when actually traveling things go wrong and we always end up in a jog-a-thon. (And on occasion a sprint off). So as we were putting our bags in the bottom of the bus, Caitlin sadly realized that she had left her journal on the plane! That put a downer on the hour bus ride to London. But we bounced right back up when we got into London and smelled that sweet British air. We walked around trying to find the bus station – where our friend Kiley from college that was studying abroad there, would be picking us up get- because once again the bus we rode on dropped us off on some random street. It turns out that it’s a lot easier to ask for directions in English than in Spanish though. Fancy that. Any who, so we found the bus station and found Kiley!!!! Kiley worked us through the tube (metro) all the way to Vanden House- which originally is like 100 pounds to stay a night there, but we got to stay in Kiley’s room for fifteen pounds a night! Right when I got there I jumped right on kileys bed and proclaimed to her that I was sleeping with her that night! She realized later that night that I was serious, and we got to snuggle all night! We didn’t have enough beds in the room so two of us were going to have to anyway haha it wasn’t just because I wanted to… but really I did want to- I missed her! We got to Vanden House and went to see some other central kids that were studying there!!! We also met up with the boys from our program in Spain that were there in London that we usually travel with. All of us got ready and went to a club called Tiger Tiger. We all just kind of danced as a big group and watched Chris- our friend in our program in Spain and goes to central- go up to random girls and shimmy on them and watched the girls either get creeped out or was loving up on it haha. After Tiger Tiger we went back to the house and made grilled cheese sandwiches!!! We got to eat grilled cheese, oreo cookies, all you can drink milk and so many other things that aren’t available in Spain!!! We were loving it!!! The next day we woke up pretty early to go on our first day of touring. (PS in London, they drive on the right side of the car and the opposite side of the road as well!!! Sooo strange.) We really wanted to go see the changing of the guards at Buckingham palace so we started off our day with a little bit of guard watching. We got to the palace and it wasn’t as crowded as we thought it would be, which we thought was great because we could see better that way. Some Asian guy yelled at Chris, WHERE IS THE CHANGING OF THE GUARDS!?! And once we figured out what he was saying, he just pointed forward and smiled- it was pretty funny but it might have been one of those “you had to be there” kind of things. We watched the guards walk back and forth for about 45 minutes and finally someone pointed out the sign right in front of us that said, CHANGING OF THE GUARDS- TOMORROW AT 11:30. We had all seen the sign but subconsciously assumed they had just forgotten to take the sign down from yesterday since the changing of the guards is every other day. Well it turns out it was right and the changing of the guards was on Sat, not Friday. So we left Buckingham palace and headed to go get some hot chocolate because it was really cold outside! On our way to get the hot chocolate though we stopped at These HUGE lions in a plaza that we could climb on and take pictures. We had to hoist each other up- which was no easy task and the process was way funnier than we could have imagined. After the lion pics, we went and got delicious hot chocolate!!!! From there we went to some plaza where they were building sand volleyball courts for the 2012 olympics!!! We took pics there and moved on to take pictures with cool horses and guards near there. After we took pictures with the horses we read the sign next to us that said “HORSES MAY KICK OR BITE YOU- THANK YOU”. Good to know. So we then toured around the city, went to Big Ben- Ben, one of the kids with us, turned to us and said, “you know, when I was little they use to call me big ben.” We just bursted out laughing and took a pic with him and the clock. We also went and saw the London eye, which is the largest Ferris wheel in the world. From there we also went to Parliament, St. Margaret’s Abbey- (MARGARET!!! I took some pics), Westminster Abbey, and a couple random places. We walked through St. James park and there was a squirrel balancing on a fence, eating a peanut. There was also a bird man that would feed the birds and then when he would walk, all of the birds would follow and sometimes sit on his shoulder. Then we went and ate at McDonalds which we finally got use of our ISIC cards. When we went to Switzerland we asked everywhere if they took these for discounts and everyone just gave us a weird look and said no, in London we got to use them all over the place!!!!! It got us a free cheeseburger, thing of ice cream or there were some other choices. Later that night we made spaghetti and then got ready for……..Wicked the play!!! In the process of getting ready though I was blow drying my hair and I heard a fire alarm so I stopped only to learn that I had set off the fire alarm!!! My hair dryer was sparking and smoke was coming out of everywhere haha. I ran down stairs and I saw the whole group through a window in the kitchen and I pointed to myself and mouthed “that was me!” They all laughed and Kiley went and talked to the lady at the front. The lady told Kiley that the outlet shouldn’t have done that and that it was complete rubbish.

The play was absolutely amazing!!!!! The character, Alphaba- the wicked which was the best singer I have ever heard!!!! We all went back and stalked her on youtube. Later when we got back we all just hung out in Kiley’s room and watched youtube videos and chatted. We called my family on skype too and talked to all of them haha! We just ended up staying in because everyone was pretty tired and we wanted to get up early so that we for sure made it to the real changing of the guards!! So we got up pretty early and we actually had extra time, so we decided to hit up Knotting hill before the guard show. So we hopped on the tube and went to Knotting Hill, it turned out to be pretty lame so we hopped back on the tube and headed to see the Guards!!! There were different groups of guards that played different songs with instruments and marched around. There were tons of people this time!!!! After the changing for the guards we went to the London tower – where they use to keep a lot of prisoners- next to there was London Bridge, the tower bridge, and the millennium bridge (which happens to be in the latest Harry Potter movie). We also got to see the Globe theatre which was where Shakespeare’s first plays were performed-they still don’t have seats in it, it has basically kept its originality but is kept up. The next thing we saw was St. Pauls Cathedral. This is actually where Princess Diana got married! Then one of our last stops of the day was the British museum which was pretty cool but we were all so tired from walking by this point so everything started to become a little less cool as the day progressed. But one really cool thing we did get to see was platform 9 and ¾ which is in the Harry Potter movie as well.

Another cool thing that we got to go see was Abbey Street- this is the crosswalk where the beetles had one of their album cover pictures taken. And the studio where they recorded it was right next to it. What wasn’t so cool was the tsunami that we had to walk through to get there. Everything and everyone was completely soaked!!! But we did get a picture walking across the cross walk. We got everyone ready and all the traffic had stopped so that we could walk across and kiley could take a perfect picture of us… right when she was about to snap the perfect shot- some random guy walks right in front of her and across the front of us so that we couldn’t take the picture- it was really funny and really frustrating. That night all of us girls went out dancing while the guys bailed on us and went to bed. We did have to get up at 4 am but we just decided not to sleep. We couldn’t find the right bus the next morning, so we were basically running all around London at 4 am- trying to find a bus. But we found one and we made it back in one piece! Over all, the trip was a complete BLAST if you couldn’t tell already. Kiley did an amazing job at being tour guide Barbie and we all came back with a lot of memories!

Sevilla/Cadiz

I went to the famous Carnival of Cadiz last weekend. The Carnival of Cadiz is very very famous in Spain and I soon found out why. Last Friday I got on a bus at 3:30 and traveled all by myself for a 3 hour bus ride to Sevilla! The girl who sat next to me was a teenager from Granada and was so sweet. We sat there and talked for a while and she helped me with some Spanish homework I had. Conversing in Spanish is getting a lot easier and it was really challenging and fun when I couldn’t talk in English all of last weekend. I spoke in English maybe twice and it was helping others with their English. I slept the rest of the way and when I arrived Elena was right outside my bus waiting for me with her friend Anna. (for those who don’t know, Elena is the girl I stayed with when I went to Spain my jr. year of high school. She now studies at a University in Sevilla which is about an hour from Cadiz. When I got off the bus she had a kinder bueno waiting for me in her pocket, which is only the best chocolate bar in the world!!! Her friend Laura picked all of us up from the bus station and we headed to her flat. We got there, showered got all ready and sat down for supper. Laura’s boyfriend made us all supper, we had Spanish tortillas and these really good sandwiches which were like two pieces of bread toasted together with coleslaw type food on the inside. Then we went out to a disco called SOHO. This place was super packed, and for the first time no one stared at me like I was an American. I didn’t see any other American there so it was nice because no one thought I was, people would come up at start talking to me and then once I opened my mouth they figured it out but other than that it was nice. Another nice thing was when creepy guys would try to talk to me, I would just say I didn’t understand them because I was American, (in Spanish), and Elena would say she was American and we would start talking in English so that they would leave haha. Something I noticed was that guys loved to dance with guys and girls with girls but rarely did I see guys and girls dancing together, but if you want to see guys dance- spain is the place to be. They straight up get it on the dance floor in like a goofy 80’s dance sort of way. We stayed at the disco till about 7:30 a.m. and then headed back to laura’s hous/piso. We woke up at 12:30, packed up and then headed to Cadiz. We got to Elena’s house/apartment and her parents were so excited to see me! I was excited to see them too and hold a conversation with them as where the last time I talked to them all I did was respond with “Si”. So after we showered and got ready I noticed that there were a lot of people coming over to her house. I was really confused because literally her living room was packed with people, turns out her niece was having a birthday party there…who knew. She probably told me but I wasn’t listening- if I don’t know to listen- the Spanish just goes one ear and out the other. So anyway her niece turned 3 and was the cutest little Spanish girl I had seen yet. She had brown curly hair and eyes that could melt ya. All of the guests were family members- cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandma. Some of them I had met before but I got to meet a lot more this time! All of the kids dressed up in different costumes and ran around while the adults talked over coffee and hot chocolate. I was sitting on the couch with Elena and Anna, and all of her little cousins would surround me and try to show me the English that they knew. One of the little girls was 4 I think and started rambling off in Spanish and then goes, 1,2,3,4,5 in English and gave me a great big smile. Her aunt really made a conscious effort to talk to me throughout the whole party and did a great job of asking me questions that I knew the answers to and could elaborate on! It was really fun to experience a Spanish birthday and see how they were similar or different from ours. That night we dressed up in all black, wore red sweaters, red hats and held cardboard guitars. We were tio pepe, it’s a famous wine bottle here that wears a coat, hat and has a guitar. (you can image google it if you’re insanely curious) We got to the carnival and it was crazy!!!! The best costumes I had ever seen in my life! It was Halloween on steroids! In the US girls just kind of want to look cute in their costume and everyone just kind of does something at the last minute, not here! It looked like people spent all year on their costumes!!!! There were Avatar characters with the apparel, hair and then blue sparkly skin. There were sims characters, every animal you can think of, A table with a table on his back with a table cloth, food, drinks, and silverware pasted to the table. The amount of people there was so overwhelming too! People dancing in some of the streets, performers, just different stuff going on everywhere we went. I met a lot of people there and actually ran into some Americans and I learned that one of the girls’ there- her boyfriend goes to my college! I didn’t know who he was but it was still pretty cool. We didn’t leave the carnival until about 7 that morning too. Needless to say, the next day on my 4 hour bus ride back, I slept the whole way!