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!