Had yet another fun trip vising friends across Europe! Started off with a four day trip to the great city of London, where I met up with DU friends Gabe, Tyler, Lauren, Kim, and Brooke. Tyler, Lauren and I stayed in the most disgusting hostel I have ever experienced. Naively, we thought we were pretty clever when we found a cheap hostel, and despite being 30 minutes outside of the city, we figured it wouldn't matter too much. Well turns out, the metro stops running at midnight, and the buses are quite complicated to figure out. So no London nightlife for us. The worst part, though, was the 15 room dorm we shared with 12 other guys. As you walked into the room, you hit a wall of B.O. and thick, steamy air that was only worsened by the radiator that was always on full blast. What this place needed was a dehumidifer and a fan. Next to my bottom bunk there was an open suitcase piled high with dirty clothes of the guy sleeping in the bunk over top of me, so whenever I turned my head to the side, I was faced with dirty boy clothes. Being clever, I made a wall with my scarf making my bottom bunk like a small cave, but it was still impossible to block out the smell! And even when you weren't in the room, it was still bad; the cartoon "art" on the walls was ugly and too bright, making you feel as though you were in a bad dream.
From now on, I am going to do more through research before deciding on hostels. On the bright side, though, this made my hostel in Barcelona seem like a 5 star hotel!
Tyler and I being touristy our second day at Abbey Road, where the Beatles made their infamous album cover:
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| Westminster Abbey with Lauren and Ty |
I spent my time in London wandering around and revisiting all the sights I saw when I visited in high school with my family. On Saturday afternoon, Tyler, Gabe and I saw everything from the London Eye to Abby Road and the National Portrait Gallery. The grey London sky and chilly weather kept us moving around. The food we ate was phenomenal; fish and chips were a huge hit, and on Friday night my friend Ilana, who is studying in London this semester, took Lauren and I to Chipotle. What a treat! Mexican food is not a delicacy we have in Salamanca.
On Saturday night, after touring around all day, Gabe, Tyler and I ended up at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. If you ever go to London around Christmastime, this is a must-see. It is a huge holiday festival in the middle of Hyde Park, complete with small rides, an ice skating rink, vendors selling handicrafts, and plenty of food and beer. We arrived around 8pm, and it was already packed full of people. And I mean packed! We had to wait 15 minutes in a huge crowd as security let people enter in waves. As soon as you made it in, the hoard of people slowly dispersed. We bought hot wine to warm ourselves up and left after a half hour since it was so overwhelming.
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| Hordes of people at Winter Wonderland |
This was comparable to Portobella Market at Notting Hill, which Tyler and I visited earlier that afternoon. Only open on Saturdays, this market has a lot of vintage goods and (expensive) clothing. Like Winder Wonderland, the hoards of people made London feel like a very big and busy city.
Surprisingly, I experienced a bit of culture shock when I arrived in London. As I got off the train in Victoria Station, I was overwhelmed by how quickly everybody was moving. Nobody had strollers with babies, and everybody was in a rush. In Spain, everybody moves at a leisurely pace and families are always together. Definitely not the case in London. And, obviously, everything was in English! It took a couple hours for me to stop translating sentences and in my head, and it was quite a luxury to ask for directions to my hostel in English, rather than in Spanish.
I had a great time seeing DU friends in London, and despite the overcast, cold weather, I had so much fun seeing DU friends for the last time (until May!), and eating non-Spanish food. The worst part about London though: the pound is horrible! I do not even want to think about how expensive everything was!
London Bridge: So on Saturday, Tyler and Gabe and I decided to visit London Bridge after lunch....we finally get there and are enjoying the evening views of the city when somebody pulls over and asks for help pushing their car across the bridge. So, instead of a relaxing stroll, the boys pushed this car across the bridge instead! They were quite proud of themselves afterwards, though winded and tired from the dirty London air.
After London, I hopped on a plane back to Madrid and then went on to Barcelona. My best friend Lauren has been studying there all semester, and since she's leaving in a couple weeks, so I had to see her in her home city before she left! Everybody that I have talked to about Barcelona has warned me to GUARD YOUR PURSE and to BE VERY CAREFUL! I was paranoid and convinced that I was going to lose my passport and get all my cash stolen, so I made sure everything was tucked away in my backpack.
Nothing happened, and I felt safer in Barcelona than I did in London! Ya just gotta be smart. La Rambla, the busiest street in Barcelona, was full of people, but as long as you had your purse in front of you, things were fine. However, I certainly didn't leave my jacket in restaurants or my purse on a chair like I would in Salamanca.
Visiting Barcelona, I was excited to listen to the natives speak Catalan. It sounds familiar to Spanish, but as my taxi-cab driver explained to me on the way to the hostel, it is spoken with a weird accent and some different vocabulary. All the signs were in Catalan, and it was defininitely different than Spanish.. Walking around, it was easy to see that many of these people have a lot of pride; from the catalan flags all over the buildings, to the weird traditions that they hold on to, I am glad I finally go to see it:
Christmas Tradition: kids literally hit the shit out of a giant log, called "Caga Tio," and for stocking stuffers, it is tradition to give small figurines of famous people going poop. I didn't believe it until I saw it; this is something you couldn't make up:
On Monday morning, I met up with some Salamanca friends who were also visiting Barcelona, and we took a tour of the city through a free walking tour organized by my hostel, and saw some of the famous gothic buildings in the old part of Barcelona. But the coolest thing, to me, was seeing the restaurant where "Vicki Christina Barcelona" was filmed; how cool! We shopped and admired all the gypsy-inspired fashion that afternoon, then took long naps before dinner. Tuesday, Lauren flew in from London, and all day she showed me her city! We saw everything!! From Park Guel that overlooks the city, to the Picasso Museum, the beach, and Plaza Espana, I fell in love with this city. For lunch, we stuffed ourselves with yummy pizza as we looked out over the Mediterranean and were warmed by the sunshine. Tuesday night, we literally shopped 'til we dropped, justifying our purchases by the fact that we probably aren't going to get Christmas presents since our families are coming out to visit us. She on the hunt for black pointy shoes, and me for a wool sweater, we managed to pick up a couple other things along the way.
Saying goodbye that night, I cried my eyes out, knowing that we won't see each other again until May, if I go and visit Denver. That night I was furious at myself for having decided to study abroad for a year, and I got homesick for Denver and all my friends and the comforts of the United States, then nostalgic about my freshman and sophomore year, and I couldn't believe how quickly college is going by! I calmed down after I talked to my mother for a while, and now that I am back in Salamanca, I am okay.
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| Lauren and I at Park Guel, overlooking Barcelona |
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| Viva España! |
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