Spring Break '09, baby!

Spring break began as many of my trips have—by rising with the sun in the wee hours of the morning in order to catch a bus to get to the airport everyone loves to hate—Frankfurt-Hahn (it’s not the real Frankfurt Airport but this smaller airport made just for RyanAir that’s located out in the middle of nowhere so we have to take a special bus to get there). As soon as we land in Dublin, Ireland we take a 4 hour bus through the beautifully green countryside to get to Galway where we spend the next 2 days. Galway is a cute little coastal town with plenty of shops (all which close around 5pm, as we learned too late). The first morning we were there Mary and I got up early and went for a run out to the lighthouse. We saw the sun rise over the ocean and it was gorgeous! One of those times when you just feel God all around you. Then it started raining on us so we had to head back to the hostel. That day we all went on a bus tour that went through the countryside of Ireland, through the Burren where we saw 2000 year old tombs and Viking paintings, then ended at the Cliffs of Moher (the cliffs of insanity!!!). Only by the time we got to the cliffs it was completely pouring rain and the cliffs were so foggy you couldn’t see a thing. But it was still a great tour. We stopped for lunch at a pub where I got seafood chowder that had a nice little calamari body in it. Mmm, he was tasty (I stayed away from the mussels though). For dinner we ate at a little place and had some amazing Irish food! I got shepherd’s pie and Bailey’s cheesecake to share for dessert. So good!
We went from Galway to Dublin, which was also a great town. We took a (free!) walking tour with a great guide that looked like a hobbit. We stopped for tea in a cute little café called Queen of Tarts, where, much to my surprise and enjoyment, they were playing Buena Vista Social Club! Made me think of weekends at home. Ahh.
After 4 days we left Ireland for Scotland. We headed to the small college town of St. Andrews. It was on the coast and beautiful. Not a fast food joint in sight (the city wants to preserve the historical value of the town). We stayed on the St. Andrew’s university campus with a friend’s friend (so nice of her to let us crash in her room!) which was right across the street from what’s said to be the oldest golf course in the world, which is also located right along the beach where they filmed part of Chariots of Fire! We spent a lot of time just wandering around the cute little town and drinking tea. We drank a LOT of tea. And because Mary’s friend knew the people in a certain tea shop we got really good tomato lentil soup for free!
We continued our little journey by busing from St. Andrews to Edinburgh, which was an amazing city. Our hostel was in an old church which LOOKED really cool but was actually cold and noisy since our rooms didn’t have ceilings (luckily we were only there one night). We ate the most amazing baked potatoes at this place called The Baked Potato (go figure), saw the Edinburgh castle which sits on top of a hill, and (most importantly) drank coffee in the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter! Haha. That night for dinner, though, I had the most unfortunate run-in with “fishcakes” due to my pressuring waiter and the fact that they didn’t have the salmon I originally wanted. These fishcakes I ended up with tasted like, as my friend Nick so eloquently put it, ‘like pulling a shrimp out of the ocean and licking it.’ Yum. I made a quick stop in a cute store to add Skivvies in Scotland to my world-traveling underwear collection (haha), and then we were headed back to Heidelberg!
It was really nice to be able to spend time in both a smaller town and the capital of both Ireland and Scotland. It was a great spring break!

Ethpana y Camaroneth

Madrid, the NYC of Europe. The city that never ever sleeps and enjoys daily siestas. Oh Madrid, how I love thee. Needless to say, our second educational field trip was much more exciting and enjoyable than the first. We went to awesome museums where we saw Impressionist art (my favorite) and Picasso and Dali (not my favorite but still interesting to see up close). We went to a flamenco show that left us all awestruck and ready to dance (I sat in the front row and got sweat on by the long-haired man dancer. Gross.). We toured the city and shopped by day, stopping for crispy-fried churros and thick hot chocolate to dip them in, and went out on the town, dancing our feet off, by night. We went to the famous seven story club, Kapital, that had different music on every floor. There was also a floor that played movies and a floor with an awesome lounge area that had comfy overstuffed seats and a big lit up fountain-pond in the middle. We also had quiet an adventure trying to find a club that my friend’s sister had suggested we go to and we finally got there only to find that it was CLOSED. We went to an orchestra concert and all the boys in our group gave roses to all the girls for Valentine's Day. Sehr suss. We ate paella in Toledo with calamari, mussels, and shrimp that still had legs and heads, so the eyes stared at us as we tried to eat around them. We got to see master jewelry and sword makers in action and saw famous paintings by El Greco. We shopped in El Corte Ingles and ate quesadillas. We said “grathias” a lot and giggled about it. Then, after enjoying 5 glorious, beautiful days of sunshine we retuned to a foot of snow in Heidelberg. Hoorah!

Birthplace of the French Fry

Contrary to what most believe, the French Fry was birthed in Belgium, not France. But they speak French in Belgium, so there you go. So, my last trip was to Bruges, Belgium. It was fuhreeking cold but really pretty. Our travel group started out being 4 but poor Stephen was puking the whole train ride and by the time we got to Luxembourg we decided we needed to insist he go back for his own good. He reluctantly agreed from his pale-faced fetal-position on the train station floor. Poor guy. We were all going to turn around and go back and maybe take a small day trip but at the last minute Mary and I decided to go on to Bruges by ourselves. To get to our hostel room we had to walk through this restaurant-bar that served really good Flemish stew and cherry beer (my new favorite!). There were arty-looking sacred hearts all over the place as decoration. Mary and I got up early the next day and walked ALL over Bruges. I'm pretty sure we walked about 20 miles that day. We saw the entire town and took a million pictures. There were huge old windmills along the outside of the town and a river that ran alongside them. There were canals all over the town and during the warmer seasons you can take a boat ride in them. We went into an old cathedral and saw a sculpture by Michelangelo. We of course, ate fries and Belgian chocolate. When we walked into a particularly cute chocolate shop the lady at the counter got really excited when she found out we were American and started asking us if we knew Rick Steves. Then she pulled out her own copy of his travel guide book, which was tabbed to the page that had her store in it, and showed us in writing, Rick's personal approval. I must admit, Rick's got some good taste. Those chocolates were amazing. We tried to find the World's Best Hot Chocolate that our friends had told us about but no matter how hard we looked we couldn't find it and instead ended up getting some disappointing (but cheap!) watery hot chocolate to go from a quick place. Then we went to these 2 fry stands that stand about 20 feet apart from each other and compete for the best pommes frites (Europeans really like to put mayonaise on their fries which I find disgusting, so I opted for the curry ketchup). French fries are my favorite food but I have to say I've had better. They were good though. Then since Belgium is supposed to be known for its lace Mary and I stopped in this tiny little house-turned-lace-shop run by these elderly women who made all the lace by hand themselves! It was really impressive.. Not to mention really expensive. One night Mary and I decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner (well nicer than the fries and waffels we'd been eating all weekend). She got salmon and I decided to try mussels since they were advertised all over Bruges. I was sorely disappointed. They tasted like mushy ocean. Gross. Next time I'll get salmon too. I took a million pictures on this trip! It was great but good to leave the northern cold and get back home to Heidelberg.

Home Sweet Heidelhome

It's 3:30am here in Heidelberg but as I'm currently suffering from severe jet lag and wide awake I decided to catch up on this here blog.

Christmas break was wonderfully eventful. I spent the first 2 weeks traveling and the other 3 back home in the states. I traveled with my friends, Lisa and Chelsey. Our first stop was Paris and it was gorgeous. I have to say while the Eiffel Tower photographs well, it's really not all that pretty in person. It's conspicuous and brown and skeletal. But at night they light it up with blue lights and due to some French anniversary they've added a circle of yellow stars for the year. Then every hour from 7pm-midnight the whole thing sparkles with flashing white lights. Boy, those French really know how to fancify things. We hit all the tourist stops-- The Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, the Champs de l'Elysee, Sacre Coeur, the Arc de Triumph, and the La Fayette Galleries. I liked the Musee d'Orsay better than the Louvre because it had more impressionist art which is my favorite genre of paintings, but it was cool seeing the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. We also stuffed ourselves full of the 'Best Crepes in Paris!' We actually believed it though because we chose the place at random and the French woman standing in line in front of us was raving about them. My favorite was nutella, banana, and coconut. SO good. It snowed the last day we were in Paris and it was a nice little farewell before we set off for Barcelona.
Barcelona has been my favorite city visited so far! I absolutely LOVED it! It was colorful and friendly and inviting and warm, and best of all, the people speak SPANISH! For 2 of the 5 days we were in Paris we had a friend with us who could speak French enough to get us by, but once he had left we were a lost cause. There's no even guessing with French since there are so many silent letters, but once in Spain I took over the communicating job of our trio. I felt right at home. haha. My favorite part of Barcelona was La Boqueria which was this huge produce market on Las Ramblas. It had these amazing fresh fruit juices for one euro a cup and we probably drank 10 of them the first day we were there. Then one night we went to a shot bar called El Gato Negro and had a couple fun shots (all involving fire!) and fresh made sangria. My favorite shot was the Boyscout where the bartender lights your shot on fire and then gives you a marshmallow on a stick to roast. Then you dip it in the shot and eat it. Delish!
Our next stop was Malaga, which is located at the southern tip of Spain (we could see Africa from the coast!). Getting there was quite an adventure as we ended up spending the night outside on a bench in a bus depot, then later on the steps of the resort in the (literally) freezing cold as we waited for the lobby to open, but we survived and it makes for a good story now. ha. Malaga was beautiful and the Mediterranean Sea was gorgeous! The water was so clear and blue.
From Malaga we began what ended up being a 60 hour journey back home. We first trained from Malaga to Barcelona, where we found out our hostel we'd booked for the night was full, got sent to a different hostel, slept 4 hours, then continued on to Paris. From Paris we trained to Frankfurt airport. The airport was like a 5 star hotel after having slept outside and on trains! It was heated and had lounge chairs and a 24-hour Starbucks. Glorious! Then we parted ways and got on our separate planes home (Lisa and I to CA, Chels to Idaho).

Being home with the fam was tons of fun. The 3 weeks I spent in CA were super busy but it was so good to see everyone again. Christmas Eve at our house and Christmas weekend in the mountains. However, I did recieve the sad news that Doug Panter, the husband to my babysitter who watched me for 8 years, passed away. I've kept them in my thoughts and prayers. I love you both.

Overall it was an incredibly amazing, adventurous, and blessed vacation!