Mis padres también vinieron a España, parte 1! [My parents also came to Spain, part 1!]

Hello friends!  I'm back again!  This time, my parents came to visit me in Spain during our two week spring break from March 31st to April 15th.  We had a phenomenal time touring Spain for 2 weeks, and I'm so thrilled the came over to Europe to visit!  Anyway...where did I leave off?  Oh, yes... 

We’re back to that Friday afternoon…March 30^th.  I packed a duffel bag to let my parents take full of my winter clothes, as well as my backpack and a small purple bag for our 2 week romp through Spain.  I left at 6:00am the following morning to meet my parents at Madrid’s airport, so I made sure to go to bed nice and early that night.  This is where the fun starts already…

I woke up on time Saturday morning (that’s a first..).  I had showered the night before to allow my hair to dry overnight, and I straightened it in the morning before I caught my bus to Madrid.  Well, here’s where the fun starts.  I had originally planned to leave our house around 5:30am, because it’s a solid 20 minute walk to the bus station from where I live, and with me carrying three bags, I knew I’d need a bit more time.  I hadn’t put my watch on yet that morning while I was getting ready in my room, and as I headed to the kitchen to heat up my milk and toast, I saw on Maria’s clock that I was running extremely late.  I was eating breakfast at 5:30am…which means by the time I gathered my stuff, called the elevator, gotten down to the lobby, went back upstairs to get something I nearly forgot, ran back downstairs to get the rest of my stuff, and headed out of my building, it was close to 5:45am.  My bus left promptly at 6:00am, and I knew there was absolutely no way I would make it to the station on time…so I knew I could grab a taxi at the taxi stop near my house – there are always plenty of available taxis sitting there.  Well, this morning there wasn’t…so as I was booking it to get to the station, I found an available taxi sitting at a red light.  I hopped in his cab and told him I had to get to the bus station immediately.  Long story short, I made it with a few minutes to spare, and it turns out I was sitting next to another girl on the study abroad trip for the bus ride.   Phew.  If this was how my spring break was starting, I couldn’t WAIT for my next adventure!

I got to the Madrid airport at 9am, and I was dropped at Terminal 4.  I didn’t know what terminal my parents were flying in on, so I once again ran around like a chicken with its head cut off until I discovered they were in Terminal 1.  I made it over there, and waited outside of the arrivals area.  Here I also found another girl on our trip waiting for her boyfriend who was on the same flight as my parents!  Almost everyone else came out of the room, except my parents.  I waited, and waited, and waited…and I was starting to worry if they were on the flight, if they got stuck in New York, or what not when they finally walked through the doors!  After lots of hugs, I found out their luggage was still in New York!!!  So they had to talk with the people working in baggage to set up a delivery to get our luggage on Sunday, April 1^st delivered to our hotel.  We took the metro to our hotel, checked in, and relaxed for a bit.  We headed out to see some of Madrid that evening…we saw Puerta del Sol (Madrid’s Time Square), Plaza Mayor, and we enjoyed a Flamenco show that night.  The show was incredible, with a few different female dancers and a male dancer as well.  There was a group of men playing guitars and a few singers as well.  This all made for quite the unique experience and everything was done very, very well.  There were a few different school groups from the USA there at the same time, and one of the women in the groups gave us her paella because she was too full and didn’t want it.  We also had some good tasting sangria!  After the show we headed to the Mercado de San Miguel, which is an indoor market full of stands with meats, cheeses, wines, martinis, appetizers…basically everything you can think of!  It reminded me of the Milwaukee Public Market, if you’ve ever been there.

Palacio Real in Madrid!

Our second day in Madrid, we decided to hop on one of those super awesome tourist buses that takes you around the city.  From there we were able to see a lot more of the city, including things like the Plaza Cibeles, Fuente de Neptuno, the soccer stadium, and the 2 art museums.  We spent some time at the art museums, but not too much…just enough to get a touch of the art that they both housed and to see some of the differences between contemporary art such as Picasso and Dali and classical art, with painters such as Velazquez and Goya.  It was really amazing to see the works of art after we had learned about them in art class!  It made for much more enjoyable visits to both museums.  This night, we headed to the Plaza Mayor to get some tapas for dinner.  We sat outside at a café, drank some wine from Valladolid, and ate tapas.  It was an incredible night.  We literally sat there for hours just chatting and drinking wine.  (Their luggage also came in today – no worries!)

This is from the market off of Las Ramblas

Mom and Dad at the Sagrada Familia

 

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The next morning we woke up quite early because our train left Madrid at 8am and arrived into Barcelona at 10:30am.  It was such a great experience, I love riding on trains.  They’re roomier than buses and airplanes, they’re smoother than anything else (they use electric trains here) and they’re incredibly efficient.  This train traveled at 300km/hr!!  We made it to Barcelona in about 2.5 hours.  After leaving the train station in Barcelona, we grabbed a taxi that took us to our hotel.  After checking in and putting our luggage in our room, we headed out to see la Sagrada Familia.  We spent a long time there, walking around and around, marveling the architectural genius that went into creating such a massive work of art.  We had wanted to go in, but the line was wrapped around the entire city block, so we decided against it.  Then we ate lunch (pizza!) and headed to Las Ramblas to see what the hoopla was all about.  We spent a while walking down to the port and then headed back towards the city ending in Plaza Cataluña.  We were exhausted, and weaving our way in and out of the crowds was getting a little tiring at this point.  We went back to our hotel, and relaxed for a while.  We got dinner in a cute little café near our hotel.  It was an absolutely incredible meal!  Everything was so delicious, and the owner was really nice (albeit asking my mother to dance with her daughter…).  He gave us free tortilla, bread, and olives.  After that we headed back to our hotel.  We decided to purchase tickets for the following morning to see the inside of the Sagrada Familia, because we could jump the line and go in if we had them purchased previously.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  There are no words in ANY language to describe the beauty and magnificence of this church.  To this day, I think being in the church was my favorite part of the entire two week vacation.  The stained glass windows  full of vibrant, eye catching colors, and the solemnity of the altar create a feeling that cannot be duplicated by anything else.  It brings tears to your eyes (even for those who aren’t religious).  After our morning spent in the Sagrada Familia, it was finally time to head to the port and board our cruise ship! 

  This sums up the first half of my entry for our trip!  I wanted to do it in two entries so that they were shorter trips.  The next entry will be about our cruise to the canary islands!  I hope you're enjoying the photos!  

 (I had to add more photos from the Sagrada Familia - because the two I had originally entered did no do it justice...unfortunately, none of them do it justice).

The colors of the stained glass windows were absolutely incredible, as well as the architectural mastery.  Enjoy the photos! 

besos y abrazos,

Erin

Mis amigos vinieron a España! [My friends came to Spain!]

Welcome back to Barcelona!!  :)

Hello again!  It has been quite a while since I have been able to update you all, so there’s going to be a whirlwind of entries soon!  I’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately, and I’m really excited to share with you all my photos and experiences!  First off, let’s go back exactly a month from today.  My boyfriend, Chase, came to Spain during his spring break along with two of his good friends.  I flew in to Barcelona on Friday, March 23^rd, and met one of his friends, Jenna and her boyfriend Dane at the Barcelona El Prat airport.  From there we headed to the apartment after a nice stroll on the beach.  The apartment turned out to be wonderful – it was spacious, had some awesome artwork, and the BEST shower I have had while I’ve been in Spain!  It was also in a nice area of town, near the beach and a metro stop.  

Chase and his other friend, Nikki flew into Barcelona on March 24^th, so I picked them up at the airport Saturday evening.  That was QUITE the ordeal.  I wanted to take the metro to the airport, because on the metro map showed the grey line going all the way out to the airport.  Fantastic.  So I hopped on the yellow line near our apartment, made a transfer to the red line, and was planning on making a transfer to the grey line in Plaza Cataluña.  Here is where things get interesting.  I realized after looking at some paperwork, the flight was getting in at 7:30pm, and they had originally told me 8:00pm.  It was 7:20pm when I arrived in Plaza Cataluña, so I knew I was going to be late…but I also knew neither Chase nor Nikki spoke Spanish, so I wanted to get to the airport as soon as possible so they didn’t get lost.  I got off the metro planning on changing to the grey line, when I noticed that there were absolutely ZERO signs for the grey line.  I asked someone, and he politely told me it didn’t exist.  Shoot.  So I headed above ground, and saw a bus that said, “Airport Transfers” on it.  Yes!!  I talked to the bus driver and he kindly informed me that yes, he could take me to the airport, but it was a 20 minute ride and he needed to take a smoke break first…so he wasn’t going to leave until 7:45pm.  Well…that wasn’t going to work for me!  So finally, I bit the bullet and just hopped in a cab that was open.  The cab driver was one of the nicest men I have met while I was here in Spain.  He told me that the “grey” line is actually a train that you have to catch, rather than a metro, and that it was out of order that day going to the airport.  He also informed of some of the things to go to in Barcelona with my friends.  When he realized that I was going to be late, he promised he would get me there on time and proceeded to run three red lights…that’s when I closed my eyes and started praying.  Anyway, after that ordeal, I arrived at the airport about 2 minutes before Chase and Nikki came out from the arrivals area.  Perfect timing!!  That night when we finally got back to the airport, we went out to dinner and came back and slept.  It had been a long day for all of us!

This is a photo of the Roman Amphitheater in Tarragona

And the beach (we were in the city looking down on it)

On Sunday we got up nice and early because we had a tour scheduled to visit a few cities south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast.  We spent the first half of the day in a city called Tarragona.  It was a really important city when the Romans lived in Spain, so there are ruins of an amphitheater and a circo (where they raced the horse carts).  Of course, there is a cathedral there as well.  We found this wonderful outdoor market in which we stumbled upon some really interesting people selling old records, money from Franco’s era, books, and really interesting antiques.  The city of Tarragona is built upon a hill of sorts, so that when you go to see the seaside, you’re actually well above the beach.  It’s really interesting to look down and see all the ships in the Mediterranean sea!  The afternoon we spent in Sitges (yup! I went there again, it’s so wonderful!) and basically walked around, got some great lunch on the beach, and enjoyed the sandcastles.  There’s a really beautiful cathedral near the beach, and we saw a cool palace that was decorated with blue and white tiles.  It made it really have a sort of Greek/Mediterranean feel to it (well, I suppose, since we WERE on the Mediterranean sea!).  That evening, once we returned to Barcelona and made our way back to our apartment, we just bummed around and stayed in that night. 

The next day was Monday, and we mainly bummed around Barcelona.  By the time we all got up and showered, we decided to head to Las Ramblas and do a little touristy stuff.  We headed towards the port and saw  the statue of Christopher Columbus, and then we started walking down the main tourist area in Barcelona.  It was full of tourists, shops, and people trying to sell us stuff.  Then we decided to head to the zoo!  It was the one of the greatest zoos I have ever been to.  You were able to get really close to the animals (don’t worry – within reason).  We saw animals like lions, tigers, bears, monkeys, rhinoceroses, hippos, you know..the basic animals.  But we happened to time it right before feeding time, so all the animals were going absolutely CRAZY.  Next time you go to a zoo, I suggest going around feeding time, because it was quite interesting!  That night, Chase and I went to the train station to get his train tickets to come to Valladolid later in the week, and after exploring the train station for a bit, we went out to dinner with the rest of the group at a really awesome bar/restaurant near our apartment.  That night, after dinner, we headed back to our apartment to get our sangria, and took it to the beach with us.  Nothing beats having some sangria on the beach of Barcelona. 

Chase and I on a bridge in a park in Barcelona

The next morning, Tuesday, I woke up, packed everything back into my backpack, and headed out to the airport one more time.  My flight to Valladolid left Barcelona at 1:30pm, so I was there around 12:30 to go through security and get ready for my flight.  Once again, I had a very nice cab driver (I was NOT going to try the metro/train again!) who brought me to the airport.  He was trying to guess where I was from, and he said he was 100% sure I was from a European country.  He guessed that I was German, Swiss, Austrian, British, Irish, and Polish all before he gave up.  J  Guess I’m starting to blend in more like I’m from Europe rather than the states now!  Anyway, I boarded my flight, and headed back to Valladolid. 

Chase came to Valladolid the next day, Wednesday and stayed until Friday morning.  He didn’t get in until Wednesday late at night, and he left Friday early morning, so he could get back to Barcelona and spend another day with his friends before they left Saturday evening.  He was supposed to get into Valladolid around 7:40pm, but his train was delayed 40 minutes, and he didn’t get in until well after 8pm.  Turns out, he had to switch trains in Zaragoza, but the train he needed was broken.  So Renfe, the train company, bussed them to the next train station along the route, and they got on a train there and finished their journey to Valladolid.  Needless to say, Chase doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish, and he had absolutely no idea what was going on.  I felt terrible that I wasn’t there to help him out but in the end he found someone who spoke English and who could help him out.  In the long run, everything went well.

Maria, my host mom, offered to have Chase spend the 2 nights he was in Valladolid with us in our house!  It was a very generous offer for her, and we took her up on it!  He slept in my bed, and I slept on the couch, because I still had to go to class and take a few exams while he was here.  Wednesday night we ate dinner with Maria and Rochelle, and then Chase and I went for a walk around the city and I showed him things at night.  We saw the Cathedral, La Antigua (another church), a few more important churches, Plaza Mayor, and the area where I live.  We came back home and then went to bed.  Thursday I headed to classes, and while I was gone, Chase slept in.  After we had lunch (Maria made spaghetti noodles with a cooked meat dish) Chase and I climbed the hill by our apartment to see the whole city from above.  From there we did some more walking around – we went to Campo Grande and watched the peacocks, we met some of my friends at a café, and we got churros at El Castillo. 

This is a photo from when we climbed to the top of the hill to see the whole city!

Friday morning, March 30th came too quickly and his train left at 7:15am.  We got up, ate breakfast and headed to the train station.  It had been a great week in Barcelona and Valladolid.  After he left, I went back to the apartment, and slept for a while longer since I didn’t have class until 9:30am that morning.  Chase leaving was the beginning of a whole new experience, because it signified that the next day, Saturday, March 31^st, my parents would be flying into Madrid’s airport to spend 2 weeks here with me in Spain. 

Left to right: Dane, Jenna, Nikki, Me, and Chase

That Friday afternoon I spent packing and repacking, and packing some more….

(to be continued) 

besos y abrazos,

Erin