Adios Espana...Alicante: I've Had the Time of My Life

            Well today was the day I had been dreading and looking foreward too all at the same time. Last night was my last hurrah in Alicante, I’m on my way to Madrid and then on Friday I return to the US. I can’t believe that it’s been 5 months already since I landed and had my luggage missing in Madrid. Looking back that was truly the start of an adventure. Since then I’ve seen almost every community in Spain, traveled to Italy, France and Scotland and made some of the best friends I will have for the rest of my life. As hard as it is to leave them we all looked at it not as goodbye but as see you later. I really do hold to that statement I know a lot of people from Chicago and that area and then some of the people I have met here are going to be visiting so I will get to see them. However the one thing that I wasn’t ready for was how difficult it was going to be for me personally to say goodbye to my home away from home. The most tears that were shed in Alicante were shed with my host family, they were my rock in Alicante. Even though I’m going home to see my real family its really difficult to believe that they are going to be 7 hours away from me, abel, amparo and gina. I’m going to miss eating meals with them and picking on abel over soccer games. If I learned anything about Spain its that they are extremely family oriented people and living with my family that was something that I was reminded of every day that I lived there. As for the people in my program, I can only hope that I was as good of a friend to you as you all were to me, you guys truly made my experience in Spain unforgettable and because of that I am truly grateful. You proved to me that you really can get to know someone in a relatively short period of time and during that time you can change her life forever. So my best memories of Spain, there are too many to count but the things that really stick out are:

1)   The first weekend that we had real beach weather….in February

2)   Carnival…and the mess that it became J

3)   My trip to Barcelona and the FCB game

4)   Spring Break

5)   The Fraziers and Maher’s visiting Alicante

6)   The time spent with my host family

7)   Finally all the times pregaming with friends….sometimes the pregame was more fun than the actual night out!

So really what did I learn from my time in Spain? I learned to live life to the fullest because this opportunity was once in a lifetime and I needed to make sure that I enjoyed every minute of it! USAC Alicante Spring 2011 you will always have a place in my heart and I hope that you can look back on our pictures and smile because in the words of Dr. Seuss “don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”.

Paris and Edinburgh

After spending quality time in Venice, we flew to Paris where we would meet up with another girl in our program named Amber. We stayed in a small hotel in Monmarte which is near the Moulin Rouge. The first night in Paris we decided to walk around looking at sights the main things that we did see that first day was the Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elyssee, Louvre gardens, Louve, Notre Dame and then finished our day at the Eiffle Tower seeing it sparkle which was really amazing. On the second day we continued to just see the sights and walk around was really cool again because we found some more really cool churches and began to find more and more things that weren't originly marked on the map we had, including the house where Jim Morrison lead singer of the doors was found dead, which was really close to the Bastille monument. The third day that we were in Paris we went inside the Notre Dame which was unbelievable and really had an impact on me, it was something i've wanted to see my whole life and finally getting to see it was truly unreal. After that we walked all the way to the Eiffle Tower and got in the line to go to the top, this was amazing we managed to get up to the second level right as the sun was going down so Paris was beginning to light up which was a crazy view from the top of the tower. You could see all the monuments that we had seenthe previous days. Then on the fourth day it happened to be May Day which is a major holiday in France and we couldn't go to Versailles like we wanted to instead we continued to walk around the city and went down to the replica Statue of Liberty because the one in New York was given to us by France. On our final day in Paris we were going to go to the Louvre but the line was obscenely long so we decided to go to the Luxembourg Gardens instead and then we headed out to the airport to fly to Edinburgh, Scotland.
In Edinburgh which was easily my favorite city I was in an English speaking country for the first time since January. On the second day we got up and went on a free walking tour where we learned a lot about the history of the city and the many monuments that can be found there. The coolest thing that we saw on the walking tour in my opinion was the Greyfriers Kirkyard, an old cemetery that houses many really old headstones and a lot of history within its walls. The second day we continued to walk around and see more of the city and I went to see the castle. The castle was massive and a really cool experience, that night I went on a ghost tour which was really cool because many people claim that Edinburgh is the most haunted place on the planet. The cemetery that we went in was really cool and really creepy at the same time. The third day we went to the National Scottish museum which was a cool free museum that had Dolly the sheep included in its exhibits. The next day we went to museum on Scotlands money which was really interesting and discussed the differences between the Scottish pound and the English pound. The next day however was the day I was most excited for because I found a company that did a day trip to St. Andrews. Yes the golf course, that day we started our trip by going to these really cool bridges like 20 minutes outside of Edinburgh, after that we went to the town where King Robert the Bruce of Scotland is buried. We then went to a city on the coast where we had fish and chips after that we went into the little city of St. Andrews to visit the golf course and the old home to Catholic Religion in the United Kingdom. This was really cool because the course itself was really interesting and then to be able to go on was really cool, i stood on the bridge on the 18th hole which was cool. After that the rest of the trip was very simple and we just hung around Edinburgh before we headed back to Alicante. I will upload pictures from these two stops when I get back to the states.

Venice Part one of Spring Break

            On April 23rd my Spring Break started and I flew from Alicante to Venice, Italy. For the first time I was truly out of my comfort zone knowing absolutely no Italian.  After the plane landed we went to go find our hostel, which was this really nice campsite outside of the city. We ended up having a little trailer with two beds that worked really well with a restaurant and a little grocery store, which would supply us with dinner for the four days we were there. Right off the side of the campsite was a little ferry that took us into Venice everyday and then took us right back at night. The first day in Venice we just walked around and enjoyed the beauty of this quaint little city. Then while we were walking around right before lunch we came across a family that wanted to split a gondola ride because they are quite expensive and we were definitely lucky to have that opportunity, it was by far the best way to experience the city with all the twists and turns that make Venice the maze that it is.

             On the second day in Venice we went for a walk around town with the ultimate goal of finding St. Marco's Plaza the centerpiece and most well known thing in Venice besides the gondolas. On the way we stopped at a basilica of health which was on the opposite side of the island from St. Marcos and you could actually see the entrance to St. Marcos from there it was a really pretty church but it was under construction. One thing that we learned about Venice that I did not previously know was that there are 120 churches on the little island; so on every corner there was a new one for us to check out and see. After the Basilica we made our way to the famous Plaza and when we got there it was a giant plaza with a huge bell tower tons of people and pigeons with a 1000-year-old Basilica at the end of it. We got in a long line for a quick walk through because the actual basilica was having mass when we got there. We continued to wander around for a while and found a few more nice churches and had a good pizza lunch. We headed back to the campsite at about 3:30 took a nap and then hung out there till we went to bed around 11 or 12 every night.

            On the third day we just went back into the city and potentially got ourselves lost cause that was our plan it’s the best way to see a city that is as small as Venice. We wandered all the way to the opposite shore of the islands a walk that surprisingly only took about 20 minutes, that really showed us how small Venice was walking wise. We wandered till we found a few more highlights a couple really big churches then we ate pizza for dinner again because well it was the cheapest thing to eat and the pizza was delicious in Italy. After lunch we wandered around again and ended back up near St. Marcos. However this time when we came in we found the bridge of sighs which is a bridge that used to connect a palace and a jail. They used to say that when prisoners were brought into the jail they rarely came back out and when the boats would take in one of the last things these people saw was this bridge and they used to shout out for their families or for a quick painless end and that’s how it got its end. Also in one of Madonna’s music videos she floats under this bridge and that is another thing that it is known for.

            The last day in Venice was really just more of the same wandering around checking out the really cool canals and doing some people watching which is always fun. We got some gelato and really enjoyed that it was fantastic. We headed back early with the intention of going back at night however we were just tired and didn’t really want to take the ferry again until the next day when we were going to leave. On the day that we flew to Paris we spent a few hours in Venice first and just sat around but since we had our luggage with we didn’t really want to do very much because the bags were kind of annoying to carry around so we went to the airport and headed off to Paris for the second part of our trip. 

                                                            Mushroom and Garlic Pasta...delicious

                                              One of the smaller canals...i liked them more than the grand one

                                                                                     Gondola Ride :) :)

                                                                  Really Cool Carnival Mask like a moon

                                                                                  St. Marco's Square

                                              Bridge of Sighs with dumb painting around it

Finally the Photos From my Barcelona Trip!

                                                            Gaudi Museum

                                                               Parque Guell

                                                        Parque Guell house

                                            Artwork by Gaudi in Parque Guell

                                             The two houses found in the Parque

                                           Me on the benches in the Parque

                                                     More of Gaudi's Artwork

                                                 Me in front of the Gaudi Houses

                                                         The Lizard at the front

                                                   Sign on one of the houses

                                                    Front of the Park Entrance

                             La Sagrada Familia, they have been building for 100 years

                                                 Inside of la Sagrada Familia

                                             Stained Glass on the walls

                                                      Colors on the Walls

                                              Detail on La Sagrada Familia

                            The dark color is done and the light color is not completed

                                            Camp Nou for the FC Barcelona game

                                                          Me in Camp Nou

                                         Warm ups Messi is in the Orange Shoes

                                             On the port in Barcelona

                                    Racing Boat Finishing the Barcelona World Race

                                               Street Performers on La Rambla

                                                    In la Plaza Catalyuna