A Day FULLLL of Gelato and Pizza

On Friday, October 8th I headed to the airport extremely early (i may have snoozed a bit in the airport) in order to catch my 6 a.m. flight to Milan. When I was looking for a flight to Berlin to meet Kristin it actually turned out to be cheaper for me to fly one day earlier, stay a night in Milan, and then meet Kristin in Germany on Saturday morning. This flight was also my first experience flying RyanAir aka the cheapest airline possible that most abroad students use. They have strict rules though. It costs 15 euros to check a bag- so that wasn't happening. You can only have 1 carry-on and it has to be less than 10 kg (they make you put it in this box and if it doesn't fit you have to pay). Now I would never say I am a very good packer so having to limit my clothing/shoe options to only what could fit into my backpack was pretty difficult. I also needed my peacoat for the chilly weather that was to come in Berlin, so I had to be sure to bring that. I'll give you a mental image of what I looked like waiting in line to board. Clothing: jeans, leather boots, top, sweater, huge yellow scarf, peacoat, awkwardly bulging peacoat pockets...may or may not have been due to the socks and underwear that I shoved inside so that my bag would be small enough. Also, please note that it was 75 degrees in Spain and I was flying to Milan where the weather is just as warm. Basically, I looked ridiculous.

In front of the Duomo in Milan, Italy

So I finally arrive in Milan, oh and everyone on the plane clapped when we landed safely...super reassuring. I then figured out which buses to take to arrive at my hostel in Bergamo, Italy. It was really surprising to me how many people in Italy do not speak english. In Spain I feel like the majority of the people speak both or at least know some english, but in Milan, nothing. How many words of italian do I know? One. Grazie. It could only get me so far. I settled in to my hotel and then went to the train station to catch the next train to Milan. After about 40 minutes, my 4 euros train ticket dropped me off at Milan Central Station. It was about noon at this point so I decided I should probably get something to eat. PIZZA. It was delicious. I know people always brag about New York pizza, but wow Italy really knows what they're doing. Next, I hopped on the metro and went straight to the Duomo where I got a headset and did a 2 hour tour. I was also attacked by the many men standing outside the Duomo holding corn kernels. Before I knew it they shoved some in my hand and I had 5 pigeons on my arm eating out of my hand. They quickly grabbed my camera and started taking photos of me. It was both fun and terrifying and somewhat gross.
After my tour I walked around Milan for several hours, going in and out of stores. I stopped in a gelato shop and after asking the employee what was the best flavor, got a cup of nutella flavored gelato. It was delicious. Next, I went to La Rinascente which is a 10 story building that has every possible designer you could think of. I was in heaven with all the beautiful clothes and bags. They even had a christmas section already set up which made me happy. At around 7 p.m. I bought some pizza for dinner because, I mean, why not indulge? It's amazing and it's vacation! I then headed back to Bergamo on the train. Completely exhausted, but really pleased with my day in Italy.

Barcelona

La Sagrada Familia

My trip to Barcelona was a lot of fun and also extremely exhausting. It was the last trip that my program was taking us on, meaning they created the schedule and we had to stick to it. I believe I clocked in a grand total of 10 hours of sleep for the weekend. It causes me to pop a blood vessel in my eye. Really attractive, I know. We arrived early on Friday morning and went to Monjuic to get a view of the city, did a tour of La Sagrada Familia, went to Villa Olimpica to see the water, hit up Parque Guell to see even more of the crazy art in Barcelona, walked around Barrio Gotico, went inside la Iglesia de Santa Maria del Mar, and finished the day with a guided tour (in spanish of course) of the Picasso Museum. The Sagrada Familia was something else. So bizarre but so impressive. The guide told us that hopefully it will be finished in 20 years...construction began by Gaudi in 1882. I also really enjoyed the Picasso museum. It had works from his entire lifetime and was really neat to see the transformation in his technique and style over the years. The artwork for his teenage years was stunning. I could not get over how talented he was at such a young age. On Saturday, we went to La Casa Batllo and did a tour of La Casa Mila, both creation by Gaudi. It is fascinating to see how he was beyond ahead of his time and made such modern buildings. He was very inventive and really liked to show off his talent. I definitely recommend visiting La Casa Mila if anyone ever goes to Barcelona. Saturday night my program set us free and Jenna, Amanda and I spent the night at Jane's apartment (another Dukie).

Duke kids at IceBarcelona

Now onto the bar scene. Barcelona knows how to party. There is a chain called Espit Chupitos which is a shots bar that sells over 580 different types of shots for 2 euros each. You essentially look at the huge board with all the options and choose the one that sounds good to you. For example, my friends did the Harry Potter shot which entailed the bartender lighting a good portion of the bar on fire and then having it disappear (it was quite magical, as it should be). There were other fun names like Tarzan, Kiss of Death (it had hot sauce in it), Kill Bill, Willy Wonka, Terminator, Teletubbie, and my all time favorite Monica Lewinsky. I witnessed another girl ask for this shot and was somewhat scarred for life. She was blindfolded and then very inappropriate things happened to this poor girl. Her friends video taped it. One of the highlights of the nightlife there was going to IceBarcelona, an ice bar right in the heart of the club arena. It was -8 degrees celsius inside so your body could only last for about 40 minutes before you had to leave. Everyone is given black gloves and huge jackets with fur hoods to keep them warm. Everything inside was made of ice- the bar, the seats, the glasses, the bear statue, even the model of the Sagrada Familia (extremely impressive). We also went to a discoteca called Opium which was huge and, like discotecas in Madrid, had dancers on platforms in minimal clothing.

Overall, this trip made me really happy that I chose to study in Madrid. There were just too many spaniards trying to sell me beers, bracelets, or unknown items from a sketchy plastic bag they were toting. It was overwhelming. Also, within those 3 days I was in Barcelona, 3 Duke kids had their wallets stolen. That would just not be okay. Maybe protecting my bolsa 24/7 is what caused me to pop a blood vessel?

Oktoberfest

This past weekend I went to Oktoberfest. To say that Oktoberfest is eventful is an understatement. This weekend was also "Italian weekend" aka Lauren and her girl friends should be very careful of the super aggressive italian men. The trip started off a little rough. My flight was at 3:30 pm on Thursday but due to the France air strike all of the flights were either being delayed or canceled. After waiting for about 2 hours, I finally boarded the plane and then we sat on the plane for another hour before finally taking off. Lufthansa was a great airline though and I luckily was given an emergency exit seat so I was able to sleep the entire time. I met up with all of my friends at The Wombat, the hostel we were staying at for the weekend. We then went to Der Pschorr for dinner where we had made a reservation for about 15 people.


On Friday we woke up around 10 a.m. since we had made a table reservation back in April for a table in the Hippodrom tent. We went to our table at 12 and were informed that we had a 300 euro voucher to spend however we wanted. Thus, craziness began. Each tent has brewed its own type of beer so they all have different tastes (and are also all much stronger than normal beer). We had a great time ordering all sorts of platters to split for lunch and made friends with all the germans around us. About every 20 minutes the older men sitting next to us would start singing and cheers our glasses. In the afternoon we decided to explore the outdoors and went on some of the roller coasters. Why roller coasters and drinking are at one venue, I do not know, but I was determined to ride roller coasters no matter what. I went on the huge Ferris wheel, the log flume, and a roller coaster that has left my arms covered in bruises because it was throwing us around so much. The picture below is the view of Oktoberfest and all the tents from the Ferris wheel.

On Saturday we woke up at 6 a.m. to get showered and get to the tents. It was a mad house. There were thousands of people scrambling to try to get into a tent and to get a table. If you do not have a table, you can't get beer. The tents each fit about 5,000 but they are completely full by 9 a.m. and trust me, people are not planning on leaving anytime before 2 p.m. We luckily found a table in Hofbrau house, which is the main Oktoberfest tent and probably the rowdiest. We stayed there all day and hung out with all the other Duke kids that were there. Everyone was standing on the benches and dancing and singing along to Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline", Bruce Channel's "Hey Baby", and some german song that I knew the tune to by the end.

View of the Hofbrau tent

Discotecas

This past weekend was my first full weekend in Madrid. It also happened to be the "Welcome International Students" weekend for all of the discotecas here. The clubs here are insane. I was speechless. They have dancers doing crazy performances and they have singers doing renditions of popular songs, such as Lady Gaga's Bad Romance (that is what the picture above is of). One of the clubs has 7 floors in total so the options are endless. You can be at the Karaoke bar on level 4, the hookah bar with couches on level 7, or on the dance floor (complete with dancing poles) on level 1. That club turned off all the lights and had dancers in black body suits covered with glow sticks (see below). Another thing about the club scene here is that the clubs do not open/start going until about 1:30 a.m. and they close at 6 a.m. when the metro reopens. I honestly do not know how the spaniards do it. One night of dancing for 4 hours and I'm pooped. Luckily there is a 24 hour churros place 3 minutes from one of the clubs :) 

Real Madrid game

On Wednesday night, several students from my program and I went to Estadio Santiago Bernabeu to go see a champions league game between Real Madrid and Ajax (they are from Holland). We all put on some form of white clothing to support the team and went to our seats....they were probably the 3rd from the tippy top of the stadium but hey that's life on a budget. We could still see everything clearly and it turned out to be a pretty fun game. There was a crazy irish man one row in front of us who took his shirt off and was swinging it around screaming and blowing a horn. Ajax must have hit 3 shots off of our goal post. In the end Real Madrid ended up winning 2-0. One of the goals was off of a corner kick. I can't get over the foot skills these players have- especially Cristiano Ronaldo. Hopefully I will make it to another game sometime soon. It was definitely an experience.

Conchita

My spanish madre, Conchita, is something else. One of my favorite phrases that she says is "WAH!" She will say it for almost anything she dislikes, for example:
-I say I might get a phone with a company called "Orange"...WAH
-the news said they are closing a mine and people are losing jobs...WAH
-Amy Winehouse came on the screen...WAH
-people died in a car crash over the weekend...WAH
-I say I have a lot of homework...WAH
Almost everytime she says it my roommate and I start chuckling. She also likes to ask us where we are going and then will tell us if we need to hold our bolsas (purses) close.  Every night during dinner the tv is either playing some reality dating show that is ridiculous or the news. I think she has a secret obsession for the dating shows or maybe she just enjoys mocking the people's outfits. Last night we found out that her ringtone for her cell phone is Yellow Submarine. She does not know english. I love it.

Welcome to Spain!

I arrived at my homestay on August 29th at about 9 a.m. My roommate and I met our homestay madre, Conchita, an adorable grandmother who is full of energy and does not speak a word of english. We then proceeded to sleep for the majority of the day until she came into our room yelling "ALMUERZO! YA!" telling us its time for lunch. These first 2 weeks in Spain have been awesome.  Instead of jumping right into classes, the Duke program sends us on 2 trips- one to Galicia (region in the north) and one to Andalucia (region in the South). In all of the locations we have tour guides that speak only spanish and travel with us.

We were in Galicia from September 1-5. We went to Santiago de Compostela and A Coruna. Above is a picture of me at Plaza Mayor in A Coruna. In Santiago I went into the cathedral and we were allowed to climb up to the roof and walk around which we pretty neat. From there we went to San Andres de Teixido where we could see the Atlantic Ocean from the cliffs. Then we spent the weekend in A Coruna, a gorgeous beach town.  The professors went back to Madrid for the weekend so we were free to do whatever we wanted. One thing that definitely stood out on the beach is that european women don't seem to own bathing suit tops...I don't know how I would feel about that happening in Stone Harbor.

On the following Tuesday, we left for Andalucia and stayed there until September 12. We started off in Granada where we visited La Alhambra which was absolutely insane. The gardens were beautifully constructed, always with some sort of fountain and every color flower you could imagine. Every room had intricate designs on the walls- I can't even imagine how they created this so many years ago. We climbed to the highest tower and were able to see all of Granada from there. Wednesday night we got on a bus and headed for Sevilla. One of the things we did in Sevilla was visit a Flamenco museum where we were given a 1 hour flamenco lesson. I think dancing just isn't really my thing. I'm going to blame it on my genes, but it was still a great time. Next, we went to Los Reales Alcazares which is a royal palace in Sevilla. It was very similar to La Alhambra with its intricate designs and sculptures in every room. Some of the rooms had tapestries that were made in the 1500s that had to be about 50 feet wide.  On Friday we visited the Cathedral of Seville. It is the largest gothic cathedral in the world and the 3rd largest church in the world. Holy moly is right. At the end of our guided 2 hour tour throughout the cathedral we climbed the Giralda, which is the bell tower in the cathedral. It was about 35 flights of stairs high but it was all ramps- quite the workout. From there you have a great view of Sevilla and can see the roof of the cathedral which was cool as well. It's a good thing I'm not afraid of heights. Finally, on Saturday morning I hopped on a train at 8 a.m. and headed to Cadiz, a famous Spanish beach town. Cadiz has a great mix of old and new city aspects. It still has huge city walls and lots of plazas. It is currently the most ancient city that is still inhabited in all of Western Europe. Almost everyone from my program chose to go to Cadiz for the weekend so we stayed on the beach until about 6 p.m. We were even lucky enough to somehow come on a weekend when they were having an air show so I got to see lots of cool planes doing some crazy tricks!

In front of La Alhambra