Roamin' Redheads (Part II)

December 12, 2009

In an effort to pretend that finals don’t exist and that I don’t need to go home this week, I’m updating the blog. I’ve been slacking and have not updated in a month. The biggest things that happened were that my family came to visit and I went to Brussels and Rome! My parents and Brit came to Spain and I met them in Sevilla. We spent two days in Sevilla and two days in Granada, and saw a lot! We went to the Alhambra, La Catedral, saw a flamenco show, and frolicked all around. We went out for tapas a couple of nights which was hilarious because my mom was uncontrollably giggling after less than one sangria. We all came back to Bilbao together, and Brit stayed with me in the apartment. Rosa made a delicious (and huge!) meal for everyone on Monday, and later her sister and brother-in-law came down, they are unbelievably sweet. On Tuesday after classes we went kayaking in the river, which was awesome! It was really tranquil and I love seeing Bilbao from different perspectives. For dinner we went out with Meghan, Rosa, and Jasone. On Wednesday we went to Plentzia, but it was raining, so it wasn’t great. On Thanksgiving we were supposed to go hiking, but I was sick all day, so everyone explored a bit and then we had dinner together. My family left for Madrid early Friday morning, and I had the rest of the week to catch up on work before heading to Brussels and Rome! We had a long weekend so I went to Brussels, where I stayed with Kristen for the day! It was so much fun to see her, and I really liked Brussels with all of the Christmas markets (not to mention the Belgian waffles). On Thursday I went to Rome to meet up with Claire!!! I’ll skip the beginning of the trip, because that’s been covered already. The Vatican Museums were huge and much nicer than expected. I saw someone in my Spanish class there, which was funny. When Claire and I headed back, we ended up getting lost in some demonstration for about an hour before finally taking the PACKED metro. We had dinner at a really cute restaurant, and had delicious lemon gelato with limoncello! We went to an internet café and tried to call my friend who’s in Rome, but instead had a sketchy encounter with an Italian man who apparently teaches at Stony Brook. On Sunday we took pictures with rude gladiators, went to the Pantheon, then Piazza Navona (where we had yummy traditional Italian desserts), and finally Trastevere, which is the old part of the city. It was awesome, and had lots of unique stores and restaurants. (Good suggestion Kristin!) Rome was beautiful, but seeing each other was the best part of the trip!!! Now I’m back in Bilbao and I leave in 4 days...I could definitely stay longer, I absolutely love it here and my host family is incredible! Que será, será.

P.S. Happy Birthday B!

Roamin' Redheads!!! Part I

Ali and I have officially rocked Rome. But let me backtrack...
Jason visited me for the week of Thanksgiving, and it was awesome. He did an amazing job cooking, and we went nearly everywhere in Graz during the week, and went to Vienna for a day as well. It was really nice to see him, and show him all of the sights! Plus, we ate the best desserts ever, that he somehow discovered while here.
Then last Thursday I headed to ROME to meet up with Ali. Getting to the airport and then the train station was fine; finding the hostel was a different situation. Make a mental note - Asking for directions in mcdonalds is not that reliable. After asking another old man (he was also wrong) and a third hotel front-desk man (he was right) I finally located the building... and was met by an interesting assortment of people. And then it happened: the most awesome redhead ever Ali arrived!!! I basically pounced on her. We spent the evening talking, catching up, discussing life, and eating austrian crackers, belgian chocolates, clementines, and nature valley bars.
The next morning I sprang out of my top bunk (just like a true sleepover) at 8am and after a shower that basically consisted of ice cubes attacking me, we went in search of breakfast, and found a little cafe with perfect cappuccino and sandwiches. It was slightly drizzly and we decided to spend the day roamin' (I am going to use that whenever possible!) and shopping. Tights stores are everywhere, and we liked the glass and leather stores a lot (sometimes we could even afford the things inside). Dodging the raindrops we went to a few markets, and walked some fancy streets... and happened upon the Colosseum. We also saw the Spanish Steps, held some roses and then gave them back to the guy selling them, and even bought some things (I think three things between the two of us. Which is a successful shopping day in our book). For lunch I had pasta with tomato and garlic, and Ali had lasagna, and later in the afternoon we had gelato, which is basically a requirement while in Rome, no matter the weather. For dinner we had pizza at kind of a sketchy little place, but it was still good, and then turned in for the night. We (aka Ali) did an excellent job navigating throughout the day.
The next day was the Colosseum. After a breakfast of more delicious coffee and multiple pastries, we arrived and joined an English tour (btw they didn't even offer them in German, and the Spanish one intrigued Ali, but I declined) to 'skip the lines' and found ourselves with some crazy blonde italin male tour guide with aviator sunglasses and a leather jacket. He ended up being great though, and I learned a lot of new things (basically everything he said about the Colosseum I did not know beforehand... including the fact that when I asked Ali about the Romans earlier that morning I was approximately 200 years off, if not more). The Colosseum was ginormous, and has such a rich history that afterwords I was really pumped to learn more history (nerd alert?).I guess Rome does that to you, because that is a feeling I rarely get. We were then informed that the Vatican is closed on Sundays (thank you all-knowing tour guide). So we changed our plans from seeing the Roman Forum to going straight to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel for the rest of the day.
Stay tuned for Part II