a very short week

Hey guys. Sorry the last posts were so long! This one is short and sweet to still give you time to catch up on my spring break travels. The week went well, I just had classes and lived it up in Rome! I'm starting to realize how bad I am going to miss it here. It's definitely going to be a bittersweet. I have definitely fallen in love with everything about Rome, but I am SO excited to come home and see all of YOU!! :)

newly scanned in picture from prague

Monday was a good day! I did some yoga, taught some yoga (the theme this week was "Traveler's Yoga" - we did stretches for our tight traveled muscles and worked on the core to work off all that yummy food), and had photography class. Photography was really great this week. We all sat down, and Serafino decided he had an exciting activity for us. After a huge introduction that none of us understood, he said the most amazing thing. "The best photographs are the ones that we don't take." I thought back to my travels this week, and realized he was completely right. Don't get me wrong, I got some amazing pictures, but the most amazing and unforgettable moments pass by too quickly or are too fragile to pause for a photograph. We all went around the room and talked about one photograph that we didn't take in the past week that really touched us. I loved hearing about everyone's week - the way they described the picture that they wished they had taken. Some poetically, some formally, some as a story, and some in a very technical sense. It was an amazing thing to hear everyone open up about the little moments in life that we remember - whether or not we capture it on film.

prague houses - newly scanned in

I tried to develop my film, but encountered a problem. Again. I am just failing with photo stuff recently! But at least this time I can still have my pictures. I bought the film I used in Morocco in Valencia when I was visiting Jada. We checked the film to be sure it fit my camera, then were on our way. Unfortunately, we didn't notice and important detail - I bought COLOR film! Oops. Serafino told me I could get it developed at a store nearby, then scan the negatives into the computer so they'll still be black and white. Works for me! It actually worked out pretty well, because I think the pictures are going to look awesome in color, too. Best of both worlds! I spent the rest of class scanning in my other roll to the computer so I could have them for life. Awesomeee.

Tuesday, my on-site class met at St. Peter's Square! It was so nice leave 15 minutes before class instead of 45- an hour haha (St. Peter's is super close to my apartment). It was so cool to finally go inside! I've been holding off because I knew visitors would pay (SINS) so I could spend my money on other travels. It's getting towards the end, though, and I still haven't seen the Sistine Chapel...I'm disappointed in myself. I want to see it SOOOO BAD but I keep making plans to and then they fall through. I'm definitely going next week with my mom when she visits (YAY) and probably a time or two afterwards as well. Perfecto! My class just went into the basilica and underground to some of the tombs. It was really neat.

altarpiece at St. Peter's

After class I grabbed gelato at Old Bridge with a couple friends from class who hadn't been there yet. SO GOOD. One of my friends bought me a present from her spring break travels, it was so sweet! :) Then I headed home for some lunch. I made a fresh salad from my market purchases - spinach, blue cheese, raisins, apples, oil and vinegar. MMmmmmm. Painting class was next, so I hurried over. The models were sick, so we had a lecture. Yes, it was interesting, but yes, I did fall asleep for a little while. It was a long day for sit in the dark for 3 hours haha.

I dropped one of my classes because after weighing the pros and cons of the rest of my time in Europe, I decided it was best for me to not be in that class. It was taking over my life, and I knew I couldn't enjoy my final month here with that looming over me. So I headed to school this morning, printed out my ticket for TURKEY tomorrow with my mommy (!!!!!), and then came home. I was feeling like absolute death. I think I must have eaten something bad, because I got some sort of stomach bug/food poisoning and haven't gotten out of bed since I got back from printing my ticket this morning. I better feel back to normal tomorrow, it would be awful traveling to Istanbul with a bug!! Eww. Oh well. I've been eating the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast) to help ease my poor little tummy.

Plan for the weekend:

I'm meeting my mom in Istanbul, Turkey!! She's flying over today (probably about to get on a plane in a few hours), and meeting me there tomorrow morning! We're staying in Turkey for a few days, then she'll be in Rome with our friends Dave and Becky Healey until April 12. The second weekend, we're going to Sicily to stay with Dave's family!! I'm so excited for the next couple weeks. It's just making the time go by even faster AH!

spring break (part 2): MOROCCO!!

MOROCCO

Okay. I'm trying to pull my thoughts together. I jotted down notes throughout my week to be sure I would remember everything, and just the NOTES (bullet points) from the 3/4ish days in this country took up 4 big pages. front and back. And I write realllllyyy small haha. Here it goes.

My trip to Morocco was one of the most amazing trips I've ever been on. Morocco was so different than anywhere else I've ever been. There is just sooo much I want to share!! I broke it up into sections because there are so many pictures and stories. SO prepare yourself for some excitement!


TRAVEL DAY

stop sign in arabic!

Thursday was a long day. We had to wake up really early to make it to our flight, so we didn't get much sleep at all. Greg had told us how to get to the airport using the metro, so we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time. We made our way to the airport and got there with a little time to spare. Jada's two other friends from Valencia were going on the trip too, so I met Katie and Molly after we went through security. We hadn't eaten yet, so we grabbed breakfast in the airport before boarding. The flight wasn't too bad - a couple hours from Madrid. I slept most of the time since I only got about 2 hours of sleep the night before (Greg's bed was small for Jada and I to share and my light sleeping doesn't help with that).

We arrived in Marrakech in one piece! After going through passport control and getting a cool Arabic Moroccan stamp, we met our guide. We had decided to go through a travel program while in Morocco just to be safe and to get the most we could out of the trip. We chose Snow or Sand's "Camel Excursion through the Sahara" trip, and it was fabulous. Definitely recommended. Our local expert/guide person was named Simo and seemed great.

preview shot for later..

We hopped on our "minibus" (I don't know why they didn't just call it a bus) and got a run-down of the day. Apparently the Sahara was farther away then we thought. Simo told us we would be getting to our hotel around 8pm that night. That was about 8 hours away! He said it would be 6 hours of driving, but we would stop for lunch and shops along the way. At first I was a little disappointed that there was so much driving, but it MORE than definitely made up for the experiences that we had and all the things that we saw. But I'm jumping ahead of myself, let's continue with the timeline...

i got my orange!

The first stretch of the drive was 2 hours into the Atlas Mountains. About 3 minutes in, we were driving by the orange trees and I said something about how I'd always wanted to climb one in Rome. Simo stopped the bus and said, "come on!!" I was completely surprised, but jumped out of the bus anyways. Jada came with me, and the oranges were so high I couldn't reach them from the ground. After attempting to climb on Jada's shoulders and failing miserably, I climbed up the tree and grabbed one. SUCCESS! Simo told us not to eat it just because it tasted bad, but he said we could if we really wanted. I peeled it on the bus and handed it out to a few people. Literally, the sourest most bitter thing i have EVER eaten. Imagine eating a lemon straight up, then times that by 2394723480243148124903853 sourness. Yum..

Simo handed out sheets that had Arabic phrases for us to learn. He said the most important one for us to know would be "shokran" (pronounced shock-run). Jada was excited that there was a phrase on the sheet that translated to "i'm a vegetarian"! The mountains were beautiful, so much different than any other mountain range I've seen. The terrain of Morocco in general was much different than expected. It was very rocky and brown/red/pinkish. Sooo beautiful, though. I'm a big tree person, but being in Morocco made me appreciate how beautiful rocks can be too.

first moroccan food experience

Two hours in we stopped for lunch at a little restaurant on the side of the road. It's a good thing that we stopped - I was starting to get pretty queasy. Simo gave us the options for food, and I went with chicken skewers. YUM! They brought out Moroccan salad (tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cilantro, etc), bread, olives, and some dipping sauces. It was so good, and so different than any of the other cuisines I've tried on my trips this semester! Olives were a big thing in Morocco - they brought them out with bread instead of butter (like Italy). We got to know the other people in our group during lunch. There was me, Jada, Katie and Molly (from Valencia with Jada), 4 other people who study in Florence (Michael, Zach, Camille, and John), and one person who works as an advisor in Florence (Malissa). Everyone seemed really great! For dessert they brought out fresh oranges for us. Simo told us that oranges with cinnamon was a big treat here, and that they ate that for dessert a lot. Mom, you would fit in juuuuuust perfectly!

SO EXCITING

After lunch on the terrace of the restaurant, we went downstairs to the shops. Simo told us that we may want to get a scarf if we didn't have one in case there was a sandstorm while we were in the desert tomorrow. I already had some scarves with me, but we tried on a bunch for fun. Jada was in love. She has this weird joy of wearing random things as turbins - I guess you could call it a habit? quirk? obsession? Either way, when Alli Baba (yes, that was the shop owners name..am I living Aladdin?) offered to make a turbin with the scarf Jada was looking at, she literally jumped for joy. She had told me before we got the Morocco that she REALLY wanted to wear a turbin while she was here, but didn't know if it was disrespectful. Once Alli Baba made that turbin for her, she didn't take one off for the majority of the trip haha. Perfecto. He helped everyone in our group made one, and taught us how to ourselves. It was so cool!!! Most people ended up buying one for the desert trek. As we were piling back on the bus, Alli Baba ran after us with gifts. He handed out little slipper keychains for us to keep. How sweet:) I got a pinkish/purple one. YES.

me and jada with alli baba

The next few hours until the arrival at the hotel were pretty exhausting. It was another hour or two of the windy mountain roads, so we had to stop a lot to keep people from puking. The driving was INSANE here. No side railings for the cars + driving too fast + thousand foot drops do not make me feel happy. After awhile I learned to just close my eyes and try to sleep so that I wouldn't have to watch! Our driver knew what he was doing though, I just wasn't used to that lifestyle. Dad, come to Morocco and THEN try to make fun of my driving! :)

our mountain hotel!

Lots of hours later we made it to our hotel for the night. It was an awesome hotel in the middle of a mountain cliff! We couldn't see much at night, but when we woke up the rock walls all around us were a fun surprise. We unloaded the bus and walked across a rickety old bridge (that was "patched" with slabs of wood over the pieces that had broken) and up and down tons of steps before arriving at the hotel. So Moroccan. Our group had the whole hotel to ourselves! We were literally in the middle of nowhere in Morocco. It was just outside of the town Ouarzazate..they may have pics online if you want to read about it. We were greeted with the "Moroccan Whiskey" as they call it - it's just mint tea haha. They literally drink it all the time and all over Morocco. Fabuloso. Jada, Malissa, and I shared a huge room with nice big (yet rock hard) beds. We dropped our stuff off then headed downstairs for dinner.

dinner yum

Dinner was incredible. We all sat around two big circular tables by the fire, chatting about our rooms and our experiences abroad. We had a full course Moroccan dinner - starters of olives/bread/sauces and Moroccan soup (a blended vegetable mix), main courses of chicken tangine with cooked potatos/carrots/olives and couscous with veggies, and oranges with cinnamon as dessert. Mmmmmmm:) So happy and SO full. Jada was excited because her madre in Spain doesn't like that she's a vegetarian so she doesn't make her lots of veggie food. She ate sooooo much because it was such a treat to get all this un-meat food!!

singing/dancing/drumming after dinner

In the middle of dinner, some guys who worked at the hotel came in and put the drum heads by the fire. This helps to warm up the drums. Pretty cool. We had a great time after dinner learning how to play the drums, singing along with their chanting, and dancing! Everyone in the group was either playing drums or dancing, it was awesome. After awhile we set up a game of musical chairs to the drumming. I made it about half way through, but it was okay because once you got out you got to be a part of the drumming wooo. It was a late night, but SO much fun. I was exhausted after all the traveling, so even though the bed was a little hard, I slept like a rock.

OFF TO THE SAHARA

The next day was my favorite day of the whole trip. Probably one of my favorite days of my entire life, actually. Jada and I had a plan to do yoga early, but that failed miserably when my alarm didn't go off. Oh well, we needed the rest! We had a quick breakfast of bread, honey, jam, mint tea, and an egg then were off for a hike to the gorge. When we walked outside in the morning it looked SO different than the night before! It kind of reminded me of Star Wars (thank you, Travis and Brett, for influencing my knowledge as a child).

laundry in the river

The hike was so cool. We walked through the trees and rocks on this tiny little path to the Todka Gorge. We passed lots of little towns/houses, people doing laundry in the river, and farmers along the way. It was really awesome to get out and about after being in the minibus for so long the day before. The little kiddies were so cute!! One of them came up to me with this really cool grass design that he made into an animal. I thought he was trying to sell it so I smiled at him and shook my head no thank you, but he pressed it into my hand gently and made a giving motion with his hands, then touched his heart and smiled as he walked away. It was a gift! I almost cried. It was so cute, he was precious. I even reached for my purse and he shook his head no. Everywhere you go in the world, we all have something in common. People just want to feel and give love.

We walked for an hour or two to and through the gorge. In the actual gorge, it's a really big place for rock climbing. We saw tons of people doing it, it was really neat. It looked scary! So tall! AH! I really enjoyed getting to see the daily lives of the people in this tiny Moroccan mountain town. It was something that I would never have the chance to do if I had stayed in one of the touristy places like Marrakech. I felt so lucky! One of my favorite things about Morocco is the Arabic writing everywhere. It's so beautiful. Jada probably hated me by the end of the trip because I kept gawking at how gorgeous it was. It kind of reminds me of a more lyrical version of sanskrit. It's interesting because the writing is so beautiful, but the actual pronunciation of the language is a little harsh. Curious.

jada, kati, molly, and i

The Sahara was still a few hours from the Gorge, so we grabbed a drink at a cafe in the Gorge (the coke bottles were sweet because they were in Arabic) and were on our way. We stopped an hour in for lunch, and I tried the chicken tangine with lemon. We got bananas for dessert this time, YAY! We made a couple more stops along the way for wine in the desert and at a shop known for its silver (since it's made right around there). I got a really cool ceramic pot for candles, aromas, etc. It's awesome. After I purchased my thingy I sat outside with the boys. They'd made friends with a local who'd offered them mint tea, so I had a glass and talked with them. Everyone's so nice in the mountains in the desert, I haven't heard as nice of things about the cities though.

SAHARAN CAMEL TREK

and we're off!

The rest of the drive was amazing as we watched the rocks from the Atlas mountains turn into sand for the Sahara. We reached the little hotel that the camels departed from and got our things together for our night sleeping under the Saharan stars. We left our bags at the hotel and made our way to our camels! Jada and I were in the very front of the caravan. Simo told us that they didn't name their pets in Morocco like we do, so we were allowed to name them if we wanted. Obviously we did. Mine was named Mufasa because he was at the front and was the leader, just like lion king. Jada went with Alli Babwa in honor of our friend from the turbin shop. Mohommad was our camel leader, so he grabbed Mufasa's reigns and we started the trek.

IT WAS SO COOL. Getting to the camp was a little over an hour trek. It was such an amazing experience. The hotel was right on the edge of the Saharan dunes, so we walked to the dunes and then were on our way. Soon enough, there was only sand to be seen in every direction. We were trekking during sunset, so it was a nice time of day (not too hot). We took TONS of pictures. The dunes that we camped near were the tallest ones in Morocco, and some of the tallest ones in the northern Sahara! We made it to the camp right before sunset, unloaded our things, then headed toward the tallest of the dunes to climb as the sun set behind us. IT WAS SO TALL. The one we climbed was the dune of Chebbi.

mufasa and i <3

I went most of the way up then sat down on top of the dune, looking out over the desert. Our group was all spread out across the dune, sitting in groups and talking or trying to make it all the way up. I closed my eyes and it felt like I was living The Alchemist. I watched the stars come out slowly as the sun sank further and further down. It was so surreal. Simo sat and talked with me for awhile, and I taught him to meditate. He gave up after a few minutes and headed down the dune with the others. I stayed on top of the world for a little while longer, meditating and doing a little bit of yoga. It was absolutely amazing. Never in a million years would I have pictured myself sitting on top of a dune in the Sahara desert, meditating as the sun sets and the stars begin to peek out. I was so happy.

our tent!

After a little while I walked down the dune in the pitch black and met everyone else at the camp.  I made friends with a kitty in the camp and named him Timon..I wanted to take him home with me!! We had some mint tea and smoked hookah with the caravaners and nomads while dinner was being prepared. Jada and I were laughing because there's a hookah bar in Richmond called Saharas, so when we go home we can go there and talk about how we actually smoked hookah in the REAL Sahara. Silly silly.

tea and hookah

Dinner was ready pretty quickly, so we all sat on the floor of our tent area around a few tables and ate up. There was so much food! Chicken Tangine, veggies, bread, olives, oranges for dessert..the usual. As always, it was amazing. This was probably the yummiest meal out of all of them! Jada and I split a bottle of wine with dinner, which was yummy too. We hungout with the caravanners and nomads after dinner, playing drums, singing, and just talking. We sang "In the desert, the mighty desert, the camels sleep tonight" and their favorite "i don't like couscous, every night couscous" songs.

mohammad and friends on the drums

I had some of the most amazing conversations that night with them. It was so crazy that we could relate and talk about the deepest and most interesting things together, but our lives were literally worlds and worlds different. Mohammad told me that they don't go to school, they just learn languages by the tourists that come through. He spoke English, Arabic, Bourbor, Spanish, Italian, and a little Japanese. How crazy is that. He also told me about the natural medicine that people do in the desert, which was really interesting since I'm considering going into that.

My favorite thing that I heard that night was from Mohammad as well. He was trying to teach me the drums, and I told him I'd have to come back to learn. He said "yes just stay for a few weeks and you will be great". I joked that I would probably need forever to learn, and he smiled and said, "There is always time, but no watch". I loved that. He was referring to life in the desert, but I am taking that into my every day life with me. After he said that I started to think. I asked him, "So do you live your life by days, or by experiences?" He told me "I only live by adventures." Wow. Deep stuff right there.

beautiful desert moon

The whole night was kind of like that, just one amazing experience after another. They were just so wise. Mohammad spoke the best English, so he was the biggest talker. At one point he said something that my mother tells me, "you can sleep when you die." How cool is that?? The world really is a universal place filled with love, and we're all here to help each other grow. An incredible night.

We ended the night with some more singing, drumming (Brett, I thought of you the whole time you would have loved it), and riddles. They really liked riddles and they'd get annoyed if we didn't guess. I suppose it's because they have so much time in the dessert it's silly to just "give up" on riddles - you actually have the time to think it out! We slept under the stars and tried to keep warm. Yayyy.

Other amazing quote from the night: "Travel is like a disease. Don't let it go away" Dontcha worry, Mohammad, I won't.

BACK TO MARRAKECH

adios, jimi hendrix!

Saturday morning we woke up super early to head back to the hotel. The hour trek wasn't as exciting at 6am, especially for Jada ("i am NOT a morning person"). Actual quote from Jada that morning: "it doesn't matter how exciting something is, if i have to do it in the morning i will not enjoy it." Hahaha it was still really cool though. The night before I had asked Mohammad about the camels names, and he said they actually do name the ones that they really like. Apparently Jada and I had camels they really liked, because he said both of ours had names. Mine? Jimi Hendrix. Jada's? Hubbly Bubbly. Haha PERFECTO. So Mufasa and Alli Babwa were no more.

our campsite

At the hotel, we got breakfast (Moroccan pancakes yum) and then were on the way to the long drive back to Marrakech. It was going to be about 12 hours in the minibus. Yuck. At least we were stopping a lot along the way. And honestly, I could care less about the drive because the night in the desert was just too incredible and unforgettable. Before we left I bought a necklace from Mohammad that is the south cross as they call it. It's really neat - it depicts the camel trek through the desert, the tent, the 4 cardinal directions, and the stars. See if you can look it up online, if not I can add a picture in or show you when I get home!

so many herbs!

We drove alot alot alot. We had a few nice stops for coffee (nus nus is their specialty YUM) and drinks, but most of the stops were after lunch. We had a good lunch in a bigger town right before the mountains. I had the regular meal there with a big water to rehydrate from all the traveling. After lunch we went to an Herbalist which was AWESOME. He showed us all kinds of cool natural herbs and oils and spices for different ailments. So neat!! I got a few things to bring home:)

huge loom

The next stop was the rug shop! I had requested this stop because I really wanted a tapestry or rug from Morocco, and Travis would love to see the things that they had there. I took lots of pictures and videos of the loom, and we had a nice explanation of all of the different products. They were so beautiful. My big gift to myself was a gorgeous blanket made right there in the shop. It was absolutely beautiful. I can't wait to use it all the time to remember this incredible trip!! The owner of the shop was getting a little too friendly by the end("you beautiful, where you from? you welcome here all the time, any time. please come back", but I took advantage of it to get a good price on my deals. When he asked for my name to find me on facebook, I took that as a good opportunity to thank him and leave. At least I got a bunch of cool stuff!

We stopped at Alli Baba's one more time for a drink before our last 2 hours to Marrakech. I had lots of dirhams (their currency) left because everything is SO cheap in Morocco! So I bought a little hookah there to remember our time in the desert. I figured I could exchange the rest of the money at the airport. The last 2 hours of the minibus ride were looooong, but we finally made it. IT WAS SO CRAZY THERE. I'm so happy we didn't spend the entire weekend just in Marrakech, because I feel like we got so much more of a cultural experience the way that we did it. We really immersed ourselves into the culture and lives of the people. The city was really cool though, just SO overwhelming. I also probably saved a lot of money by not spending the weekend there because I WANTED EVERYTHING haha. Another plus? Only getting catcalled at for one night instead of 3 days. The best name I got called was "Shakira", while someone yelled "sex machine" to Jada. Awesome..

atlas mountains

Dinner was really cool. We went to one of the main market squares and sat down at an outdoor restaurant there. It looked more like a market area than restaurant area, but that just made it cooler! We ate soooo much, once again. Bread, olives, tomato sauce, spicey sauce, veggies, rice, couscous, skewers (chicken and beef), and ended with mint tea. YUM. I don't know why it's so amazing everytime, but it really is.

We wandered around the main square after dinner and got to see all the craziness going on! SO MANY PEOPLE EVERYWHERE DOING SO MANY THINGS! Simo told us this is where you usually see snake charmers, but they weren't out at night because the snakes had to sleep. There were games, vendors, shows, you name it. The girls got henna on our hands which was awesome (it didn't stain very well so it didn't show up barely, but that's okay it was like 3 dollars). Back at the hotel, Jada and I shared a room. We packed up everything then took our first shower since Spain!! Ew, I know. It felt so nice to be clean, even if the shower wasn't that awesome (cold water, no curtain..the usual). I slept SO well, literally didn't move all night until my alarm went off at 5:45 to catch my plane. Ugh too early.

I caught the minibus to the airport and made it back to Rome safely. It was weird because it was completely empty in Marrakech at 6am, as opposed to more than crowded at midnight the night before. Europe's daylight savings thing started/ended (I never know which it is) today, so we're back to being 6 hours different from the east coast of the USA. WHAT A WEEKEND. I am so grateful to be living a life where I can travel so much to unique places like Morocco. I learned so much from this trip! It's great to be back in Rome, though. I missed my home sweet Rome :)

spring break (part 1): SPAIN !!

Greg, Raphi, and Andy in Madrid!
YAY UM :)

Hi friends!! I hope you all had a wonderful week. It's been an absolute whirlwind of craziness and fun as I traveled through Spain and Morocco this week. I'm splitting the spring break posts into 2 sections since there is SO much to tell and so many pictures to see. Enjoy!

SO where did I leave off? Last Friday I woke up early for my flight to Madrid. I was so excited because I stayed with my friend Greg from the University of Miami, another friend from UM (Andy) was visiting Greg, and Raphi (my bestest friend and roommate from UM) was meeting us for the weekend. YAY!! I was especially looking forward to my Madrid part of spring break since I wasn't at UM last semester. It was going to be amazing to spend time with my friends I hadn't seen since my last visit to Miami in October!!!

On the way to the airport, I had an interesting experience. I sat on the train and put my bags in the seat beside me. A few minutes into the ride to the airport, a man a few seats in front of me stood up and started yelling at these 2 young guys in front of him. He was yelling in Italian, but I could understand, "What is your plan? What are you doing??" and pointing towards me. He told me that they were talking about how they were going to steal my bags! AH. Not fun. Luckily the man scared them off with his yelling and I didn't have any problems. There are theives in Rome just like any other big city, but if you're a smart traveler you usually don't have a problem. I can understand why a young, blonde, American girl with 2 bags would be a target though...I just have to be extra careful. I'm so grateful for my Italian friend who scared them away then talked with me the rest of the ride.

yummy fruit at the market

The rest of the traveling went fine. I slept some on the plane then grabbed a taxi to Greg's place. He lives in a neighborhoody kind of area like I do, which is cool! After I put my stuff down, Andy, Greg, and I grabbed a beer and some tapas (free food that comes with drinks in Spain) at an outdoor cafe underneath his apartment. He gave me a nice tour of Madrid! We checked out a few famous piazzas, saw cool art, watched the funny characters in the piazzas, ate a jamon sandwich at the "museo del jamon" (they're OBSESSED with ham in Spain), and my favorite: went to the San Migel Market!

reunited!!!!

It was the coolest market ever. It was more like a bunch of restaurant stands than market stands. It was inside a beautiful building, with tables set up in the center and all kinds of food around the outside. We walked by the yummiest looking fruit, veggies, oysters, crabs, shrimp, cakes, smoothies, olives, dried fruit, nuts..everything you can imagine. Greg and I split mussels that were amazingggg, and all 3 of us tried the fresh sangria.

After a few hours of wandering around Madrid with the boys, I took a nice long siesta until Raphi arrived around 9. YAY REUNIONS!! It was sooooo good to see her :) We ate a quick dinner sitting outside (the weather was awesome), caught up on each others' lives, and then
 headed out for a night on the town. It was so great to be reunited with everyone!!

parque del retiro

Saturday was one of the best days of my life. We slept in a little bit, then went back over to the awesome market. Raphi hadn't seen it yet, so she wandered around while we all picked out lots of fruits, bread, cheese, jamon, oil and vinegar, and were on our way. I got a fresh fruit smoothie for myself as well. Mmmm Mm Mmm!!!

After we got all of our supplies, we headed over to Parque del Retiro for a picnic in the park. We found a lovely spot in the sunshine and plopped down for about 4 hours. We picniced, ate, talked, played football, did yoga, and siesta-ed all day long. It was wonderful:) I LOVE PARKS.

greg was tired

We headed back to Greg's apartment around 4, stopped for churros on the way (a famous Spanish dessert that you dip in chocolate - yum), then took a little baby siesta at the apartment. Tonight was a big night...THE TAYLOR SWIFT CONCERT IN MADRID!!!! I. Love. Taylor. Swift. Raphi and I got ready really quick, jammed out to her songs to prepare, had a little coffee to wake us up and a little wine to prepare for all the dancing, then headed to the concert. The boys were going to watch a soccer game downtown, so they were happy too. We got to the concert pretty quickly, so I decided to buy her tour shirt since I'm absolutely in loooove with tswift. The wine was hitting me, so I almost bought a huge tshirt of just her face (as opposed to her tour shirt), but luckily Raphi talked me out of it haha. Hmm..maybe next time.

WE WERE SO CLOSE

Greg had gotten the tickets for us. We were a little worried where he got them, but he pulled through with flying colors. We got floor tickets and were SO CLOSE to the stage!!! There were a lot of people there, but not nearly as many as her concerts in the USA. About half the audience seemed to be from the US and the other half were Spanish, which was cool. It was so funny to hear the Spanish people sing along because of their accents haha. Before the concert started I ran to the bathroom, but forgot that Raphi didn't have her phone. I lost her in the crowd for a little while! It was okay, because I made friends with lots of people who helped me find her. Phew! A few minutes after I found her, the concert started. ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. I took soooooo many pictures and videos. She played amazing songs (well, ALL of her songs are amazing haha) and it was a really really great show. We were so close to the stage and to her when she walked through the audience that I literally could touch her if I had been a little bit pushier..but I kept my class haha. (barely).

yayayyyayayay

We were pretty hungry after the concert, so we got some chicken tortillas after and met the boys at the cafe. My voice was almost all the way gone! What a fabulous night. ilovetaylorswift. We were all completely exhausted from our day so we went back to Greg's apartment and went to bed.

Sunday, Raphi and I got up semi-early to check out the Prado Museum. It was so neat!! We didn't have too much time, but I was so happy to see Velazquez (especially Las Meninas), Goya, Titian...etc etc etc. It was pretty cool to see mostly Spanish painters, since I'm so used to all the Italian ones.

at the prado

After our stop at the museum, we met Greg and Andy at a big flea market that they have every Sunday in Madrid. There was so much to see and so many amazing things!! Markets are a new obsession for me thanks to all the amazing ones that I've seen so far in Europe. I got a little overexcited and saw a really cool mixed media piece for 8 euro, so I bought it. Unfortunately, I didn't think ahead and there was ZERO way that it could fit in my suitcase haha. Sooo I gave it to Greg as a thank you present. I told him that if he found a way to get it to Miami at the end of the semester that'd be ideal, but if not no worries. Eight euro isn't too bad. And I learned my lesson!

I got a few other little gifts while I was there, then ate a quick lunch before my bus to Valencia at 4. I tried a specialty of Spain, it was veeeery yummy (I'll have to check with Greg to see what it was called, it's slipping my mind at the moment). Greg, Andy, and Raphi went to the bus stop with me since there was a mix up with my ticket, so Greg's Espanol helped me figure it out. We said goodbye, and then I was off! Seeing them made me even MORE excited to be back at school next year!

Four hours and lots of music and sleeping later, I was in Valencia. Jada met me at the airport, yay!!! It was so good to see her again. The last time I'd seen her was in Paris, so it was really neat to be in her "home" and get to see her new life there. We went straight to dinner and caught up on the past few weeks. I was stoked because we decided to eat at a Thai food place. I've been craving Thai for MONTHS! It's funny because it was called Lemongrass, which is what a really good Thai place at UVA is named also. Tricky tricky. We ate some gelato after dinner, then headed toward Jada's apartment.

Since Jada lives in a homestay, she's not supposed to have visitors. I completely overlooked that when planning spring break, so I didn't have a hostel yet. Jada snuck me into her apartment without her madre seeing so that I could use the internet to find somewhere to stay! I charged my ipod, picked out a hostel (thanks to Peter Petras' help - the phone wasn't working so he used Jada's skype to call and book me a room!! YOU DA YOU DA BEST), met Jada's roomie Allie, then hopped in a cab to the hostel.

no thanks..

The hostel was awesome. Since it was my spring break, I decided to get a private room to have some peace and quiet for a few nights after Madrid and pre-Morocco. I was given the choice of two rooms. Quite an interesting selection. Choice #1: "Sexy Love"...pretty self explanatory. We opened the door and the walls were red/black with mirrors everywhere, red boas, and interesting accessories. Hm. Choice #2: "Nature's Beauty"... a room centered around nature, trees, etc. Aka my favorite thing ever. I considered getting the sexy love room for .02 seconds just to be funny, then quickly decided on nature's beauty. It was a really great hostel other than the weird room choice haha. They were super helpful and soooo nice. It was 1am when I got there, and the guy who was working the desk spent 30 minutes explaining everything I should do in Valencia while I was there. How nice! I skyped a little before bed, took a freezing cold shower (too late for hot water), then went to sleep.

leftover flower mary from the FALLAS
festival in Valencia last week

Jada had school during the day, so I slept in a lot so that I could be all caught up before AFRICA. I woke up midday and walked over to el Rio. This is a park in Valencia that used to be a river (hence, "el rio"). They drained the river years ago and changed it into a park! It's really cool, because it runs all through the city and is filled with runners, soccer fields, hooping, and more. I brought along my yoga mat and had an amazing practice for a few hours. It was a beautiful day, I even got a little sunburnt!

After a few hours in the park, I met Jada for lunch. We actually went to an Italian restaurant by accident! It was funny to see how Spanish people made Italian food. Definitely not the same as Italy, but it was still good. I got a great salad with pears, walnuts, and raisins, and Jada got couscous (preparing for Morocco perhaps?). Jada had to tutor, so we planned to meet for dinner at 7:45 near her house. I wandered around, got some frozen yogurt (I miss my yogurt bliss in Miami!), then sat in the sun in Piazza Riendo for an hour or so and people-watched. I was starting to get tired, so I headed back to the hostel for a quick siesta. I slept for a little longer than usual and woke up to Jada calling at 7:45 to make sure I wasn't lost. Oops! I headed out quickly and met her and Allie for dindin.

valencia!

We went to the center of town to eat a nice traditional Spanish meal. We got potatos brevas (for free! our waiter loved us), and Jada and I got a calamari sandwich. Calamari is really big in Spain too. Delicious. We sat outside forever, just talking and hanging out. Our waiter scared us at first (we think he thought we were annoying/loud/obnoxious Americans) because he was a little rude, but once he realized Allie and Jada spoke fluent Spanish his mood changed completely. In the 3 hours we sat outside and ate and talked, he brought us a free appetizer AND free tiramisu! Lucky us. He also brought over a heater for us once it started getting later and chillier. When we left we left him a note in Spanish thanking him for being the best waiter ever. Now he knows..don't judge a book by it's cover! I walked home and passed out for the night.

Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday. I woke up early, did some yoga and meditation, ate at the hostel, then went to the beach! It was soooo windy so I didn't end up laying out, but it was really beautiful. Courtney, it reminded me of you because it was such a beautiful ocean AND it was extremely windy (water=you, wind=me..our perfect beach!). I sat on the beach for awhile and relaxed, feeling the wind on my face. It was useless to try to keep my hair in order - the wind was incredible! I had sand everywhere, but that was okay. I took a nice long walk along the beach and found some cool seaglass and shells. It reminded me of you, Mommy, because she LOVES beach walks and we used to look for treasures along the shore all the time on our vacations:) It was getting too cold and windy to be on the beach, so I took a nice hour walk along the road overlooking the beach before settling in for lunch.

jada's new hair!

There were lots of places to choose from, but I knew I HAD to try paella. This is a famous Spanish dish, too! The guy at the hostel told me that the best place in all of Spain for paella was a place on the shore called La Pepica, so I checked it out. I was one of the first in the restaurant, so I got a pretty table with the ocean view and ordered the restaurant's specialty: Pepica Paella. I wasn't sure what exactly it was, but if it's the specialty I was sure it would be good. While I waited I sketched a little and wrote in my journal. When my paella came, it was everything I thought it would be. Pepica Paella included fish and other seafood, and came in the usual paella pan with their famous rice and spices. SO GOOD. Jada, I hope you can make it for me when we get home!! :)

After lunch I went back to the hostel and met up with Jada. Her parents were really pushing her to dye her hair before going to Morocco since they'd heard that sometimes people were mean to blondes. Boo. I didn't want to dye mine since I've never colored it before, but Jada decided to go for it. She wasn't completely happy with the decision, so we decided to drink a bottle of wine before we dyed it. That idea was half great and half terrible. The directions were in Spanish, so reading them after a little wine was...interesting haha. Half way through mixing the dye we read "MUY IMPORTANTE!!" and then went on to read that we mixed the dye wrong. Oopsie Daises. We decided to go for it anyways and just see how it turned out. After an interesting and once in a lifetime experience of dying hair in a hostel bathroom, we looked at the final product. It was a success! Her hair was officially brown.

AQUARIUM

Jada headed back to her madre's for dinner and I got a little veggie couscous from a place down the street. I ate dinner in the kitchen of the hostel and had a nice long conversation with a father who was staying there with his daughter. She was staying in Spain working at an organic farm for a few months, so he came with her for the first few weeks to help her settle in. After a nice conversation and good dinner, I went to bed for the night.

Wednesday was my last day in Valencia! I woke up early, did a mini yoga sesh, and packed up. At breakfast, I met the daughter of the man I was talking to the night before and she was just as lovely. I left my luggage in the storage room for the day since our bus to Madrid (for our flight to Morocco) was later in the evening and headed to the Valencia Aquarium. It was a must see for a few reasons. #1: it's the biggest in Europe. #2 it's the 3rd largest in the world. #3 I had to make Zach jealous (hahasins). #4 everyone told me it was complete MUST DO. Sooo I went! It was rainy rainy which was sad, because I only had my TOMS and they were soaked within seconds waiting for the bus. But it was okay, it was still completely worth it!

hi jellies

The aquarium was in Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias - a huge area that they built a few years ago that includes and imax, museum, and most importantly (and most well-known), the aquarium. It's called Oceanografic. It really did live up to all the hype! It was half inside and half outside, and since it was pouring rain I focused on the inside part. I saw so many fishies! Fish and stingrays and starfish and jellyfish and sea lions and sea turtles and penguins and whales and sharks AH. The sharks were so scary! And so crazy! I took lots of cool pictures. My favorite was the jellyfish. The lit up the small tank with really cool colors, and played awesome music. It looked really neat. The whole aquarium was set up so nicely and the lighting and music was perfect for each of the different fish and animals. I'm really glad that I went. (sorry the pictures are a little blurry sometimes, my camera died and i forgot my charger so i had to use my ipod camera for the rest of the week!)

sharks ah

I ate at oceanografic then went back to the hostel to get my stuff and print out my plane tickets. Jada met me at the bus stop and we headed to Madrid! Luckily we got to sit together, which was really nice. We talked and slept a little bit, and made it to Madrid around 11. Our flight to Morocco was early Thursday morning, so Greg was letting us stay at his apartment for the night. He went out and partied and planned to just stay out until his flight to Valencia the next morning, so Jada and I shared his bed. We skyped, checked our emails and facebook for the last time until Sunday, then went to bed! Next destination: MOROCCO, AFRICA.

and i'm off!

I hope you've all had a great week. It's been rainy rainy again here, but I'm off tomorrow for MADRID! Our spring break is next week, so I'll be in Madrid from Friday - Sunday (seeing Taylor Swift in concert with Raphi!), Valencia visiting Jada from Sunday - Wednesday, then heading to Morocco with Jada and her roommate Allison Thursday - Sunday, when I'll head back to Rome. I'll have so much to write about when I get back! I'm bringing my special notebook Marshall gave me before I left to jot down little happenings throughout the week, so you'll be all updated. No worries:)

mine's the center one!

As far as the rest of this week, Wednesday my honors class met at the Lorenzo Lotto exhibition near Venezia. It was really beautiful. He's one of my favorite artists of the 16th century, you should google some of his works to check it out. In fresco I was pleased that our teamwork effort from last week paid off and I only had some tiny cracking, so I didn't have to redo any of it! Yippee!!! I added on the bottom border during class. Over break, I'll have to plan out the main background that will go between the columns.

Tara left on Wednesay for Paris (she's seeing TSwift there tonight - sooo jealous), and Kaylie and Debbie left Wednesday night for London. Ashley and I had the apartment to ourselves Wednesday night, but we both ended up going to bed early. I'm trying to rest up for my week of travels! Ashley's boyfriend flew in Thursday morning, so she was up early and headed to Termini to meet him. I took my last round of meds to fight off this cold the night before, so I was COMPLETELY out until she knocked on my door at 10:30 letting me know that they were off to Cinque Terre. I (zombie-ly) met her boyfriend, and forced myself out of bed to begin the long day of laundry-ing and packing.

rainy rainy roma tiber waters overflowing

Silly me forgot that I'd actually have to WAIT for the clothes to dry before packing...remember, we don't have dryers here. So I got all my laundry done in the morning and relaxed the rest of the day. It was rainy rainy rainy, so I spent my time watching Angels and Demons. It was soooo cool to watch because the entire thing is filmed in Rome, so I knew all the different places they were! It was so cool! All of the main places in the movie are between a 10 and 25 (max) minute walk from my apartment, and I pass by those places all the time. How cool!!

I finished up packing this evening and for some reason am still not sleeping and it's getting close to 1am. Insomnia is not my friend. My flight's at 10 tomorrow which isn't too bad, but I still have to leave the apartment at 7am to get there in time with the whole public transportation thing. I'm so excited to be reunited with so many friends!! Just wanted to give you a heads up before I left that I won't be writing for awhile since I'll be in transit traveling the world. Check back for an update next Sunday (the 27th). I get home around 1pm (my time, of course) so by mid-afternoonish your time everything should be pictured and written up! Have a wonderful week, thinking about you always.

looooooooooooove and light:) sleepy tight!

sickness and arting it up

Ciao!

How do you guys like the new set up?? I spent a lot of time yesterday customizing the colors, fonts, and picture in the background (now it's a real picture I took in Rome one of my first days here instead of the random one I had before). I think it looks pretty pretty, I hope you guys agree:)

pretty pretty roma

SO the past few days have been molto interessante. Sunday after I dropped Zach off I came back home and was completely exhausted. I was a little bit sick the second half of the week, and Sunday it all caught up to me. I felt miserable ! I was glad I lasted so long in Rome without getting this sick though. That's a record for me! So I spent the day in bed. I updated the blog, then slept allllll dayyyyy lonnggggg. Around 8 I took some medicine that we'd gotten at the farmacia a few nights ago. I was hoping it was the right thing...the lady didn't speak English so I coughed and touched my nose to try to get across that I had a sore throat and stuffy nose. I think she understood. The brand is Vick's so that seemed pretty legit. After I took my meds I was completely zonked out until 9 am the next morning. Perfecto!

I was feeling a little better on Monday. My nose wasn't as stuffy, but I still had a cough and a terrible headache - it was like I was walking around in a fog. Since yoga was cancelled last week I didn't want to cancel it again, so I planned a nice easy stretching class and headed over. It was a small class (just 4 girls), and they were all about a more restorative class. My voice was nice and raspy, so I'm sure it wasn't as calming as usual, but we managed.

After yoga I headed over to photography! I was pretty excited because I was almost finished with the roll I had from Paris/Florence/Villa Borghese with the visitors. We had taken some awesome pictures at Villa Borghese ... close ups of the pretty flowers, hand-shots (ilovehands), India from above holding the flowers.. I couldn't WAIT to see how they came out! I also had the pictures of the Eiffel Tower on there - remember how that photo teacher had helped me get the "perfect" shot? So excited to see how they would turn out.

beautiful buds on the trees!!!

For the first few minutes of class, Jess and I walked around outside and finished up our rolls with telefoto lenses that Serafino let us try. These lenses are awesome for portraits and for "particulars" - close ups on rando things - because it focuses on a small area and everything else is blurry. I finished up my roll and we headed back to develop. It took the whole rest of the class to go through the developing process, and everything went smoothly (as opposed to the distaster of last time). We pulled out our rolls at the end and.....

DUN DUN DUN
Complete failure.
I was mortified.
My entire roll was blank.
Unexposed.

Apparently I hadn't put the roll into the rocket correctly in the camera, so none of my pictures worked. Boooooooo. I was so upset. BUT now I know! At least I learned something from this. Serafino told me that he would meet me Wednesday to teach me the exact way to insert the film so that it won't happen again. Ever ever. It was a sad day, but oh well. I know I'll get some cool pictures from my other travels! And when I get home, India and I will have to go to the park and redo our flower pictures:)

st. peter's basillica through the
windows at Castel Sant'Angelo

Monday night I made a fresh salad from all the market purchases Dad got for me - lettuce, strawberries, pears, fresh parmesan, oil and vinegar..YUM! On the side was the fresh bread we got from the famous bread store in Storico Centro (brown bread with walnuts baked in mmmm). It was quite the successful dinner. I took my meds again for the night and was out for the count.

It was so hard to get out of bed Tuesday because of that medicine haha. Luckily, my on-site class was meeting at the castle that I pass every day on the walk to school - just a quick 10 minute walk. I finally stopped pushing the snooze button and rolled out of bed to make it to class on time. It was SUCH a pretty day!!! It was only 9:15 in the morning and already 60 degrees. The trees have all started budding pink little baby flowers that are so precious..ahh I love it. I jammed to Taylor Swift on the quick walk to class to prepare for her concert I'm heading to in Madrid this Saturday (!!!!!!!!).

Class was so cool today because I pass by Castel Sant'Angelo EVERY SINGLE DAY multiple times, but I'd never been inside of it. It was actually really neat. At different times in it's existance it has been a tomb, prison, church, and castle. Crazy! This is the building that has a secret passageway to the Vatican for the Pope to escape to in the olden days. Grandmother and Granddaddy - this is the building that was on the postcard I sent you!

the flatter dome on the leftish center is the Pantheon, the big white building is the "wedding cake" or Piazza Venezia!

We wandered through the different layers learning all about the building, and ended up on the highest level. It was such a gorgeous view of Rome! You could see the Pantheon, Venezia, Piazza Cavour (obviously..it's right next door), St. Peter's Basillica, and even my apartment!! Well...almost. You could see the big dome that's a block away from my apartment haha. Sooo, close enough. It was a little hazy so the pictures aren't as clear as they could be, but still it was awesome. AND since it was such a gorgeous day it made it even better! I didn't even wear a jacket today - just a skirt and a sweater. Hooray for spring in Roma!

the dome on the right side
is 1 block from my apartment! kewl

After class, I hurried back to my apartment. I wanted to get lunch here since I have so much fresh food, but it was so nice out that I wanted to eat quickly so that I could get back outside. I was in such a great mood because of the lovely weather! I got home, made another amazing fresh salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh mozzarella - best part, oil/vinegar), meditated a little bit. After my quick stop at home, I decided to head over to St. Peter's square to sketch a little before painting class. I also wanted to get a little Old Bridge gelato. Once you try it once, you can't stop. INCREDIBLE.

beginnings of my figure painting

I walked over to the square, grabbed a gelato to go (blood red orange - obvi-, creme, and dark chocolate), then sat in the square and worked in my research workbook listening to TSwift. Perfection. Life is GOOD.

Funny story: As I was sitting there, a tour group gathered near me. I was in my own little world, so I didn't notice they were so close until I was nudged by a couple high school aged girls. I looked up to nervous faces. They looked around, trying to convince the others to ask me something. I said, "Si?" and was asked "Picture? With you? Can we have one?" Apparently they didn't speak English very well (I have no idea where they were from - some European country), but they wanted a picture with me. I figured it couldn't hurt - it was a bunch of high school girls, so I said sure.

figure painting in the works

Three girls gathering around me turned quickly into their entire group running over. I guess I was an interesting sight to see! They really liked my research workbook, so after the group of 25 or so gathered around me smiling for about 6 cameras, the girl closest to me grabbed my book, opened it to a random page, and put it back in my hands with the page facing the cameras. Haha interestinggggg. Quite a moment. They got their pictures, thanked me, and went on their way. So now I'm on a random Asian man's camera (from the Roman Forum a few weeks ago) AND a bunch of high school tourists'. Curious...

eh.. a little paint never hurt anyone

After the picture extravaganza, I finished up my writing/sketching and headed to painting. We were working on our figure paintings again and it was my first day actually painting, yay! I got alot done, but also got super messy. I think that ceramics is the best medium for me, because I can get messy and it doesn't completely ruin my clothes haha. I just get dirty too easily! At the end of class I looked down and realized I had paint EVERYWHERE! Somehow I avoided my shirt, but my skirt was covered in paint, as were much of my legs. And I think that my hands are permanently green now. At least it was an old skirt. And having paint-y clothes doesn't stop me from wearing them..it adds to my style:) I got a few interesting looks on the walk home, but overall it was a success.

Tuesday night I made a little tortallini for dinner (with pesto, basil, garlic, and parmesan, with fresh kiwi and strawberries as a side). Highlight of my night: Kaylie and Debbie's friend is visiting from the states and she brough Reeses as a snack for the plane. She had extras. She shared. BEST. THING. EVER. Yes, even with all my tasty fresh fruits and veggies and breads and cheeses and everythings I still miss American chocolate. SINS.