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.