I promise!
I’ll have updates about my daily life in Florence, my first class (which is now over), Cinque Terre, Siena, Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius, Capri, Positano, Monteriggioni, Pisa, Venice, and Rosignano.
I also am excited to share stories about finding the secret bakery of Florence, braving train stations, shopping at the local market, getting myself all cut up cave swimming, graduating pizza and gelato making classes, and meeting the craziest people.
On our first day in Rome, we were very exhausted after our early flight from Madrid. Once we finally made it to our hotel and through some orientation activities, we were able to spend time relaxing over dinner. We found our way to what we now call ‘our little restaurant’ (maybe partially because we cannot remember or pronounce the real name). Our pizza and pasta was very good (although I accidentally ordered mushroom and boiled egg pizza… certainly not my favorite.) We spent dinner together with our whole group and were served many courses of delicious traditional Roman food. We especially loved the desert. Our evening ended with Sarah, Danae, and me wandering around Trastevere and enjoying street vendors, musicians, and the beautiful view.
On our second day in Rome, we woke early to stop and get breakfast (with lots of Nutella!) before we headed on our extensive bus and walking tour of Rome. We must have seen every single sight in the whole city in about four hours. We loved seeing the city, but our morning and afternoon felt very rushed. Once we were back, Danae and I stopped at “our restaurant” before heading out on a self-guided night tour of Rome. We LOVED seeing the Colosseum lit up at night, even if it was quite a walk from our hotel. After we spent time around the Colosseum, we also headed to the Trevi Fountain to view it at night. The Colosseum had been very peaceful and beautiful under the stars, but the Trevi was as busy as ever. Danae and I enjoyed gelato by the fountain and even got pulled into some pictures for a very embarrassed looking Frenchman’s bachelor party.
On our third and last day in Rome, we toured the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. Though the tour was very beautiful and interesting, we were beginning to really get tired of guided audio tours! In the evening, I joined Courtney, Heather, Sarah, and Danae and headed to a restaurant in the middle of town (where I had some excellent pasta), ate gelato at the Piazza Navona, and then climbed the Spanish Steps. The view from the top of the Spanish Steps was beautiful. Several of the persistent rose dealers tried to trick us into buying their flowers, but in the end we kept our money and even had some cute pictures with the roses.
Before heading to Florence on our fourth day, we had time to stop for breakfast and browse through the street market in Trastevere. Sarah found a cute dress and I picked up a small sweater for 6 euro. Then we boarded the bus and traveled four hours north to Florence.
Here’s a link to some of my photos from Rome!
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150985750530743.477953.622770742&type=1&l=92fe1ac5cb
I am sorry that it has taken me so long to post about our adventures in Barcelona! I did not have internet access once I reached Rome, so I’ve been falling behind on my communication.
On our first day in Barcelona, we enjoyed spending time at La Sagrada Familia (a beautiful and massive cathedral built by Gaudi), La Casa Batillo (another of Gaudi’s masterpieces), on the streets of Las Ramblas (a hectic and touristy street market), and in the Gothic Quarter (a gothic-feeling maze of shops and restaurants). It was fun to walk through the maze and stumble upon beautiful cathedrals and landmarks. We wandered all through the city and just barely reached the coast before it was time to turn back to our hotel. After trying some paella with many types of seafood for lunch (that I was not crazy about) and tasting muscles at ‘La Muscleria’ beneath our apartment, we headed to La Bolsa, a stock exchange themed bar. We headed there fairly early on a Monday night, so we nearly had the place to ourselves. The concept behind the bar is that all of their drinks are listed on a board that shows the increase and decrease in popularity (and the price). Every once in awhile, the stock market will crash and drinks will bottom out in price. Even though the place was pretty much empty when we stopped by, it was still a fun place to try.
On our second day, we got a head start by heading to Parc Guell first thing in the morning. It was fun to see more of Guadi’s work, especially his twisting corridors and gingerbread-like houses. Once we returned back to the city center, we passed through Las Ramblas on our way to Barceloneta Beach. We spent a little time soaking up the sun, though the concept of a topless beach was a bit much for us to handle. For dinner we headed to a fancy restaurant on the beach. Sarah tried calamari, my mom got fish, and I got a nice American hamburger! Our seat by the coast was very beautiful. For desert, Sarah bought a Nutella crepe and nearly finished it all on her own. We headed to Ice Barcelona to finish our night. When I made reservations, I understood that they provided coats and gloves, but that visitors should bring warm shoes to enter the frozen interior. Unfortunately, we did not realize that the coats were not long. I’m afraid we did not last long in the icebox because we were all wearing shorts in the freezer! It was fun to drink out of glass carved in ice and to see the ice sculptures that formed the structure of the building, but we could not stay any longer than 45 minutes. We hopped on the metro home, packed our bags, and prepared for our very early flight. All three of us left for the airport at 4 am so that Sarah and I could catch our flight at 7am. Unfortunately, my mom’s flight wasn’t until later in the afternoon so she had to spend a substantial amount of time waiting in the airport.
If you’d like to see my Facebook photo album of the pictures from Barcelona, here’s a link!
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150972717420743.476705.622770742&type=1&l=fde4711c81
Before we left this morning, we got a chance to wander through Alcalá de Henares. We stopped at several pastelerías (cake and pastry stores :D), panaderías (bread stores), a frutería, and several tiendas that sold various snacks and desserts. We bought fresh bread and sausages for sandwiches, along with fruit, Fanta, and Ruffles chips that were ‘al sabor de jamon y ‘eso’ (ham and cheese flavored).
The bus ride took us through cliffs and mountains. We enjoyed seeing the small caves, ruins, and vineyards across the Spanish countryside.
We made it to Barcelona after a 6.5 hour bus ride. It’s 11:30 pm here, so we’ll probably go to bed soon and get a head start on the day tomorrow.
Now that we’re here in Barcelona, it will be a bigger challange to keep up with the Spanish. They speak a different dialect of Spanish with a bit of a lisp and a lot of slang, plus also a different language altogether (Catalan).
Our internet isn’t super reliable, but I’m hoping to be able to post about our adventures. Stay tuned :)
Today was so fun! We spent the whole day in Madrid. We saw: La Chocolatería de San Gines, El Puerto del Sol, El Plaza Mayor, La Puerta de Alcalá, El Fuente de Cibeles, el Museo del Prado, el Parque del Buen Retiro, y el Mercado de San Miguel (plus a restaurant named Nebraska!)
Also, I keep switching back and forth between Spanish and English… so basically I speak English to the natives and Spanish to my mom and Sarah. Oops.
We still have no luggage and we’re moving to Barcelona via a long bus ride tomorrow, so I hope that our clothes get here soon.
For dinner tonight, we’re going to explore Alcalá de Henares (the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes).
EDIT:
Here’s an extended version of what we did today:
Breakfast at La Chocolatería San Gines- A tiny little restaurant that serves chocolate con churros. Basically “hot chocolate” (a mug of straight melted chocolate) and churros to dip in them. It’s a typical Spanish breakfast and VERY delicious.
Wandering around el Puerto del Sol and shopping, watching street performers, and interacting with Spanish speakers was an adventure.
We LOVED lunch at el Mercado de San Miguel. It’s basically a giant open air market with every type of food and drink from all over Spain. So crowded and so fun.
Once we were tired of wandering after lunch, we came across a restaurant called Nebraska and went in for a few drinks. The waiter was very friendly and complimented me on my Spanish, which made me happy. :)
We continued exploring and stopped by el Museo del Prado. It was awesome to see all of the masterpieces by Goya, El Greco, Rembrandt, Rafael, Velázquez, and Ruben.
We wandered over the the Fuente de Cibeles and checked out the Puerta de Alcalá. We also made a quick walk through the Parque del Buen Retiro and watched a street performer doing fútbol tricks.
We made it back to our hotel in enough time that we could still use the Metro (yay!) and grabbed dinner at a bar near our hotel.
Overall, it has been a good day. We’re headed to bed around 12:30 so we can be up early for breakfast and the bus to Barcelona!
We made it to Madrid!
After many missed flights, an impromptu trip to London, and some pretty long days, we are finally in Madrid. We made it to our hotel and headed out to dinner at El Cortijo, a restaurant that we thought would be an awesome flamenco bar, but turned out to be a regular restaurant with some very confused servers.
We ate steak and fries, shrimp (that were very alarming with their eyeballs still attached!), salad with chicken and salmon, tapas, croquettes, and tinto con limon (which is a light wine and lemon spritzer).
I’m already exhausted from the fast-paced spanish speaking, but it’s been fun being able to interact with everybody.
Tomorrow is going to be a very long day because we missed almost all of our plans for today due to our late flights. We’re still hoping to get to see quite a few of the attractions tomorrow, though.
Hasta luego!
We’re at the airport! Our flight is a little delayed, but we’re still hoping to leave soon.
Today we will be flying through Newark and into Madrid. The flight is during the afternoon for Nebraska time, but overnight on Madrid time. When we get there at 10 am we’ll continue on to our full day of activities!
Three days in Madrid for vacation.
Four days in Barcelona for vacation.
Three days in Rome for sightseeing and orientation.
Six weeks in Florence studying at the Florence University of the Arts. I am taking two courses: International Management and Italian Language. I also will be taking all sorts of weekend trips around Italy, so stay tuned!
I will be returning to the United States on July 14.
I am so excited to get this adventure started. Thank you all for your support during this crazy time.
If you’d like to get in contact with me, my email address is ellenmuehling@gmail.com. I’m not certain how reliable my internet access will be, but I would love to hear from you!
