No Pasa Nada...

This week as been pretty uneventful-- and very relaxing.  Since it is spring break time, we have had lots of visitors to Alicante.  Ryland was here for the weekend, Libby's boyfriend Kevin is here, and lots of our other friend's families or friends are in town.  They all spent a few days in Alicante before traveling around to random spots, leaving me here to hold down the fort.  I have been running a lot, going to the beach when its sunny enough, reading and watching random spanish tv shows.  Life is good.  The weather is warming up, somewhere in the 70's most days.  In a few weeks it will probably be quite toasty.  The beach is nice, except it can get very windy at times, and when big clouds come it is a little chilly still. 

I leave for Rome to visit Whitney next Monday.  I am extremely excited to see her, stay with her and see all the sights.  Live as the Romans do, you know.  I will be there from Monday through Friday, so it should be a nice relaxing trip, plenty of time to see the eternal city.

This pic is the Alicante port at sunset.  I have been trying to take as many pictures as possible, and now that the weather is warm, it is much more fun to go out on photo shoots.  Anyway, just wanted to update ya'll.  No news really, but that's always best.  Love you, Miss you!

London is so posh...

So from Dublin we moved straight on to LONDON!  It was amazing, didn't have much sleep coming off of St. Patrick's day, and our flight was at 8AM, so we were slightly groggy when we arrived at about 9:30.  We stayed with our friend RYLAND (XO Sister ♥) and she had sneakily arranged a place for us to pick up the keys to her flat, since she works as an intern at a magazine and wouldn't be home until the evening.  So, we dropped off our bags and hit the tube.  The first day we saw the Memorial Arch, Hyde Park, a bunch of random memorials, went up in the Eye, visited Parliament and Big Ben, went over the Tower Bridge and saw the Tower of London.  Busy day.  By the time we got back to Ryland's flat we were exhausted.  We went for a pint at her local pub and called it a night.

The next day we woke up early to go to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guards.  However, sadly we waited forever and it never happen.  It was awesome to see the Palace just as it was though.  While we were waiting the Royal police/horseback riders (not sure of their proper name...) rode by, which I loved.  The horses were amazing and it was neat to see them just walking down the middle of the street, right in front of the palace.  From there, we met up with Ryland and went to lunch at Shakespeare's Pub, ate the local fish and chips, so british.  Next we took the tube out to the Globe Theater and took the tour, which was really interesting.  There was some sort rehearsal for a children's performance that was going on the next night, which we watched for a bit.  Next we walked past the London Bridge and over to St. Paul's Cathedral, where Prince Charles and Diana were married.  It was beautiful and huge and amazing.  

After that, it was back to Ryland's flat to regroup.  We got cleaned up and decided to go to a bar called O'Neill's (that name is everywhere...) in Piccadilly Circus.  Anyway, we took the tube out to Piccadilly and walked around until we found O'Neill's.  It was fun, pretty low-key, but a good time.  In London, the pubs close at about 11 and then you have to go to a club, which usually means a hefty cover charge--in pounds.  We somehow avoided that.  We decided to go to this particular bar because it had different floors, the bottom floor more of a pub, the middle just a bar, and the top a dance club.  We just sat in the bar and chatted for a while, it was great to catch up.

The next morning we had to be at the Ryanair airport, which is way outside London, by 9.  It was an early morning, but we made it to the flight no problem.  We got back to Alicante at about 3:00, there is an hour time difference between here and there.  Ryland took a later flight and got here at about 6:00 that night.  She has been here since then and we have been showing her the spanish ways.  It is so fun to be able to see where she has been this whole semester, and then be able to show her what we have been up to.

London was fabulous, it was a quick trip, but definitely worthwhile.

♧DUBLIN♧

I LOVE IRELAND.  Dublin was amazing.  Libby, Maggie and I left last Friday afternoon and arrived in Dublin at about 9.  We took the bus to our hostel, Globetrotters, which was perfect.  It was a few blocks away from Temple Bar, the Liffey, Trinity College... basically right in the center of downtown.  It was Libby and I's first hostel experience, and it really wasn't bad.  We were in 12 person rooms, bunk beds everywhere, and even though it was completely booked, it wasn't too crowded.  Each morning they had a traditional Irish breakfast, with everything from cereal and fruit to eggs and potatoes, lots of coffee... it was fab.  On the morning of St. Patrick's day they had an Irish band playing songs at one of the tables.  There was a dancing contest- i didn't compete, but it was so great.  

So the first night we just went out to dinner, walked around temple bar and called it a night.  We wanted to wake up early the next day to start seeing the sights.  On Saturday we went to St. Stephen's Green in the morning, which I loved.  It was beautiful.  The flowers were just starting to bloom everywhere.  After being in the Alicante desert for a while, it was nice to be surrounded by some green grass.  From there we walked to another park close by, looking for the James Joyce statue, but we never actually found it.  We did stumble across the Oscar Wilde memorial, which was nice.  It started raining/drizzling, and was freezing, but we pressed on.  We saw the Prime Minister's house, Huguenot Cemetery, and then decided it was time to head out to the Guinness storehouse.  We took the full tour, learned all about the beer-making process.  It makes you appreciate it a little more when you know how much work goes into putting it together.  The building was amazing, about 7 stories.  You start at the bottom and you work your way up... the top floor is the gravity bar, where you get to enjoy a complimentary pint.  I didn't think I would like Guinness, but I actually really did.  They say the Guinness in Dublin tastes different than anywhere else in the world, we'll see how Spain measures up...

Saturday night we went out to dinner and to Temple Bar.  It was still raining, which was annoying.  It was packed, obviously, but fabulous.  We were meeting people from all over the world... Holland, Australia, Switzerland, England, everywhere, and then of course the Irish.  So fun!

Sunday we woke up and tried to go to Mass, but we got to St. Patrick's Cathedral and found that 1. it wasn't Catholic, and 2. they didn't have services until the afternoon.  We tried to go to Christ's Church also, but the times were too late for us... at least we made an effort, I guess.  

Instead, we took a train out to Howth (pronounced as if it rhymes with both) which is a small coastal town about 10 miles out from Dublin.  It was my favorite part of the trip, hands down.  The town was adorable, with sail boats and fishing boats... we even saw seals swimming in the harbor.  There were houses all up on the bluffs overlooking the ocean,  and a strip of cafes and tiny stores...one was even named "Ann's."  (Got a pic, no worries.)  Later in the afternoon we toured Dublin Castle, brushed up on our history lessons.  It still is the major government building of Ireland, so they wont let you into a lot of the rooms, but it was nice to see what we could.

On Monday was the parade, which began at noon.  We had so much fun... it was still chilly, but sunny so it didn't matter.  It felt like being at a football game in Columbia, it was so great.  Everyone was out on the streets, dressed up to the max.  The parade was intense...about 2 hours.  Afterwards there were concerts on the streets, sort of a huge festival.  It was great.  We spent the rest of the day just walking around, listening to music and hanging out.  It really couldn't have been much better.  

Elche

Last Saturday Libby and I went to Elche, the second largest town in the Alicante province, just about a half hour drive down the coast.  It is home to Europe's largest palm tree grove, over 200,000 trees.  It is also the footwear capitol of Spain, making over 50% of the country's shoes.  We took a bus with a group of students from the university, leaving at 9 in the morning and staying just until the evening.  In Elche, we visited the town park, the archeological museum, the palm garden and spent lunch and the afternoon walking through the center of town, exploring.  

The town itself was very cute, little and clean, with palm trees everywhere.  We went to St. Mary's Basilica while there was a wedding going on.  You pay a euro and can take a tiny winding staircase up to the roof, overlooking the entire palm grove and the rest of the city.  As we were coming back down we stopped to check out the inside of the church and people were just getting married.  (The church was huge and we were all the way in the back...but still.  If tour group of foreign kids walked in on my wedding someday, I would not be very happy.)  It was neat to see, though.  We have visited all of these amazing cathedrals and churches, but I never really thought about people getting married, or baptized or anything inside of them.  

The garden was my favorite part.  There were palm trees everywhere, any type you can imagine.  They also had a very large cactus garden.  Since the climate is so dry and desert-like, those are really the only type of plants that survive well.  There were ponds spread throughout the garden, with ducks and turtles and giant gold fish.  The weather was beautiful, mid-70's, sunny.  It was really nice to see.  The flowers here are just starting to bloom, so pretty.  

On the way out of town we stopped at a shoe factory and museum.  It was interesting, we walked through their displays, then watched a 3-D video showing how they make the shoes by hand.  The tour led conveniently into their showroom and store.  It was awesome to see all the handmade, leather shoes, but I didn't made any purchases.  None of the students did-- they were definitely a little out of our price range.  It was fun to see how they were made, and something we never would have seen had we not been on the tour, so I'm glad we went.

I leave for Dublin on Friday!! SO EXCITED.  I did just realize that I don't have any green clothes with me here--might need to make a purchase.  I'm not sure what would happen to you if you weren't wearing green on St. Patty's Day in Dublin.... 

Barca Futbol!

Last week some friends and I went to Barcelona for the Barcelona vs. Valencia soccer game.  It was intense--if there is one thing Spanish people are crazy about, it's soccer.  The game was at Camp Nou, the Barcelona stadium which is the biggest soccer stadium in the world.  It was basically sold out, even though it was a Wednesday night game.  We splurged and bought the second level of tickets, so our seats were amazing.  They were on the second tier, front row, right behind on the goal.  We could see the sweat on the players... :)  It ended up being a great game to go to.  Valencia scored around half-time, so all the Barcelona fans were a little annoyed, but then their team pulled through and scored right in the final seconds.  They went crazy.  I hate that soccer games can end in ties; I wanted someone to win.  But it was fun.  It was also neat because Valencia is technically Alicante's team, since Alicante is the second largest city in the Valencia region.  But, we decided it would be smart to go with the flow and cheer for Barcelona...we were definitely outnumbered and surrounded by Barcelona fans.  The Valencia fans that had come to the game had to be escorted from the stadium by cops...that's how crazy these people are about soccer.  

The next day we spent exploring the major sights of Barcelona.  I saw Park Guell and La Sagrada Familia, both famous works by Guadi.  The construction of the Sagrada Familia Basilica began in 1882 and is scheduled to be completed in 2026.  But that's a long story... (joke).  Park Guell had mosaics everywhere and was so beautiful.  Its up on top of a giant hill and overlooks the whole city.  Loved it.  We walked around La Rambla and the Gothic Quarter, the most famous part of Barcelona.  It kind of reminded me of a giant Alicante, really huge.  The Gothic Quarter was my favorite- it was small winding streets with awesome ancient buildings everywhere.  Tons of churches, boutiques, cafes- so cute.  Finally we went to the Arc de Triumf,  kind of like the one in Paris, except in Barcelona it is made of red brick.  It's massive.

It was a great weekend-went by way too fast!