Location: Barcelona, Granada, and Roma (March 19- March 28, 2010)
In my usual procrastinating manner, I have taken over a month to blog about my Spring Break so this will be all the highlights compressed in the most orderly fashion possible for me. Sorry in advance.
We had a 10 day long break where we went to Barcelona, Granada, and then back to Italy to go to Rome.
Barcelona: Let's RAGE. 9 of us landed in Barcelona at roughly 9 pm and after much discussion about the difference between a tram and the metro along with a little help from Rick Steves (what would we do without Rick?), we found our hostel, Hello BCN. By the time we changed and got ready, it was 11:30 pm. Hmm apparently, we were running a little early for Barcelona where it is the norm to stay out until well into the wee hours of the morning. We grabbed a bite to eat at a place not far from our hostel. Then we figured hey, why wait until we get to the club to pay 5 euro for a shot when we can get them for half the price here? I brought up the idea of shots, made eye contact with Courtney and we both knew where this was going: Mr. Bartender, 7 tequilla shots per favore. In Europe, they serve them with lemons but hey tequila is tequila right? Made our way to the metro and learned that the cat calling of Spanish men puts Italians to shame. Italian men will tell you that you are beautiful and they would like to marry you (creepy, I know) but Spaniards say things that are so dirty I can’t even post them here. Finally made it to the club and considered wearing a shawl out the next night to divert any unwanted attention. The club was standard, not too crowded or too crazy. More tequila shots were involved and at one point someone may have gotten the placement of the tequila shot and the salt confused, it happens… Went to the beach afterwards and although, the water was too cold, just feeling the sand and hearing the ocean was enough to top off the night perfectly. The metro was closed until 5 am, oh wait, it’s 6 am at this point, time to sleep it off. By some miracle we figured out which line would get us back to the hostel and we were in bed by 6:30. Slept for a few hours and woke up to sight see. A friend of Maggie and Alex showed us around all day long and we saw all the main sights including the Temple de la Sagrada Familia and Casa Batllo, both designed by Gaudi who is honestly from another world. His work was so detailed and intense that the Sagrada Familia started construction in 1981 and won’t be done until 2026, each side shows a different emotion, it’s unbelievable. We slowly made our way to the beach and saw some very awkward “modeling shoot” I guess it could be called. Now where ever we go, our friend Kaitlin likes to do some awkward modeling poses (her portfolio will be hitting facebook in late May lol). Bought some bottles of wine and sat looking out over the ocean and thinking that this could not possibly be my life. Went out again the next night and our the tram on the way to the main center, five of us were standing in a circle talking when all of a sudden, Jo Anna turns and screams at this guy “No! His hand was in my purse! He was trying to pick pocket me. You were trying to pick pocket me!”. Honestly it shook us up but her reaction was one of the funniest things I have ever seen and it was effective by alerting everyone around us that there was a pick pocket on the tram. He didn’t get anything and got off at the next stop. Sadly this was not the last time someone attempted to pick pocket one of us but Jo saved the day once again and the pick pocket went home empty handed. Clutching our purses, we made it to a shot bar that has literally hundreds of different fancy shots. I did one called the Olympic Torch- which consisted of sipping flaming alcohol out of half an orange- delicious. Right when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I ordered a Willy Wonka shot that was served with whipped cream and a healthy portion of milk chocolate. Allora…. Went to a bar called Oshum where we had to be on a list, and apparently guys couldn’t where white shoes? I don’t know but it was a HUGE club that had a man playing a violin on one of the raised platforms. More tequila. This time we called it an early night, we were in bed by 4.
Suday- tour to kill time before our flight, go to Park Well, an entire park designed by Gaudi that looked like a Ginger Bread village on crack. Climbed yet another incline hung over. Time to go.
Granada: Sunday, it is time to leave BCN- 2 nights was enough for me. Arrived in Granada that night, a much smaller town that I like to think of as the Spanish counterpart to Verona. Called it an early night, ready to detox from drinking my body weight in tequila shots. The next day, 2 more friends of friends, Amy and Kathleen, showed us around and we went to this beautiful look out over the city. We took it easy, still recovering from BCN. Went out that night, and had tapas which are the most genius thing I have ever heard of. You buy a drink and get free food with every drink, dinner and happy hour at the same time. Then we went to a bar with all you can drink beer and wine for 5 euro. I had a couple glasses of wine and learned that the thieves can follow you from Barcelona when I had my purse complete with camera and 40 euro stolen. I called it a night at this point. The next day we toured the Al Hambra which is the last standing Muslim Castle in Spain. Climbed the mother of all inclines, hung over…again.. what a shocker. The castle was beautiful and well worth the climb. The weather the whole time was sunny and warm. Also, something to note. In every bar or club we went to, we saw the same 80 year old man wearing the same cloths and reading a newspaper. It was very odd and upon closer examination, we realized that he had the grossest finger nails I had ever seen and might have been on coke, interesting. From Granada, our group broke up and 4 of us headed to ROMA for the next 4 days!
Wednesday morning: Joanna, Maggie, Kaitlin and myself headed to the Granada airport which with its 1 security line and total of 2 gates was by far the smallest airport I have ever been in. We watched a Siamese cat look both ways before crossing the street therefore deserving some of our breakfast. We fed him bread and named him Pepe ( Kaitlin hates cats). Next we got to enjoy a lovely 5 hour layover in the Madrid airport. Ryanair made us exit the very nice clean terminal to go out and check in again even though the connecting flight was with them. We walked out and realized that we couldn’t check in for another 3 hours, awesome Ryanair. There was one option to eat at and lets just say it came in second to worst food I have eaten abroad after the self service place in Florence. Kaitlin paid 7 euro for a basket of onion rings and thought the guy was ripping her off only to realize later that she had missed the sign informing her that each of the 20 ketchup packets she grabbed was 20 cents. This man at the table next to us slept for the ENTIRE 3 hours, we took pictures of him, we’re creepy. Checked in and while waiting at the gate, the exhaustion of the past few days finally set in resulting in the most crude and disgusting game of “would you rather” that I have ever played. Right as we realized how loud we were being, we checked for reactions to our disturbing conversation and when we found none, we figured no one around us spoke English until a lovely British boy sitting literally 3 feet away turned around and asked if we knew the calling code for the U.S. Whether he needed the calling code or was just trying to silence us, we will never know. About 20 min later the craziest thing that I have ever seen in an airport occurred. Flights like Ryanair don’t assign seats so everyone lines up to get a good seat 20 minutes before we even board, it is very annoying. Well we were at the back of the line too cracked out on exhaustion to even care about our seats when someone comes over the intercom and announces that the gate has been changed. Literally every single person in line turns and sprints across the airport toward us. We all hunkered down out of pure fear of the 100+ rolling suitcases coming our way and before you know it, Kaitlin’s passport is knocked from her hand and being swept across the Madrid airport under someone’s suitcase resulting in her running and nearly tackling the guy. Absolutley ridiculous.
Rome: Arrived at the Termini train station in Rome at approximately 12 am. Find our hostel and learn 2 things first hand. First thing: why googling “Hostels in Rome with free breakfast” is not a good idea and Second: that Rome has a China town. We knock on the door for Cherry Hostel and an asian woman in her pajamas answers looking utterly confused. She calls for another guy who comes out and just looks at us for a few minutes. We told him we have a reservation and he proceeds to pull out a notebook that I’m pretty sure I have seen at the UNO EURO store for little kids and starts riffling threw the pages with pencil scribbles on them. I knew at this point that something had gone terribly terribly wrong. My suspicions were confirmed when he lead back out of the hostel onto the street and down three blocks to a completely different building. Then took us up to a place resembling a crack house and opened the door of our room with a key on a playboy bunny key chain. The room was well exactly what I expected at this point. Joanna and I shared a twin bed because her sheets had weird stains on them. Panicked, we took turns calling our parents and made a unanimous decision that we needed to leave the next morning at all costs. We go down the next morning and tell the man, who by the way was wearing the exact same cloths he had on the night before, that we have an emergency in Verona and need to pay the cancellation fee and go. He asks “Non ti piace?” (You don’t like?). We lie and tell him it was lovely, I don’t know why. We pay with cash and he had no change, no cashbox, and another asian woman who looked like she may have just gotten home from the night before and maybe could possibly be a prostitute comes in and makes change for us out her purse. Also, I feel the need to add at this point that the “free breakfast” was half a loaf of bread and the quote of the night goes to Kaitlin Kienzel- “We are one step above the people sleeping outside the Termini train station, maybe…”
So, let me get you up to speed. We have 3 more nights in Rome and we have just checked out of our hostel with nowhere else to stay. We drown our sorrows in where else? McDonalds where a McFlurry has never tasted so good as it did that day. Luckily, Maggie’s parents were coming in that day and had a hotel room. We found their place and at this point all I want is a shower, actually make that 2 showers; one to clean off the remains of Cherry Hostel and the other to actually shower. We ask the nice man behind the counter if he has any rooms available and he calls his friend. We learned that in Europe, you can bargain for anything, even your housing and when push comes to shove, it wasn’t yet the height of tourist season and we ended up staying at a beautiful bed and breakfast not far from Maggie’s parents place for a fraction of what it should have been and not that much more than we paid for Cherry. Finally got that shower I needed to badly and went out to see the city. Quickly realized that cabs were well worth the 2 euro each of us had to chip in. Some friends of the girls I was with were studying in Rome so they showed us around to all the usual sights, Spanish steps, Pantheon, and the Trevi Fountain all around dusk so it was breathtaking. Then they took us out and I knew it was going to be a long night when I asked for a chaser for my Bacardi shot and they poured me a glass of wine. We went to a bar and surprise, surprise- more tequila shots. The next day, we managed to drag our hung over selves out of bed quite early. We went out to eat and I had the best pizza I have had since coming to Italy and we started our tour of the Vatican with Maggie’s parents and a tour guide. Getting a tour guide for the Vatican is worth it or else you have no idea what you’re looking at. Our tour guide was a 26 year old American artist and she was well, very colorful. She tried to bust out a joke but it was so bad that I accidently called her out by asking if it was a joke. She didn’t like me much after that. We saw all around the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel which blew me away. I don’t know how Michelangelo did it, looking up all the time, my neck hurt after a half hour. It was also very cool to see because we went the Friday before Palm Sunday and got to see the Vatican setting up. Our hostel was actually 2 blocks from the Vatican so I walked by St. Peter’s Basilica a couple times each day I was there. Went out to eat with the friends from Rome who took us to dinner at a place called Antonio’s where they go so much that they literally high fived the owner, Tony, as we were walking in. Unlike us Verona kids who annoy the shit out of every restaurant we eat in, these kids are so adored that we received free wine and desert. Finally had the white truffle cream sauce Kaitlin was obsessed with. Went out to a main square with a ton of outdoor bars, Kaitlin did a flaming lamborgini which looks just as menacing as it sounds and I took her and Joanna home almost immediately. Maggie “Mi dispiace..NO”. Next day,we woke up to Kaitlin crying that her finger was hurting. Upon further examination, I saw it was swollen and purple aorund her ring. Turns out she had moved it to a different finger while she was a little tipsy and fallen asleep with it on the wrong finger, which was also too big for the ring. I grab butter and soap to no prevail. Eventually Maggie comes in to save the day, Joanna is hunkering down in the corner hiding, and I am about lose my breakfast and telling them that I will pay for the cab to the hospital. Maggie twists and eventually gets it off, we all relax, and go back to breakfast. Today, we laugh about this but at the time I thought I was going to have a four fingered friend. Later that day, we saw the usual sights- Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, and the Colosseum all breath taking once you realize how old it is and how realistically it should not still be standing. No tour guide, but we read out of who else? Rick Steves, yes he saved the day again. Went out to eat with Maggie and her parents and called it an early night which our bed and breakfast appreciated considering they had someone waiting up for us to let us in each night we were there. Next day was palm Sunday and although we did not have tickets, we still went to the Vatican and watched the service. I’m not Catholic but I still took in everything around me and not many people can say they went to a Palm Sunday service given by the Pope.
After a full 10 days of travel I arrived home to Verona, realized I lost my keys in Rome, and was locked out of my apartment. Allora…
