An Attempt at Summary

I've gotten really sick of seeing my writing seemingly uncontrollably barfing out onto these pages with every excruciating detail of my life, and I'm sure you have too. So, I am going to make bullet points instead, of all of the important things I have done since spring break (it's already been about 3 weeks):

• I've been roller skating (twice) at the Bath Pavillion. The first time I totally herped and derped, but I only fell twice! The second time I only herped, and by the end I was feeling pretty confident! It was so much fun. I had forgotten how much fun can be had doing something so simple as putting on a pair of shoes with wheels and running around in them for a couple hours. 
• At the Porter last week, Sarah and I stumbled upon a random Ska concert that was actually decent! It was the greatest surprise I've had in a long time. The band was just setting up when Sarah and I had wandered downstairs, and here was my train of thought: "Is that a saxophone? No...too good to be true...wait...that is definitely a trumpet...OHMYGOD IT IS AN UNDERGROUND BRITISH SKA BAND! They were pretty awesome, if only for the complete wonderful randomness of stumbling upon them like we did. 
• My house (the best house) hosted a Murder Mystery Dinner Party, which was, I have to say, a complete success. Never have I laughed so much while accusing a person of murder. The boy playing the medium was one of our favorites, because he would stop conversations, put his hands to his head, and get messages from the dead, keeping a completely straight face, and using hilarious voices.  We're planning another one, this time for 19 people because so many people want in. I was a British Shakespearean actress last time, this time I'm going to be a vagrant. Exciting, huh? 
• We went on a gorgeous 7-mile hike along the Dorset coast. Challenging, but absolutely worth it, and the views were amazing. We sang Disney songs as we hiked. My people are the best people. On the way back, we stopped at Corfe Castle, which was absolutely amazing, and we sensibly ignored the rules and climbed the heck out of those ruins.
• Kaylee turned 21, so we celebrated by baking brie and eating it with baguettes while watching A Knight's Tale and mooning over Heath Ledger. All in all, a good time. Then on Tuesday we went to Cheese Night at Moles to celebrate in true 21st birthday style. That was also fun. 
• I went to the Well's farmer's market with Hilary. I absolutely love farmer's markets. I bought everything. It was crazy. Total haul: 1 loaf of bread, 1 scone, 1 eclair (for Laura), 1 bottle of apple juice, 1 box of raspberries, 1 jar of rhubarb & ginger jam, and 3 grapefruits. Yeah. I think that's it. Oh. And some cheese. 
• I went to a Bath Rugby game! We beat the London Wasps 17-12 or something like that. It was so much fun! I felt like such a local, cheering on my team with a pint of cider in one hand and half a smuggled-in sandwich in the other. 
• I went to London for the day to see Patty, Eric, and Abby, my cousins, who were in London, and for once I let someone else think for me. We wandered around Harrods, and went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The best part is? I didn't have to plan a thing. (Except the train tickets)
• I went back to Glastonbury so that I could climb up to the Tor. Definitely worth it, very cool. 
• It seems I have friends at my internship! And with only one week left. Want proof? Check out Herman, my friendship cake. Similar to sourdough bread, he requires a starter aka you need a friend to pass one on to you. He sits on my kitchen counter for 10 days and I periodically "feed him" and stir him. On the tenth day, I cut him into four pieces, give two away, keep one, and bake one! My co-worker Felicity gave me one of hers. Strange as the gesture may seem, it really did make me feel like I was part of their office community. Next week is my last week, so I'll be finagling for some free swag (aka pop-up maps).

Have some pictures! 

He's little now, but just you wait

Corfe! It's the castliest!

A fond farewell

Amazing Dorset coastline, students too exhausted to notice

So that has been my life. Pretty awesome, I would say. Also, a pretty successful and concise summary. So that's good. Hopefully this will be more entertaining than long-winded accounts of spring break trips.

Madrid, or THE DAY OF ALL THE TIRED (and the rest of the trip)

So remember how cheerful I was about saying goodbye to Barcelona? Keep that in mind as we progress.

We went to bed that night in Barcelona at 10pm, but it didn't do any good, because it was way too early to fall asleep. Bleary eyed after about 30 minutes total of sleep, we got out of our beds at 2:00am, packed up in the dark, took our 3:00am taxi to our 3:30 bus to our 6:50am flight. It was hellish.  I left IAmNotANugget (my water bottle) at the Barcelona bus station. No. It was hell. RIP.  When we arrived in Madrid, we took the subway to get to our hostel. We were two hours early to check in to our room. Hell. At least the woman let us leave our bags with her until we could put them in our room. Disconsolate, we wandered Madrid aimlessly in the pouring rain. We wandered into a cafe and had a real brunch, which was the first step in bringing our spirits up. Finally we staggered back into the hostel, and were greeted with a welcome sight. When we were booking this hostel, little did we imagine the joy that would be pumping through our veins at the sight of our private three bed room with its own bathroom. Each bed had covers AND sheets (a rarity in hostels) and we had an amazing view of rainy Madrid. Laughing deliriously, we fell into our beds and slept and slept and slept. I was so tired that in my journal all I wrote about our pre-hostel wander was "Oh, we did go to an art museum...something of San Fernando." Then I went on to whine about how wet my shoes were. Look how happy we were in our room!

Looking back, the museum was very nice, and there were Goya and Ruebens paintings which we especially enjoyed staring zombie-like at.

LOOK YOU GUYS TWO DAYS IN ONE BLOG POST

Thanks to the fact that we pooped out all of our first day in Madrid in our hostel room, I have room to tell you about our next day! We found an all you can eat breakfast buffet for 5 euro, so that alone made the day wonderful compared to the previous day. Then we went to the Archeology Museum. It was closed. Thankfully, the National Library happened to be right on the other side, so we had a look in there instead. It was their 300th Anniversary, so, kind of a big deal. There was an exhibit entitled "Biblias del Sefaredad," accompanied by an image of a boat that looked like it had come out of an old manuscript. Well it looked cool, and it was free, so we headed in. The first couple manuscripts on display were really old Torahs, which was so cool! And then...the next were Jewish things too...and I started to wonder. I took out my pamphlet, which was in Spanish, and read enough to understand that wait a minute, this was not an exhibit on old sailors, but one on Sephardic Jews! I enlightened my friends, and the rest of the gallery made a lot more sense. It was actually really cool, and I recognized a lot of the names (Rashi, Maimonides) from Hillel and from Jewish school.

Next stop, THE PRADO. It's in big letters cuz its important, guys. The Prado is one of the most important art galleries in Europe, if not in the world. So naturally, Hannah B. had to be sent home after about an hour. But Hannah C. and I enjoyed ourselves immensely, proving to the world that I was grown-up enough to actually appreciate art! We spent 4 hours there, and still missed about 1 1/2 floors. 4 hours was enough though, and it stopped pouring rain long enough for us to walk back to our hostel! Annnnnd that's about it. We took it a lot easier in Madrid, partially because it was raining almost the entire time, and partially because we had exhausted ourselves running around in Barcelona. Next stop, Toledo!

Edit: This used to be two blog posts, but I am consolidating...I'm learning to be concise...yeah right. 

Alright, we are here to complete (finally) the tale of my spring break.

Skyline

So.  Toledo, a quick high-speed train ride from Madrid. It was absolutely gorgeous. We were promised rain, but luckily for us it was completely dry all day! While there are not too many "tourist" attractions, the place is still filled with tourists because it is just s'darn beautiful. Medieval and Renaissance architecture abounds in this fair city. Sidenote: there is a street called Calle de Toledo, Ohio.

We made a stop at the oldest synagogue in Europe, which was pretty neat, and I have to say, quite a nice change from all of the old churches we have been seeing. The cathedral was actually closed, because it was Good Friday, so we missed out on that. It was more of a Jewish day. We celebrated Passover instead of Easter, you might say.

Jesus in Madrid

Upon returning to Madrid, we stumbled upon another Jesus parade, this time for Good Friday! That makes one in each city! I gotta say, we picked an excellent time of the year to experience Spanish culture.

The next day was our last in Madrid, and boy did we make the most of it. It was definitely our best Madrid day. We started out at this cool little museum that was basically this guy's private art collection. When he died he was like "look, you can have my stuff, but you have to keep it all together in this house." So now its a really cool museum. His chandeliers especially were fantastic, although I suppose the famous artist's paintings were pretty cool too. 

Seriously though...

After the house museum thing, we wandered past the royal palace, which was suitably royal, and then hopped on the metro to la Plaza del Toros. This was definitely my favorite Madrid destination. The bull-fighting arena, still in use today, offers English-language tours as well as Spanish ones. We took an English tour, and it was definitely worth the 7 euro. It was fascinating! Our guide explained in intricate detail the process of raising, training, and killing a bull. Did you know that if the matador fails to kill his bull within the allotted time, he goes to jail for the night and has to pay a heavy fine? They take this stuff really seriously. And it is so dangerous! Imagine fighting a bull with a skinny little sword that you have to place at a certain point in his back, only accessible by an actual leap as he charges at you, in order to kill him correctly. The statue in the courtyard is of the man who invented Penicillin, because of the amount of matadors' lives it has saved. Just sayin'.

Anyway I guess that about wraps it up! Thank god! Now I can move on with my live, and tell you about the present. Spoiler alert Liza: I finally went to Jamuna today! It was sooooo good.

*Barcelona Pun Pending*

Hello neighbors! (not really (well really hello but not really neighbors))

I was going to try really hard to squeeze multiple days into one blog post, because I'm sure you are as sick of my spring break as I am, but then I looked back at my journal for today, and A LOT HAPPENED. So...sorry about this, but hopefully you will find it entertaining or educational.

Note the scaffolding 

We woke up a little later than usual because Hannah C. and I had only gotten home at 4:30am (see last blog post for shenanigans).  First up was La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's famous unfinished masterpiece. Construction began in 1882, and check this kid out, it still isn't finished.  My personal pictures of La Sagrada Familia aren't really blog-worthy, because it was pouring rain while we were waiting in the long long line which wound all the way around the outside. So, I am off to the internet to find a suitably jaw-dropping photo.

It really is spectacular, inside and out. I've never been one to moon over architecture, but Gaudi's work has really amazed me. He builds these structures that look like they somehow belong there, like they have grown up from the landscape and have been there for eons. La Sagrada Familia was no exception. The inside, forgive me Doctor Who lovers, seemed somehow larger than it should be, especially considering the cluttered feeling I get from the amassed tombs and monuments of most cathedrals. The way the light and stone worked together created this wonderful spacious feeling, even as columns branched down from the ceiling at correct intervals. I could definitely see people worshiping here.

On our way to our next destination, something honestly terrible happened. Hannah B. was pick pocketed. The thief was an expert, truly there was nothing she could have done to prevent the crime. Still, that does not make it feel any better when your entire wallet is snatched right out of your purse. We ducked into a nearby supermercado while she called her parents and cancelled her credit cards. After a suitable mourning period, we turned to practical questions. Since there was nothing really we could do to recover her stolen goods, we had three options: 1. Find a police station and file a report that would most likely do no good since we had no information about the thief and he/she would not be able to use Hannah's credit cards. 2. Go back to the hostel and sulk. 3. Go to the chocolate museum.

Don Quixote, in chocolate

As I hope you will have guessed, we went to the chocolate museum. I mean honestly, could you hope for a better place to be pick pocketed right next to? We walked in, got free admission with our Barcelona cards, and were each handed a bar of chocolate.  We walked through the museum blindly and got through the exhibit in about the time it takes to eat a chocolate bar. Roughly. At the gift shop we bought more chocolate, and walked out feeling much happier than we could reasonably expect to after such an afternoon.

For dinner, we met up with Liz and Liz our friend, my roommate and a friend from back in Bath! We found this great little vegetarian restaurant and got some real nutrition into our bodies. It was wonderful to see friendly faces who also spoke English. We traded stories, and I took a picture!

The Liz's and the Hannah's!

Everybody say Adios, Barcelona, because tomorrow we are off to Madrid!                                                      

Barcelona? I found it very...Gaudi.

Hello again! If you’re just tuning in, we are on day 2 in Barcelona, or April 2^nd. First off was the Aquarium of Barcelona, which was pretty awesome. They had one of those moving walkways where you are surrounded by big swimmy things, which was really cool. As long as you don’t try to compare it with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, or SeaWorld, it is a really good aquarium.

For lunch we went to Barcelona’s famous covered market, La Mercat de la Boqueria. It was amazing! I would seriously live in Barcelona just for the market. Those who know me know I love a good farmer’s market and this, ladies and gentlemen, was beyond description. (yet again, I will try) Fruit stands everywhere selling delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as fresh fruit juice.  Making your way farther/further back you encounter the meat and fish, which while it is kinda smelly and bloody, at least you can appreciate the freshness and the quality of it all. There were also bakeries and candy shops of course. It was just a wonderland of fresh and locally produced goods. Alllll the way in the back, just like Inbar said, was a stall called Organic is Orgasmic. Obviously this is where we had lunch. It was absolutely delicious! Thank you Inbar! 

This photo courtesy of the internet

After a good wander to digest our food, we headed off to Parc Guell. There was a huge hill to walk up to get to it, but OHMYGOD was it worth it. PAY ATTENTION PEOPLE because this was my favorite thing hands down in all of Spain. Designed by Gaudi, this marvelous park is absolutely fairyland. Glastonbury is fairyland for England, and Parc Guell is fairyland for Spain. Got it? Good. There were gorgeous ceramic structures that just looked part of the wilderness, and it was constructed on a hill, with levels of wandering paths and beautiful stone, wood, and mosaic architecture. We wandered around with our jaws hanging open for a while, and eventually came to sit on some benches overlooking the park entrance. MAN. Even these benches were the most comfortable benches we had ever sat on. They were clearly designed by Gaudi, a man who knew what the heck he was doing. I only managed one decent picture, above, so I'm including a couple others from the internet so you can all get an idea. I'll even include a picture of the fabulous benches.

Also the internet

That night we went out and experienced some Barcelona night life, courtesy of Hannah C's friend Tomas. We met up at midnight and went to a club with wildly expensive drinks, a bar, and then a burger king, and that is about all you are going to get of that story. Barcelona people are loco. It was really cool though, because it made us feel a lot less like bumbling tourists, and more like people who were really getting to know a city. We ended up taking the night bus home at 4, and getting home at 4:30 absolutely exhausted but having that "it was a good night" feeling.

An Awful Lot of Running to do...

Alright friends, gather round, because I am about to attempt the impossible. I am going to blog about Spring Break. This is not one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it situations. On the contrary, this is going to be a massive and time consuming effort. I will try to make it less painful for everyone involved by splitting it up into at least two parts. Today I will attempt to cover our time in Barcelona. So. With your permission...

Hannah, Hannah, and I decided to take the bus to Bristol Airport, for silly reasons. Mostly we had gone to the bus station to ask how much the bus to Bristol was, and upon finding out it cost about the same as the train but took about an hour longer, we said... ehh we're already at the bus station. It is literally 50 feet away from the train station. You can see the train station from the bus station. Are you comprehending our laziness yet? So anyway, that was our near-fatal wounding of the day. We got on the bus at 1:30, sure that we would make it to the airport in plenty of time for our 4:30 flight. WRONG. Panicking, we jumped off of the bus at 3:30 and ran to the check-in desk. They were making announcements about last call for checking in for our flight at a certain desk, so we ran to the desk. Then they changed the desk to one halfway across the terminal. We ran to the new desk. Thankfully they checked us in quickly, and then we ran to security, where, upon seeing our boarding passes, they exchanged worried looks and put us through the shortest line. Once through security we ran to our gate. But HOLY COW. Our gate was literally the second farthest possible gate from the security checkpoint. We had to turn so many hopeless corners, before finally, gasping and weezing, we made it to our gate just as the last people in line were boarding. Words cannot describe (though here I have attempted it) the despair we felt when the bus did not get the the airport until 3:30,  the panic we felt as we still attempted to make it in time, the hope in my chest that I did not want to give too much sway too as I ran down that never-ending corridor, and the elation as we glimpsed our gate and our plane. It was possibly the most dramatic flight-catching anyone has ever done. It would have made for some great theater. Except for the two hours of it that involved sitting on a bus. Anyway, that story probably wasn't as tense for you as it was when I was going through it, since most of you already know that I did in fact go to Spain.
 
Okay. So we finally made it to Barcelona. (I accidentally typed Barfcelona just then, which is hilarious) Anyway by the time we found our hostel it was 10:00pm and we were starving, having not eaten since around noon, but that's okay, because people eat dinner really late in Spain! We were being so culturally aware! We wanted our first dinner in Barcelona to be Spanish, authentic...we ended up eating at the pizza place across the street...and you know what? It was flippin' delicious!

Our hostel was pretty nice, the receptionists all spoke really good English, and they had free breakfast from 8-10! We went to bed right after dinner, exhausted, and ready for an early start the next morning.

Up at 8, breakfast was cereal and toast, which was filling, but not exactly nutritional, and while it was fine the first day, it got old fast. Anyway, we had planned out our Barcelona days in extreme detail, and we had marked up our map and everything, so we knew exactly what we were doing, and we ended up being so efficient that we always had time to wander and explore as well. On the first day, God created the...just kidding...this is what happens when I write stream-of-consciousness...our first stop was the tourist information center, to pick up our Barcelona cards, which, for only 35 euro, would give us free public transport for 3 days, as well as discounts and free entrance to a bunch of museums. This ended up being way worth it, since we took the metro everywhere in Barcelona. After that was accomplished, we headed to the Museum Nacional d'Art Catalunya.  Hmm, that doesn't sound like Spanish, you may be saying. Well, that's because it isn't. In Barcelona, and in Catalunya, the specific region/state where Barcelona is, they speak Catalan, which is a Spanish/French combo, and completely unhelpful for those of us who were hoping to be super useful with their Spanish skills. Still, most of the people who speak Catalan also speak Spanish, so I was able to manage some rudimentary food-ordering and direction-asking. I was pretty nervous about speaking Spanish at first, and the nerves inhibited my speaking abilities more than any large lack of talent (I tell myself).   Anyway, as art museums go it was pretty awesome. I definitely have a much higher tolerance for art museums than I did the last time I was in Europe.

Delicious pineapple popsicle w/ chocolate stuff

Next we wandered through the Gothic Quarter, which really is gorgeous. Old buildings and gothic architecture everywhere. We were half-looking for an old synagogue which was supposed to be around here somewhere, but instead we found a popsicle stand selling delicious fruity popsicles dipped in chocolate! We considered ourselves satisfied, and moved on from the synagogue-popsicle-stand.

Suddenly, a wild parade appeared! Tourists used spectate. It was very effective. Our best guess as to the purpose of the parade was to celebrate Palm Sunday, which it was, so that made sense. It was really neat, and we felt like we were actually seeing some legitimately Spanish culture, unfiltered by tourism or guidebooks. As it turns out, Easter week is a really good week to go to Spain. Not only is Catholic Spain celebrating Easter absolutely everywhere, but it is the first sunday in April (this year) so a bunch of museums are free! The art museum was free, and so was the Picasso museum, our next stop.

Bonus Jesus parade!

It was a really good museum, in that it actually taught me a lot about Picasso. That could be because I knew next to nothing about the man, but, ignorance notwithstanding, I enjoyed it. I have no idea if I just used 'notwithstanding' correctly. It just felt like the thing to say.

After that we were sufficiently exhausted, and went back to our hostel for a siesta. Refreshed post-siesta, we finally did a Spanish food thing and had tapas! It was so much fun, and definitely lived up to its reputation. We were lame and didn't get wine with our tapas, partially because we didn't like wine but mostly because wine is freakin' expensive. Dinner lasted a very European 90 minutes, and then we went for gelato at this place we had passed earlier. When we were passing it, I said "that looks sooo good," and a woman eating it said "it is! Best ice cream in Barcelona. This is our second time coming here today." Very persuasive evidence. It was indeed delicious.

Thus ends day 1 in Barcelona, and blog post 2 about Spring Break.