WHY?!

I’m not sure why I stopped posting posts about my travels because I’m feeling super nostalgic lately and I enjoy writing, it’s pretty calming. Anyways, I found a couple posts that I left almost completed yet unpublished about the events/places that occurred right after this previous Catalan market post.  I’m continuing the blogging!! Up to present-day travels and dilemmas and occurrences.  

Cataloniaaa Cataloniaaa Cataloniaaa

OOOhh really cool market with all Catalan products! Everything made by Catalan people, on the soil of Catalonia.  Honey, flowers, herbs, spices and jams were just a few of the products.  Found some cute foodie gifts for my cousin and her husband at this market.

Also, my host sister Noelia pointed this out to me back in January but it’s still in my mind.  She said this song was the jam because they were singing about her nationality!! Instead of “Got to love you, got to love you, got to love youu” she said it’s clear that they are singing “Cataloniaaa, Cataloniaaa, Cataloniaaaa.”  I’ve been singing it her way every time I hear the song.  I told other English speakers, and they sang it her way too.  Hear it?  I know you do.  All of Catalonia hears it.

Scotland: Edinburgh, Highlands, St. Andrews [and a scary flight back]

Ok so I’m pretty sure the Dublin-Edinburgh flight is one of the main triggers to the development of my extreme fear of airplanes and flying, really, I know it’s a silly fear especially since I’ve flown over 100 times in my lifetime; but I was on 20 flights within 5 months and I became a lot more aware of things. Seeing as I have another 2 flights before I’m home, I’ve been trying to overcome the fear by literally researching every single thing about how an airplane functions; and I think it’s been semi successful, I guess we’ll find out in a few weeks.  Anyways, it was such a short flight, 30 minutes tops.  I don’t think we ever reached high enough altitude to unfasten our seatbelts, but as we were descending, the strangest noise was occurring.  I know what changing of the gears sounds like, and what it sounds like when the wings shift plates to slow down, and all those sounds; BUT this was a sound like we were going way too freaking fast for the atmosphere.  The whole plane was shaking, and not like turbulence shaking, more like speed shaking.  We were never high enough to not see the ground and lights below us, but we were even lower now and everything was whizzing by below.  Was I nervous? Obviously.  Were other people nervous? I don’t know, I wasn’t looking around, kept my face peeled to the window.  We land, it’s all fine.  Either way, it freaked me out.

Once we walked through the airport, Analy and I realized we didn’t have Scottish currency to purchase bus tickets to get to the city center.  I was already around midnight but luckily an exchange office was open, like most airport exchange offices there were ridiculous exchange rates of course.  The pound was worth so much that 50 Euro (70 dollars) somehow turned into 28 pounds.  Ugh damn UK economy is so strong.  We took the bus to the main train station, Waverley Station, and followed the directions I wrote down on how to get to our hostel from there.  Edinburgh is super hilly and some streets were so steep it felt like I was going a snail’s pace and that my backpack was pulling me backwards.  Finally we get to High Street and the Royal Mile, the street with our hostel, and also the main street in the Old Town.  The guy at reception was a rocker with long hair and DIDN’T have a Scottish accent! SERIOUSLY?! So disappointing, I guess we had to wait until the next day to hear it.

We’re up and ready to take a Sandeman’s free walking tour with a native Scottish tour guide, only to find out that our tour guide James was fully Portuguese, grew up in England, and spoke with an American accent but said “wee” a lot.  Oh well, he was really nice and took us to a good restaurant afterwards.  So we got the full tour of Edinburgh: The Royal Mile, St.Giles Cathedral, City Chambers, Edinburgh Castle, Writer’s district, Grassmarket, Greyfriar’s Abbey, Bobby’s grave, Elephant House, and the Princes Gardens all before getting some Scottish delights to eat.  I wasn’t brave enough to get the full haggis dish, and for those who don’t know, haggis is a traditional Scottish delicacy made of livers and tripe and oats, sounds unappealing but don’t the Polish eat flaki?  Same animal parts.  The vegetarian haggis was calling my name but James used my argument against me and told me that it’s the insides of poor little eggplants, carrots, and other vegetables and that I shouldn’t be so cruel.  Touché.  Next we went out!! Partayyyy! We went on a pub crawl and met lots of nice people, lots of Australians and Kiwis (New Zealanders), they just love to travel.  While explaining to a group of Kiwis where I was from in the U.S, I used New York City as a nearby city, thinking it’s a pretty well known place right?  Well not to this one New Zealand girl (read in a New Zealand Valley Girl accent, as best as you can)…quoted “Where’s that?  I mean I’ve heard of it but I don’t know anything about America!!”….really?  I mean not to say duh everyone should know about American cities, but New York?  Come on, that’s a really famous one.  I told her never mind and we proceeded to all have another round.  Apparently one girl was getting married (I thought it was her birthday and must’ve said “happy birthday!!!!” at least five times throughout the night…really though I haven’t seen any 20-something year old Indian girls having Bachelorette parties at pubs lately, I figured her crown said “Birthday Girl” not “Bride to Be”), and she wanted everyone to get on the Jaeger Train.  It was so awesome, 75 jaegerbombs going in a row!  Oh there she is in the corner of the picture, starting the Jaeger Train.  At the next bar/club, there were lots of interesting things.  First off, it was made out of an old church and it was called Frankenstein’s to go with the “creepy” vibes.  Second, there were men in kilts at the bar, totally normal; all ages, just some dudes hanging out with their bros, in kilts.  And third, there was another bachelorette party, and these girls were throwing around a big blow up doll and for some reason it was SO amusing to everyone on the dance floor to dance with Mr. Blow Up Doll.  At this point in the night, two gay guys are competing against each other to win the attention of my new Australian friend Darby (sounds like Dobby from Harry Potter when said correctly).  They were extremely persistent and before he knew it, they became a trio having a grand ol’ time at the bar and on the dance floor.  About an hour later, Darby tells us that he has a strange feeling like the guys are hitting on him…dude, you JUST realized that?  Next bar, now this one was fun, I think it was called Exotica (?) and before we got in, a full out fight broke out over literally NOTHING, not like we could understand anything anyways, got a big dose of Scottish accents.  Blahblahblah, really fun club.

Next day! After waking up to the sound of bagpipes and a parade, our friend Paige was flying into Edinburgh on an overpriced flight from Athens!  Took like an hour to find each other in the Princes Gardens but then we went up to Edinburgh Castle (once again…a big fort overlooking the city), then to a high end whisky shop (did you know that only whisky from Scotland can be spelled “whisky”, the rest is “whiskey”…also the Scottish think Johnnie Walker and Jack Daniels is absolute shit), then we went to a shop where they make all the tartans and plaids (each clan has its own pattern), and afterwards we stopped at the Writer’s Museum to see some stuff about Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island!!) and J.K Rowling.  We decided we wants to walk down to the port area, thinking it was close by, after an 1 and a half I think we ended up in a different city.  Nothing said Edinburgh, it all said Leith.  So we walked all the way to Leith which is the up-and-coming area, it’s one of those areas where hip expensive restaurants are right next to drug rehab clinics; there were a ton of Polish food shops in the area to cater to the huge Polish population.  Pub crawl again that night.

The next morning Paige and I got up bright and early to get on a mini bus for a tour of the Scottish Highlands!!!  Wooohoooooo!!! I was seriously so excited.  Our tour guide kept me awake for the first hour of driving and by the time we reached the Kingdom of Fife, his cheesy jokes were still funny but I fell asleep.  The nice highway-type road ended around there and once you enter into the Highland territory there is only one road and it’s very similar to Polish roads, just two lanes, and many times no middle marker and very narrow, also they drive on the wrong side of the road, just like in Ireland.  We got to Kinloch Laggan and the Laggan Dam sometime after my nap.  Loch=lake in Scottish.  Then we saw Mt. Nevis, the highest peak on the British Isles!  It was so cold but so beautiful, see pictures below.  What seemed like hours later, we finally got to Fort Augustus and got to have some fish and chips and hang out at Loch Ness!  I think I may have seen some strange movements in the water, maybe it was the Loch Ness Monster, Nessie?? Who knows.  Next we drove even more through the Highlands, to Glencoe, then to see Hamish at the little town of Aberfoyle.  There were so many adorable lambs everywhere, Mr. TourGuide put it quite bluntly while me and Paige were ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the little cuties, he says “ahhh yes, fresh haggis!”  Next we saw the area where Robert the Bruce overthrew the British (as you probably saw in the move Braveheart) before heading back to Edinburgh.

The rest of the time in Edinburgh was spent visiting the University of Edinburgh, the National Museum of Scotland (it was pretty awesome, Scottish people are pretty damn smart, inventing penicillin, cloning the first mammal Dolly, etc), visiting The Elephant House (the café where J.K Rowling worked on Harry Potter!!), and wandering around taking photos.

Then came my train trip to St. Andrews!!!  I had a post-graduate visit scheduled and was so excited to see the campus and meet the people in charge of the grad program I’m interest in.  The campus is beautiful and has ancient parts of a castle and cathedral remaining while the rest of the town is pretty much all part of the university.  I can see why royalty like Prince William decided to go to St. Andrews.  After hanging out in the town, getting an informational session, and then meeting with the director of the program who will be in charge of deciding on who’s in and who’s not admitted, I met up with my friend from my high school tennis team Emily.  Emily is doing her undergraduate at St. Andrew’s and we sat and talked by the pier and she gave me a lot of inside info on the school and life there.  It’s a pretty awesome university.

I forgot to mention that of all the hostels I’ve been to, Edinburgh’s hostels were really strange in the fact that over half the people living at the hostels, also worked there and were there long term.  Like months.  An Australian girl told us that they get two year visas and they pretty much stay somewhere the entire two years.  There were also lots of Spanish people living there, but since the economy in Spain isn’t doing too hot, they were all looking for jobs in Edinburgh, unlike the Canadians and Australians who just kind of partied a lot.  So they live at hostels for free since they do some work or cleaning.  They all seemed to know each other for ages and weren’t the friendliest, but whatever, the actually Scottish people were very nice.

The day of our flight back to Barcelona, Paige and I were yet again awoken by bagpipes and another parade.  Lovely.  The bus driver of the bus to the airport wouldn’t let Paige onto the bus with her packaged fish and chips since he said it’s going to smell and that people would get jealous since they didn’t have any.  We pretend to throw it away, but really just shove it into a bag and get back on, he obviously saw it and told us he better not smell any fish and chips during the drive.  Was he going to stop driving, climb onto the second story of this double-decker bus, and take her food?  It really wasn’t bothering anyone but he made a big deal out of it.

So, the flight.  The flight back to Barcelona was fine and smooth except for loud Scottish ladies getting wasted on their way to their vacation in Barcelona.  Until we get to landing.  I’ve been over this airport 20 times now, it’s all very familiar, about to land, 5 feet away from the ground, then all of a sudden we’re going right back up into the air, full speed.  WTF?…is my reaction.  And up, up we go.  Higher.  Over the coast, and the water…flying in the direction of Italy.  WTF WTF WTF??!?!….my next reactions.  Paige, who was trying to keep me calm the whole time, is now freaking out as well.

“The captain has decided it is not the right moment for landing”…says one of the flight attendants 10 minutes later.  Can’t the captain tell us?  It looks like you don’t really know what’s going on either, flight attendant.

Captain FINALLY comes on as we’re flying back towards Barcelona and the airport,

“We could not proceed with landing as there was another aircraft on the runway.”

…and you JUST saw it when we were 5 feet away from landing??…ok well pilots are trained and smart people, they know what they’re doing so I try to calm down.

We land, it’s all good, me and Paige walk in silence through the airport before we agree we could use some drinks,  we chat, vent, sit on Passeig de Gracia and I express my happiness to be on land about 15 times.  Then I deal with a few hours of homelessness, which is another story, feel free to ask me since I’m tired of typing right now.

Ireland = Incredible

An early morning flight from Memmingen to Dublin came next!  Right after my morning bus ride from Munich to Memmingen.

How I’ve managed to squeeze my backpacker’s backpack into the metal crate that Ryanair deems maximum size as carry-on luggage is beyond my knowledge.   However, I’ve learned to arrange things inside of it to make it fit, even though it’s definitely much larger and much heavier than what they allow.  I’ve avoided the 50 Euro bag check-in fee about 12 times with that backpack, thank goodness since most of my Ryanair flights were between 6.99 and 20.99 Euro.

This actually brings me to another point before I start writing about how amazing Ireland is and how I’d go back in a jiffy.  Since I was asked a couple times earlier, and once again yesterday, let me make is clear that I do not have a mysterious source of income and my parents are not paying for me to backpack around and make Europe my learning playground.  Since I was in 9^th grade I knew that no matter where I decided to go to college or what I decided to study, I wanted to go to another country for a semester or year.  Therefore, every single job I’ve had since I turned 16 became a way to save up for a traveling extravaganza that wasn’t yet planned, but I knew it’d happen.  Lots of hours at some pretty crappy jobs contributed to my January-August adventures.  So, before you judge, don’t.  Especially when I flew Ryanair flights for 6.99, yes SIX EURO and 99 CENTS, [much less than any taxi I’ve taken].

Back to the main event, IRELAND!  Adorable country with great people.  I get to Dublin and walked about 30 minutes to get out of the airport…longest hallways ever, though I think the ones at JFK are worse since you think every corner is the end.  Something struck me as odd right around then…the signs weren’t in English.  Odd…  I noticed that there were English translations underneath in smaller letters, underneath the Irish words, or Gaelic.  Definitely didn’t look like any language I could figure out, no visible relation to English, “Exit” was “Slí Amach.”  Took a shuttle to the city center and realized there was a Polish guy in front of me speaking very loudly on his cell phone, aww I hadn’t heard Polish in so long, and I knew there was a bunch of Polish people in Dublin though.

Got to the center about half an hour later, couldn’t find my hostel, which was right in Temple Bar, the famous bar and pub area of the city since all the street names were bizarre Gaelic names and even when people tried to simply tell me where to go, the street ended, or all of a sudden had a different name and I somehow ended up where I started.  Finally I took a random turn by a burger joint and HEY there was my hostel and the famous Temple Bar!

I walked around Temple Bar, made friends in the hostel (80% Australians) and waited for my friend Analy to fly in from Barcelona.  We went on pub crawl that night with all Canadians and Australians…who kept making fun of America.  It was funny until it really wasn’t at all, especially when a few Irish guys told us how obnoxious our “American friends” are…THEY WERE CANADIAN, but who would know the difference?  Both countries speak American English.  The pubs were remarkable and so down to earth, pretty much any Irish pub in the world looks like an Irish pub in Ireland though, lots of wooden things, cozy and lots of Guinness, Bulmer’s and Jameson’s.  BUT in Ireland, almost all the pubs had live music, especially folk-fiddle-type music and traditional Irish songs sung by handsome Irish guys with guitars on wooden stools, VERY P.S I Love You-esque (went to the pub where that was filmed too! Called Whelan’s.  Bummer that Gerard Butler is Scottish and not Irish though).  On our way back we meet some more Irish, watch the video below to get a gist of them and an opinion on the U.S, hilarious.  The Irish crack jokes and hand out compliments like it’s their job, I’m not complaining.

Next day….RAIN RAIN RAIN.  Very normal for Ireland;  when it didn’t rain for a few weeks, people freaked out that the country’s grassy fields weren’t going to be as green as they should be.  It’s very green there by the way, much greener than Scotland which was kind of like tundra, but I’ll get to that in my next post.  Analy and I did a free walking tour of Dublin with an incredibly charming guide (maybe it’s the accent? Either way, he ended the tour with a big wad of tips from the ladies in the group).  Dublin is quite a small city and almost has a grungy, industrial feel to it, but not completely since there are lots of colorful buildings, decorated pubs, street artwork (lots dedicated to James Joyce), and pretty bridges over the River Liffey.  In addition, there are very old sections, such as the area with Trinity College.  That night we walked around Dublin with our new Australian photographer friend, Marcus.  This included, going to some pubs, listening to “Galway Girl” many times, having Marcus try onion rings for the first time, wearing our Burger King crowns around the city, getting some strange looks, taking lots of photos, and finally going to an Irish comedy competition.  The next morning we were up at 5am and on a bus across the country to Western Ireland!

A little over two hours and we were already on the other coast in the small city of Galway.  Our tour guide Sean was super nice and taught us lots about the city which started as a tiny fishing village, though famous as the birthplace of the Claddagh Ring (you know those rings with the crowned heart held by two hands that lots of girls wear).  Went to the main cathedral with not only Jane Erye’s tomb but also hidden clues that the Knights Templar were once involved, very “Da Vinci Code”.  Next we saw the house where Che Guevara’s ancestors lived in, betcha didn’t know he was Irish!  Then the ancient city walls which are literally inside a mall since the developer wanted to build a mall in that EXACT spot but wasn’t allowed to tear down the historical pieces.  Next was Kennedy Park which is where JFK (first and only Irish Catholic U.S President) gave a speech just weeks before his assassination.  After Galway we went to some cliffs before heading over to County Clare for lunch in Doolin, where our waiter looked JUST like a young Prince Harry, I’m sure he gets it all the time, lucky lad!  Analy kept freaking me out by getting extremely close to the edge of the cliffs and she did it some more at the Cliffs of Moher!  Ahhh yes, the best part!  The Cliffs of Moher definitely made it onto my list of Spectacular and Amazing World Wonders, I don’t have a list like this but I think I’ll start one now.  If you saw the last Harry Potter movie than you might remember the big misty cliffs as Harry searches for horcruxes, those are the Cliffs of Moher.  On that day we had the best weather the coast had seen in the past two months, sunny and warm enough to just have tees and tanks.  The water was so blue and clear hundreds of feet below, and you really realized how high the cliffs were when you saw birds flying very high above the water, yet so far below the top.  A large part of the cliffs doesn’t really have a fence or anything to keep people from going to close to the edge, so I wouldn’t recommend going off the beaten path on a windy day.  We went to the next county over to hang out in the rolling hills and see some prehistoric rock tombs, something like Stonehenge in England.  The next few days were spent hanging out in Dublin and getting to know some locals.  I even met a guy, who was familiar with Connecticut, and not just familiar, he went all the time since he worked for Pratt & Whitney; he even gets free Guinness pints at City Steam in Hartford!  After all the cheerful socializing in Ireland, next stop was Scotland!

BAYERN: Munich, Germany

One 1.5 hour smooth train ride later, I found myself at München Hauptbahnhof and walking around to find my hostel which was literally a 4 minute walk from the station, very conveniently located!  By coincidence, Sammy, a friend who studied with me at Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, was in Munich the exact same weekend with her boyfriend Dan, woohoo! Friends in Munich!  Dan came to Barcelona after finals were done and Sammy and he had been travelling through Europe by train for a few weeks hitting up some amazing places.  Anyways, I have to thank Sammy and Dan since they did they’re research on Munich much more than I did.  The first night we went to the FRUHLINGFEST (literally “springfest”) which is the spring version of Oktorberfest and happens in the same fields called Theresienwiese.  It’s much smaller than Oktoberfest but still much crazier than any carnival-type event that I’ve been to.  Mental image (since I didn’t take many pictures, oopsies): huge carnival grounds with rides, beer halls with people dancing and singing on top of long tables with 1 liter beer mugs, lots of stumbling, and EVERYONE, all ages was dressed in traditional Bavarian outfits.

The next day I decided to go on a tour of Neuschwanstein with Sandeman’s tours, it was a really small group and everyone was really nice and interesting.  There were two girls from the Midwest who were studying abroad in Copenhagen and decided to do a trip through Berlin, Krakow, Munich and Prague; next was a girl studying in Granada; and lastly there was a tiny Taiwanese girl who I thought was 16 but turned out she was a chemical engineer for a company in Kazakhstan [SUPER COOL job, she worked exactly every 30 days, so during her 30 day breaks she would rent apartments and travel around or fly home to Texas, and during the 30 days she was working, she lived on the work base in Kazakhstan and had everything provided there.  Also, she told me Borat was wrong and that the natives of the country don’t look like the people in the movie; she actually was constantly getting mistaken as a local there].  I forgot to say we had a guide who was a little loco, he was from northern England and none of us could understand him, seriously, it wasn’t a regular British accent, it was like those people that say “GRRRRRRRANFATAA” instead of “grandfather” or “guillfen” instead of “girlfriend.”  He knew his history really well, even though he wasn’t from the area and was only in Munich since his girlfriend decided to leave England and he followed after her, we asked him how long he was planning on staying in Munich and his response was “until my girlfriend kicks me out”…..hmmm okay then.  Two hours later by slow-regional-train we reach Schwangau, the area where the castle is!

Back to Neuschwanstein, it was built for Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1868 but he only lived there for 91 days or so total, he was a bit strange and would invite a horse to eat dinner with as opposed to people.  The strangest was his mysterious death which you all should Google so I don’t have to type up a section from a Bavarian history book.  The castle is amazing and built on top of a mountain with a waterfall in the back; it’s actually the inspiration for the Cinderella castle.  I’m sure it looks equally as amazing in the wintertime as well.  To get pictures from a distance of the castle, I had to walk through this path in the woods and then go onto this extremely narrow wooden bridge, Marienbrucke, hoisted hundreds of feet in the air between two cliffs of the Alps…with about 70 people on it.  AHHH! We got some good pictures and I ran off that little bridge to safe grounds.  On the way back to Munich, a bachelor party decided that they wanted to play their gambling dice game with us, pick a number, groom picks a number, whoever is closest on the die has to pay whatever they bet or get a prize; the big basket of prizes was pretty sweet, lots of mini bottles of liquors and wines!  This was the first of about 150 bachelor and bachelorette parties that we spotted that night in Munich; I got some Brazilian cachaça for writing “Rybak” on some bride-to-be’s shirt since her new German last name was translated into “Fisherman” and she wanted it written in a bunch of languages.

Turned out that the two Midwestern girls were not only in the same hostel as Sammy and Dan, they were in the same ROOM.  So all of us went out to Hofbrauhaus that night, probably the most famous biergarten (beer garden) in Munich; it was one of the coolest environments ever, just about a thousand happy people of all ages singing and cheering and eating and drinking.  Historical fact, I’ve heard that Hitler actually got kicked out of there, not sure if that’s fact or legend.  There were more bachelor parties in there, and even more out in the center Marienplatz area.  Dan led the way for all of us, [not to support the stereotype, but guys DEFINITELY have a better sense of direction], and we found ourselves at another biergarten outdoors in a park, Lowenbrau! Mmm good beer.  By the way, Munich has 6 breweries: Hofbrau, Lowenbrau, Paulaner, Augustiner Brau, Spaten-Franziskaner and Hacker-Pschorr.

Next day I took a free walking tour of the city and took a lot of pictures and learned a lot of history especially to do with Nazism since it all started in Bavaria and Munich.  There were lots of landmarks that were important including the mark where a plaque honoring Nazism was hung and everyone had to “HEIL” it when they walked by, also there were two lions that Hitler gave speeches while standing in between but the irony there was that one lion faces the church with a closed mouth, symbolizing that you shouldn’t speak against the church and the other lion has an open month facing the Maxmilianeum, the state parliament, symbolizing that one can speak their mind against the government…well not with Hitler in between.  I skyped my parents from the Englischer Garten which is the biggest urban park in the world, much bigger than Central Park.  It evens has man made rivers, a surfing spot, and Nudists’ Meadow (can’t miss that one…its right when you walk in).

One girl in my hostel room was from Madrid and we hung out (I got to speak Spanish in every country now that I think about it!) and she told me lots of interesting things to do with getting a job or internship after college and the job markets in different countries of Europe.  She finished architecture in Spain but had a studied a semester in Germany as well, so after she graduated she got an internship in Munich at a good firm, and was doing pretty much all the bitch work in the beginning, but still was getting paid better than she would have in Spain.  When I told her I was visiting Madrid in a few weeks, she got me in contact with her younger brother who offered to show me around the city and to go to a music festival with his group of friends.  Making connections is so simple in Europe, it’s great.

Oh, one thing that I missed in Munich is seeing the Glockenspiel statues dance…it’s at super inconvenient times and I guess it’s overrated so maybe it’s not that big of a deal anyways.  Another fun fact, when the Swedes were invading and were demanding gold from Munich, and the citizens simply couldn’t come forth with the gold, they offered liquid gold.  Yep, they offered to pay in BEER.  The Swedes loved this liquid gold and fully accepted the offer, and Munich was SAVED!  Therefore they made more beer and perfected it and they put up a golden statue of the Virgin Mary on a big column in the middle of now-Marienplatz that is monitored 24/7 even though I think it’s quite difficult to steal a gold statue that weighs a few tons that is standing on top of a 60 foot column.

Anyways, Munich: fun time and great beer….and I don’t even LIKE beer usually.

Salzburg, Austria

After Leogang, my next stop was Salzburg, this was a last minute decision that I made during that week after talking to some of Nathalie’s Austrian friends who really recommended I check out the city.  So Salzburg became a day trip with just me and my heavy backpack, knowing that I had to be in Munich at 4You Hostel by nighttime.  So after the 2 hour train ride from Leogang through the mountains into Salzburg, [after realizing that the pricey blazer that I bought for my interview in Scotland was left hanging in Nathalie’s closet (face palm moment)], I finally arrived into Mozart’s city! Nestled in the mountains with the Salzach River running through, I was super excited and had a list of places to check out before heading on a train to Munich that night.  The weather was REALLY REALLY hot, at least 90 degrees Fahrenheit which was a huge difference from Barcelona where it was low 70’s [flash forward: forgot to pack sunscreen since I didn’t think it’d be needed, but I ended up getting sunburned in Austria and Ireland! Ironic since I kept trying to tan in Spain].

First thing I did after getting to Salzburg was go to the tourist information desk, get a map and have the nice lady circle everything that I should see, after that, I had a bit of a route to follow through the city.  I walked to the Mirabell Schloss and saw traditional pretzel stands, horse drawn carriages on the streets, and pretty white churches on my way.  The Mirabell Gardens were filled with thousands of flowers, all different colors, types and all planted in different designs.  The Mirabell Gardens are now used for concerts during warm summer nights, especially consisting of Salzburg’s native musical genius’s works, Mozart.  Also, the Sound of Music was filmed in Salzburg! “Do Ra Mi” was filmed in the Mirabell Gardens. On my way out of the garden I passed the Universitat Mozarteum and Christian Doppler’s birthplace (ever heard of the Doppler Effect in physics class?), a couple theatres and reached the Salzach River.  Since it was so warm, tons of students and young people were along the banks of the river eating lunch and catching some rays.  Crossed the bridge, walked around an awesome eco-friendly organic grocery store, then walked to the main street of Salzburg, Getreidegasse, where there are trendy shops, the house where Mozart was born, along with plenty of shops that sold Mozart-related gifts.  MARIA, the woman who sells a very specific type of handmade marionette puppets on the street for the past 27 years also is a daily regular on this street.

Salzburg was extremely clean, bright and everything was shining in the sun (did I mention that weather has a HUGE impact on one’s impression of a city or overall opinion of a trip?).  The plazas were beautiful and the Salzburger Dom was grand and similar to Roman Catholic churches in Rome.  After passing the Sphaera sculpture of a boy on a big golden ball I purchased a Salzburg specialty, a bosna. St. Peter’s Abbey was next, which is an extremely old church, cemetery and it’s all still functioning thanks to the energy from a water mill.  Then came the hike to the castle, Festung Hohensalzburg, which now I know that ”castles” are usually boring and unattractive forts on the inside while “palaces” are elaborate, BUT there were great views from the top of the Alps on one side of Salzburg, and the city on the other horizon.

At this point it was already late, I was exhausted from hiking around the city all day with my heavy backpack and took a city bus back to the train station.  I bought myself a Bayern Ticket to get to Munich from the ticket office [everyone speaks great English in Austria/Germany], and of course after glancing down at the ticket, I realized it was scheduled to leave in exactly 4 minutes.

Leogang, Austria

I was kindly reminded the other day that I haven’t updated my blog in over a month, and I can’t believe a month has gone by of me neglecting my blog! Actually, I haven’t been neglecting, not the right word choice. I was backpacking around since April 24 and not all hostels/places had internet so writing an extended post was out of the question. Anyways, I left off where I came back from Austria, Germany, Ireland and Scotland without describing anything.

So, early on April 24, after rushing to catch the metro and train to the airport in Barcelona I waited to board the little plane which just came from London, full of Chelsea fans coming for the Champion’s League game against Barca, clad from head to toe in blue who glared at my Barca sweatshirt as I waited in line. After boarding the flight to Memmingen, Germany, and here comes the interesting part, I realized the man who was putting his carry-on luggage under the seat next to mine was the same man who sat next to me on the metro from my flat to the train station, and then again on the train to the airport, and now on the airplane. Weird. Since this is all prior to the development of my extreme fear of flying, I sat back and listened to my music and watched the Pyrenees, Cote d’Azur and Bavaria roll under beneath. The funny pilot was American, which was a first for Ryanair, and he didn’t fail in making announcements over the intercom, the best was him singing “Welcome to ST. TROPEZ…du du du du” when we were over St.Tropez. So after landing in what Ryanair likes to call “Memmingen: Munich-West” (let me just say that it’s about 2 hours west of Munich, sneaky eh, closer to Switzerland) everything around looked like Poland which was a pleasant surprise, green fields and hay bales. I bought a bus ticket from Memmingen to Munich a week or so earlier so I looked for the bus company, which wasn’t hard since this was probably the smallest airport I’ve been at still. The same man from the metro, train, and plane gets ON THE BUS and sits behind me, this is where I get paranoid and start texting Cynthia and she tells me it’s like the movie “The Tourist,” which I don’t remember since it was so bad. Fast forward to Munich, some people got off at the first stop a bit outside the city, and the rest were waiting for the stop at the main train station, including me and mysterious-following-man. I just stood at the bus stop, since if I wasn’t going anywhere, I couldn’t be followed; so I just stood and watched, the man had a bike waiting for him at the bus stop (also a bit strange) and rode away. Phew, maybe it was overreacting but it was a weird coincidence. The Munich train station was huge and shiny and clean (I will keep complementing Germany since it’s so impressive and well-organized), I found the ticket office pretty quickly and the German counter lady apparently had difficulty in understanding the two words I said, “Leogang, Austria” so she sent me to the English speaking counter, where I still said the same exact thing and the man sold me my ticket to the tiny village of Leogang, with a transfer in Salzburg and a village further along into the Alps. The train was awesome and super fast and after transferring to another train in Salzburg, I was well on my way to getting to Leogang and since I always have technology problems and couldn’t call Nathalie, she thankfully called me as soon as I got to Salzburg and I let her know I’d be in Leogang in about 2.5 hours. Since the towns in the Alps are tiny, only a certain number of train cars continue past a certain point, well, I wasn’t in a car that was continuing on to where I had to go. I thought it was odd that there was no one left in my car and that the ticket-checking man kept repeating the same thing to me in German about Leogang, well he finally made it clear by having me get out and run to the front two cars where I hopped on and the train moved on about 25 seconds later, close call! Time to learn some German I guess. I took so many pictures on the train ride since it was literally through the mountains and clouds; being a mountain-lover, it was SO COOL!

12 Hours of travel, and I was finally at the Leogang station and there was Nathalie waiting! Wooo hoooo first friend from home that I was hanging out with since December! Nathalie works/interns at this amazing hotel in the mountains and there’s a bunch of people our age doing the same thing she’s doing so we went out with a few of her friends that night to the fancy shmancy hotel bar where the barman was one of her friends as well. All of Nathalie’s friends were super welcoming and so nice, and kept apologizing for their poor English yet they all pretty much spoke fluent English (this tends to be a trend in lots of countries). Funny moment was when I asked Nathalie to translate what people were saying/conversations, and she said she had no clue since Austrian-German is super different from the German spoken in Germany, kind of like American-English and Scottish-English; so I just continued saying the few words I learned, “nien”, “ja”, “vielleicht”, and some other things people had me say though I’m pretty sure they meant something different than what I was told. Anyways, before this post becomes a chapter, we went on some hikes/walks and places around the area during the days then out with the rest of the gang at night, including this cool bar the next town over one night. I passed as Austrian when we went out which was new since I think I was mistaken as Spanish MAYBE 5 times in the course of 6 months Spain, people would always ask “de donde eres?”. A couple of Nathalie’s friends were beyond confused as to what I was since they thought I was “Nathalie’s friend visiting from Barcelona,” then me and Nat spoke English together and they were like “whoa you guys speak perfect English” and then I threw in the fact that I was Polish, and that just caused mind boggling. Too much to process when combined with lots of Jagermeister.

Bottom line,

The Alps are beautiful,

Austrians know how to party,

Jager is good.

Ahhh yes! Hello again!

Haven’t written in a while, and as I’ve been laying sick in bed for the 5th day, I finally think to myself, I could update my blog! -.-  Anyways, I’ve been back in Barcelona for about a week since I did a little 2.5 week backpacking adventure to what I thought were going to be the coldest parts of Europe I could’ve chosen, yet weather in Austria and Germany was about high 80s, Ireland and Scotland on the other hand, 40s, but I was expecting it.  Anyways, I had the plan of getting a lot of work done in the office this week for my internship but a fever and extreme stomach pains had me wondering if my poorly washed grapes from the market the day before could have contained E. coli (I blame those medical websites, your symptoms always get matched up to dramatic things), anyways after not getting better for some time, I finally went to the ER yesterday morning and after lots of IV things and medicines I’m feeling better, in time for Mallorca on Monday!

Anyways, I’ll get to writing up about Austria and how amazing is was….NOW 🙂

School’s OUT!!

Actually…that’s a really sad fact.  My study abroad program has ended this past week and all the people that I became really close with over the past few months have either gone back to the States to do productive smart things like internships, research, and summer classes, or traveling around until they go back home.  We had a few going-away nights, with a bunch of people from the program as well as with the close knit group I hung out with the most.  Most of the girls I hung out with and traveled either go to school somewhere nearby on the East Coast and for those of you reading this, I’m going to miss you all!  Luckily, it’s not too hard to hang out if anyone visit Boston or NYC!  BUT, Mel decided to stay an extra month (yay!), Analy is in an advanced program until June (you native speakers, you), and Paige and me are fulfilling our dream of going to Scotland!

So let me full you in on my plans, after this stressful week full of exams and 5 papers, I get to look forward to El Clásico tomorrow!! I’m very nervous since Barça needs to win to gain points for La Liga, but just last week both Real Madrid and Barcelona lost in their Champion’s League games, yikes!  I’m confident Barcelona will win though and I can go run to Fuente de Canaletas just like I did in June and rage in the street cheering for the best team in the entire world (that’s not my biased opinion, that’s a pure fact).

On Tuesday, I’m packing up my new backpacking backpack and flying to a little city really far from Munich…but Ryanair manages to call is “Munich West”…yeah it’s about 2 hours away.  After a bus ride to Munich and a few train transfers from there, that night I’ll be in a small town in the middle of the Alps in Austria seeing Nathalie!  I’ll spend a few days there, Nathalie will be working during the day but we’ll hang out and I’m explore as much as I can, from there I’ll take a train to Salzburg and frolic through the hills and streets singing (if you can even call what I do “singing”) “Sound of Music” songs just like Julie Anderson and the Von Trapp family.  From there I’m going to Munich for 2 days, one of which will be a day trip to visit some castles of Bavaria, including Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspired the Cinderella castle (the one that inspired the Sleeping Beauty castle is in Segovia- fun fact).  I’ve always wanted to see it and since I’ll be in Munich I figured it’s worth the scenic bus ride.  Did I mention it will be Fruhlingsfest (Springfest, spring version of Oktoberfest) in Munich during this time? 😉

From Munich, the next stop is Dublin, where I’m meeting Analy.  One of the days we’ll be heading to Galway to check out the awesome cliffs and Irish countryside [just saw P.S. I Love You this week during “girl’s night” at my friend Scarlett’s house, perfect timing!  Now I need to find a Gerard Butler in a countryside Irish pub].  From there we’ll be heading to Edinburgh and Paige will be flying in from Athens after her lovely Grecian cruise, meeting us there.  FULL IMMERSION!  I’ve had a weird obsession with Scotland since forever, maybe it’s the accent?  Maybe it’s cause it’s so green there and that’s my favorite color?  Maybe it’s the pub atmosphere?  I don’t know why, maybe I’ll find out.  Anyways, we’ll be there for quite a while, besides Analy who has to go to class at the Universitat de Barcelona on Monday, so me and Piage are planning a trip up to the Scottish Highlands and going to Loch Ness (no Paige, I still won’t go on the boat), I’m also going to a campus visit and meeting the director and professors of University of St. Andrew’s School of International Relations for a postgraduate Master’s program.  YAY!!  I wanted to go there since forever as well, didn’t work out for undergrad but HOEPFULLY I get a shot at a Master’s program there.  OK, well I have to go so that is all I’m writing for now.  I’ll update you all on my travels and my plans after coming back to Barcelona from Scotland (Kaskade is playing the night I come back, perfect!), more travels after that!! Cheers! xx

Semana Santa Recap

I made a list of things I wanted to get done last week during the time off, and I was pretty successful. Saw Barça win against Milan and start the journey to a Champion’s League Cup 😉 .  Saw Hardwell at Opium Mar with my friend Lina (we actually went to the club a day earlier, only to realize the concert was the following day).  Saw the Titanic Expo at the Maritime Museum with Scarlett, so COOL!! I love Titanic.  Dyed my hair brown, semi-successfully, let’s just saw next time I need to use 3 bottles of dye instead of just 2.  And I did a lot of stuff for my internship for my super cool boss Ola. Now I just need to buy sneakers, go to the Miro Foundation and the library this week.

Hardwell was really awesome live and he was such a smiley and happy DJ, literally smiling and laughing and singing along the whole time.  Here’s some videos I took of him playing at the super swanky and posh club on the beach, Opium Mar:

Mysterious face halfway through….

I really like that song

Friday I took a 5.5 hour bus ride to the village in Aragón that my host mom grew up in before moving to Barcelona, well actually I took multiple buses and then got picked up by car since no bus really goes to this tiny village. First from Barcelona to Barbastro, there I didn’t have enough cash to buy a bus ticket to Fiscal, I was short 65 cents and after holding up the whole line, I resorted to politely asking the woman behind me, she was undoubtedly very rude and asked “No llevas dinero?”…”You don’t carry money on you?” and did not offer any assistance, I had 25 minutes to search this tiny town for an ATM, asked a police officer, asked a bistro bar, then spotted one after running around the center, only thing was that an Easter procession was on the street I’d have to cross, I really didn’t want to be stuck in the town due to a lack of 65 cents so I just ran through the procession.  Successfully got my ticket from the machine and sat on the bus, only to realize the mean woman who was no help at all was right near me. If I saw a stranger struggling to buy a ticket only to be short by less than a Euro, I would help out, but maybe this woman knows nothing about karma.  From Barbastro we went higher and higher into the Pyrenees, one-car wide lanes on the mountain with cliffs and ravines one foot off the road, scary.  Finally got to Fiscal where my host mom was waiting for me and we drove even higher up, to tiny Lardiés. By tiny, I really mean tiny.  All you Polish people out there who think you’re from a legit wioska…this village was literally 3 houses, sheep, cows, and mountains.  It’s called Lardiés and in it’s prime, 9 families lived there.  Today only 3 of the houses are livable and intact, the rest of the houses and the little church are abandoned and the stones are falling apart.  The water spring still works and theres plenty of well kept pastures where the sheep pastor tends to the sheep year round.  The houses are made for people under the height of 5’6″, walking around the house was an exercise in itself and I hit my head a bunch of times.  There wasn’t any internet which was really hard for 5 days, felt disconnected from everyone and probably part of the reason why I got homesick.  Also, Easter is not celebrated anything like the Polish way.  First off, Spain [besides for the region of Andalucia, more specifically Sevilla] is really un-religious, actually almost ANTI-religious.  There was nothing to do with religion during my stay in the village.  Good Friday consisted of a meal made of many meat dishes that I just didn’t have, my host mom saw the card my mom sent with Jesus and lambs (typical Polish Easter card) and she asked if it was St.Anthony, there were no eggs involved, and there was definitely no mass at any point.  I like Polish traditions 100x more.  And Polish food is much better.

ANYWAYS, yeah the Pyrenees are really amazing.  We went to Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park on the French border on Monday and it was breathtaking.  Words can’t do it justice, and I’m not sure pictures can either, but here they are: