My Dad Thinks I'm a Princess!

This past weekend we decided to take a relaxing 2 day trip to the Loire Valley to see some real French châteaux!! We started in a town called Tours which is a little bit southwest of Paris. It is in the countryside of France and is absolutely GORGEOUS!!!!!!!! Let the fairy tale begin:

Friday morning we left at 8am. Funny story though -- my alarm didn't wake me up, so I literally got out of bed at 7:30... When we were supposed to meet. Hahaha!!!!! Typical. So I was looking realllllll good that day. Perfect start to the day :) I'm just glad I was already packed and we were only staying 1 night! We arrived in Tours, France about 12 just in time to eat the sandwiches we had made and brought with us. The tour started at 1:00 so we basically just sat at the tourist office for an hour... Cool I know. All of a sudden we see a couple of school bus yellow VW vans pull up. Ummmm what?! If there is more of a way to be spotted as a tourist, please, let me know. Luckily, we got a rocking guide who was really excited to take us into the countryside for the afternoon :)
As our journey began, we were introduced to the beautiful land full of rolling hills and farms scattered across the horizon. Literally, there are castles just hanging out around there. We saw 2 or 3 just on the way to the first one on our tour!!! Crazy!
We arrived to Chambord within about an hour and a half (after a nice nap in the car) ready to explore! Chambord is a giant estate that was originally built to be a hunting lodge so it is on a ridiculous amount of land! It also was built to resemble a crown, and it does. It's ginormous!!! Our guide got us our tickets and we took off running to try and see as much as could! Unfortunately, there was  fire in the castle earlier that day so part of it was closed off :( Boo. Probably due to the fact that there are 300+ fireplaces in the place!! I guess that would be nice after a long day of hunting in the forest though since France stays pretty chilly most of the time... It was incredible! Granted, it wasn't Cinderella's castle because it's so masculine, but it felt like a castle with its towering spires, intimidating walls, and lack of "homey" decorations inside. We meandered throughout it's hundreds of rooms (only seeing 2 wings) and took a stroll on the double helix staircase!!! That was so cool. I don't know how they did it, but it is impressive. After exploring the interior, we decided to go outside and enjoy the beautiful river and open space. It looked like an area out of a movie!! So so pretty!!

Next we were off to Chenonceau, the most beautiful castle in the Loire Valley and 2nd most visited castle in France behind Versailles! Seriously, it's incredible. It is built on the Cher River and extends out all the way across it!! King Francis I of France seized the castle from its original owner for unpaid debts to the crown. His mistress, Diane de Poitiers, was partial to the castle and after his death she took over. It was she who actually extended the castle out across the river and began building the gardens on the banks of the river. His widowed wife (Queen Catherine) took back the castle from Diane. She then built a separate garden and then there were 2. Since then, the château changed hands multiple times between the royal family and the king's mistresses. Yep, pretty much all of them had it for at least a while. Weird huh? I thought so too. Haha
Anyway, the castle is absolutely amazing!!!!! It's unlike anything you've ever seen before and looks fake almost. When you walk up to it (via a walkway with trees growing over it, mind you), it seems sort of anticlimactic. But it most definitely is not!! The 2 gardens are on both sides of the château and it just goes on forever over the river. It's really really cool. I can't even describe it.
After we explored the castle and the gardens though, we went and found the hedge maze!!! YES!! Like out of Harry Potter! It was so much fun!

After the castles we went to our hotel (Hotel Mister Bed... yeah). That was interesting. Hahahaha Very very interesting. But an experience nonetheless.
The next morning we woke up and went to some free wine tastings!! That was so much fun!! We went to this one called Montlouis. It was about a 10 minute taxi ride away but TOTALLY worth it. We tried 7 different wines both sparkling and still. The vineyards in this region produce grapes that make white wine and they specialize in sparkling white wines (like champagne). We tried a rose wine also that wasn't from the region just because the lady told us it was good :) It was. I ended up buying 2 wines from them and a wine glass :) WIN! On our way to the train station we found another wine tasting and of course stopped in!! The little man was precious. He didn't speak a lick of English so we all got to practice our French with him! He was so funny and loved joking with us! Some Irish men came in and we translated for them with the owner man.

It was a really great weekend that was quintessentially French!! Castles and wine -- what more could a girl ask for?! :)

I'm leaving in the morning for my 2 week spring break!! We are going to Italy and doing Milan, Florence, Venice, and a day trip to Verona!!!!!!!! Then I'm meeting mom, dad, and Katie in Munich and we are doing the castles in that area and Neuschwanstein which is the inspiration of Cinderella's castle by Walt Disney! :) :) :) Then we are doing Salzburg, Austria; Interlaken, Switzerland; Vichy, France (so I can show mom and dad around of course!!) then Paris, France!!!!!! :) :) :) I'm so beyond excited right now and can't wait to see all of these awesome places! Get ready for the best blog ever in 2 weeks! :)

Au revoir!

They Don't Speak Spanish in Spain?!?! (Part 2)

We now continue my Spanish adventure to the more relaxing side of the trip. Enjoy :)

FRIDAY APRIL 8th:

Friday we decided was going to be a very lazy day... I'm talking European lazy style, people. It's legit. So we woke up and had to move hostels first off. We were more than happy to be leaving hostel #1 after the scene we had witnessed outside the door the night before. We had to walk sort of across town, but it wasn't too far. We literally felt like we were in a new town!!! It was crazy how different Barcelona could feel depending on which neighborhood you're in! We were now in the Gothic Quarter which is really really cool. So after finding our hostel, we dropped our bags off then went to explore the famous Ramblas. OOOOOOH BOY!!! They are so fun! It's basically just a giant road but in the median, it's a pedestrian area with cafes, vendors, and funny/weird/scary street entertainers. Technically, it's a system of streets in that area that run through the middle of Barcelona, but it's really just the big one that has all the good stuff on it. It was a beautiful day so I got to bust out my shorts and a tshirt!! It was great. We took our time just meandering down Las Ramblas looking at everything and everyone! Our plan was to hit the beach for the day, but it's us, so we got distracted. Hahahaha All the entertainers on the Ramblas were so fascinating that we had to stop and check out a few of them of course! There was this one guy who was FLOATING!!!! I know, we couldn't figure it out either. I took a picture with him.

We then found this market that Rick had told us about and that Ellen had found online. It's massive!!! Of course we went in to look around and get some snacks for the beach. Seriously, there was anything you could ever want! Meat (heads, eyes, etc...), fruit, candy, eggs, veggies, fish, nuts, and smoothies!! We got some fresh fruit smoothies (I got coconut and raspberry and Ellen got coconut and mango) and continued to walk around looking at all the weird and gross stuff. Hahahaha I am still not (and will never be) ok with seeing full bodies of dead animals laying in a glass box waiting to be bought and consumed. The worst were the random heads of something that I believe are sheep just hanging out together in the box. Eyeballs and all. Vomit. But we kept going past all of that and to the fruit stands!! We bought delicious fresh fruit salads for 1 Euro! It had strawberries, mango, pineapple, star fruit, oranges, and I think grapes in it. Perfect for a hot Spanish day at the beach!! :)

But before we could make it to the beach, we needed something of real sustenance... What else but tapas?! When in Spain right?! We had our signature, patates braves. Booyah. Then we headed to the beach :) Hahahaha It was gorgeous!! That Mediterranean Sea is so blue and the sand was so white and fluffy! Oh and the sun :) Yeah, I have tan lines. It was amazing. We laid out for a good 3-4 hours probably before calling it a day. After going back to the hostel and showering, we went and had a fabulous tapas meal all the way up the Ramblas (the ritzy part). I don't remember the name of the place, but it was swanky. And delicious. We split (of course) patates braves, Ellen got a steak thing, and I got a mini hot dog!! And of course, a pitcher of sangria. INCREDIBLE MEAL!!! And it only cost about 6 Euros each! Unreal. And on the way back as we were walking through the Ramblas, we both bought new purses :) Hahahaha mine is a really bad Burberry knockoff and Ellen's is a really good Prada knockoff. I laughed at the guy when he told me it was real... This ain't my first rodeo. It feels like a picnic tablecloth. Hahahaha!!! Yeah, real Burberry. But it's still pretty and looks good from a distance! :)
Our 2nd hostel like I said was in a better part of town, but it definitely wasn't as nice... And it was what you would expect when you think of a hostel -- bohemian flair, very dorm-like, and lots of weird people. Haha We had a 8-person room this time so that was nice. But the window was not a normal window, no. It had an iron decorative thing on it and was completely open!!! As in no glass! Crazy nonsense! And of course I was top bunk right by it. Good thing we were by the sea!! Hahahaha!! It was an experience for sure.

SATURDAY APRIL 9TH:

Saturday morning we woke up refreshed and ready to go!! We had both brought cute outfits to wear one day since the weather was predicted to be so gorgeous. So we did exactly that, got all dressed up to explore the coast! We ate our included breakfast (and grabbed some snacks for later of course!!) and headed out. The plan was to head down to the pier by Port Olympic (Olympic village and where all the yachts are) then walk along the coast a bit then maybe shop. Since we had already done most of the "touristy" stuff, the next few days were sort of just do-what-we-please kind of days :) wonderful.
Thus, our adventure began. We walked for forever down to the Port then admired the beautiful beaches, sky, and boats!! It was still early enough that there weren't too many people out yet, so it was almost like having a private viewing of the area! But since there really wasn't a whole lot to do, we started walking again. This time we were on the hunt for Parc de la Ciutadella. I had read about it somewhere and knew we needed to see it because it took up like half of our map. Hahaha! So eventually we found it and went inside. It was so pretty!! It is attached to the zoo so it is very open and well kept. Unfortunately, there were some running clubs in the park that morning so they kept looking at us which was really awkward... Haha especially when I started eating my orange and couldn't get the peelings into the trash can. Whoops! :) As we began to explore the area though, we found a precious little pond in the middle of the park! It was seriously adorable! There were palm trees and benches around it and in the middle of it there were some plants and some little paddle boats that ducks were sitting on!! It was so picturesque. So obviously we took pictures. Haha typical. Walking away from the pond we found Gaudi's fountain!! Unfortunately, there wasn't any water in it for some reason... Weird I know. But it was still amazing! And random... Hahahaha but we thoroughly enjoyed it :)

Pond

Gaudi's Fountain

After the park we went back to the hostel and got dressed for the beach again! There were definitely a lot more people out today than Friday. Most likely just because it was Saturday and all. But it was still magnificent! I look at my tan line on my arm every day :)



So since we missed the Magic Fountain Friday night, we HAD to make it tonight. And we did :) We saw the early shows and the later ones. For the early ones (when it's still light out) it's very family oriented ie, Spanish Disney medley that the water was choreographed to!!!! We were dying. We found a little perch above the stairs that had a fantastic view of the fountain and the street on the other side. There was also a Catalan soccer game earlier that day so there were people running around in red and yellow clothing from head to toe... kinda reminded me of Ronald McDonald. But it was awesome!!! I'm assuming they won because people would drive by with their flag hanging out the window and honk and yell the Catalan chant. It was quite hilarious. And the amount of drunk people running around cheering for their team just reminded me of football season in Oklahoma... It's basically the same, right?!? But anyway, the fountain show was quite magnificent. And as the sun went down, the music got more serious (still lighthearted though) and lights came on in the fountain!! I was so giddy. Our "friend" we made while sitting there was enjoying it too. He was from Greece :) They were there with their school so there were like 50 of them! Crazy! So we watched the fountain show then tried to go to a place called "Shot Bar" that Becky had told me to go to but we couldn't find it... So instead we went and bought a 2 Euro bottle of Sangria from the grocery store and went and sat on the beach with a bunch of other people who had the same idea. It was a beautiful night in Spain and I couldn't have asked for anything better!!


SUNDAY APRIL 10TH:

Alright, so by this point we were seriously just ready to go home. Sunday was basically a wasted day. Hahaha not really, but sort of. We slept in and since we had to leave this hostel to go to #3 for the night, we just haphazardly packed up all of our junk. Here is where it gets interesting: So we decided that since it was Sunday and a bunch of stuff is free (like the cathedral and Picasso Museum) that we would go do those. So we walk out of our hostel and after getting out of the side road we were on the main road, ok. We heard drums as soon as we stepped out and were like "oh cool! A parade or something!" Ummmm yeah not quite. It was a 10K. I know that doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but DANG!!!! When we got back to France I researched it and here is what I found out: It was started 13 years ago as a fireman's race. Basically what they did was each fire station would have a team and it was like a relay. The catch? They had to wear all their gear while running... Yeah. Intense. But now it is open to anybody and 20,000 applicants were running in it this year!! WHAAAAAAAAT?!?!?! We literally couldn't cross the street. Hahahaha We eventually had to take the subway just to go under the street. It was really really cool though. If you want to research it google "Cursa Bombers 10k Run 2011" and see if you can find any videos too!! I got a couple, but they are like 3 seconds. The drums we heard? Yeah, they have people come out as a sort of pep band for the runners!! It's really fun and energetic! Unfortunately, for some reason people were dropping like flies (runners) which doesn't really make sense because a 10K is only about 6.2 miles. People who run shouldn't be passing out from that. It was still cool though.

Eventually we made it to the cathedral across the street. It was pretty cool I guess... Hahahaha no Notre Dame that's for sure. But they were having Mass so that was very interesting to witness! But there is a bunch of history with this place and I have a couple of stories compliments of Rick Steves. So there are X's all over the place in this church and that doesn't really make sense if you don't know what they are. According to Rick, there was a girl who was sacrificed there back in the day and she was only 13. She was tortured and sacrificed on a X rather than a cross so now they are in honor of her. Kind of interesting. Apparently her grave is somewhere in the church but we could only see about half of it. When you go outside to the other part in the back, it is a fairly open courtyard. There are geese. Hahaha Again, according to Rick, these geese used to be the alarm system for the church. If there was an intruder or any noise they would start honking and alert the clergy men. That's what I call high-tech security right there. Haha Now they are mostly just for nostalgia, but apparently sometimes they still honk at night. Cool fact.

After the church we headed to the Picasso Museum. It was free because it was Sunday! Neither of us are big museum people (thank goodness) so we literally flew through it!! Hahaha we were through that sucker in about 20 minutes. Most people spend at least 2 hours. I don't really know how, but true story. It was cool to see the progression he made though. His early works were amazingly good!!! Although, I am partial to his weird, abstract stuff more than the portraits or really good scenery paintings. So after that we didn't really know what to do with ourselves!! Hahaha Rick had recommended this "Sweet Tour" off of the Ramblas so we hit that up. We ended up only going to 1 out of the 3, but it was still so good!! We had Churros con Chocolate!! Basically there are little churro sticks and they bring you a mug with chocolate in it and you dip the churros in it and eat them!! SOOOOOOO GOOD!!! Too bad it was kinda pricey and could have split a cup of chocolate, but something that is stereotypical Spanish apparently -- so it was a cultural experience :) I was feeling a little under the weather mainly due to allergies since the flowers had all started to bloom, so we visited a pharmacia (pharmacy) to get me some drugs. And since we literally didn't have anything else to do, we went and grabbed some food and went back to the hostel at like 7:30 to pack up all our stuff to leave in the morning.

We had some creeper McGee's in our room, but they were slightly entertaining. I think they were German, but I'm not positive. Oh btw, this hostel had an underwater theme... It made for a very interesting night. Hahaha The rooms were all named (we were the Deep Room) and the bathrooms had signs on them like "Mermaids" and "Prepare your Tritons". Hahahahaha!!!!!! We were dying. And in our room there was a giant WHALE on the wall. Yeah, not kidding. It was hilarious!! There was a sign outside our door saying "Shhhh! Dreaming about mermaids and sea creatures is hard work" ........ BAHAHA!!!!!!! What?! It was a good ending point for sure.

MONDAY APRIL 11th:

We didn't sleep at all the night before mainly because people were coming in the room all night making noise and some idiot decided to open the window all the way making it FREEZING!!!! But we woke up just the same to catch our RyanAir flight back to France. We were way more than ready to be home. It was just inconvenience after inconvenience on that journey back though. So unfortunate. Our train from the metro to the airport was 20 minutes late, RyanAir doesn't label ANYTHING so we were running all over the Barcelona airport before we could finally get to security... What. A. Joke. They have 1 security point in the whole airport. Hahahahaha But we both got through and after proving that our bags did indeed fit the size limit, we made it on board and eventually back to Vichy. We were both just completely drained!! 

Seriously, it was a FANTASTIC weekend and I absolutely LOVED Barcelona! I would go back in a heartbeat. It's a great city with great food, great sites, and just a really good feel in it. We also learned that weekend trips are WEEKEND trips for a reason... Hahaha 5 days is way too long, especially if you pack everything into the first day and a half pretty much. But I had so much fun and made a lot of good memories!! Viva Barcelona!

They Don't Speak Spanish in Spain?!?!

Hola/Bonjour/Hello!!

I feel like I have been literally been traveling the globe with my country count for the past 2 months up to 5!! WHOOOOOO!!!! Hahaha
This past weekend Ellen and I went to Barcelona, Spain for 5 days! Yes, 5 days. And I only missed 1 class :) Glad my school is a joke, but my education is superb (brainteaser!!!) Within these 5 days of being super tourists we saw basically the entire city, stayed in 3 very different hostels in 3 very different parts of town (so much so that we thought we were in different cities!!), and did a bunch of stupid things. Please enjoy the stories and pictures :)
First off, Barcelona is absolutely GORGEOUS!!!!! I will definitely be making my way back to that city at some point in my life, no doubt. Secondly, if you didn't know, they speak a different language in Barcelona apparently... Yeah, it's not Spanish. It's Catalan. Good to know. Hahaha My Western Europe phrase book did not have that as an option unfortunately so we were literally flying by the seats of our pants on that one! Good thing people liked us :) Thirdly, I got a tan and ate wonderful food so I am already missing Spain!
I am going to be doing this post in probably 3 parts because there is just so much information that it will be easier to separate it all :) So this particular one is going to be days 1 and 2 (Wednesday and Thursday).

WEDNESDAY APRIL 6th:

We had the brilliant idea of booking our flights to Barcelona for this day because they were dirt cheap -- we figured we would be able to make it to class before having to leave... Wrong. We had to take the 6am train out of Vichy to make it to Paris in time to make our flight. Hahaha sweeeeeeeet... So we hopped our train (I slept) and made it to the greatest city in the world by 9am!! We had a solid 6ish hours to kill so we got our metro tickets for the day and hopped the metro to the Tuileries Garden. Oh my gosh. They had landscaped the garden with tulips in multiple colors and shaped up the trees and of course trimmed the grass. My breath was literally taken away as soon as we stepped through the gates!! It was so surreal. Everything looked fake.

So naturally we found some seats, put our feet up and had a snack while taking in the beautiful sights of Paris before us. Louvre to the left and Champs-Elysées to the right. It really was the good life.
After enjoying that wonderful treat, we started walking out to the Champs-Elysées so that Ellen could experience it!! And what do you know, we passed the pond/fountain where we (my family) heard little French kids "quacking" at ducks when we were here years ago! It was great. I giggled. So we walked the street up to the Arc de Triomphe and obviously had to be tourists and take pictures with it! Haha We made it all the way up the street then hopped the metro to the Eiffel Tower!!!!!! Ellen had never seen it so we had to go! We ended up claiming a spot on the grass in front of it to have lunch and nap :) It really was one of the happiest mornings of my life. Like a dream come true! During my nap, I may have gotten a little sunburned... Hahaha with a farmer's tan. Yes, classy. Whatever. If someone were to ask me about it I could just say "yeah, I got it while napping by the Eiffel Tower. What about it?" thank you very much. We people watched a lot and there were these adorable kids playing soccer right around us and I was obsessed!! They were precious!
After the Eiffel Tower we still had about an hour to kill so we were walking around on the other side of the Seine and found a dance crew that was warming up. We found a seat (the Eiffel Tower was their background of course... Haha) and watched them perform a hilarious/amazing little show! They were really funny too. After one of them attempted to "steal" my backpack while it was sitting on my feet! Haha It's a lot funnier if I could act it out... Just trust me. Ellen was dying.
RyanAir was an experience for sure... Hahahaha one that I will never be doing again actually! Not worth it. On board, they leave all the cabin lights on, play ads over the PA system, have the flight attendants selling you stuff such as cigarettes and lottery tickets!! What a joke. I was slightly perturbed/really amused that it was real life. But we made it safely to Barcelona and had to find our way to our hostel - at night. We were told to take a train from the airport to a stop that would meet up with the metro system. Easy enough right?? Of course not!! The directions we were given were crap and we had absolutely no idea what was happening. And it was around this time that we realized the language wasn't Spanish. Haha oooooh how I love traveling!! Always an adventure with such simple tasks! Luckily we met the most precious elderly woman on the train and she asked if she could help us out and she told us exactly what stops we needed on which lines and how to get to those lines. Such a sweetie!! We were both so relieved!! So eventually we made it to our hostel and it was super nice!! I loved it. We were in a 16 bed mixed dorm, which means there were 14 other people from all over the world, boys and girls. That was interesting. Hahaha Everyone was really nice though except one creeper who literally went crazy in the middle of the night when he made his way back after his night of partying. He was legitimately crazy. But we survived :)

THURSDAY APRIL 7th:

We woke up ready to start exploring the beautiful city before us!! We had made a list of things we wanted to see and looked on the map to figure out where they all are in relation to each other. Since all of our other trips have been like 2-3 days we had the urge to see everything as fast as possible... And we did. Hahaha we decided to do Sagrada Familia first. Wow!!! It's MASSIVE!! And for some reason (apparently it's common knowledge according to Katie) I didn't know that it has always been under construction and is no where near finished. We were very disappointed by the cranes and scaffolding but when we found this out, we realized it was just part of it's character! But we didn't go inside because it was like 20 Euros or something absurd like that!!! Eh, I'm fine with it.

Next stop, Gaudi's house!!! Also known as Casa Batllò, it is literally the most amazing building I've ever seen in my life! The outside is completely covered in tiles and there are absolutely NO 90 degree angles in the entire building! Amazing, right?! I know!!!! We learned so many fascinating things about Gaudi and the building because we got the audio guide. Oooooh yeah! So basically he modeled the house after natural inspirations -- the ocean, animals, plants... In the 1st room for example, the staircase to go up looks like the spine of a dinosaur. Real life, that's what the audio guide lady told us (I named her Rita). In the living rooms upstairs the glass above the doors are different colors depending on how/when you look at them. And in one room there was a mushroom nook!! Yes! Oh and the lightwell! There is this lightwell which is basically a skylight that has it's own open column going from the top of the house to the floor. The fascination you might be wondering? It is completely tiled in blue tiles, all different shades. But not randomly, no no. The bottom ones are very light and they get darker as you go up. From the bottom you can't tell because of how the sun hits them (he did this on purpose... GENIUS!) but as you go up you can tell they get darker and at the top they are a very deep navy. It's incredible! Everything in the house was made to be comfortable when you touch it -- literally everything. The door handles on the doors are ergonomically designed to fit the form of the human hand - no matter which hand you use!!! And the hand rails on the stairs are just like butter under your hands. It's ridiculously awesome and obviously I am slightly obsessed.
After leaving Gaudi's house, we decided to go get some food, and where else than a Tapas bar in Spain?! So of course we found a place called Tapas Tapas :) Hahaha I giggled, then chowed down. I had sesame chicken skewers, Ellen had a really good salad, and we shared patates braves which is potato wedges with mayonnaise (it's good, I promise) and hot sauce!!!! We literally ordered them at every tapas place we went in the 5 days :) 
So after filling up our bellies we headed to Parc Güell (another one of Gaudi's masterpieces). It is the famous park with the tiled benches that overlook the city. It was gorgeous!! Again, I'm obsessed. We walked around a bit looking at what the vendors had to sell then chose a seat to just watch people and the city from our eagle-eye view. It was divine. I was tempted to buy a little owl figurine from a vendor there but they were charging 6 Euros, it was tiny, and they wouldn't haggle with me!! So I decided that I really have enough owls... Hahahaha it wasn't a necessity. After having a breather on the benches, we started walking again around the rest of the park to explore. Turns out there's a "hallway" that is very cave-like that we played in for a while :) It was so fun! As we made our way down, we found another surprise - under the benches there's an area of all these columns (obviously holding up everything above it) and all tiled!! It was amazing! Gaudi really wanted people to enjoy this area and I believe he did a very good job of that :)

After leaving the park, we decided to head WAAAAAY south and west a little bit to a little area known as Montjuic. This is where there are beautiful gardens, the Magic Fountain (coming later), Olympic Stadium, and a castle!! Like a legit fortress. So we arrived and found out we need to either pay 10 Euros to take the gondola up or hike -- naturally we chose hike. We literally climbed a mountain, but it was totally worth it because we got to the top to find a giant medieval, stone castle awaiting our arrival. It was incredible. Seriously, it looked like it was out of a movie and on one side you overlooked the Mediterranean Sea and to the other, it was an eagle-eye view of the gorgeous city of Barcelona! So surreal! Best part, it was free :) Muahahaha!!!!! Of course, we hung out there for a bit, took typical stupid pictures, then made our way down hoping to catch a glimpse of Magic Fountain. Rick Steves told me about this fountain and said it is a "Definite Must-See". So we started the trek. What did we find along the way?! Olympic Stadium. NBD. The 1992 Olympics were played in Barcelona for those of you who didn't know. It was originally built in 1927 for the 1929 International Exposition and was renovated for the '92 Olympics. It has hosted concerts and many sporting events since. (Compliments of Wikipedia) We didn't get to go in because it was closed, but we took a couple of pictures of the outside and of the inside through the gates :) Win! There were also some foot prints on the sidewalk such as Rafael Nadal and Lance Armstrong!! Cool, right?! I KNOW!!! But we had continue our journey because the sun was starting to set and we didn't want to get caught in the dark... We're paranoid. Good news: we found Magic Fountain!! Bad news: it wasn't on... I was soooooo upset!! Actually, I was nervous that for some reason maybe it didn't run during the off-season or something and was going to cry if that was the case. Alas, after finding some tapas and returning to our hostel we found out it just runs Friday and Saturday nights from October-April :) It was only Thursday. But before we went back to the hostel we decided we should do something at least since it was only about 8pm and we didn't want to be 100% lame. So we saw this structure down the way from MF that legitimately looked like either a stadium or a bull-fighting arena. Being in Spain, both seemed plausible especially considering it said "Arenas de Barcelona" on the outside. Ummmm yeah, it was a shopping mall :) Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!! Seriously. How would anyone in their right mind think that this was a mall?!?!?

So anyway, we obviously walked around there for a little while to kill some time and it was cool. Then we went back to the hostel :) Hahahaha One thing you should know about our hostel: it was very nice, but not in the nicest part of town... Haha actually when we were walking back this night, once we were on the "street" (more like an alley) our hostel was on, we saw a couple of people in a small circle. What were they around?? A man passed out. Cool. We don't know what happened, if he was just really really drunk and decided to take a little snoozer in the street, or if something bad had happened. I like to think it was the first one. But that solidified our feeling good about moving hostels the next day :) For sure.


That's what I've got for now. Next post coming very very soon!!! (this one was the doozy)

C'est La Vie

Friday is where we left off, so it is where we shall begin. We skipped our run along the river and instead slept in to catch up on sleep :) Again, it was another beautiful day in Vichy so we walked around a bit running some errands and then went and bought masks for our masquerade party! It was a really fun party and everyone looked very nice. It was a birthday party for both Kristi and Melanie so there were a bunch of people there!!! After the party had started to die down, it was suggested that we should all go down to the river at like 2am!! I love this country! Hahaha So, we did! A big group of us trekked down there and were just hanging out. The stars out here are INCREDIBLE so I was fascinated by that fact in itself. Then Nico and Eleanor decided it was a good idea to jump in the river :) I was thinking about it... Literally had my shoes off ready to go. But I didn't. When it gets warmer I will though!! That was pretty much all of Friday... Hahahaha.

Saturday we had class at gross 8am... Ugh. That kills me. Almost literally. But Geoff being the sweetheart that he is, let us out at 11 instead of 12 so that we "could enjoy the beautiful weather and sun" :) And that we did!! After taking a quick nap (of course) we all headed down to the river in shorts and tshirts with all of our pasty-skinned glory!! It was awesome. There were so many people out and about just enjoying the change of seasons and basically just loving life. We laid out on the "beach" for a little while then joined some of our friends up on the grass for baseball and football games :) It was so surreal to just be there not worrying about anything and playing baseball in France... But so much fun! It really is the simple pleasures in life. Everything is finally a ridiculous shade of green (think super Crayola marker green) and there are flowers trying to bloom both on the ground and in the trees!! It's absolutely gorgeous!! Birds are out, ducks are out, and even more importantly, doggies are out :) frolicking and playing, probably just happy to be out of their homes! I don't blame them, I feel the saaaaame way. But following our riverside afternoon, we went to Flunch and had gelato :) It was perfection in a glass. That night we had a party at Nico's with everyone so that was again, a lot of fun. Hahaha that phrase seems very repetitive in this post... Whoops!! ;)

Sunday was a pretty lazy day for the most part. We slept in, showered, then went to Meng and Xiaohui's apartment and they cooked us the most amazing Chinese food I've ever had!!!!! (Well duh, it was authentic! Always better than the American wannabes...) We made Chinese cookie things with Nutella, a hazelnut/vanilla spread, honey, sugar, and beans in them! Don't worry, they were all separate cookies... And delicious! While we were making those, Meng baked some chicken she had marinated and oh my lanta. It was absolutely incredible!!!!!! I don't know how these girls do it, but they cook like fiends!! They then proceeded to make us fried rice! I was in love. They even cut up little hot dogs and cooked them in it!!!!! AAAAAAHMAZING!! Their apartment is ridiculously adorable too, just like them. It was such a great afternoon with great friends :)

Monday we had class in the afternoon, but Ellen, Kristi and I got up and went and ran some errands kinda early. For lunch though, I made some sandwiches and headed down to the river. I have this sweet bread so I took chicken slices (like turkey slices in the states but chicken), cheese, and RANCH and made some bomb-diggity sandwiches :) I grabbed my corn nuts and limonade as well and decided to just go walk around a little before. I meandered through the little streets in the heart of Veesh-town just checking it all out. I found a really cute road somewhere, but will probably never be able to find it again.... Hahahaha!! At the river I was just eating watching the duckies play in the water and see people walk by with their doggies. Something I've noticed a lot here -- people rarely use leashes on their dogs. They just walk and they dog follows (or in most instances runs ahead) of them but never gets too far. And the human is almost always reading a book WHILE walking! It's so bizarre! But these 2 guys came near where I was and they had 2 dogs with them and when I was reaching in my bag at one point, I look up to see a giant dog face right in mine and he was trying to get in my bag!! HAHAHA!! He licked my arm a little bit just trying to get around into my bag before his owner came over to take him away. It was really funny and when I looked over at him like a minute later he was just sitting there looking at me with the saddest look on his adorable little face! His name was either "Flush" or "Flash". I couldn't tell. I'm hoping it's the latter though... Hahahaha. Then I packed up and went to class!

Tomorrow (technically today) Ellen and I are going to BARCELONA, SPAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so beyond excited!! We get to spend the morning in Paris because we are taking the 6am train (kill me) from Vichy and will be in Spain in time for their dinner! Hahaha Oh and J-Biebs is playing there tomorrow night too... So we're hoping we somehow run into him or something since we're missing the concert. Hmmm... We are just really excited to get to relax and see some cool stuff and eat great food all in the sun and 70+ degree (Fahrenheit) weather! It's going to be great and I can't wait to blog about it when we get back!

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday!! :) :)

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson