Although the time has flown by, having practically nothing to do the past week has made a good close to my stay in Barcelona. It has given me time to spend with my friends and walking around the city to take it all in. Yesterday was "El Dia de Sant Jordi" which is the patron Saint of Catalonia. It is basically their Valentines Day but with celebrations more like the 4th of July. It is traditional that men give women roses and women give men books. It was incredible to see the city transform and a wonderful way to spend one [View Full Entry]

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There isn't a whole lot I have to say about the trip because I think that the pictures speak for themselves. My friend Hana and I flew into Pisa, Italy and stayed one night there. The next day we saw the leaning tower (yep... it's leaning), and then headed to the farm near Florence where we stayed the weekend. The farmhouse was built in the 1700's and the family living there has tried to restore it to that style. It unfortunately rained a lot, but we still made the most of it and got some sunshine here and there. Sunday we [View Full Entry]

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Okay so this is a little late, but just pretend like I wrote this 2 weeks ago. Martin picked me up from the train station and after apologizing a million times for his “bad English” we drove to his apartment. I was so tired that I felt like I was floating. We got to his apartment and I immediately took a shower. Not only was the train not very comfortable… it wasn’t the cleanest thing either. Martin’s wife, Natalia, had left us breakfast which was a meat plate, a veggie plate, and bread. Interesting what other cultures consider breakfast. On their [View Full Entry]

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I have been trying to figure out the best way to tackle sharing my Greece trip, so I figure I will just break it up by days/places that I went. Here goes... We left Barcelona on Friday afternoon and arrived in Athens very late that night. Holly and I flew together and Rose and John left on a flight a little later. Swiss Air is definitely a nice airline. They give you Swiss chocolate, which I will confirm is the best there is. We also got to fly over the Swiss Alps, which looked like they were some kind of fairyland. [View Full Entry]

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We had to get up around 4:30am to get our ferry. We wanted to get there early just in case... well I don't know just in case what. We just wanted to get to Santorini. However, Holly is a bit of an amateur traveler, so we got there 2 1/2 hours early... WWAAYYY too early. Anyway, we found 5 taxis sitting together hanging out and talking, and the drivers were very friendly for 5am. I was just waiting for my good impression of the Greek people to be ruined, but it really never did. I will say one thing, they are [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday was spent mainly trying to keep sane. We came to learn quickly that strikes are a very common thing in Greece and so are changes of schedules. John and I went to get on our ferry back to Athens that was supposed to leave around 3pm Wednesday. We got there at 1 or so and waited… and waited. Finally 3pm rolled around and we found out that during that part of the season the boat doesn’t come until 8pm, and sometimes just decides to get there after 9pm. We had already paid almost 15 euro to get down to the [View Full Entry]

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{A little background before I start this one. My Grandpa (Dad’s dad) is from northern Greece near Thessaloniki. Around 10 years ago we got a letter from one of his cousins trying to make contact with us. When I decided to go to Greece for spring break my parents dug out the letters and looked up the name to see if we could get a hold of them so I could meet them. After a few weeks we got an email back, and they wanted me to come and visit. Eleni is my dad’s cousin and she is married to George. [View Full Entry]

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My last day in Thessaloniki was spent with the family. We had a lazy morning and then went to meet Eleni's other sister Alexandra and her husband Gregory. Alexandra was exactly what I imagined a Greek Aunt would be like. We met them in a parking lot of a grogery store so we could follow them to the restaurant where we were going to have lunch. As we drove up, Alexandra had her cane raised above her head waving it at us. We pulled up and she opened the door and grabbed me gave me kisses and almost suffocated me in [View Full Entry]

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Last weekend we went on a trip to the Basque Country. The weather was fabulous and we got to see both the countryside and the city. I would recommend visiting Northern Spain to anyone who makes it over here; it is an entirely different part of the country. We flew into Bilbao on Friday morning and took a bus to San Sebastian. It was a lot of fun getting to see the country from the bus. It was one of the first times I've seen a farm or lots of grass and trees since I've been here! Barcelona is such a [View Full Entry]

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I never really got a chance to explain our Paris trip, so here we go: My friend Rose and I went on the same flight as several other people in our program, but we didn't see them again after getting off the train. We were so busy sightseeing that we had no energy to try to meet up with anyone else. We got to Paris around 10am and made our way to our hostel. A guy sitting across from me on the train heard us speaking English and so he asked us where we were from, etc. He ended up being [View Full Entry]

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