micanopy1

***march 8*** Left JAX at 6:15am! Layover in Atlanta and then on to Dulles. Arrived 6 hours before BA departure - so Aunt Torrie picked us up and took us to Macaroni Grill, then shopping at Tyson’s Corner. Left for London at 6:25pm: dinner of lasagna and dessert. We entertained ourselves with movies, then I stretched out on an empty row of seats for a nap. Breakfast and then arrival at 9am. We bough express train tickets from Heathrow to Paddington (at Customs Cioci was interrogated about “how you can take a vacation when you’re unemployed and exactly how much money do you have?”) ---Welcome to London! The hotel was located at “Regents & Bloomsbury Parks” so we took the tube to Regents stop, then realized we didn’t have directions to the hotel! Cioci tried to ... read more

San Sebastian, the last trip of my trip to Spain, is on the north coast of Spain in the Spanish Basque Region where they too speak a different language (not Spanish) although I found that most of the people knew Spanish also. The only problem was reading the menus! Friday Left on a Friday afternoon on the longest bus ride ever - luckily I had an economics paper with which to entertain myself. We arrived in San Sebastian (the city all the Hollywood starts go to for movie awards in Europe!) around 11 at night and it started raining as soon as we stepped off the bus. We hailed a taxi (for the 5 minute ride) to our Pension, which was recommended to me by my host mom who had lived there for 3 years. The ... read more

I'm sure you've heard the stories by now, I just want to be sure that nothing was left out (there was quite a bit of wine tasting going on here!) *Should anyone be looking for a travel guide in the future, I come highly recommended by the Slupski family and I charge cheap rates - you only have to bring me along! Willing to go at any time! Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday I arrive in Madrid a little later than anticipated, but was excited to see Ed & Vivian at the Hotel Regina. After receiving all the hugs and kisses and catching up on the trip, we set out on foot for the Palacio Real, Royal Palace of Madrid. We made it there and got our ti... read more

How was Paris? Amazing, astonishing, astounding, wonderful, fabulous, fantastic, remarkable, sensational! I have learned that in 1989, everything in Paris that was originally constructed with gold, was re-gold-leafed (if that is a word?). Now, everywhere you look in Paris, it gleams of gold or at least has very fine gold detail. The city looks very stately and the Parisians were always out selling their goods on the river banks, enjoying their French cuisine at restaurants and walking about the city. If I even took a map out on the street, I had two Parisians at my side immediately to offer me any help I could possibly need. I can’t speak highly enough of how nice the Parisians were. That said, here is the re-cap of a weekend that was très bien! Thursday: We (the API ... read more

We left at 9am by bus for Segovia which is about 2 hours from Salamanca. Once there, we met our guide, Elvira, and she told us about the Roman aqueduct, which is the best preserved aqueduct in Europe. Some believe that it was built by the Romans in the 1st century to bring water from the mountains, a few kilometers in the distance, to the city. The Segovian legend is this: There was once a young Segovian woman who had to walk all the way from Segovia down to the river at the base of the mountain everyday just to get some water. One day she said aloud that she’d even sell her soul to the devil if he’d make it easier to bring water to the city. When the devil heard this, he made ... read more