The last weekend in May, we went to visit Seville (Sevilla). It was a great mix between Malaga and Madrid--mid-sized, fewer pickpockets, it maintained a homey feel but in a much larger and more commercial space. I would never trade Malaga for it, considering it was beachless, but I can easily see why it's the capital of Andalusia (Andalucia). The whole two days was honestly one huge blur, but very enjoyable. We spent a few hours wandering the streets and seeing Sevillan architecture before heading off to the Alcazar gardens. They were beautiful (not surprisingly), and had belonged to a royal [View Full Entry]

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My friend Julianna and I went to Rome over the last weekend, and needless to say--it was amazing. We managed to beat the stereotypical tourist experience by not getting any of our stuff stolen or being thoroughly molested by Italian men, and to top it off we got to see almost all of the major sites. Friday we got in late, and made it out to our hostel/camp area around 9:30. We stayed at a place called Country Club Castelfusano, which was in the Rome postal code, but out in the country. It was a fantastic campsite, we rented our own [View Full Entry]

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We got to visit Madrid this past weekend, and with some luck ended up with gorgeous weather and a wonderful time. Madrid is basically New York City, done Spanish-style...That is to say, with better architecture (beautiful architecture), and cuter pickpockets. We got there Friday afternoon and took a mini-tour before heading to a Italian buffet, and back to the rooms. Saturday we visited the Royal Palace and the Museum of Queen Sofia, as well as Retiro Park. The palace was incredible--we were only allowed to tour 23 of the 2800 rooms that it houses, but all were decked out. So much [View Full Entry]

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I had forgotten almost entirely that I hadn't written about going home. No worries, this entry will be substantially shorter than the last three. I left Cairo the afternoon of the 23rd, arriving in Zurich that evening. Funny thing about international travel: you should always check the weather. Cairo was, of course, blazing hot--so I arrived in the airport wearing a tee shirt and shorts, and carrying only my sleep clothes and various toiletries with me. Usually I have a backpack or something for a carry on, and can take a real change of clothes. This time, due to a misunderstanding [View Full Entry]

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SHARM EL SHEIKH WAS INCREDIBLE. Sorry, that's just a necessary preface. We left for Sharm the morning of the second day I was in Egypt. Sharm is like a little paradise inside of Egypt, and a huge tourist destination. I saw so many tourists it was incredible. But, with good reason. It's a natural beach with water so clear it's surreal. It's one of the top diving and snorkeling destinations, just behind Australia because of the clarity. Our first day there, we went and scoped out the beaches, and generally rested during the day. That evening we went to smoke hookah [View Full Entry]

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So, to continue the story of Spring Break, I made my way to Cairo the afternoon/evening of St. Paddy's Day, enjoying a connection in Frankfurt and delicious Lufthansa flight food. To be completely serious, I'm starting to really enjoy flying. I'm not sure what it is about sitting in a small seat and being fed microwave dinners that causes me to get all excited, but there's definitely something to it. I ended up in Cairo at 3:30 in the morning, which would've been fine except for the lack of sleep the night before and the current night, seeing as I had [View Full Entry]

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I'm splitting up my vacation stories into a couple of different entries, for simplicity's sake. In all honesty, I have 500 photos from those 12 days, so I'm going to really cut down on everything that I put up on here anyway, but I thought it might be more navigable if the photos were also in pieces. That being said, this entry will be devoted to the beginning of the trip, which was Dublin! I left on the Thursday directly preceding vacations (March 13th) to go visit my friend Zeke in Dublin, and stayed through until St. Paddy's, when I left [View Full Entry]

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A big apology to everyone who was looking forward to my updates! I promised myself weekly, at the least, and I’ve failed to live up to that…In my defense, the gods of the Interwebz definitely shut off the wifi at my house (probably related to the 40 gigs of Top Gear/Lost that I was trying to torrent…). That being said, I only have internet at the school when I drag my laptop up there. And that is precisely what I did today, with the intent of returning emails and writing a little in the blog about what’s been going on. As [View Full Entry]

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Minutia: There's a lot of stuff that's been happening, and a lot of thoughts I've had while here, but they don't necessarily fall under one time frame or set of ideas. Therefore, they go here, and then I will begin a more detailed entry about all the stuff that's been going on. I found a Walmart-esque store here, which really improved my mood. Having internet and a place to get all your stuff are both really high up on my "Things I Need" list. The store closest to me is called Eroski, and I've been there probably 4 times already. You [View Full Entry]

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Today I got to meet up with the rest of my group. We're pretty small, probably 15 in total, but everyone's really nice. On my way to meet up with my group, I got lost in the main part of Malaga. My host mother had shown me where I would be meeting them, but she told me that they would be on one side of the street, on Calle Larios, and they were on the other side, where there is a little fountain and park, etc. Anyway, I ended up wandering around Malaga by myself for a couple hours, not knowing [View Full Entry]

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