skiafnm
Nate Henderson Joined: May 23rd 2006
Logged in: October 14th 2008
Logged in: October 14th 2008
I will be in Spain from 5/24-7/1 then traveling a bit and then in England from 7/16-8/12
Travel Blog Posts
Eiffel Tower
Well this past weekend marked then end of my travelling in Europe but it was a great end. We were given an extended weekend by our program here in Oxford (no classes on Friday) to allow for travel so Nila and I headed to Paris. We left Thursday right after class and got in around 10pm. The flight to Paris out of London is remarkably short (like 45 minutes) but our airline still managed to serve drinks and a delicious little snack. As usual, I'm quite limited on computer time and I have a lot of pictures I want to share, so I'll have to keep this short. (When I come back to Europe, I will definitely be bringing a laptop. There is free Wi-Fi everywhere... and this whole sharing computer time with 130 people (or ... read more
A view down river
So this past weekend, Nila and I traveled to Salzburg. We left Friday right after class and worked our way to Stansted airport, westish of London. Salzburg is a beautiful city but also it is supposed to be a rainy one. The forecast for the weekend was scattered showers both days so we weren't expecting great weather but we were quite fortunate. It rained early Saturday morning, but that was pretty much it for the entire weekend! The city of Salzburg is best known for being the birthplace of Mozart. There is an annual music festival that started Saturday while we were there so we expected it to be pretty crowded with tourists. To our surprise, the city wasn't overrun with tourists. The city is also known for some movie that was filled here a few ... read more
Tower Bridge
Well... I'm finally back in an English speaking country after a short 2-months. I'm writing from the computer lab in Oxford, but I'll post a brief update of my time in London. I flew from Barcelona into London on Wednesday the 12th. I met up with Nila and her dad in the Stansted airport and we headed into town. Wednesday: Wandered around the southern part of the Thames river. Ate dinner at a place called The Anchor which was quite good. Thursday: Got up early and headed to Westminster but didn't enter because the they wanted £12 which translates to roughly $24 dollars. One thing we found all over London was that the churches charge an really steap admission fee. I mean, 12 dollars would have been a lot of money to get into a church ... read more
Plaza de Toros
Since there are some of you out there who should not be reading this entry, I´m going to rate this entry RB (that is: Restricted due to Bullish content). What this rating means is that anyone under the age of, say, 15, those who do not wish to see photos of the running of the bulls, and all mothers are strictly prohibited from viewing this entry and the photos contained herein. On a more serious note, I have posted pictures of the running of the bulls and a couple from the bull fight that we went to in Pamplona. If you don´t think you want to see that, please use the ¨Back¨ button on your browser. *ahem* I remind you that all mothers should no longer be viewing this entry. So we got up early yesterday ... read more
Crowds for the Pope
Sorry it has taken so long to update... I´ve been working on this entry in bits and pieces in various Internet cafés. I´m currently in Barcelona so I´ll update you all to this point. I left Granada at about 11pm last Friday on a night bus headed for the Madrid airport. The bus got into the airport around 4am (now Saturday morning). I had a flight out of the new terminal which isn't connected to the other three Madrid terminals, so I had to tell everyone goodbye and catch a bus out to my terminal. It was sad to say goodbye to all the friends I've made over the past 6 weeks but what can you do? My flight left Madrid just after 7 and landed in Rome shortly after 9. When I stepped off the ... read more
Streets at night
*edit* Monday, 6/26 -- I´ve added several more photos of the Alhambra and our hike yesterday, plus a short little bit on the hiking trip. I didn´t really have enough to write to merit another entry... but I think there are some good photos. */edit* So Corups Christi was amazing. The whole city prety much shut down to celebrate and have a good time. There were bull fights all week (although I didn´t go... I´m saving that for Pamplona after all those silly people run with the bulls. I will be watching from a safe distance, of course...). There was also a huge fair just outside of town. We went to the fair on Wednesday night (10 days ago) and had a really good time. All the rides and such were pretty expensive but were awesome. ... read more
Looking up at the bridge
Sorry this wasn´t already posted... I haven´t been able to log into the site for the last two days due to server problems on their end. The plus side of that is that I had lots of time to go over pictures and find a few good ones. Enjoy! So this past weekend, the same group of 8 of us that went to Nerja went traveling again. As I mentioned before, we had Thursday and Friday off for Corpus Christi so that gave us a nice long weekend to get away. We left on Friday on a 7:10AM train for a city called Rhonda. This city is famous for the gorge that runs and the old bridges that traverse the gorge. We got into the city around 10:30 and started wandering around. We found one of ... read more
Inside the Cathedral
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words... So I´ll write a little and post several pics :) This past weekend was a fun one. On Saturday, we went as a large group (70+) to Córdoba and toured the Cathedral and the city. On Sunday, a group of 8 of (including myself) went to the beach city of Nerja. Nerja is about 2 hours by bus from Granada so we cought an early bus (7:15) to take us down. The city is by far the prettiest of any I´ve seen in Spain. The mountians literally lead into the sea in some places and the Mediterranean is absolutely gorgeous. When we got there, we found a little market that was, suprisingly, open on a Sunday, so we got food and drinks for the day. We ... read more
OK... It´s time I got this up to date. We went to Toledo after going to El Escorial but I don´t have access to those pictures right now due to computer restrictions so I´ll hold off on that entry. Last Monday (5/29) we traveled from Toledo to Granada where we met our host families and got settled in. This entry will be an update from then until now (6/6). I am living with a single mom in her 40´s and her son (19). The mom has to work full time so she isn´t around a whole lot and the son doesn´t have classes during the summer so he is always out late and usually gets up around 1-2 in the afternoon. I´ve discovered that mom has a boyfriend who seems like a nice guy although they ... read more
Pic of the Monestary
Today we headed out of Madrid and to the little town of El Escorial. It is 30ish minutes North of Madrid. There we saw a beautiful Monestary that Felipe II built to celebrate the Spanish victory over the French in the battle of San Quintin. The monestary is also has attached to it a royal residence where Felipe II eventually died. For the tour, we had an amazing guide who spoke gramatically correct Spanish so we could all understand him. When we got there, there was a wedding just finishing in the church. Apparently, the church is such a popular place to get married that you have to book at least a year in advance. On the plus side, it only costs 1000 euros (roughly $1300 USD) and that pays for the church, flowers, priest, and ... read more
