I last wrote about my big spring break trip, when I went to Paris, Brussels, and Prague with Alli. When I got back, a few days later I went with API for the weekend to this area in Spain called Extremadura, which was more out in the countryside--a place you generally wouldn't see/ go to if you went to visit. It was probably my favorite API outing--we went on a five hour hike from one town to the town we were staying at, where we stayed at an old monastery that was kind of creepy but also super fantastic. After not being able to walk for 24 hours or so after the hike, we came back and I met up with my mom! Many of you know that my mom came to visit me at the end of April (another reason why I wasn't able to blog much, so much constant traveling!!!) It was so great to see her (I know you're reading this too mom) and we spent the first two days in Sevilla. I showed her around a little bit, and then she got to meet my host family, which was probably one of the greatest experiences. My mom remembers some spanish back from her high school days, and apparently my host mom has been learning english (something I did not know at all!) and the two of them tried to communicate in the opposite language and I was having the greatest time trying to help them out. We went out for tapas together with Elisa (my host sister) and my roommate Jessica and it was fantastic.
So then my mom and I headed off to Switzerland. We stayed in Zurich and took some tours to places all over, like Leichtenstein, a town they referred to as Heidiland since it was where the story supposedly took place, Luzern, and Freiberg (in southern Germany). We had a great relaxing time together!
By the time I got back, I had another week off of school for this huge festival called Feria. It primarily takes place in Andalucia and everyone has their own feria, but I think Sevilla's is pretty big. There was this whole area taken over by these tents that were called "casetas" and were basically public and private bars for fiestas. There was also a hugeeee carnival area with all these rides (many of them very sketchy looking) but all the kids were having a great time. The popular drink of Feria is called Rebujito, which I'm sure you'll all love this, is white wine mixed with a sprite-like drink (if not sprite itself). yeah, there's not much more to say about that! haha, Anyway, it was nice to have that week off from school and just hang out and enjoy the cultural aspect of the city.
But by then the last few weeks of the semester approached and things had to get done. I went with API to the beach one day, which was beautiful, but came back with this gnarley sunburn on really awkward parts of my body. I guess that happens with really white skin, but it put me in more of a mood to attempt to study for my finals. Well, I didn't really study that much for finals. My finals/my classes were a joke. I had no will power to study for them, and I'm sure I still did fine (well on all of them but one, which was ridiculous, but I don't know my grades yet). Regardless of that, while I love school, this experience has been more about traveling and living than studying. So I managed to do a little bit of studying but a lot of living, and that was worth it.
And all of the sudden my finals finished, I had to plan what to do next, and I had to say goodbye to my new friends and Sevilla. That part came up so quickly that I didn't really process it that well. I quickly said goodbye to everyone and then was off on a last-minute tour with a company called Contiki around eastern Europe. There is so much I could start writing about Sevilla and my friends and everything, but right now I'm just trying to attempt to let you know where I've been all this time. Sorry.
Alright, so the Eastern Road. I flew to Berlin the day my program ended and by the time I got to the hotel I was supposed to meet my tour, they had already had their meeting and gone out to dinner. So I took the night to relax and get everything together before meeting my two roommates (Kayla and Courtney) for the next 13 days. I saw the schedule and saw that we had to generally be on the bus around 8:00 am everymorning and freaked out a little bit. This whole semester, I never really woke up before 9:00 am at the earliest (unless I was traveling) to start my day. So to have to wake up at 6:30 all of the sudden, everyday--well that was just crazy! But I did it somehow and my two roommates were proud of me.
We did a day in Berlin, then we drove down through Dresden (for lunch) and moved down to Prague. Prague was the only place on the tour that I had actually been too, but I still saw different things than the last time and had a great time. We stayed in Prague for two days, and the group and I pretty much all bonded at this point. From there we went to Vienna for a night and moved on to Budapest. All the places we had been so far had been really hot, and I think it was probably the hottest in Budapest--Kayla and I kept making jokes that we were in the Sahara--who knew!! After Budapest, we drove through Slovakia for lunch and then into Poland where we spent two nights in Krakow. We drove up to Warsaw for the last two nights and stopped in Auschwitz on the way which was an incredible experience. And then before you knew it, we were back in Berlin, getting off the bus and going our separate ways. It was a pretty packed and fast 13 days but it was such an awesome experience. There is really so much I could talk about just for this tour because we did so much, but there's just no time now to do that.
Now that we were in Berlin, Kayla, Courtney and I decided to crash with our friend Eileen who became our fourth roommate. Eileen had a single room reserved in the hotel and man it was a pretty small room, but the four of us shared that bed and it worked! Kayla went back to the UK and Eileen, Courtney and I decided to rent a car and drive to Amsterdam. We drove a Skoda around the audobons of Germany and made our way to Holland. The drive was a lot of fun and super easy until we hit the actual city of Amsterdam. That was so stressful driving in this city swaped with more bikes than cars, weird one way streets with trams going through and small street signs. We laughed about the whole thing later, but we were all freaking out. Eileen drove because she knows how to drive a stick. Courtney knows how to drive a stick too, but she is from Australia and wasn't used to driving on the right side of the road (and shifting with her right hand) and I was the map/leader, which eventually gave me the nickname of Moses. Love ittt.
We found our hotel which happened to be in the middle of the red light district which was hilarious. It was so ridiculous (the location and the aesthetics of the hotel) but it ended up being so awesome and completed our trip. We had a good time relaxing after a really fast paced tour with little sleeping, and we pretty much laughed the whole weekend.
I said goodbye to Courtney and Eileen on Sunday morning where I flew to London to meet up with Kayla again. We stayed in a huge hostel and ventured around London for a few days. I needed to be in London by the 3rd because that's when Matt and his friend Mike flew over here! Kayla went home and I went to the airport to pick up the boys and now I have started the last part of my European adventure! They needed to catch up on sleep/jet lag/time changes, so we took it slow and did some fun things around London, like a bike tour and started our "where's waldo" project, which is really "where is matt/mike/haley in europe!!" it's going to be awesome, and I'll post pictures when we are finished.
So we spent some time in Londontown and then on Saturday we headed off to Dublin, which is where I am right now, typing this all to you. We have had such a fun time so far on our trip, and last night was just fantastic because we met a bunch of locals. So far, I would have to say that the Irish are some of the most friendly people ever.
And that is where I am right now. Sorry that there were not many fun stories in there, it was pretty much me just telling you every place I have been recently, and why it is that I can never find the time (nor the internet access) to blog again. I hope that everyone is doing well back at home or wherever you are, and I still have two more weeks to go! Next we are going to Brussels, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Dusselldorf, Munich, Paris, Nice, Barcelona, and then I go back to Paris to fly back to the United States on June 24. I can't believe it's coming up so quickly already. There is so much to say about that, but no time right now! I must go to sleep. I hope you enjoyed this very short but super long summary of my travels.
Hasta luego!!
Haley
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