carnival

Carnival '09 in

Sitges- The Gay Capital of Spain!



Check out more pictures HERE!

Carnival was honestly unlike anything I have ever experienced before. We boarded the 5 buses headed for Sitges (about 45 minutes outside Barcelona) around 10pm with 500 of our closest American study abroad friends. They basically drop us off in the middle of the beach, hand us each a bottle of champagne, and send us on our way. There were sooooo many people in the most outrageous outfits. Everyone was decked out in bright colors, feathers and masks. Its like a giant block party with people all over, dancing in the streets, etc. We ran down to the water and took lots and lots of pictures! We finally arrive home around 5am, just enough time to grab a couple hours of sleep and head to class. I have never seen the IES classrooms so empty. My Media & Politics teacher called it the "Carnival Effect" and said that 15 people were absent from his earlier class (my class was missing about 10). I'm exhausted but it was definitely worth it! Well, I'm off to bed! Goodnight! Molly

switzerland

Hello again! Since I have a huge paper due tomorrow I thought this would be the best time to post about our trip to Switzerland last weekend! Here goes! Enjoy!

Thursday
So our flight out of Barcelona was at 11am and things went smoothly for the most part. We took the AeroBus from Placa Catalunya to the airport and except for a little delay at first, things went well and we landed in Geneva in just over an hour. So we converted our money into Swiss Francs and grabbed a cab for the hotel. We stayed right in the city center of Geneva in a nice little hotel right next to the trainstation and metro stop. After quick dropping our stuff off, we wandered around the city for a little and then headed to the Red Cross Museseum. Although the setup of the museum is a little confusing, it was an awesome experience to see. The museum has an extremely interactive approach to it and through videos, real-life displays and headphones, you really do get a feel for what kinds of things the Red Cross has accomplished in the past and still does today. One of my favorite parts was the makeshift bunker they had as part of the display. After you walked in the room with a squishy floor and surrounding you was all the equipment and supplies that a family needed in order to survive for one month in there. Some of the things I would have never even thought of. There was also a really neat display about the Geneva Convention and the signing of the agreement. After the museum we headed to dinner at a little pub/restaurant right by our hotel. The food in Geneva was to die for! We were exahusted from a long week and day of travel, so after dinner we headed to the hotel and took a sauna, watched some CNN (the only channel in english) and went to bed for an early day Friday.

Friday
So we had the brilliant plan of waking up early on Friday to go to the United Nations and tour it on the early side in order to catch the train into the mountains early. So we get to the UN at around 9:30am and wait around for the tour at 10am. After about 45 minutes, we finally ask a security guard why the tours hadn't started yet and we were informed that they weren't allowing tours that day because of a demonstration that was scheduled for that afternoon. HUGE BUMMER. I was really excited to visit and was really disappointed when I learned that it wasn't going to happen. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to go back to visit :) So we shopped around a little bit and then went back to the hotel in order to make our check out time. We grabbed a quick lunch by the train station and hopped on the train to Sierre-Siders to visit a friend Diego. Okay so a little backgroud on Diego before I go any further. His family is from Mexico City and moved to Hopkins when he was 7. He went to Eisenhower/North/Benilde and then his family moved back to Mexico City right before our Junior Year. So he was friends with all my friend's from Hopkins as well as a lot of the people I know from Benilde. He goes to Hotel Management school in the Alps at the #1 Hotel Management school in the world- Les Roches. When he found out about everyone studying abroad in Europe, he gave and open invitation for anyone to come visit and stay with him. Kelly was good friends with him at Hopkins so he was really excited to have us come visit. So after the 2 hour train ride up into the mountains, Diego picked us up at the train station about 20 minutes outside of the town he lives in. Driving up through the mountains was amazing, not to mention gorgeous! We drove past his school and into the ski resort town he lives in Crans-Montana. He describes is as the "Aspen of Europe". He basically lives in a ski chalet and goes to school everyday overlooking the Swiss Alps. HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS SCHOOL BEFORE?!?! seriously! So after hanging out for a little Friday afternoon, Diego made us dinner (quesadillas) and took us out to a pub and club that everyone from his school goes to. It wasn't too late of a night (a night change from the nightlife here in Barcelona) and we went to bed with big plans on Saturday.

Saturday
So Tess really wanted to go skiing on Saturday so she woke up at the crack of dawn and busied herself until the rest of us woke up finally around 10:30am. After realizing that we had absolutely no ski clothes or equipment, her dream of skiing in the Alps slowly started to fade. We grabbed a delicious lunch at one of Diego's favorite restaurants and walked to the base of the mountain and bought gondola tickets up onto the mountain. There were so many people skiing and boarding but the four of us climbed into the gondola and oogled at the AMAZING sites. I seriously cannot get over the fact that thats where Diego goes to school. Like his "Oxford, OH" is a ski town in the Alps- how unfair! We spent a good half hour just sitting in silence at the mountain-top restaurant drinking hot cocoa and taking in the breathtaking views. We sat around for an hour or two and took SO MANY pictures. After we rode the gondola back down, Diego took us down to this school and showed us around and everything. The way his school works is really cool. Its run like a restaurant/hotel. So the first-years are the wait staff and "go to school" setting up the dining room and waiting on the other students. The second-years are the kitchen staff and work to prep the food and organize the kitchen. Lastly, the third-year (Diego's year) take management classes and act as the restaurant patrons. After we hung out at his school for a little bit, we went over to one of his friend's house and watched a movie (The Last King of Scotland) and made dinner (spaghetti). We went out to the bars again but had another pretty early night in order to wake up and catch the train back into Geneva the next morning.

Sunday
Our flight back to Barcelona wasn't until 4pm so we had time to kinda wander the airport (good thing because our gate was sooooo far away from anything). And we had an easy flight back and got back around 6pm- completely exhausted. Oh! Something I forgot to mention earlier about Switzerland is the AMAZING water. Its easily the best tap water I have ever experienced in my entire life. We would take turns standing at the sink and chugging glasses of the freezing cold, crisp water. So good! I'm getting thirsty just thinking about it. Anyways, Switzerland was absolutely amazing and I definitely could go back and spend some serious time there.

Stay tuned for a post about Carnival!!!
xoxo Molly

On a personal note

Dear Friends and Family,
My sincerest apologies for not writing in such a long time. You see, I find it difficult to articulate what it is I love about the time I have spent here in Barcelona. No list of activities or written description of recent occurrences can communicate well enough how I feel. I guess there is just something about being a young adult in Europe! In essence, I don’t feel like I am “on my study abroad experience” but rather I am living my life of choice. I have chosen to study in Barcelona during this time, I have chosen to live with a family, and everyday I chose how and with who I wish to spend my time. Five weeks into my stay here, I have developed some incredible new relationships as well as built on some old ones.
This past week, I found myself deep in self-reflection and universal thoughts. Perhaps this has something to do with the topics I study in class (archeology, art, history, and culture in Spain), the movies I have recently gone to see (Revolutionary Road, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), or just because this is something I do. Whatever the cause of these thoughts, I have concluded that in order to achieve a life I define as personally successful all I need is: to know and love good people, enjoy what I am given, feel a sense of independence, and work to make the changes (or maybe just one change) I wish to see in the world a reality! It has never been so clear nor seemed so simple to me. I strive to live according to these objectives during the rest of my time here and where ever I may venture in the future.
At this point- I consider myself very fortunate with the life I have lived!

Thank you for being a part of it <3
Tess

amsterdam (a little late!)

Okay so I got a little behind with this blog thing but I'll do my best to get you up-to-date. Be sure to check out my pictures from Amsterdam and all my travels HERE

Thursday

So since our flight on Friday was at 6am, and the airport we flew out of was an hour away, it was a pretttttty long travel night/day. I met up with some girls I went to high school with Melissa Zerin, Courtney Baratz & Lauren Scholder and their 3 roommates on Thursday night after dinner. We hung out and had a quite night until about 3am when we left to go to the bus station. We caught the 3:15am bus to the Girona aiport (about an hour outside of Barcelona). After a couple minutes of sleep on the bus, we arrived at the Girona airport and did the usual airport stuff until our flight started to board. Now maybe its because we are taking the cheap flight/airlines around Europe but I experienced something I have never experienced in my life- unassigned seats on the airplane. Now I'm sure you can imagine the type of chaos this leads to seeing as people literally RUN to the plane in order to get the best seats with the people they want to sit with. It was quite the experience to have at 6am on no sleep. The flight there was easy enough and we landed in just under and hour and a half. We didn't fly into the main Amsterdam airport, so we had to take another 2 hour bus ride from the airport into the city center of Amsterdam. By the time we got there is was 10-11am on Friday and our day was just beginning.

Friday

So the city center of Amsterdam is quite the quaint little town. There are tons of cute little shops and restaurants surrounded by beautiful canals and cobblestone streets. We were still hauling around all of our luggage so after walking around for a little and grabbing something to eat, we headed to our hotel to drop our stuff off and take a little nap after our long journey. Later that afternoon/evening we ventured over to the Anne Frank house to take the tour. It was an incredibly moving experience being able to be inside such an important part of world history. Though the annex was not large by any means, it was actaully a lot bigger than I had imagined it in my head. The part that struck me as the most shocking is how mundane and dreary the days must have been spending day after day in the dark rooms of this attic space, with blackout shades over the windows and unable to move around during work hours. It's unreal. After finishing the tour, the eight of us went to dinner at an amazing little italian restaurant and walked around for a little bit more before calling it a night and going to bed pretty early.

Saturday
Saturday morning we woke up on the early-ish side and headed towards a popular part of the city called Leidseplein. There we found so much good shopping as well as a popular place to stop and eat. After speading a couple hours wandering along the streets and canals of this little area we established a couple things. Though the shopping appeared good and we shopped for hours, none of us made one purchase clothingwise in Amsterdam. We also found a delicious bagel shop and muffin store which we returned to at least 3 times throughout the day on Saturday. They were LITERALLY the best muffin I have had in my whole entire life. The blueberry muffins weren't just yummy on top (like muffins normally are) but they were sugary and gooey and delicious all the way to the bottom. I think I made up for all the food I haven't been enjoying in Spain through at least 2 or 3 muffins in Amsterdam. Then we decided to go check out the museum district of the city. Its an adorable little square and courtyard in the wealthier part of the town with the ReiksMuseum and VanGogh Museum within 5 minutes walking distance of eachother. I could have spent the whole day in the courtyard with the I AMsterdam letters and skating rink and playground except that it was FREEZING cold out and we immediately decided to head to the Van Gogh gallery after snapping some pictures. After wandering around for another couple hours we headed to our dinner reservations. We ate a place called SupperClub Amsterdam and it was definitely an experience. The "tables" we actually like sofa/bed type things with a table sitting in the middle. The eight of us shared 2 tables and sat as costumed waiters served us a set menu which I actually enjoyed (except the fish, but hey I tried!) After dinner we headed back to the hotel for another early night (what can I say, travelling is tiring!) and prepared ourselves for the long trek back to Barcelona.

After taking my second travel weekend, I definitely had developed an appreciation for the city of Barcelona. I was overjoyed to return back even though I had an amazing experience in Amsterdam. Not only is the weather amazing here, but I am reaching a level of comfort that is so enjoyable to return to. My "routine" here varies enough from week to week that each weekend seems like its own little vacation, but without the hassle of group tavel and planes, trains and automobiles. Travelling in a group of eight was definitely an experience as well....if you catch my drift :) Sorry this post took so long to come to life. Stay tuned for my tales from Switzerland!!!

Besos! Molly

london

Okay, so it's not technically my turn to blog this week but I thought I'd give you guys a quick briefing on my trip to London this past weekend! I've uploaded all the pictures HERE so you can check those out too! London is one of my favorite cities so I thought it'd be the perfect place to take my first trip to. I'd been there twice before and my friends Kelly and Stacey had never been so I told them that we HAD to go because I love it so much and wanted them to be equally obsessed.

THURSDAY
So after a hectic morning on Thursday (Kelly slept through her alarm and then we missed the bus to the airport) we finally arrived at our gate just in time to catch the bus to our plane out on the tarmac. It was a relatively uneventful flight and nice that Kelly, Stacey and I were able to sit together. We landed at London Heathrow at about 4pm and took the Tube for about an hour into Russell Square (One of Stacey's friends from Colgate is studying abroad and lives there). We hung out for a little bit but were quickly informed that Kelly and I would NOT be able to spend the weekend at their apartment because some of the roommates were opposed to the idea of extra guests.... annoying but there wasn't really anything we could do about it. Luckily, there was a hostel close by and we booked the night there Thursday. Kelly and I stayed in a 4 person room with another random girl from Australia who was travelling around England and about to start a new job in London. So we met back up with Stacey and her Colgate friends and went to an authentic British Pub for dinner. It was a delicious dinner and kind of nice to have a menu in English and an idea of what I was ordering :) So everyone was pretty tired so they headed back to their apartment and Kelly and I went back to the hostel to find that it was karaoke night at the bar inside. We hung out for a little bit and laughed at all the funny American songs that people were picking and met some nice guys from Turkey. We finally worked up the courage to sing one ourselves. I have to admit that it was my first time singing karaoke and I think we did an okay job. After thoroughly embarrassing ourselves in front of the entire hostel, we headed upstairs to get a goodnight sleep for the long day we had planned on Friday.

FRIDAY
We woke up early on Friday and were extremely ready to check-out of the hostel. We figured we'd look around for different hotels and check out the prices before booking another night at the "Generator". So we walked over to meet Stacey and her friends Samantha at her apartment and we took a cab to Harrod's. We spent probably an hour or so walking around Harrod's and ooo-ing and ahh-ing at all the things we couldn't afford. After we left we walked down the street and did some more shopping on our way over to Hyde Park/Buckingham Palace. I bought an AWESOME leather jacket for about 40 pounds at TopShop and I am absolutely in love with it! We kept strolling and eventually hit Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey before stopping for lunch at another pub. Luckily it was a beautiful day and not too cold out. Funny enough, we ran into another group of girls from IES Barcelona who were also in London for the weekend. Small world huh? After lunch we headed over to Covent Gardens to wrap up the sightseeing for the day. We sat at a super cute cupcake store and did some more shopping/looking at all the cute things wishing we had money to buy them. After Covent Gardens they headed back to Sam's apartment and Kelly and I went to the hotel we had booked. After a quick lay-down, Kelly and I got up and went to a delicious little Chinese resteraunt for dinner. It was soooo yummy (especially the banana fritter we had for dessert!). Friday night we went out to a couple bars/clubs and met some really cool people from all over. Some girls from Chile, Washington DC and some guys from France. I tried speaking French with them but my head is all jumbled up with Spanish now so I got a little confused but still managed to do quite well :)

SATURDAY
After our long day Friday, it was really nice to sleep in on Saturday. Kelly and I woke up around noon and took our time getting ready and everything in the morning. Stacey and Samantha really wanted to do Portabella Market, so they got up early to go do that while Kelly and I hung out and just chilled for a little. When we finally motivated ourselves to do something, we decided to go checkout Piccadilly Circus. Its AMAZING. The only thing I can compare it to is Time's Square. It's block upon blocks of shopping, restaurants, theaters, clubs and bright lights. So much fun! We pretty much spent the day wandering around until we decided to stop for dinner. After dinner we thought it'd be fun to go see a movie. We looked at a couple theaters until we picked Revolutionary Road. Both of us had wanted to see and so we thought why not? Let me say that the movie theaters in London are nothing like the ones in the States. Rather than little theaters, they are HUGE like auditorium theaters with balconies and a stage in front of the screen. The movie was good, kind of depressing but good, and then we headed back to meet up with Stacey and Samantha at their apartment. We made a game plan for the next day to meet up early and go to the London Eye and headed back to the hotel.

SUNDAY
Sunday morning we work up early (like 9am) and headed straight to the London Eye to get there when it opened at 10 in order to avoid lines. It wasn't very clear out but we were still able to get some amazing views of the city. After the eye we wandered around for a little bit and then headed back to Samantha's apartment to go find some lunch. We went to this cute little crepe place for lunch that was super yummy! While we were eating it started BLIZZARDING outside. I'm sure as you all heard, London got their biggest snowstorm since 1991 on Sunday/Monday. Our flight was at 3:30pm so we headed back to catch the Tube to the airport. We finally arrived back in Barcelona around 8pm and were COMPLETELY exhausted. As much as I wanted to, I wasn't able to make it out to watch the SuperBowl on Sunday though. As much as I love London and traveling, it REALLY is exhausting!

Things here are crazy with the Al-Queda arrests in Barcelona too. Our program keeps sending out emails to everyone trying to keep us all informed and calm about the situation. Well.... next weekend I am headed to Amsterdam so I will keep you all updated when I get home from there too!!! Hope everything is well with everyone! I'm trying to send out some postcards in the next couple weeks so if you want one, make sure to email me your address!!! thorpeme@muohio.edu I would love to hear from you!
Adios! Molly