Planes, Trains & Automobiles: Semana Santa Part II

Hello Everyone!

I just made it back to Toledo, so it's time to update you on my many comings and goings. Along with this, I have news about future travels plans. Intrigued? Then it's time for Emily Is Abroad.

Titanic!

My program ends at the end of April (the 28th), but I have made the difficult (not really) decision to stay 2 and a half weeks longer. This is still in the works, but I'm at the 90% sure it's going to happen stage, so I've decided to make this announcement to all my adoring fans. I'm hoping to go to Istanbul, Athens, Santorini, and a million places in Italy. Also, maybe Prague. We shall see. I hope this works because it would be the bestest thing ever (besides seeing my dad!)

Now that you are super excited/jealous of me, we'll get to what Claire, Mom, and I did this week. It was extremely busy and hectic, so be prepared. This will (probably) be a long one.

Monday

Unfortunately when starting off this particular post, I had to start with probably the most boring day of week. Alas for that is, as they say, how the cookie crumbles. We traveled by train to Málaga, a coastal city in the south of Spain. From there, we took the metro to Torremolinos, the town our hotel was in. Our travel agent said that Torremolinos, was super pretty and great or whatever. Lies! Okay, it wasn't that bad. But it is more of a resorty, touristy city so it was mostly abandoned when we got there. Claire and I were lazy and there wasn't much to do unless we wanted to catch the metro back to Málaga...and laze won out. We meandered around the streets for a while and got some good seafood. Being the sloths we are (not my mommy), we went back to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the night. (We watched BATMAN cartoons. I regret nothing.)

Tuesday

This day was exhausting. We ate a healthy and nutritious breakfast at the hotel and found the metro stop to get back to Málaga. My mommy has become obsessed with cathedrals, so that was our first stop when we got there. It was quite beautiful, although we all agreed the ones in Sevilla and Toledo were still quite a bit better. We also met more Americans there, which excited my mom a lot. Anytime she found someone to speak English with was probably one of the better times in her trip. (This didn't stop her from jabbering with people on the train though. If they sort of understand English, it's enough for a conversation.)

After our Cathedral adventure, we went to the Alcazaba, which is an ancient fortress castle thing. It had some quite excellent vantage points, but we kept noticing a path to the very top of the hill. Claire and I weren't particularly interested in finding said path; we mostly messed around, which led to a little bit of sassiness when my Mams really wanted to find they way up to the top. Exhausted from our excruciating search (I swear, I don't exaggerate), we went to a nearby restaurant to find some sustenance. In true Emily-and-Claire fashion, we ordered brownies with ice cream while my mommy-face got a salad. Unfortunately we were still hungry, so Claire and I split a salad after that. And then came inspiration for another Claire poem. The pigeons started searching for crumbs by our feet...So Claire fed one chicken. Oops.

Least Flattering Picture

With our spirits much higher after food, we decided to continue our trek in search of the Mysterious Path We Couldn't Find. Fear not, for we did indeed find it, and the view was spectacular. While Mom found more Americans, Claire and I spent the time taking pictures. This led to the Least Flattering Picture of Me, here for your enjoyment. Thanks, Claire! The giant hill led to much exhaustion and it was fairly late, so we headed back to our hotel for the night and get ready for more traveling adventures the next day!

Wednesday

We woke up early Wednesday, so we could take a fairly short trip to Granada. I remember none of this because I slept on the bus and woke up with my neck hurting and being in a new city. Yay! Upon getting settled, we headed out into the wild blue yonder. Actually, it was more like the hunt for the Random Plaza so we could buy tickets to a really old Muslim/Arab palace. Because every map we've had on this trip was sub-par, we ended up (surprise, surprise) getting minorly lost. After a few wrong turns and a short uh... discussion later, we made it to the Magic Plaza (my name for it, not the Spaniards') and found our little kiosk. We got our audio-guides and tickets for the next day.

It had been a while since breakfast, so we went to a nearby restaurant. The waiter asked if we spoke Spanish, to which my mom (obviously) and sister answered in the negative. He got them English menus and me a Spanish one. We had a short conversation in Spanish and he said I spoke it well! It wasn't exactly accurate, but if the cute Spanish waiter is going to say something nice to me, I'll take it. To be perfectly honest with you, all of my days are blending together so I believe we headed back to our hotel whereupon I immediately took a nap and Claire and Mom read/slept. But I could be completely wrong. Either way, we're gonna say we killed a few hours doing these activities. Yup, I'm sticking to it.

My mommy-face didn't want the day to be a complete waste though, so after our lazy afternoon, we stepped into the night and pursued that flighty temptress, adventure (Harry Potter reference much?). Our adventure consisted of more wandering until we ran into another procession near the Cathedral. There was a huge float and a bajillion people around, just chilling and socializing. Because all of the streets were so crowded, our journey probably didn't last more than an hour. Also, more ice cream, so this can be considered a non-waste of a night.

Thursday

I have so many of the days to talk about. It's exhausting! Okay, almost all of Thursday was spent at the Alhambra. We had quite a bit of free time in the morning so we went out into the streets and went shopping. Because of the Arab influence of the Alhambra, there are a ton of Moroccan-y markets in the streets with pretty cheap stuff. All three of us made purchases and we ended up stumbling upon the way to the Alhambra, which was excellent. We decided to go back to our hotel and dump our stuff before heading back. We also bought strawberries which were delicious (otherwise I wouldn't mention them...)

The Alhambra was absolutely A) huge and B) amazing. We were there for four-ish hours because there is so much to see. The Alhambra used to be a fancy palace, so it has a bunch of gardens, castle-y parts, and water stairs. We got there at about two in the afternoon and spent a good deal of time in the gardens because they were so beautiful. Afterwards, we headed to the castle-ish area that has a special name that I forgot. We climbed around this area for a while and got to see a great view of the city. There was also some random labyrinth-y part that my mom kept asking me about. (What is this? I wonder why it's here...Are you sure you don't know what it was used for?) We were there for quite some time before it was our turn to go into the palace part. Which is, again, indescribable. Pictures!

I really fast-forwarded that part, but we were there for forever. I just can't remember describe everything and this is already a lengthy blog. My apologies. 

Because we were so tired, we took the bus back to the Cathedral and then found a delicious place to eat. We all had pasta, which of course, is a very Spanish meal. (Sarcasm hand raised). Either way, it was one of the best meals ever. Our Granada journey ended with relaxation and packing.

Friday

Almost done. I can do it! Friday started off with a plethora of un-fun. We woke up early and took a taxi to the bus station. We thought there were buses from Granada to Madrid at 9AM, 10AM, and 1PM, but this proved false. There were only buses at 9AM and 1PM, so we made an upgrade in our bus and booked it so we could catch the earlier one. 

The Super Fancy Nice Bus was an excellent upgrade. It had super plush seats and we were given two snacks and drinks. We got headphones so we could watch Cars 2 (I like children's movies, okay?) and were given a gift bag at the end. This is the definition of class.

After our four-and-a-half hour bus ride, we were sufficiently tuckered out. We recovered a little at our Super Fancy Nice Hotel in Madrid and took showers to wash the travel off. (It might sound dumb, but I swear travel sticks to you. It feels gross.) Afterwards, my mom was already done with the idea of sitting, so it was time to explore. I was excited because I've been to Madrid, which means I know what's up. It was super easy for me to navigate the metro and Claire and my Mams were quite impressed. And I live for impressing them.

We ended up near the Palacio Real and the Cathedral of Something. Because it was Good Friday, we figured the Cathedral was closed to tourists which left us with the terrible (just kidding) option of seeing the palace. This, however, didn't go as planned. The Palacio was closing in a hour and the tour people told us it would probably take an hour and a half to go through the entire thing, so we made the decision to save it for the next day. 


My Mams was determined the day not be wasted though. Because the Cathedral was right next to the Palacio, we checked to make sure it was closed. Lo and behold, no tourist activity was allowed but a mass was starting within half an hour. My mommy made the split-second decision to go inside to see it. I didn't get any pictures because, church, but this church was very different from the others. The stones were all white and the style of painting was brighter, so it seemed more airy. Unfortunately, we were in a back corner, and it wasn't super easy to see what was going on. At least I could partially understand it though.

Mom would ask me what was going on every once in a while. At first, I couldn't really answer because I would sort of understand but then would lose the flow of the words. It was sort of like having water run through your hands, where you have it one second and then it's gone. By the end, I was doing better though, and things made more sense. It was extremely interesting and fascinating to experience.

Afterwards, we went to an American restaurant because America is the man. 

Saturday

This day, we figured out the most excellent form of touring a city ever, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Sorry, excitement! Saturday morning we were unable to find a place to eat breakfast on account of our hotel was located in some swanky shopping district. This led to us taking the handy-dandy metro to the center of the city and me locating a delicious churro & chocolate restaurant. Obviously, I had churros for breakfast and that was one of the best meals of the trip. Mmmmmm. After a uh, healthy breakfast, we went shopping for a little while and meandered towards the Palacio Real. I've already described this in my...second (?) blog, so I won't go through the details again. Suffice to say, in nearly every room I asked my mom if we could redecorate our house.

Me: Oooh! Blue and gold! Mom, can we get a chandelier? I think we need to rethink our floor plan.

Okay, now the best touring experience of the trip. [Sidenote: I realize I've gotten your expectations up. You are probably thinking we rode upon the backs of some majestic emus or something that pranced of into the sunset. I'm so, so sorry.] A bus! We got on a double-decker open air bus and this was the best decision ever. Now you may ask "Why are you so excited about a bus, Emily?" 

Answer: We did not get lost and laze.

For most of the trip, we've walked nearly everywhere. Which can get fairly exhausting. So a chance to see most of the city without walking is better than majestic emus. Also, Madrid is huge so we would have been able to do significantly less had we not taken this tour. It was beautiful out for most of the day, which made this and even better decision. We hopped off at the Puerta del Sol, a huge plaza. Claire bought a Crisitano Ronaldo my future husband's fútbol jersey and I showed them the best pastry shop ever. We jumped on the bus again after a little bit and searched for a restaurant from the comfort of our bus. (I am not endorsed by the company, I swear.) Eventually, we found the Hard Rock Cafe. Yup, authentic Spanish food at its finest. Either way, the food was good and our entire Spain journey ended on a high note.   

Sunday

How I feel about missing the fam

We woke up early (actually this time), with a few false starts. The time change just occurred here, so that made the travel day extra fun. It was a whirlwind of packing and then checking out of the hotel. My mom decided to take a taxi to the airport instead of the metro because real adults don't need to be quite as cheap as college students. (The front desk said it was going to be 30 euros. I said it was 42 euros when we took a taxi...and it ended up being like 41-something. Nailed it!)

After printing boarding passes and checking bags, it was time to say goodbye. I miss you people already! (Especially inside jokes with Claire. Save Bandit!) I can NOT wait to see MY DAD, Mom and Claire again when I get back. Maybe Tom.

A uninteresting metro and bus ride left me happily in Toledo. It's good to be home.   

Traveling Conclusions

1) Being the leader is the worst. I navigated (!!!!!) almost everywhere, which is terrifying in itself. Also, being the only translator is a rough gig. My mom would want to talk to people and I was always thinking, "But people. We aren't supposed to talk to strangers!" This left my mom un-thrilled and ready to get the English back. She later asked me how I did everything on my other trips and wasn't super surprised by my response. Answer: follow everyone. It's (mostly) stress free and easy.

2) My mom is paranoid. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing because it's somewhere between practical, hilarious and annoying. She's more of a "ounce of protection is worth a pound of cure" type of gal and I'm more "Eh, what happens, happens." We didn't get anything stolen (good job, Mams!) but it also led to Claire and me waiting in the lobby of every hotel while my mom went to fish out our passports from her hidden money belt. And this gem of a conversation:

Me: Mom, the room is super hot. Can we leave the window open tonight, pleeease?

Mom:....Okay

Mom: [20 MINUTES LATER] I can't sleep! We have a balcony...someone could sneak in through the window....I just have to close it!

Me: .....*sigh* 

3) It is fun but exhausting. I don't think anything is quite so exciting and so draining at the same time.

Next weekend will hopefully be a bit more relaxing, as we plan on staying in Toledo.

Adios until then!

It's Like a Postcard From Paris When I've Seen the Real Thing

Dear  ____________,

Thank you for your interest in this public blog. We know you enjoy this free programming, and we here at Emily Is Abroad would like to continue to make your days as enjoyable as possible.  With this in mind, we are here to give you an opportunity to donate to our cause and keep the traveling going.  You will receive an exciting gift with each donation over 10 euros which include pictures and a sassy blogging experience.  Also, you will receive a monthly subscription to uh....a magazine! And a free um....something.  Surprise. A free surprise!

Best Wishes,

Emily Is Abroad, Inc.

This might be the exact script from PBS when they want your money. I'm not entirely sure though.  

So I just got back from Paris, and you may have guessed it was a little spendy. But definitely worth it. Vale la pena, if you will. (That's "worth it" in Spanish).  As I didn't post yesterday due to travel tiredness, I will try to catch you up.

Thursday:

After class ended, we (five of us, including myself) headed to Madrid to stay in a hostel.  We had an early flight (7 am) and decided to get something to eat (also free Margaritas much?) and then go to bed early. This wasn't entirely successful as we weren't necessarily interested in sleeping when we could be talking and joking instead. So it goes.

Friday:

PARIS! Actually, this involved waking up reaaaaal early, like 3:45 am early, to get to the airport and go through security to catch our flight.  We took a taxi to the airport and made it through security in record time, which meant we ended up sitting in an airport terminal exchanging embarrassing stories for a few hours before our flight.  I slept for most of the flight, but when I talked to the flight attendants, I spoke in Spanish....which was wrong. We booked with Air France so they speak French. Duh.

Mona Lisa. Obvs.

When we landed, we had to deal with the Paris airport. Which was probably the worst part of the entire journey because there weren't any unconfusing indications of how to actually get into Paris. The airport is outside the city a little, so we needed to take the metro, but we originally bought the wrong tickets and the lines were super long and the world is not a wish-granting factory. It took us three hours to make it to our hostel because there are exactly eight thousand metro lines and you need to switch stations and actually go the right direction (we got a little turned around) to make it into the city. When we finally made it, we were starving, and I ate the best pizza of my life at a French restaurant before checking into our hostel. The pizza was big and delicious and mmmmmmm. No words.

Creepy/Cool Catacombs

After leaving our stuff in the hostel, we made a quick decision to visit these catacombs near(ish) our hostel.  Before coming to Paris, I didn't even know these catacombs existed, but they were really cool to see.  They were underground quite a ways, so we had to take a million spiral stairs down, and I was quite dizzy by the time we got to the bottom. As we walked through the tunnels, there were dates inscribed on the walls, usually from the late 1700s or early 1800s. Which is almost as old as our country, no big deal.  The catacombs had been used as a mass burial ground for people who couldn't afford a more expensive one.  So towards the end, we saw all the skeletons and skulls which was both interesting and....I can't find the word. I talked about mortality and time in another post, but I had those same feelings again down there.

Ba da ba ba ba: I'm Louvre-n it!

After the catacombs, we went back to the hostel. We got lost for a while on the way back, but luckily I wasn't the navigator or we might never have made it. When we got back, it was time to relax for a little bit until we could head out to see the Louvre. The museum is free after 6 pm so when the time came we, once again, took the metro to it. (Sidenote: I spent a small fortune on the metro this weekend but even I know how to use the Parisian metro system now.)


The Louvre was absolutely incredible.  It has a ton of interesting sculptures and some of the most famous pieces of art in the world. (Mona Lisa, anyone?) We spent about three hours there, looking for the most interesting pieces including: the Aphrodite sculpture, Ramses II, a medieval moat (how do you get one of those in a museum?!?), the apartment of Napoleon (fancy) and many, many more paintings, sculptures, works of art, and ancient um...stuff.

We took eight million pictures there, both inside and out because the place is beautiful. All of it. I miss my Louvre already.

Napoleon's Apartment. Can I live here?

After, we took the metro (this phrase will show up more, I promise) to our hostel and went to look for a place nearby to eat. In true Spaniard fashion, we didn't eat until after ten at a place where I had probably my first or second salad with real dressing (not olive oil) of the trip. Oh how I missed you, dressing. Also, free water. Neither Spain nor Portugal give free water at restaurants, so it was exciting (no joke) to get that in France.  We walked back to our hostel and headed to bed after being awake for far too long.   

Saturday:

My first minutes of consciousness on Saturday were due to a fire alarm. It was, to say the least, unpleasant, and included me pulling pants over my shorts, grabbing my bag and coat, losing an earring and not being able to see due to no glasses. I've had better mornings. Also, my dislike of smokers continues to grow. After the alarm, we ate breakfast at the hostel, which was cereal, a mini french baguette with jam, and hot chocolate.  The cereal was absolutely delicious because it was like a chocolatey version of Honey Bunches of Oats with mini white and milk chocolate chips. The French know how to breakfast.

After breakfast we split into two groups, where half of us went to buy things we needed (a camera charger and new boots) and the others went to the impressionist museum, Musee d'Orsay. I went to the museum and am so glad I did. It was free because we are students, and that made it even better. We couldn't take pictures so you get to use your imagination: yay! There were some really famous paintings there too, and my favorites include all of Van Gogh's (I don't care if he was crazy, he's my favorite!) and Monet's works. Also, the pointillism ones were absolutely fantastic. Go to the Google machine if you want to check them out.

After the museum, we all met up and headed to the Champs Elysee, which is the big shopping area in Paris and where the Arc de Triomphe is. At one point we walked right outside Paris Fashion Week and saw Jessica Chastain, (a super famous actress who was in The Help and recently Zero Dark Thirty) so that was pretty cool. We took a ton of pictures by the Arc and were incredibly touristy.

We next went out to eat and I had delicious French crepes. They reminded me of the fam but were too delicious for me to be homesick. I would conservatively estimate I had roughly 39174928yr9 crepes on this trip because they also had them for free at our hostel (with just sugar and butter like at home!)

I am actually terrified in this picture. This is my brave face.

After eating we went to the Eiffel Tower. I need to preface this with childhood memories. As a young'n, we went camping quite a few times each summer. At many of these places there would be lookout towers you could climb to see the entire area, so they were incredibly tall. Now as a young child, I had a very big problem. I could make it up one, maybe two of the levels before I freaked out completely and had to stop. These towers were really tall and I could make it only like twenty feet in the air. Not so high. Remember this.

For some reason we decided to climb the Eiffel Tower and took the trusty metro to get there. Thankfully, we could only climb to the second level. Unfortunately this is still incredibly high and the entire time I was climbing, I thought I would throw up. I know there is supposedly some courage required to face your fears and all that jazz, but if someone said to me: Emily, you have a choice. You can climb the Eiffel Tower again or can get shot in the kneecap. These are (for some reason) your only options.

I would choose getting shot. That is how I feel about heights. So now you know I'm a chicken... Despite my complaining and fear, the view was incredible. It was a cloudy day and everything but still worth the climb. It was so beautiful that I could almost forget about those stairs. *Shudder* We came back again later that night to see it all lit up, and that was even better. They have it light up extra with sparkly lights once an hour so we stuck around to see that too. Even though it's a cliche/touristy monument, it is worth it to see. Go book your tickets to Paris now!

We cooked our own dinner when we got back (metro again) to our hostel. It was a late dinner, 11pm-ish, so I can tell I'm getting used to the late Spanish schedule. We packed up everything and went to bed to prepare for our journey back the next day.

Sunday:

Paris (and me) at night. Shnazzy.

Oh, Parisian metro, what did I ever do to you? Sunday was, at best, hectic. We were pros at the metro system by the time we left the city, but apparently we didn't budget our time properly on Sunday. We checked out of our hostel at about 9:30 am so we had three hours to get to our plane, but that almost wasn't enough.  The subway took way longer than we anticipated and we ended up having to take a bus as well to get to the airport. By the time we got there, we were running through the terminals like the guy runs after the girl in every good chick-flick. We also were able to get through security quite quickly because adrenaline. Thankfully, we all made our plane despite minor separations and setbacks regarding the metro taking its sweet time.

I'm going to save you the trouble of reading an 8-9 hour day of travel: metro, metro, bus, plane, metro, metro, bus, feet, THE FUND. Never have I been so happy to see my dorm.

I'm not going anywhere this weekend so I fear my next blog will be less exciting. Lo siento.

Ciao for now!

P.S. Claire, the Batman shirt made it to Paris!