Spring Break!

okay so first off I would just like to say that I am an idiot because I forgot to charge my camera before I left for spring break, BUT I am going to get some pictures from kate later, so I will put them up then.


The first day and a half of spring break was spent traveling...we left florence at 9 am friday morning and didn't get to our hostel in madrid til about 7am saturday. We took a train from Florence to Pisa, flew from Pisa to Alicante, Spain...waited at the Alicante bus station for about 6 hours for the next available bus to come and take us to madrid. It sounds bad, but the time actually went by a lot quicker than I thought it would. When we got to Madrid we could get into our hostel until noon so we camped outside of a startbucks and watched the sunrise while we played "what animal am I think of" haha. We stayed at the Mad hostel in Madrid. It wasn't that bad for a hostel and it had a small breakfast so I was happy. We booked a person suite but since there were only 5 of us was had a random person stay with us, but we never saw him and he left real early on morning. We visited the Renia Sofia Museum, which is filled with a bunch of contemporary art. The museum had a rooftop terrace, so that was cool to look over the city. People in Spain were really nice. We went to this small spanish resturant for dinner both nights we were there. We basically ate a lot of seafood, bread and vegetables... it was great! They have a big market in Madrid, similiar to the outdoor markets that they have in Florence. It's basically a big flea market with crazy spanish people and tourists. I have to admit that this is I am not that into the markets in Europe, too crazy for me. After the market we went to a not so crazy place, the Jardin Botannico. This was a big garden, similiar to a park, with different pieces of art placed all throughout. I like the garden alot more than I thought I would. It was very peaceful which was good because we have been living the city life for a while now. Later that night after we ate at the spanish resturant I talked about earlier, we found a small spanish bar where we sat and drank mojhito's.
After a few days in Madrid, we went back to Alicante for a few days. We were going to take a bus back to Alicante, but someone came up with the great idea to rent a car (I think it was anna and mike, but I am not sure). I have never enjoyed renting a car more. We went to the airport in Madrid to rent the car. Since we are only 20 there was only a small list of cars that we could choose from. We ended up picking a Volkswagon Polo, which was the cutest little car. The Polo, however is not really build for 5 people and a whole lot of luggage but we made it work. Anna was the only one who could drive because it was a standard. We also got a GPS which was the best decision ever. Anna named the GPS Judy, but we all called it different names. It was a little choatic at first trying to figure out the roads, but Anna and Mike made it work (only a small amount of fighting hahaha). The ride was about 5 hours and we drove through the countryside of Spain. I feel like I laughed for 2 out of the 5 hours, we had a lot of fun. There was not much out there but it was so beautiful. At one point we passed a bunch of wind turbines, SOO COOL. I stole kates camera and took a bunch of pictures. We made a quick stop at a rest area to grab food and go to the bathroom. We saw the best sunset at this rest stop. When we went to get back on the highway, Judy (the GPS) took us some weird way through this little Spanish town on the side of a mountain. It was really cool to see a different side of Spain other than the city. About 500 roundabouts later we arrived at our hotel.
Our hotel in Alicante had a view of the beach! Alicante is known for its beaches, too bad the weather wasn't good enough to go to the beach:( It didn't rain, but it was cloudy for the few days that we were there. There were so many beaches and it would have been great if it was summer time. We did get to walk along the beaches though. We also realized quick that we should have kept the rental car while we were in Alicante because it would have been a lot easier to see all the places that we wanted to see, but we still had fun. We went to Castillo Santa Barbara, which is a huge castle on a hill that overlooks the water. You have to walk through this long tunnel and then take an elevator up to the top. We wandered around there for a while. The views were amazing, I could have sat up there for a while.
In the center of Alicante is a port called Puerta de Mar. It is like a big marina with lots of bars, resturants, beaches, boats, and palm trees. We walked along this strip of bars/ resturants that was surrounded by the water. We ate a one of the resturants on this strip one of the nights. I got seafood papaya and it was delicous! I wish I got more! The food was good, but our waiter was kind of rude, but whatever we never have to see him again. Wednesday we went to Villajoyosa, which is a small town outside of Alicante. We wanted to go on a safari, but when we got off at the tram stop in the town they told us that we needed to take a taxi up the mountain. We didn't know this beforehand and did not want to pay the taxi fee to go up there. So we wandered around and found the best chicken place ever! Kate and I split a chicken and anna and mike split another chicken. The chicken was cooked perfectly and it had some kind of spice that made it taste sooo good! So even though the safari didn't work out, the chicken made up for it! That night we went to an Irish pub to watch Barcelona play soccer. The lady at the pub was super nice. I also got a free drink because I bet mike in the soccer game and I WON!
We left Alicante Thursday mourning to go to Paris! I forgot to mention our experience with Ryanair. Ryanair was the airline that we flew on for our three flights. They have strict weight restrictions on bags. We checked 2 bags between the 5 of us. The checked bags couldn't be more that 15 kg and the carry-on bag couldn't be more than 10 kg. We had to do a lot of rearranging in the airports to get our bags to be under the weight limit. I had about 5 shirts in my pockets and clothes hanging from my backpack, but with each flight we got better and better at it! Okay back to Paris. We flew into Beauvais Airport, which is just outside of the city so we had to take a shuttle in. As soon as we got to the city we were welcomed with a thunderstorm haha. But it ended pretty quickly. We also got to experience the crazy Paris metro during rush hour. That was a bit much at first, but we got the hang of it quick. We stayed at the Oops! Hostel which was really nice for a hostel. It had a great breakfast, so thats all I cared about. We had a few other roommates here but they were both really nice. One was a Mexican boy and the other was a girl from Argentina. The girl was really cool, we talked to her for a while. The first night that we were there we went to a small French resturant. The lady only spoke French and we spoke no French...that was fun. The food was really good though.
The first thing that we went to see in Paris was the Eiffel Tower. We had to wait in line for 2 hours just to enter and the weather was not so good that morning. There were also a lot of gypsies and vendors trying to sell us stuff. I counted about 70 people that came up to us or walked by us trying to sell something. It was kind of annoying. We took an elevator to the top of the tower, which was really cool. It was freaky being able to see everything as we went up. The veiw at the top was worth the wait. After that trip we needed a break so we went to a chinese resturant near there. Later that night we found a fondoe place for dinner. The waiter spoke english here and we did some research on french so the communication was much better. I was so full after that meal.
Saturday, we visited the Louvre and Notre Dame. The Louvre was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. There was no way you could see all of that in one day. We did however get to see the Mona Lisa, which is a lot smaller than you would think. After the Louvre we went to Notre Dame, which is the main cathedral in Paris. It was huge and it was free to get in! There was a long line to get in, but we were sneaky and cut some asian tourists while they were taking pictures, they had no idea hahaha. That night for dinner, I tried some escargot. It tasted like a clam, it was good! Then I had some questionable duck dish as an appetizer. But my chicken was good.
Sunday we traveled back to Florence! I am sure that there was a lot that I forgot to mention, but I think I hit all of the major points. If I think of anything else I will add it in!
Pictures will be coming soon!