Stateside

The roommate and I -one of our last nights in Salamanca

Well, I’m stateside again. My last few weeks in Spain were wonderful. I loved Salamanca and I made so many good friends. As a result, it was super easy to leave. NOT. My roommate left a day before me, so I had the last evening to spend packing by myself in my big, empty room. Dark times. Then at 1:30AM Saturday morning, most of the ISA kids got on a bus to Madrid. We had to leave that early because one person in our group had a flight at 6AM, so we all had to go super early, even though some people didn’t fly out until late that evening. Luckily my flight was at 11AM, so I only had a few hours to kill in the airport. After a few dream-like hours of listening to music and dozing in my little spot on the floor against the wall surrounded by all my luggage (the Madrid airport doesn’t have chairs until you get to the gates, once you’ve gone through security. It’s really quite poorly planned, because there are people sitting all over the floor everywhere and everyone who is walking or running through the airport to get to their check-in counter trips over sleeping travelers sprawled out across the floor), I got on a plane to Washington Dulles Airport. So that was a 9 hour flight, then I had a 4-ish hour flight to Phoenix, and then a 1.5 hour flight to Reno. Everything went surprisingly smoothly. I hadn’t slept the night before because we left at 1:30AM, but I had planned to stay up anyways so it would be easier to adjust back to Reno time once I got back. So as a result I was really tired the whole day of traveling and slept a little on each flight, which made everything go by much quicker. So when I finally got home at 8ish Reno time, I had dinner and hung out with my family a bit before going to bed at a regular time. Jet lag averted, boom. It was kind of rough to travel backwards in time though. I would leave at 11, and end up in the next city still in the afternoon, and by the time I got to the next city only an hour or two had passed by the time I adjusted to the new city’s time, so it was like the never-ending day. But I did it, and I woke up the next morning totally rested and fine. Jet lag is for weaklings. Just kidding, I probably just got lucky but I'm going to pretend I avoided jet lag due to my skillful planning and superhuman strength.

Airport reunion with my brother. Presh.

Alright, so maybe I'm having some trouble unpacking. But that's only because
unpacking means it's really over :(

So I’m home, that’s that. I don’t know if I’d go and label myself as someone experiencing ‘reverse culture shock’- if you’ve read my blog since the beginning you know my thoughts on culture shock. Some things about being home were a little weird to me at first, but nothing major. I must say that I LOVE being able to make my own food, and I like to be back on the American schedule of eating, lunch at 12 or 1, dinner at 6 instead of lunch at 2:30 or 3 and dinner at 9 or 9:30.

Ohhhhh yeeeaaahhhh. Making my own lunch - a toasted whole wheat pita with marinara sauce,
grilled chicken, bell peppers and onion, a sprinkle of cheese and some basil. It was a DELIGHT.

Sorry Spainiards, but you do NOT know how to make sandwiches. This is where it's at.

 I’m also happy to see my family of course, I missed them more than I had realized. There are a few things that are a bit weird to me that I’ve noticed; I’ll make you a tiny little list:

• Driving. I haven’t driven yet because my license expired while I was gone and I haven’t gotten around to renewing it yet, but I’ve been in the car with other people and I freaked out a little. It just seemed like everyone was going ridiculously fast and driving ridiculously close, and the cars were so much bigger than I’m used to. I was kind of a wreck the first few times I was in a car here.
• Not walking everywhere. It’s strange to me now how spread out everything is. I’d like to keep walking everywhere, but it’s kind of impractical now because everything is so far away.
• Lights and water. I’m still used to using the smallest amount of water possible, and turning off the lights when I’m not in the room even for a minute. It’s not that my family wastes energy, but compared to what I got used to living in a homestay, it’s a little strange to me how much water and energy we use here daily.
• Babies. This one is a little dumb, but whatever. I love babies and kids, and I noticed in Spain that if I would smile or wave at a little baby in a stroller or being carried by its mother, the mother would give me kind of a glare and walk a little faster. I don’t know why that is. But when I got off my plane in Reno and was walking towards baggage claim, a mother was walking in front of me carrying an adorable little baby, so the baby was facing me, and he was smiling and giggling at me as I made faces and waved at him. The mom turned around and smiled at me, and I told her how cute her baby was, and she thanked me and smiled instead of shielding her baby like I was about to steal it.
• Stores. I went to Target for a few things when I got home, and I was a little overwhelmed with all the choices. There’s just such a huge selection of things to buy, and it’s just not like that in Europe.
• Money. I gave a cashier a euro coin by accident the first time I paid for something. :)

That’s about it. Like I said, nothing major. Just little things that remind me that I’m not in Europe anymore. They’re such minor things that my time in Europe seems kind of like a dream, because I fell back into step with the pace of life here so easily. I guess that means I need to make another trip there soon to remind me of how it is…

So although I'm happy to see my family and some of the everyday conveniences are nice to have again, I miss almost everything about Spain. I ESPECIALLY miss the language. I’m afraid I’m going to lose the language abilities I acquired abroad because I hardly use my Spanish when I’m at home. Although, the second night I was at home my dad got a business call from a guy who didn’t speak English and he handed me the phone – I didn’t really have time to be nervous, I just said ‘hola’ and went from there. And, surprise, it went really well. I understood him just fine, and I was able to reply and tell him what he needed to know. I think I may have confused him a bit with my Spain-isms though. For example, like a good Spaniard, I used vale every other word to get my point across, which is definitely a Spain thing. But I got the message across and everything went fine, so I felt good about the whole thing. I’m anxious to get back to school in the fall, back to Spanish classes and friends who speak Spanish so I can keep practicing.

Living up the summer at the lake with the brother

So that’s it, I’m home safe and sound. This marks the end of my blog, sad day. Thanks to all of you guys who have been reading since the beginning. I really mean that, because I read some of my first few blogs the other day and I was like dude, how did anyone ever read this? I was quite whiney in those days. So if you have been reading since then, well done! If this is the only post you read, it’s really not my best work and you should read some of my other ones so you don’t think this is as good as it gets, but thanks anyways! So that’s that. I really do appreciate everyone who kept up with my travels; it gave me motivation to keep blogging when I knew there were people out there reading. So I don’t have details yet, but keep an eye out for my next blog when I go on my next whirlwind adventure across the world….¡hasta pronto!

FYI

Hellooo all- so I'm officially back in the States as of a few days ago. I have one final wrapping-up kind of post all ready to go, but before I put that out there I thought I'd do a quick little FYI type of post. I just thought I'd share a couple of things I've realized or learned about studying abroad or traveling in general, if anyone is interested, because this is supposed to be an informative study abroad blog. If not, go ahead and skip to the next (and last!) post and that will be that.

I guess I'll do this list-style, I think that would work best. I'll just jump right into it then- here goes.

1. Choosing a study abroad program. I did RESEARCH. It's not something to just jump into. These past six months have been the most formative, most fun, and most amazing months of my entire life, so I suggest putting a little thought into the program and location of your study abroad semester. There are actually a lot of good reviews of programs online, and you can do tons of research on different cities and countries. People are a great resource too - if you know anyone who has used the program you're looking at or has been to your country of choice, give them the third degree to get your information. If you're interested in Spain, especially Valencia or Salamanca, and/or if you're looking at ISA (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), I'm your girl, feel free to shoot me an email: angelaskowronek223@pointloma.edu
2. Month vs. Semester. After doing both a semester and a month program in Spain, my advice on which to choose is very clear in my mind: SEMESTER. I know sometimes that's not always possible, but if the debate is just that you're nervous about spending an entire semester abroad because you think you won't like it or it's too long to be away - PLEASE go for the entire semester if you can. My month in Salamanca absolutely flew by, I swear time went faster for that month. My semester in Valencia even passed in hyper-speed. So if you study abroad for just a month, be prepared to aprovechar el día even more than normal so you can get the most out of the experience.
3. Traveling Europe with RyanAir. Anyone who has traveled with RyanAir probably has a love-hate relationship with them. For one thing, they are ridiculously cheap. I probably flew RyanAir a dozen times over the past six months, and I got some really great deals, like round trip Valencia-London for 70 euro, or Valencia-Mallorca for 8 euro. So that's awesome, but there are 3 main catches that you should be prepared for. So be aware of them, but overall RyanAir is worth it if you follow all the rules and are prepared for what it's like.
1. The dreaded carry-on. RyanAir is super strict on their carry-on rules. You can look up the dimensions of allowable carry-ons online- that's how I bought my backpack that I always used for travel (be careful with backpacks though, as you have to account for how they expand once you have stuff in them). Most people use little rolly suitcases, but that's not always ideal for student travelers because you have to run around cities with all your stuff before hostel check-in times and stuff like that. Sometimes a backpack is easier. Anyways, you have to fit your carry-on into a little blue metal box thing 'easily' at the gate, or they'll make you check it for a cool 60 euro. So make sure your carry-on is going to fit FOR SURE, because they can be really picky about that.
2. RyanAir airports aren't always in the city. In fact, for most of the places we flew to with RyanAir, we had to take a bus into our destination city. In other words, once you get there, you're still not there. There are almost always bus companies that go from the airports into the city, but be careful if you ever fly in on a Sunday, because the buses don't always run, and be careful if you fly in really late, as the buses may not run any more. Usually it's not a problem, just kind of a pain and a little extra cost.
3. The actual flight- bring headphones! Bless those poor souls who have to learn this lesson the hard way. The flight attendant people sell stuff the ENTIRE time on every flight - lottery tickets, perfume, purses, food, wine, etc. Basically, they're just talking the whole time and you'll be happy if you can crank up your music to drown them out.
4. Packing. I packed with the skill of a 3 year old - I didn't plan very well at all and ended up having to throw away a bunch of stuff. So to avoid this, I would suggest not bringing anything you don't plan on using about every week. Or maybe, only bring things you would theoretically be able to part with, if you had to. Maybe that's a bit extreme, but I guess I'm trying to say, don't bring 10 different colors of nail polish for a semester study abroad program, eh? Not that I did that or anything, I'm just saying...don't let yourself fall too far into the "what-if" packing mode.
5. Travel-size shampoo. I highly recommend buying a travel-sized shampoo (and conditioner, body wash, contact solution, etc.) in the US before you go. I couldn't find travel-sized toiletries like these in Spain besides toothpaste, and they were super handy to have when I was traveling in between my two programs, because you can just keep refilling them, and they don't take up so much room and are light (and carry-on friendly).
6. Stuff to bring. There were a few things we found to be very helpful while traveling, things you should always have on you. These include: a reusable water bottle, a pen and paper, a watch, and an iPod or some other wi-fi enabled device. The reusable water bottle for obvious reasons - you can fill them up even at sinks wherever you are, and you save money on buying water all the time. The pen and paper were useful to us in a million different situations - taking down directions, writing out addresses we couldn't pronounce for taxi drivers in foreign countries, taking down Facebook names of new friends we made, having people draw us little maps on how to get places, etc. It's just a good idea. A watch, also for obvious reasons. And finally, the iPod. I have an iPod touch and it saved my life traveling more times than I can count, especially when none of us had cell phones. If you look hard enough, you can always find wifi in any city- we became professionals at picking up free signals. It was how we got in contact with our couchsurfing hosts, how we emailed our parents or friends to tell us we made it to our next country safely, how we looked up hours or addresses or directions to different places, how we figured out train schedules and ticket information, etc.

That's all I can think of at the moment, but like I said, if you're thinking of studying abroad and have some questions, I'd love to help you if I can, so feel free to send me an email: angelaskowronek223@pointloma.edu. Otherwise, pop back here in a day or two for my last blog post.

Conquering the Bucket List, Cantabrian-Style

Okay, as promised, this is the post about how I got to check a major item off of my bucket list last weekend: I finally got to learn how to surf. ‘But Angela,’ you may think, ‘haven’t you been going to school in San Diego, five minutes from the beach, for a year and a half? Don’t people surf there?’ Yes, yes I have, and yes, yes they do. But for some reason or another, it just never worked out. I never had the right connections or the right opportunity, that’s my excuse. Lame I know. HOWEVER I couldn’t be happier that it worked out this way – saying that I got to learn how to surf in the Cantabrian Sea off of the northern coast of Spain is one of the coolest stories in my arsenal now.
So the way this all came about was an organized excursion by ISA to Santander, Spain. We took a bus to the city Friday afternoon and got into the city that evening. We tried to go out and see the city a little after dinner that night, but the main plaza was so far and we got kind of lost, and once we got there everything was really expensive and everyone was dressed really fancy. We felt out of place, so we hung out a while and went back. It turns out, in my opinion, that Santander is quite the swanky community. We saw a lot of gigantic, beautiful castle-esque houses (so different from every other Spanish city I’ve been to where it’s all apartments) and lots of Range Rovers (also odd for Spain where the cars are usually quite small), and everyone just exuded the air of wealth and class. It was an interesting experience, I kind of felt like I was somewhere other than Spain. It was a beautiful city and OF COURSE I’m glad I went, but it was a very different experience.

Told you it was beautiful. The weather was kind of bad all weekend, but it's okay. I still got gorgeous pictures and the experience of a lifetime. Yeah. No complaints.

So the next morning we got up early and found the docks where we took a ferry to Somo, where all of the surf schools are. We went to Cantabria Escuela de Surf – ISA had cut some kind of deal with them so we got wetsuits, boards and a lesson for half the regular price. So we all suited up and followed our instructor to the beach. He explained the basics to us (in Spanish of course) and we practiced standing up on our boards on the beach, but only twice. Then, to our surprise, he was like – okay, go surf. We were all kind of worried because it happened so fast, but we gave it a shot. The first time went quite terribly and we all just kind of…swam and flailed…so he called us into the shore to regroup. He gave us a few more tips and set us loose for round two. From there, we all just got in super-concentration mode, each of us in our own worlds, and did our best to remember the technique we had agonizingly studied for hours on end (not: more like 3 minutes) and not acquire any debilitating injuries. It was so much fun, I loved every second of it. I could not stop smiling, I probably looked like a fool but I couldn’t care less. It was perfect. It was actually an overcast, cloudy day, but that didn’t matter in the slightest, and the water was only chilly for about 5 seconds. I was euphoric, I just can’t emphasize how happy I was to be SURFING, finally!!

Oh before I post the pictures, I have a quick funny story about how I got them. We took pictures before we went out, while still at the surf shop, but we obviously weren’t going to bring our cameras to the beach, so we had all accepted we weren’t going to have pictures of us actually in the water surfing. Then when we were all standing around in a nice little group listening to our instructor give us the basics, I noticed this guy standing kind of at a distance from our group with a big black camera sneakily taking pictures of us. No one else in the group seemed to notice him, but I felt sketchy that he was lurking around and I didn’t know who he was. Apparently, what I thought was coming across as a quizzical, puzzled look actually came across as an ice-cold death glare, which this guy happened to capture. It turned out that there’s a photography business where the people come out and take pictures of people learning to surf to sell them to them after, which we learned later. But at the time, I didn’t know and it seemed sketch, my bad! We ended up buying the pictures because we were a big group and they cut us a really good deal, so that’s the story behind how I have all these pictures. So here they are, the professional ones are the ones in the water, the rest are the ones we took before and after ourselves. Brace yourself, because you might fall out of your chair laughing at my death glare picture. Enjoy!

There we were, on the beach, minding our own business and learning surf basics...

...and then I noticed this guy who I thought was creeping on our group, so I looked at him..uhm..quizzically, as if to say, 'oh hello, I wonder what that guy is doing over there.' But it accidentally translated to 'GET. AWAY. FROM. US. OR. PERISH.'

So anyways, that's that story. Here's the rest of the surf pictures.

Pre-surf.

giddy.

Post-surfing joy:

Spanish surf instructor is Spanish.

Happy happy joy joy.

So that was that! It was so awesome, I love love love loved it. The next day we left Santander. Before we left, we saw the palace on the peninsula, and we stopped off at a tiny little zoo, which had a few different animals, but most importantly, penguins.

How penguins can nail being classy AND adorable all at the same time is beyond me. They are the wonders of the animal kingdom.

After we left Santander the next day, we made quick stopovers in the small towns of Santillana del Mar and Comillas. Santillana del Mar was like a little medieval-feeling town:

Typical food of Cantabria - bizcocho y leche

After Santillana del Mar, we made a lunch stop in Comillas. The coolest thing we saw there was a house that Gaudi built, the only one not in Barcelona. This one was called "El Capricho de Gaudi" and it's based on the sunflower. So he designed it so that the sun comes into the right rooms at the right time of the day, kind of like the way a sunflower turns to the sun (the word for sunflower in Spanish is girasol- gira means to turn or rotate, and sol means sun). So like in the morning the sun streams through the breakfast room windows, in the afternoon through the living area, during siesta it shines into the bedroom so it's warm when the people sleep, etc. He also designed it to be a house for all the senses, so there's the light and color for sight, and I can't remember the rest of the senses, but the coolest part to me was that apparently music used to play when you opened the shutters. Gaudi was such a cool guy.

Some other pictures from Comillas.

That's it for that weekend. Next post is about a day trip we took to Segovia. The content likely won't be that exciting because there's really only 2 things to talk about. HOWEVER I was having a really artsy day and I took some really awesome pictures, so check back to look at those if nothing else.

Una Despedida y Un Saludo

I was going to say I'm embarrassed that I've been in Salamanca for a few weeks now and I am just now getting to blogging about it, but I'm not. I have been busy enjoying the city, and I wouldn't change it for anything. Salamanca is beautiful and so much fun - it's so different from Valencia, it's basically impossible for me to compare the two. Who knew it was possible to love equally two cities that are such polar opposites from each other? Valencia, of course, will always hold the number one place in my heart because it was my home for four wonderful months, and I learned so much and made so many good friends there. I miss so many things about my time in Valencia- here's a short list. Some of them probably sound a little strange, but they're things that will always remind me of my favorite city.

• watching soccer games in the park outside my bedroom window
• the río, especially sitting in front of the fountains of the Palau de Música
• the Café Valiente I always sat in to use the wifi
• my host dad singing Frank Sinatra around the house
• Catalán pride, watching the news in Catalán
• watching Pasapalabra with my roommate and host parents
• authentic horchata
• the sound of a Valenbici bell
• the Mercadona song
• the "próxima parada" voice in the Metro
• the wifi in my homestay...OH WAIT
• walking home late at night when the streets of my neighborhood were sleeping and silent
• the rainbow of flowers on the Puente de Flores
• passing the elementary school kids in their little uniforms coming from gym class in the río on my way to school
• the Doner Kebab across from Portland and the guy who worked there with the smiley eyes
• looking for the CAC in the distance when I didn't know where I was
• the green water fountains
• the weird exercise park in the río where people always look ridiculous
• the sparkly tiles and shimmering aqua water of the CAC
• the little beeping song the projectors at UV make when you turn them on
• the sound of someone riding a bici over loose red bricks on the bike paths
• mornings alone in the house drinking Cola Cao with the sun warming my back through the window
• the red 19 on our front door
• exchanging daily 'hola buenas'es with other people in the building
• REAL agua de valencia with orange juice, not fanta
• my cinema teacher's crazy hair
• my Don Quijote teacher's comments about European cities punctuated by sips from the same type of water bottle every day
• my Spanish culture teacher's tangents
• the same ringtone everyone has
• the creepily-silent guys who sell sparkly hats, roses and sunglasses everywhere
• the daily bueno bar from the candy store near ISA
• the 3 plazas- del Ayuntamiento, de la Reina, de la Virgen
• wandering through the city and remembering what fallas and what parties were where
• eating our bocadillos in ISA during the meetings when there are signs everywhere that say 'do not eat in the office'
• the colorful desks in UV that were always arranged in the most nonsensical, disorganized way possible

Valencia, es la tierra de las flores, de la luz y del amor.
Valencia, tus mujeres todas tienen de las rosas el color.
Valencia, al sentir como perfuma de tus huertas el azahar,
quisiera, en la tierra valenciana, mis amores encontrar.

Okay, so that wasn't a short list. I got a little overly-nostalgic. BUT, it's okay because I know I will be back, and also because now I have the chance to get to know an entirely new city - Salamanca.

Like I said, Salamanca is totally different from Valencia. For one thing, it's much smaller. In Valencia, my walk to school every day was 40 minutes, each way, which was pretty rough. But in Salamanca, I can make it in about 7 minutes which is amazing. Salamanca's also very easy to navigate because there's a huge central plaza, La Plaza Mayor. There's a big clock there under which everyone always meets, and there are always lots of people hanging out there. If you can find the plaza (which is very easy to do), you can get pretty much wherever you need to go. So that alone gives Salamanca a smaller-town, closer-knit kind of vibe which is a world apart from Valencia. Also, Salamanca is a university town. The University of Salamanca is really big, and there are something like 30,000 students, both Spanish and international. So naturally there's marcha every single night of the week, and everything is really cheap because all the students have, well, a student's budget. So a drink in Valencia might cost 7 or 8 euro, a drink in Salamanca is 3 or 4. The ambiance of the city is just really light and fun all of the time - there's never nothing to do in Salamanca.

Although I was so bummed to leave the friends I had made in Valencia, I have already made some really great friends in Salamanca, both American and Spanish. I think it's easier to make Spanish friends here because it seems like everyone is around the same age and everyone is always in fiesta mode, eager to meet new people and have a good time. I also got a really awesome roommate through ISA, and we always have fun when we go out. Though most people in our program are in homestays, my roommate and I live in a small residencia with mostly Spanish students. Somehow we got one of the biggest rooms with the strongest wifi signal (JUSTICE!!), so we can't complain. Plus it's about 7 minutes from the building where I have classes, and about 10 or so from the Plaza. The food is not great, but it makes me feel right at home because I was used to sub-par food at my homestay in Valencia....it's all part of the experience, I don't mind.

One view of our room. It's HUGE, we call that empty, open side 'the dance studio' because it's
gigantic, and it's an excellent place to practice pirouettes when I feel nostalgic. On the other side
 we each have a huge armoire and a sink to share. Livin' large.

Classes are good, but super long. I have class every day, Monday through Friday, from 9am to 2:15pm. It's rough because number one, after high school, people lose the ability to sit through class from the ungodly hour of 9 until 2. After even a single semester in college when you get to sleep in and have huge breaks and get done early, reverting back to this schedule is torture. Not a single day goes by when I'm not tired. Number two, it's a university town so people go out every night. Besides that, we're still in Spain here, so we go out around 1 or 2 and don't get back until...well, we've had some late nights. So the schedule is kind of tricky, but the classes themselves aren't bad. I'm taking a grammar class, 2 conversation-type classes and a Spanish for business class. It's cool because they're all international courses, so I only see 2 other ISA people throughout the day. The rest are from different parts of the world, including Brazil, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Korea, and different parts of the US. Meeting these people from all over and being able to communicate only through Spanish is a super cool experience for me. Also, USAL is such an old university that is so used to dealing with international students that they have everything down to an art - we got student IDs the first day (which we were promised in Valencia but they never came...), USAL notebooks, grammar books written by USAL professors, and options for organized excursions around Spain and Portugal. Everything is super well-run, which is nice to see.

What else? So far the weather has been beautiful pretty much every day. I've worn shorts or a dress to school every day since I've been here, which is nice because in Valencia you get looked at like you have three eyes if you wear shorts without tights- or at least that was always my experience. And...that's pretty much the skinny on Salamanca. I really love it here, and I have this new thing where I pretend I don't have to leave this wonderful place and go back to regular old life in America at the end of the month.....yeah. That's a distant nightmare for now. Here's a few pictures of the city, I'll post more when I take more. Also, the next post is going to be about how I went to Santander and completed one of my life dreams last weekend, so keep an eye out for that.

The famous Casa de Las Conchas (House of Shells). Salamantino buildings are famous for
 being made of this Villamayor sandstone.

La Fachada de La Universidad de Salamanca. This is the famous wall that has the tiny little frog everyone searches for for luck. You won't be able to see it in this picture but you can google it if you're a cheater, or you can stand in front of it with a guide who uses a pocket mirror to reflect the sun to point to it's exact location. We know aaallll about the giant groups of toruists who come with a guide to find the frog because the fachada is RIGHT outside the windows of the rooms I have classes in. At first it's cute but after a few days it's like IT'S RIGHT THERE PEOPLE ARE YOU BLIND IT'S JUST A TINY FROG YOU DON'T NEED TO BE THAT LUCKY!! You know.

One of the university buildings.

The door to the cathedral.

The cathedral.

So like I said. Next post. Life dream. Watch for it. Aren't you curious??

Munich Merriment and The Epitome of Laziness in Faro

After Berlin we took a train to Munich. It was kind of just a stop-over because my flight to Portugal left from the Munich airport. So, especially after having been traveling and sightseeing and running around four different countries in less than two weeks, we decided to just hang out in Munich and relax a little. HOWEVER, little did we know, the weekend we were there was the weekend of the League Championship Finals for soccer, Munich vs. Chelsea, which was a huge deal. We were going to treat ourselves to a hostel for our last stop together, but they were all booked. The only one we could find only had one of the nights available, and it was in a 12 bed dorm and was 75 euro. Noooo thank you. We had a really good couchsurfing host set up too, but he bailed on us at the last minute. The day before we got there, we still didn't have a place to stay and were getting worried. Luckily someone in Munich sent us a message offering to host us, which literally saved us.

So, like I said, we were basically just lazy the whole time we were in Munich. We just wandered around the city, which was actually really fun because there were so many soccer fans everywhere and everyone was excited and happy and loud and fun (there's some $5 adjectives for you). We did see the Glockenspiel, and we went to this really beautiful park called the English Gardens and hung out by the river there. We may or may not have made flower crowns out of tiny little daisies. Then on our way home, we passed a group of people on a bridge watching something in the river. We stopped to look, and we saw a bunch of people in wetsuits surfing on some rapids created by the river rushing over some big, smooth rocks. It was terribly random but SO cool. Who knew Germany had such great surfing?

So, when I said we may or may not have made flower crowns...yeah, we did.

The Glockenspiel

Glockenspiel close up.

Surfing on the river in Munich.

The next day was game day, but it was also the day we were set to leave Munich. I wish we could've stayed for the game but my flight had already been set. I had to take a train to the airport, and it was painful to be leaving at that time because there was a constant flow of people dressed in their team colors and carrying kegs through the airport (no open container laws in Germany, to our surprise) and yelling and cheering getting off trains from all over to see the game and celebrate in the streets. Oh well. At the station, my friends and I had to say goodbye as I had a flight to Portugal and they were going to continue traveling through Europe for a few weeks before going home.

So I flew into Faro, Portugal that afternoon. How did I choose Faro, exactly? Because RyanAir flies there and I got a good deal on a flight. Also because I had eight days to do anything but it had to be cheap, so I decided sitting on a beach would be quite enjoyable. I would have loved to use that extra week to travel around Europe some more, but to say that I'm low on funds is an understatement, and I was also a little nervous about traveling all around by myself. So I decided to stay put in Faro for the eight days I had to kill until I could go to Salamanca for my summer program. I got a private room in a cute little hostel. It was adorable and quaint and full of character, but NOT full of people. I think I saw one other person in passing once at night, but otherwise there was NO ONE else in the hostel. The reception desk was in a different building, so I slept all alone in a giant building full of empty rooms for the better part of a week. So that was a little creepy, it was an old and probably haunted building, but I survived. My schedule every day that week was as follows: sleep till noon (awkwardly wake up at 10 when the cleaning lady entered and then proceeded to apologize in Portuguese because she didn't expect me to be there), get up and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch (yes, they had peanut butter in Faro! Delightful.), walk 5 minutes to the bus station, take a bus to the beach, sit on the beach all day listening to music, reading, and getting a nice tan, go back, eat another PB&J for dinner, sleep, repeat. It was nice to have no responsibilities whatsoever, and obviously it was nice to sleep all day and sit on the beach for the rest. But, despite that, 8 days was by far the longest I've been alone in my life. By the second day I had skyped basically everyone I'd ever known because I was starved for human interaction. I had planned to meet some people in the hostel to hang out with, because that's how hostels usually work, but not this time. So it was a weird experience to be alone for so long, but refreshing and reenergizing at the same time. I got to do tons of reading and listened to lots of new music and got to think a lot. I do love to think, and it was nice to be able to contemplate everything with no interruptions. So my trip to Faro was very low-key, but a nice way to recuperate from all my travels before going back to school!

My cute little hostel room. Notice the bed is quite unmade, on account of how I was sleeping every time the cleaning lady came in, so she just quit coming. Also take note of how my computer is on top of the TV- it was the only place in the whole place I could get wifi, and even then it was only 2 bars. So it was awkward to have to stand there whilst Skyping..

The old church outside my window.

Faro

My view for eight days straight. No complaints.

After Portugal I flew to Madrid (the Salamanca airport is super tiny) and took a bus to Salamanca. I had to get a hostel for two nights because I wasn't allowed to move into my residencia yet. So I just stayed at a regular old hostel, but I basically slept and skyped for the whole day. Then I got up and went to my residencia...more on that in the next post!

Berlin FTW

The next stop on the list was Germany. We took a train from Amsterdam to Berlin in the morning. I don't know if I mentioned this, but the three of us had to turn in our RealCom phones at the end of the program in Valencia, so we were all cell phone-less for this whole trip. We got a lecture about how dumb that was from each of our couchsurfing hosts, especially in Berlin. Something was wrong with the train or something, so at some random little stop in Germany they made everyone get off and sit in the station for an hour until a new train could come and we could continue on to Berlin. We had an epic card game of war while we waited, but it made us an hour behind schedule. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but we had arranged to meet our couchsurfing host at a certain time in the train station, and we didn't have phones to call him and tell him we'd be late. So we got into the station and it was night, and our host obviously wasn't there. First I used my ipod to pick up on some wifi to send him a message, but he didn't respond. Then we found a payphone and tried calling him, but when I dialed the number he had given me, an irate German woman kept answering and she didn't know anything about anyone named Martin, our CS host. We didn't know what to do, so, first things first, we found a Doner Kebab to get dinner. So that was our big joke (we made jokes to keep from getting hysterical at our situation), that we were stranded in Berlin at 10pm, a typical Tuesday night. The other valuable lesson to be learned here is that when in doubt slash when lost in a big city at night with no place to stay, you can ALWAYS go to a Doner Kebab and unwind over some turkish pizzas. So that's exactly what we did. Then we decided to go try and find our CS host's apartment, because he had given us his address. We knew it wasn't supposed to be very far from the tram stop, so we took the tram and then tried walking around looking for it, but we were lugging our suitcases around and it was late and sketchy and we weren't getting any closer. We asked a random woman biking by if she knew where the address was, and she tried to show us on our map, but apparently it was out of range of the map. She kept pointing to the air to the right of the map, which was very unhelpful. So although she was very nice, we weren't any closer. We decided to get a cab, but there were very few driving around in the area we were. A few passed by and I tried to flag them down, but none would stop. Which is odd because I don't think we could've looked more desperate if we TRIED. Finally we got one and he took us to the apartment, which, HILARIOUSLY enough was about a 3 minute cab ride away. Isn't that funny.

So we made it, and although our host was a little surprised to see us on his doorstep hours after we said we were going to get in, he welcomed us right in. His name, coincidentally, was also Martin, and he was also super nice. We hung out for a little bit and then went to bed. It sounds so dumb to say that traveling is exhausting- whenever I say that to someone at home, they say "aww, poor baby, it must be so tough to be forced to gallivant around Europe," or something with a similar degree of sarcasm. But it's true, even though we sat on a train mostly all day, the stress of it all really gets to you. Making reservations, catching trains, being delayed, getting lost, meeting new people, sleeping in a new place every other night...it takes a lot out of you, so we all pretty much passed out. The next morning we got up to go see the city. We took a train to the center and were given a flyer for a walking tour. It seemed like a good idea because Berlin is so big and there's so much history, so we decided it'd be good to have someone there to explain it. Our walking tour was four hours, and we stayed mostly in East Berlin. Our tour guide was so fantatsic- she was super knowledgable and we learned SO much, and she wasn't bending over backwards to make dumb jokes like walking tour guides always do to try to get tips, which was lovely. We saw so much - the Berlin Cathedral, Museum Island, the river, the Berlin wall, the Holocaust Victims Memorial, the TV/radio tower, Checkpoint Charlie, yeah. It was all so interesting!

At one point in the walk, our guide stopped us in this little area of gravel and dead grass next to an apartment parking lot. She told us to get our cameras out because we were going to want a picture of that area. We pulled our best confused faces but did it anyways, so she would tell us what it was.

Confused?? We were too. Until....

That area next to the parking lot was the former site of Hitler's bunker, as it was destroyed after the war. This little sign is the only thing to show that that little patch of gravel is different from any other. Our tour guide said they don't want to make a big deal out of it because they don't want it to become a mecca for neo-nazi crazies, because it's also where Hitler's body was burned by his followers at his request after he and his wife swallowed cyanide pills. She said some things still happen there though - she mentioned that sometimes, like on Hitler's birthday, some neo-nazis come and put flowers on this site. But our guide told us that whenever she sees that, she takes the flowers and moves them to the Holocaust Victims Memorial which is just a block or two away.

So here are some pictures of a few of the things we saw on the tour and some other pictures of Berlin, it'll be easier to do it this way and just explain what they are in the captions.

The Amplemannchen, the little guy on all of the crosswalk signs but ONLY in East Berlin, one of the few surviving symbols of the former communist east Berlin and now can be found on everything from t-shirts to coffee mugs to lunchboxes to underwear...? Yeah, we saw it all in the tourist shops. 

The Berlin Cathedral.

The Berlin radio/TV tower, erected by the socialists in east Berlin as a symbol of their power. However, they didn't foresee that when the sun hit the silver globe, it would form the shape of a cross, which is so incredibly ironic. That's why some people now refer to it as "The Pope's Revenge."

"Mother With Her Dead Son" sculpture in theh Neue Wache. The building was originally a guardhouse for the troops of the Crown Prince of Prussia, but then it was converted into a memorial. It's been rededicated a million times to be a memorial  for lots of different things, but now it's the "Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny." There's a circular skylight just above the statue so it's exposed to the rain, snow and cold, which is a symbol of the suffering of the people it memorializes.

This is a bad picture, but it's a little memorial in a plaza for the book burnings that used to happen there. Under the glass are a bunch of empty shelves to symbolize all the books that were burned. I thought it was so cool to see because one of my favorite books ever is The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, and it's about the book burnings in Germany. Pick it up if you get thte chance.

A memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It's a plaza with hundreds of gray concrete blocks of different sizes. It was designed to evoke the same feelings Jews in concentration camps must have felt while detained - fear, intimdation, not knowing if the ones you entered with will be there when you turn around. The blocks are painted with something that makes it so people can't deface them with grafitti, but after it had been done it came out that the company that provided that specific type of paint was the same company that manufactured the chemical used to gas victims in concentration camps during the war, so the memorial is obviously controversial for that reason.

An former Nazi administration building. Now it's a financial institution, but it must be weird to work there. Our guide told us that these circular parts on the gates are where the swastikas used to go.

The Berlin Wall.

Brandenberg Gate

The hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby out the window.

Checkpoint Charlie

Turns out Reno is also a shoe store in a mall in Berlin!

Currywurst, the only food Berlin is known for creating, according to our tour guide.
We went back multiple times - SO GOOD.

We went out for a night of German house music with our couchsurfing host. My shoes, regrettably, didn't make it through the night.

The second day in Berlin, we went to a concentration camp about an hour outside of the city, called Sachsenhausen. We spent the whole day there - there's so much information to take in, it's overwhelming. We had audioguides, but then in every building there are tons of plaques and books and videos and things to look at too. It was an exhausting day in every sense. It was so unreal to be there where such horrifying things took place, it was just impossible to wrap my head around the cruelty and the suffering. If you're interested in hearing more about what I thought, feel free to email me, but that's all I'll say about the subject here because it's a really intense and personal experience to post about.

So that was Berlin! Next is Munich, and then a little something about Portugal, and THEN I'll finally get to how my month-long program in Salamanca, Spain is coming along.