So what exactly do the Romans do?

Well Rome concludes my string of big city tourist trips. I´m actually really thankful about that fact.

Rome was great. It is a place that is enriched in history and religion. Regardless if you follow any religious routes, Rome is undeniably a respectable place because of it´s history in religion. According to our tour guide at the Coliseum, there are 900 churches in Rome. If you get a chance to view the skyline you could see about a dozen churches poking out at any given point in the city. Each church is uniquely and remarkably beautiful. There was one that we went into that had two arches of chandeliers. I mean, the decorations are incredibly unnecessary, but they are beautiful none the less.

The first full day we were there we went to theColiseum. My first thought was how it looked exactly like pictures I had seen of it. Also I was surprised how it is right in the middle of the city. We literally got off of the metro and it was across the street from the station. This was the first place we went to so we ended up taking a tour with a tour guide. The majority wasn´t really helpful but I did learn some cool facts. First, the holes in the structure are from Romans removing metal beams that were put in place to hold up the structure. They removed the beams to make weapons and other objects. Since the beams were removed, the structure weakend and one side collapsed during an earthquake. In later years they added bricks to the outside to make it stronger. Another fact is that Italy has (or maybe had) the mose active and inactive volcanoes. Therefore, a majority of the paths in Rome and other cities are made from basalt which is a type of lava. I thought the Coliseum was really cool and it made me want to watch the movie Gladiator.

**I would just like to say naner-naner-naner to my parents. I beat you guys to Rome!


Next we went to the neighboring site, the Roman Forum. The guide told us it would be easier to explain what didn´t occur in this place rather than trying to tell us what did happen. The only thing I can recall was that funerals did not happen in the Forum, but he listed like 5 things. The Roman Forum is basically in ruins right now, but Julius Caesar died there and Marc Antony gave his famous speech there after the murder of Caesar. Unfortunately we didn´t get to see much more because at this point it had started to rain. We were free to look around after the tour/background information, but both Tesla and I were without umbrellas and were getting soaked.

Side note- you would be amazed at the amount of vendors there in Rome. First off, it is illegal to sell on the grounds of the Coliseum unless you are licensed to. We actually saw two guys running from the guards there. However, once it starts raining you only have to walk but 10 steps before some guy comes up to you trying to sell an umbrella. Since we were without umbrellas, we were perfect targets for each and every one of them. I´m glad "no" is the same in most languages.

The next day we got up a little early to go to the Vatican. First we went to St. Peter´s Basilica and stood in line. Surprisingly the line didn´t actually take too long in contrast to the Vatican Museum and it was free! Which is always great! This basilica is beautiful. I´m trying to think of a synonym to describe it better. It´s respectable and detailed. It makes you say "wow". It makes you feel honored to be a part of it. It´s enriching and incredible. It is not overwhelming like other churches. It doesn´t try to be a grand "look at me" type of church, but it is any ways and that´s what makes me appreciate it. Very neat experience.

We took our time looking around then headed to the Vatican Museum. Museum is in the name so I wasn´t too excited about that, bu tI thought this might be different. Nope, it was another boring museum. It actually starts out with statues and artifacts of the ancient Pharaohs which I found as kind of contradicting. These people worshipped multiple gods, yet they are represented in the highest Catholic city-state museum? I must be missing something. Then there were more statues, and more artifacts, and more paintings. The ceilings are extravagent and are also part of the art in the museum. The ceilings are impressive to say the least. I´m always amazed by what people can do with their creativity. The museum leads up to the Sistine Chapel in the end. After visiting St. Peter´s Basilica, I was expecting something big and elegant. However it´s just a room about the size of a mediocre ballroom. I shouldn´t say it was "just a room" because obviously there is a huge significance to this chapel. Every inch of the walls were painted including the ceiling. Magnificent paintings at that. Photos are not allowed, as we were told by the 10 signs leading up to it, but when we got in there everyone was doing it. As they say, when in Rome do as the Romans do. Haha, get it? Oh I crack myself up sometimes.

So moving on because I know this is the topic you really care to hear about the most: Food. Yes, the food, where to begin? I had spinach stuffed ravioli with some delicious sauce, tortellini in a sort of meat sauce, spaghettie in a carbonara sauce, and of course pizza. For dessert I had a canoli and gelato. Mmm buenísimo! Authentic Italian food is the stuff, and also the real reason I went there. Spain isn´t giving me the fill I need so I went to Italy. Unfortunately all good things come to an end and we headed back to Granada.

Here is a littel traveling story to freak you already conscious of flying in planes people a little more worried. Especially you, Mom, since you will be flying to Italy and Spain in less than a month. I have become more and more pessimistic about flying in planes the more I do it. I honestly think it is because of the cheapo airlines I have been using to get around though. Anyways we boarded our plane to fly back to Malaga (the airport closest to Granada for international flights). We were in the process of taking off and I swear we were not getting enough speed to takeoff successfully. We got up safely but it felt like the story of the little engine could. All was fine until we started the landing process. We started hitting some turbulence and it was rocking our place pretty well. Almost like our airplane was as light as a feather getting moved around by the wind. We would fly into clouds and could feel the impact. At one point we ran into a cloud and the plane dropped what felt like 10 feet. Everyone on the plane gasped in fear. Everyone was one the edge until we made it to the ground without crashing. Then everyone started clapping. They did that when we landed in Rome too which is really odd to me. Tesla made a good point when she said, "I wish people clapped when I did my job correctly". I had to laugh at that.

Anyways I am alive and I have completed 10 out of 13 total flights. That´s right 10: Dallas, Madrid, Granada, Paris, Madrid, Dublin, London, Malaga, Rome, and Malaga. Next time I step on a plane it will be on my journey home (Madrid, Chicago, Des Moines). Which is only 30 days from today. Crazy stuff!!

The land of my forefathers and their oppressors

Ireland:

4 days in Ireland- enought time to do sightseeing, but not nearly enough time to say that I have experienced it. First stop was on the east coase in the capital city of Dublin. The city was a lot smaller than anticipated. It felt smaller than Des Moines, that´s for sure, but I enjoed its quaintness. Reminded me a lot of Iowa actually. It has its main streets, but also neighborhoods of townhomes and stand alone houses. You just don´t see those in Spain. First off, it was really strange being in a country that speaks English. I have developed the bad habit of wanting to talk about people right in front of them, but I had to hold myself back because they can understand me. For example, when we checked into our hostel we wanted to split the bill and pay separate. Roseanna had booked the beds with her credit card and had to pay a down payment. We wanted to split the bill INCLUDING what Roseanna had already paid. She should get the deposit taken off of her bill, while I still hadn´t paid yet. The guy at the front desk was splitting the bill in half with the deposit taken off so Roseanna was actually paying more than she was supposed to. He could not do the math. Eventually I just told him, "here is a 50, I owe you 32, you give me 18 back. She will pay the rest of the balance". I might as well have spoken Spanish to this guy because it was not going through his head. This would have been a time that I wanted to talk about this person right in front of them but I couldn´t. I should have talked in Spanish now that I think about it. So we settled into the hostel and then wandered around the city. No direction, just go where our feet take us. There really isn´t a whole lot of sightseeing in Dublin, so luckily there I didn´t have to go through the motions of a tourist. Speaking of tourists, we aslo did not stand out! That is, until we opened our mouths and had a clear American accent, but I will take that over sheer looks any day. I am in love with the Irish accent. I could listen to them talk all day. It´s so cute how they don´t pronounce the "th" sound and their cute lingo. Also it continues to blow my mind how they drive on the opposite side of the road and their steering wheel is on the opposite side too. Shoot! Even their escalators are backwards. Luckily on the roads they have "Look Left" and "Look Right" painted otherwise I would have had 10 times more close calls of walking into on coming traffic.

 It was actually a mind boggling challenge. Sometime I would be baffled that no one was driving a car, but realized they were driving in the passenger seat. Everything was running smoothly until the second day I realized that I forgot to pack socks. Yes, my favorite piece of clothing and I forgot to pack them. Since I was on a week long trip I had to buy 6 pairs of Dublin´s finest mid leg socks in assorted colors. It I had to forget anything I am glad is was socks.

Probably my favorite part of Dublin was the Guinness Factory. I don´t drink beer. I am physically repulsed by the smell and taste of it, but it´s such a huge part of practically every culture so I thought it would be cool to go see. Which it impressively was. They have really cool visuals and interactive features throughout the tour. To someone who is a true beer drinker they would love the Guinness Factory. In total, each person got a pint and a half to drink. In total, I probably had 6 sips. The beer was not bad though for beer. I´ve had worse and that would actually be drinkable if I had 2 hours and salty peanuts or chips to munch on. I even got to pour my own pint of Guinnes, which was also really cool.

But then I got yelled at by a staff member when he caught me pour a little down the sink. Okay, let me explain. He made me fill the cup till it was one drop away from overflowing. I just wanted to be able to carry it to my table. I told him that it was too full and he responded with "but that´s how it´s done" and a loud sigh. Sorry that I am not cut out for the Irish beer life. I´ll stick with my fruity drinks. Jeesh, buddy. You´d think I was insulting his mother or something. Even though I only had a few sups, I probably burped clost to ten times. It didn´t taste good going down and it definitely wasn´t tasty on the way up. After that we had lunch in the park and went to the Dublin Zoo. for the record, Blank Park Zoo is better so I won´t go into detail of the zoo. Except that the animals were active which is really hard to come by at zoos.

Next we headed to the West Coast to a cute little town of Galway. This city highlights the green everywhere that Ireland is associated with. Being on the west coast I heard a lot that Dublin doesn´t really count as being Ireland. They call it the big city and is a poor representation of Ireland as a whole. They are glad when they hear of people visiting other places and spending more than one day in Ireland. Our first day there was not exciting but it was neat. Ireland is not really an exciting place, but it has that homey feeling that I miss from Iowa. The second day in Galway we took a bus tour to a few sites along the west coast. The main attraction of this tour was the Cliffs of Moher which are really cool and gut turning because you can get right on the edge.  

Don´t worry Mom, I didn´t fall and crack my head open, though that would be a cool story to tell. These cliffs are featured in several movies including Harry Potter. They are on the Atlantic Ocean and peak to 700ft tall. Perfect place for cliff jumping. Unfortunately we had overcast weather the whole time, but luckily no rain. I just wish that the sun had came out so that it would highlight the beauty of the scenery more in my memories and in my pictures. Get this, while at the Cliffs of Moher I met a guy who played baseball at Central College for a year, but left because it was too small of a town. Small world, huh! On this same tour we went on a small walking tour of a little village in the "mountians". They weren´t technically mountains, but for easier reference they called them that. We learned about the flora and fauna in this area. The mountains are covered with huge limestone rocks. In the olden days they had to clear these rocks in order to use the fertile land. During the potato famine, the farmers would hire people to make useless walls up the mountians using the limestone and pay them in soup. One interesting fact that I learned was that they are the only region that will drive their cattle up the mountians during the winter. They do this because all of the grass has been used up during the other three seasons and the limestone absorbs heat and actually keeps the land warm for the animals in the winter. Just something interesting I learned from that.

London:

Most of the next day was spent traveling to London because we had to take a bus from Galway back to Dublin in order to catch our flight into the outskirts of London. I debated myself on bringing up this next part, but it´s over, I´m safe, and it´s part of the experience. The hostels that we have been staying at have been decent. Most offer a free breakfast, the sheets appear to be clean, they are in nice neighborhoods, and the bathrooms aren´t dirty. Well I guess we must have gotten used to a certain way because this place did not feel like a hostel. We found the location given it us on the website, but this place was a bar and showed no signs of anything signifying it was a hostel. We went in and asked the woman bartending if this was the right place, she said yes and directed us in to another room. We had to go through the bar, into the back room and up some stairs. This place was a maze. There were so many doors and passwords for the key pads on the doors. They had 2 rooms with 8 beds in them for the hostelers, and another room for the family that was living there. We had to make our own beds with worn and torn sheets. My pillow might as well have been nonexistent for how much padding there was, and I could feel the springs from the mattress. The kitchen had outdoor tables and chairs and the whole place definitely didn´t look tended to. We had to do our own dishes after breakfast and if we used them for other meals. Our neighborhood was not the best. For some reason police sirens are not a comforting sound to hear when you are in a random place. One of the house rules, and I quote, was "We may be in Brixton, but Hootananny Hostel has a zero tolerance to drug use in the hostel". After the shock of being in a place like this subsided, it wasn´t that bad. There was never a point that I felt I was in an unsafe place. I take this in as experience and another story to tell.

To get out of the hostel, we obviously went sight seeing around London. The first night we got there it was rainy and cold so we picked a spot that we only had to walk outside to get to the Tube. We went to King´s Cross station where Platform 9 3/4 is. For those of you who are not Harry Potter fans, this is where the students of Hogwarts have to catch their train by running through the wall. Roseanna and I actually walked to platform 9 which looked exactly like the movie, but there was no 9 3/4. Apparently, it was moved because it got in the way of actualy customers boarding the trains. So now it is a disappointing sign and half cart glued to the wall. Being a Harry Potter fan I was very disappointed in the sight. It was too fake and resembled nothing close to the set of the movies.

By then it was getting late and we saved the rest of the sightseeing for the next day. First thing in the morning we did was to watch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. To my surprise this was a very long, drawn out process. We left after an hour before it was finished. The process included men on horses, a band, and lots of people in uniform. Get this! The band started playing their first song and I really wasn´t paying attention at first. I figured it would be a classical piece representing the royal family or something along those lines. It was not. Let´s do a little quiz here. Which song do you think the band of guards played? Was it
a) Here Comes the Sun- Beatles
b) We are the Champions- Queen
c) I Wanna Rock & Roll All Night- Kiss
d) Crocodile Rock- Elton John

If you guessed b) We are the Champions- Queen then you are correct. Yes, Buckingham Palace played a Queen song during the changing of the guards ceremony. No joke. It was quite confusing. Later we did more sightseeing and went to the London Bridge. I do not understand the significance to this attraction because the bridges on I-235 with the blue arches are prettier than this. However we got a view of Tower Bridge which is a prettier sight to see. Way better than the London Bridge. We also saw Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, the Parliament, the London Eye, blah blah blah. Nothing worth a "wow". We also saw where the Olympics are being held. It is still a work in progress apparently and it´s in a weird neighborhood on the north side of London in like the middle of nowhere. Probably my favorite thing we saw was Abbey Road with the famous Beatles cover. The crosswalk wasn´t all that cool, but knowing the significance of it made it better. I think that´s my problem with sightseeing, if I don´t understand the significance of it then I could care less. Then we went to a memorabilia shop of the Beatles and other bands. The owner had a really cool collection of albums and odds and ends stuff. He said he has even met the Beatles back in the day. 

On the last day to kill some time we went to the Hard Rock Cafe to get a pin for mi padre. Got Paris, Madrid, Dublin and Londong for ya Pops. Anyways we were thinking ahead to get some lunch at a grocery store so I asked a worker at the Cafe where the nearest grocery store was. London must not call them grocery stores because the lady asked me what that was. She wasn´t really helpful because there was a misunderstanding. We decided to walk around to see if we could find one. We quickly gave up when we realized what neighborhood we were in. We passed the London Playboy Club, a huge Hilton Hotel with a bellhop in a suit and top hat, and we were near the Buckingham Palace. Yeah, no cheap food in this area.

Leaving London, we took RyanAir to get back to Spain. Don´t ever take RyanAir! Pay more not to take them, honestly. We heard about their reputation and how strict they were on carry on luggage. You are restricted to one carry on, no additional personal item. Your purses and laptops must fit in your bag. They will make you put your luggage in those containers to make sure they meet the dimension standards. Well our backpacks were full of a weeks worth of clothes and other odds and ends. If we were asked to fit our bags in those containers we would fail and have to pay 50 pounds. So in order to avoid this, we put on as much clothes as we could. I had my stretchy warmup pants that I used for pjs under a pair of jeans, and I had 6 shirts on. My collar was quite colorful with red, purple, and black showing. Then I had on my North Face jacket with multiple items stuffed in the pockets. Regardless of the ridiculousness, my big fit and I was good to go. Another reason not to fly with RyanAir is they don´t assign seats. You get in line to board the plane and it is first come first serve with where you sit. I absolutely hate that! Plus you have to do an online check in atleast 4 hours ahead of your flight and print out your boarding pass. I did this before I left but I almost forgot about it because I´ve never had to do that before. RyanAir just plain sucks. Avoid it. I thoroughly enjoyed flying with Aer Lingus which were my flights to Dublin and London. If you´re going through Ireland, try them.


Reflecting back on the entire trup, I loved Ireland. I would do more rural traveling if I get the chance to go back. Dublin was cool, but Galway was relaxing. I really lik the Irish culture too. They are nice and fun to listen to =) On the contrary, I probably will never go back to London, nor would I want to. It´s definitely not a place for me. It´s expensive as hell! We thought about going to see The Hunger Games since it would be in English, but the movie would have cost 10.50 pounds or $16.81 for a 6pm showing. Chyea right! In general the place is crazy expensive. All of the sighseeing places cost atleast 15 pounds or $24 to go in and see them. I got into the Louvre for free! No way, London! I´m glad I can say that I´ve been there, but never in my life do I have an interest to go back. Let´s just say....Lon-DONE!


Spain:


I´m so glad to be back in Spain. Everytime I leave and come back I realize how much I love it. I had a few days off before getting back into the swing of things so I took advantage of not having to do anything. I finished this amazing book called Absolute Power by David Baldacci. It´s an intense storyline from start to finish. It completely blows out all of the other books I have been reading. I love this book and HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it! I was really bummed when I had to leave it in Granada over spring break, right in the middle of reading it. So that marks the 6th book I have read this semester. That´s more than I read during a semester in an English class. Right now I am reading The Da Vinci Code that I bought in English from Madrid and I am loving it so far. I´m about half way through it already and I started it over the weekend. I knocked out probably 150 pages by reading it in the park on Easter. I´m back to beautiful weather and a city that I feel comfortable knowing my way around. Thursday I leave for Rome and continue this crazy journey I am on.