It's the spring semester of my junior year, so I am celebrating with un gran viaje filled with classes (unfortunately) and crazy foreign fun. https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/ Thu, 23 Apr 2026 16:06:38 GMT World Nomads Adventures The two Easter processions of Holy Week in Granada, one of the three Semana Santa capitols of Spain! https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/3201/Spain/Semana-Santa Travel Spain eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/3201/Spain/Semana-Santa#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/3201/Spain/Semana-Santa Thu, 10 May 2007 19:34:00 GMT 0 Just in case you guys thought Holy Week was a religious thing here in Andalusia, I will tell you now that it is really just a crazy, interesting mix of Pagan beliefs, touristy aims, religious propaganda, and, yes, Catholic tradition. Way back in the day, everyone knows how Christian holidays covered up Pagan celebrations, incorporating elements of both sides to make the religious conversions more effective. Easter landed on the first full moon of spring, which explains why it moves around every year. Spring being a big Mother Nature time of year, the Pagans dedicated it to the goddess, Venus or Isis or whatever you want to call her. According to my POE profe, the Christians called her Mary. Fast-forward some hundreds of years to the Baroque period of Spain. The Catholic monarchs have come and gone, the New World’s been discovered, and Spain is quite without money. Martin Luther’s shaking up the Christian world, and Spain is freaking out, having just spent its last gold on the Catholic Inquisition. The Church responds with the Counterreformation, and since most folks are illiterate, the movement takes much of its form in art. Churches are built, paintings commissioned, and ridiculously ornate sculptures created to be paraded around the streets of Spain and teach the wonders of the Catholic religion. The quality of life in these days is low, so people celebrate most everything royal and religious to distract themselves from their so-so lives. Enter now Semana Santa processions. The Baroque folk are fixated on the Passion of Christ, it being the more dramatic side of Holy Week (this is, after all, in direct competition with the Protestants, and the Catholic Chruch wants to emphasize what Jesus suffered for us). So the last week of Lent becomes a richly visual portrayal of the Passion of Christ, finishing grandly with the Crucifiction on Holy Thursday. Fast-forward some 400 years more, and you have today. Franco having driven Spain’s economy into the ground during much of the 20th century, Andalusia’s pretty pleased to realize how popular its Lenten celebrations are with tourists. Semana Santa (Holy Week) is expanded to Easter Sunday, hotels in Sevilla, Málaga, and even Granada fill to the brim, and it becomes the week to spend money in southern Spain. I, however (and luckily, too), was elsewhere (Slovakia Fest 2007!) while it down poured throughout Andalusia, canceling all the old processions. By the time I returned the sun poked out and Saturday and Easter Sunday proceeded per usual. Like I mentioned, though, Easter’s not the big deal that Holy Thursday is, so please accept my apologies for lacking photos of the really cool stuff. https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/5259/Spain/Semana-Santa Travel Spain eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/5259/Spain/Semana-Santa#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/5259/Spain/Semana-Santa Thu, 10 May 2007 16:42:00 GMT 0 So it turns out Budapest is actually a two-in-one deal: Buda on one side of the Danube and Pest on the other! The train station where we got off, unfortunately, turned out to be the wrong one, leaving us with a long hike and our first great adventure! Great is perhaps not the operative word, as my bag got awfully heavy and my umbrella awfully inside-out in the rainy wind weather, but an adventure still the same, and lucky for us, the hostels both turned out to be conveniently-located places of comfort! Our hostel lady, though, unfortunately lived elsewhere, there was a mix-up of meeting times, and we didn’t get our key til the next day. This didn’t prove problematic til after dinner, when everyone else was out and we wanted in. So technically, technically, we broke in through the window. But it happens. The other travelers at this hostel were all really interesting, too, so it would seem Pest is where the cool people go! Obviously. Thursday was hilly and my aforementioned cold was much worse, but both Buda and Pest turned out to be one great city! Rumor spoke of an underground labyrinth, so this was obviously a necessary venture. Two monster hills, many souvenir stands, and one playground later we found it quite lived up to expectation. Lunch was homemade cake and ice cream, snack was street vendor sweets, and all in all, it was a very healthy day! Somehow we lost Hil and Lianne (they were at a different hostel), so Friday was sadly incomplete and, also sadly, the end of Slovakia Fest. So while Budapest remains slightly unexplored (turns out a lot of things close for Good Friday), the stories live on, and returning home to southern Spain is hardly a hardship. The journey back was basically just a series of naps on different forms of transportation, and not gonna lie, it was kinda nice to be in familiar territory once again. But Slovakia Fest 2007 was beyond-belief a crazy-awesome time of five stars and two big thumbs up. Phew! https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/5258/Hungary/Part-3-Budapest-Hungary Travel Hungary eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/5258/Hungary/Part-3-Budapest-Hungary#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/5258/Hungary/Part-3-Budapest-Hungary Tue, 8 May 2007 12:53:00 GMT 0 The homestretch of our travels and grand finale to Slovakia Fest 2007! https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2798/Hungary/Buda-Pest Travel Hungary eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2798/Hungary/Buda-Pest#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2798/Hungary/Buda-Pest Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:51:00 GMT 0 This is the true essense of Slovakia Fest 2007. https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2797/Slovakia/Slovakia Travel Slovakia eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2797/Slovakia/Slovakia#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2797/Slovakia/Slovakia Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:11:00 GMT 0 Exciting Slovakia Fest adventures in Vienna, Austria. https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2795/Austria/Ich-spreche-kein-deutsch Travel Austria eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2795/Austria/Ich-spreche-kein-deutsch#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2795/Austria/Ich-spreche-kein-deutsch Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:51:00 GMT 0 So Vienna was really just warm ups. Bratislava’s where Slovakia Fest truly begins! We had absolutely no clue what to expect, aside from debatable Hollywood sources “Euro Trip” and “Hostel,” but Bratislava is quite the lovely little city! Nice and walkable, like Granada, but thankfully sooo much cleaner. We hit the jackpot with Slovak Pub, a restaurant-bar aimed at students, which roughly translates from Slovak to both tasty and cheap. We were pretty pumped to go out in Slovakia, but apparently no one else was feeling the Monday night thing like we Granadinos. Nothing was even open, save the empty discoteque on the Danube. And as Bratislava is apparently a popular homosexual tourist destination (??), the males that were out were more interested in my guy friends than me. Shoot. Tuesday went better, though, with delicious cheese-meat-egg bagel sandwiches and fresh-squeezed orange juice to start off our day. The castle turned out to be a mere photo-op, the accompanying museum being a long, boring snore-fest about coins and a composer. And not even kidding, I actually fell asleep (I had caught a pretty bad cold at this point). The palace wasn’t too impressive either, but it was free, so no one really minded. We had a bunch of 10¢ ice cream for lunch (Bratislava is cheap!), and tried for Slovakian opera, but the performance wasn’t until the following night. Back at the hostel, we found Hil and Lianne had arrived, and along with our new friend Canadian Will, got steak dinners and beer! Canadian Will actually turned out to have quite the wallet (or maybe his rich Vancouver parents did?) and kept buying everyone drinks for the rest of the night. Needless to say, the Danube disco was a little more fun this time around. But the next morning was an early one, so we fondly farewelled and proceeded to rock the train southward. https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4478/Slovakia/Part-2-Bratislava-Slovakia Travel Slovakia eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4478/Slovakia/Part-2-Bratislava-Slovakia#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4478/Slovakia/Part-2-Bratislava-Slovakia Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:30:00 GMT 0 Once upon a time was Slovakia Fest 2007. It pretty much rocked. Day 1 was a bit disjointed, what with our arriving on different flights, but no worries. By mealtime we were together at last and ate some healthy steak with onions at this rustic little Austrian restaurant in the middle of Vienna. It was a wonderfully tasty beginning to a very carnivorous trip. Our hostel gave us free drink tickets to their basement bar (cool atmosphere, horrible booze, but someone guess why Nick picked this place), so we drank the free stuff and while Hilary went to sleep, the guys and I just chilled the evening away. Day 2 was more eventful, obviously, since we were conscious, and we set off to find our Hil. She had spent the morning with a friend, and insisted said friend (who immediately thereafter lost any and all credibility with any of us) recommended a museum that turned out to be a strange, boring dud. And this after they shot down my graphic design museum suggestion! GD would’ve beaten the Succession any day. But whatever, I will not be bitter. I can’t be, really, because after that we went to the Saturday markets! Dried fruit and flowers and so much flea market craziness, we spent way more time there than necessary. But the best part was when we found a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed, lederhosen-wearing doll with a hole in his stomach: Brint! We obviously bought him on the spot and, not even kidding, carried him with us everywhere for the rest of the trip. Awesome. We lunched on delicious cake and please, let’s pause a moment to remember just how delicious it was. Swan Lake was at the opera house, so luckily there was no dress code (only there might be one now—I don’t think Vienna ever anticipated Nick’s “Legalize Marijuana” t-shirt). Minutes later we excitedly went up to the standing-room-only balcony! Well, maybe just Hilary and I were excited, but the guys were good sports, especially when we got up there and could only find standing space for two—so they pretty much hung around listening to over an hour of Austrian ballet. Hilary and I, however, saw more than half the stage, and seeing shows in opera houses is my new favorite thing to do on vacation. It was beautiful! They just jumped and twirled like they owned the air and everything was so in-synch it was amazing. We left early, though, for the sake of our boys, and figured it was 2€ expertly spent. Dinner rather failed, as Hilary wanted to cook to save money, the chicken still had feathers, and the flavor was bland. And ingredients cost so much we didn’t save anything, so I don’t know why she kept trying to get us to let her do it again. That night being Saturday, we figured we’d head out for the Bermuda Triangle, supposedly the place for Viennese nightlife. Yeah, well, it was lame. Day 3 we overslept (stupid Bermuda Triangle) and found ourselves with time for only one museum. Once again, GD was shot down, and we went to Museum of Fine Arts instead. We had more heaven-in-cake-form for lunches, and headed off in search of the fair. Nick had a crazy obsession with finding this famous Ferris wheel, only it turned out to be one of those huge, slow, tourist ones, of which he disapproved, so we went on the normal one instead. All I can say is Austria obviously has different safety regulations than the United States because this was one shady business. The fair was fun, though, one of those nightmare-ish ones of movies, and I would’ve had a photography field day if my camera took better pictures at night. Our dinner was deliciously huge and unhealthy, so full to the brim, we decided to hang out with our flash-bartending Austrian roommate instead of going out. He showed us his act, which was really cool. It would have been even cooler had there been fire, but the real thing’s on YouTube, should you care to view (search Daniel something). The next morning was the Schönbrunn Palace, such a contrast to the Bourbon pomp of Palacio Real in Madrid. If you’ve seen Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” that’s the contrast I’m talking about, because this was the palace where little Antoine grew up! The pious-conservative Austrian line ruled Spain before the overly-gilded French one did, so it was crazy recognizing faces in the family portraits. But thus did the Vienna portion of our travels end too soon, and now I officially need to go back. https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4477/Austria/Part-1-Vienna-Austria Travel Austria eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4477/Austria/Part-1-Vienna-Austria#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4477/Austria/Part-1-Vienna-Austria Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:28:00 GMT 0 Well, I am so glad to say that Slovakia Fest 2007 was an awesome amazing success! All ticket purchasing problems aside, we pretty well rocked central Europe, pretty well failed at speaking Slovak or Hungarian, and pretty well each ate our combined weight in sausage. It turns out that once again, Spring Break has been much too short for my liking, but perhaps its ending has better benefited my physical health and well-being? I am now so tired, I’m not even sure I feel like explaining. The key characters in this account are as follows: Nick, Vince, and myself as the true participants of Slovakia Fest 2007. Brint as the true participant in spirit, gone instead home to the States to recover from a three-week battle with appendicitis gone horribly wrong. Hilary and Lianne are the extras, doing their own version of the trip, and calling it Slovak Attack, which is wrong. But anyway… https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4450/Slovakia/Slovakia-Fest-2007-an-introduction Travel Slovakia eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4450/Slovakia/Slovakia-Fest-2007-an-introduction#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4450/Slovakia/Slovakia-Fest-2007-an-introduction Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:16:00 GMT 0 I love Morocco! If you ever thought otherwise, you were wrong. Technically, I got back some weeks ago, but there was that whole food poisoning thing, then Spring Break, and time just kind of got away from me! So we’re going to rewind, and pretend that it’s St. Patrick’s Day weekend once again… So: I just got back from the most amazing trip! Morocco was incredible, the people amazing, and the food sooo, so good. Four days was not nearly enough. Day 1 began bright and early in ugly Algeciras, Spain for the boat ride across the windy, white-capped Straight of Gibraltar. I’m so lucky I’m not easily seasick, because the rest of the group was pea green while I sat and read. Even the huge boat was heaving through the swells. They actually almost cancelled, it was so rough, but I am so glad they did not. We landed in Tangier and ate at a Women’s Center to talk about women’s rights in Morocco. The Taliban gives Islam such a bad name; it’s nothing like the Middle East in Morocco. Women have got a bit of the “separate but equal” thing going, but with the new king, they can file for divorce, get child support, have pre-nups, all sorts of things they couldn’t do before. Women couldn’t even have a bank account in Spain til they got rid of Franco, so you see how fuzzy that line between Western and developing nation can be. Tangier wasn’t that special of a city, being a port city, but it did have three McDonald’s, so yeah. Gross. Moving on, we headed down the coast to Asilah, a lovely little white-washed city on the Atlantic. We rode camels on the beach and it was crazy awesome. Not nearly as treacherous as it looks! That night we met our homestay families in the old part of Rabat, and they were all sooo nice. Annie and I had a harder time than the others, as no one in our family spoke much English at all, but pretty much all Moroccans that we met spoke Arabic and French, so we figured stuff out. My French skills were obviously bad, but so much better than I had anticipated! I could almost always figure out what my homestay mom was saying, which was definitely a good thing. That night we had tea (oh yum, I wish I could drink that tea forever) and the girls took us out to see the city. One of them painted henna on our hands and we just sat around chatting with tea and other Americans til well after midnight. It was nice. Day 2 was scholarly-ish. We met with a professor at the University to talk about the social conflicts between the Islam and Western Worlds, but I was slightly disappointed: with the time crunch, it ended up being more of a summary than a discussion. It was still interesting, but could have been so much more so. After lunch with the families, we met up with University students to take us around the city and hang out with Moroccans our own age. By much crappy mathematics, everyone else shared two of the guys and Annie and I each got our own. So we double dated round the city, practiced Arabic out on the jetty, and team-bartered in the open-air markets. It was actually a really fun time, except that the Moroccans kept hitting on us, so it was probably good we rejoined with the group after some hours. Day 3 was goodbyes. I wish we could have talked more with our families because everyone else got so close with theirs, but even we felt closer to this family after two days than we do with our Spanish families after two months. Our homestay mom made us promise that if we ever come back to Morocco we’d stay with them. I think the hospitality in Morocco is the biggest thing I noticed there. Heading east, our three-hour drive to the Rif Mountains turned into six plus when our driver took a “shortcut” off the hand-drawn map he had been using. But Turkish toilets aside, we almost made it without any more problems! Almost. The van stalled out, though, about a third of the way up a huuuuge bit of mountain, and we had to get out and walk. Then the little tractor that could came by and gave us a ride far out of their way. It was a great adventure! Then there was the cute old grandpa waving us past, the little kids shouting “hello, hello” (the only English word they know), and the tiny sustenance farming village, too small to even warrant a name, to welcome us there. We had couscous at this woman’s house (her brother knows the director of the program I went with), and the grandma, speaking through a translator, was absolutely insistent we stay. With our van broken, she said, we couldn’t possibly make it, we could sleep in the living room (there were ten of us), she had enough food and eggs for everyone—she absolutely refused to let us leave before a week was up. It was so sweet (I can’t believe the hospitality we found in Morocco!) and we actually had to stage something of an escape to get her to let us leave. From there we went to Chefchaouen for a no-tour quick-get-your-shopping-in evening, thanks to our three-hour delay. The city was like a painting, though, all soft-edges and shades of white and blue. Dinner was amazing, I-miss-Moroccan-food-already amazing, and then we all curled up with our blankets and told ghost stories at the hostel. Day 4 was an early one for those of us who cared for morning hikes, so we climbed six million stairs up the hill to eat dried figs and look out over the city. Then came the long way home. Crossing the land border into Ceuta (a Spanish city on the African continent) was an experience. You walked down this narrow caged-in pathway alongside these two, equally long cages. This is where they put Moroccan men and women who try to immigrate illegally into Spain (Spain has one of the highest immigration rates in the world, second only to the United States, and they estimate some 30 cross illegally everyday). No one even cares about your passport because they know you’re American (non-US or –EU citizens have more trouble, Ojaswi’s Nepali passport actually didn’t go over so well) and all the Spanish guards want to know is whether you smoked Hashish in the Chaouen (we did not). Then you walk into Spain and there’s a big sign welcoming you in Spanish, French, English… but not Arabic. It’s rather affecting to see how cold the Spain side is after we’ve been nothing but welcomed on the Moroccan one. But the trip was amazing. It makes me so glad I’m in Spain and able to do things like this. And seriously anyone who gets the chance to go to Morocco should go because I can’t possibly do it justice here. And also, if you do, please find and take pictures of the tree-climbing goats. Because they sound exciting! https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4449/Morocco/Morocco Travel Morocco eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4449/Morocco/Morocco#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/4449/Morocco/Morocco Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:14:00 GMT 0 My million adventures in Africa! https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2473/Morocco/Morocco Travel Morocco eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2473/Morocco/Morocco#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2473/Morocco/Morocco Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:11:00 GMT 0 Once upon a time, while it was blizzarding in Minnesota, I went to the beach. And not a scummy little lake “beach,” mind you: a real, live sand-and-salt-water bit of Mediterranean Sea. Tough life! It was to celebrate Andalusia Day, of course: Amy and I grabbed our suits, I grabbed my SPF, and we headed to the bus station. Two hours later, we were enjoying a sunny seaside Wednesday in Nerja, a cute little tourist town near Málaga. It was still a bit too February for swimming, but plenty warm to lounge half-naked in the sun, which is exactly what we did. I didn’t even get burned! Ah, Spain. https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3819/Spain/February-Spain-style Travel Spain eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3819/Spain/February-Spain-style#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3819/Spain/February-Spain-style Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:36:00 GMT 0 Well, I survived my first day at the University! Classes at the Centro (I’m taking three there) started a while ago, but my big girl class just began this week. It was pouring rain and still dark out when I left home this morning (7:30, gross), but I had my umbrella, so it was okay. I was so nervous I would fail at Spanish when I got there, but I did fine, understood the professor, etc. I still have to register (obviously, this process of studying in Spain has to be absolutely as stressful, lengthy, and complicated as possible), but it’ll work out. The people seemed nice enough, and from all different art/design backgrounds, but I was too busy keeping awake and thinking of the busy day ahead to talk much. Profe said maybe I needed to find some coffee (awesome first impression), and then I forgot my umbrella, so he was probably right. Ah, well. Who sleeps, anyway? https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3380/Spain/La-Universidad-de-Granada Travel Spain eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3380/Spain/La-Universidad-de-Granada#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3380/Spain/La-Universidad-de-Granada Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:51:00 GMT 0 The city-wide, long-long botellón of Cádiz. https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2171/Spain/Carnaval Travel Spain eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2171/Spain/Carnaval#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2171/Spain/Carnaval Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:12:00 GMT 0 Um, Carnaval? Insane. I don’t even know how else to decribe it: just the entire city of Cádiz converted into one, big, all-night botellón. My guidebook says “it makes Mardi Gras look like Monday night bingo.” I’ve never been to Mardi Gras, but maybe that helps you get the picture? Just imagine a city of drunken Spaniards dressed in crazy costumes. We were three pirates, two super heroes, a cop, and a nurse hanging out with two hippies, Che Guevara, and Elvis. Quite the experience. A big group of us went, and it was so crazy. We saw Hiroko, my Japanese sister here, and Carlos (Brint and I know him through another girl). So that was cool. We hung out with Carlos and his friends most of the night, so I got to speak mucho español. Oh wow, though. It was so good to sit down when the bus came at 9 that next morning. The streets were way too gross for resting, making the 4-hour ride home much appreciated. Plenty of time to admire Spanish countryside and dream of Spanish food. Actually I was craving kebap all night and some huge German breakfast by morning. But whatever. I think I could sleep through the rest of the week. I am still so tired… https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3359/Spain/The-pre-Lent-event-of-a-lifetime Travel Spain eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3359/Spain/The-pre-Lent-event-of-a-lifetime#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3359/Spain/The-pre-Lent-event-of-a-lifetime Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:58:00 GMT 0 So good to be back in Spain. It’s weird how after only a month, Anna and I were homesick for Granada while we visited France. What’s also weird: not being able to communicate! Especially after Madrid, where the accent is so clear, switching over to French was crazy. The culture shock: French store clerks always say hello! It was actually quite friendly of them, especially after the cold shoulder you get here in Spain. Parisians seem a lot more formal, though (everything vous, I don’t even know how to say the informal “you” in French), especially compared to “no pasa nada” Granada. Parisians are freakishly skinny (all of them, not even kidding, maybe because food is so crazy expensive???), much taller than Spaniards, and I have to admit, better looking. And the croissants were tres tasty. Still though, I’m so happy to be able to speak coherently, walk wherever I want to, and look at the Sierra Nevadas on a sunny day. It’s good to be back! https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3357/Spain/Paris-vs-Granada Travel Spain eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3357/Spain/Paris-vs-Granada#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3357/Spain/Paris-vs-Granada Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:50:00 GMT 0 Paris in three days is intense! I slept so much the week we got back, you would not even believe. But now I am awake, so I will share my stories! The start was not such fun. 3:30 alarm clock, me coughing up a lung: we really could have done without. Then we almost died I don’t even know how many times in the taxi (Spaniards are ridiculously bad drivers), and Queen was singing “The Show Must Go On.” So it did. We got to Paris and walked for so long it’s not funny, got to our hostel to hear the room still wasn’t ready, and decided to quest for food, since it was past noon and we hadn’t eaten since the night before. The first test of my mad French skills! All I can say is thank God the hostel guys spoke English. I know the polite words (excuse me, please, thank you, etc), the greeting words (hello, goodbye, good morning/evening/night), the tourist words (I don’t speak French, I am Canadian, do you speak Spanish/English, where is…), and the number words (from 1-69). Go me. Why do I not know more French? Je ne sais pas. Because I rock at life. Anna is worse, though: she only says “voulez vous coucher avec moi c’est soir?” Awesome. Showers and snoozes were actually first on the agenda once we got into the hostel. We were so tired, it was ridiculous. Being winter, it was dark when we resurfaced, but that just meant Paris was gorgeous in a nighttime way. The City of Lights, you know what I mean. Since we obviously hadn’t walked enough in the past week, Anna and I just wandered for a few hours. Taking pictures, seeing sights, etc, etc. So cool. We had some dinner, then turned in. We didn’t want to go out at all, considering our screaming feet, aching legs, lack of French, and Granada budget. Oh, and severe exhaustion. The next morning was another early start cuz the first Sunday of the month is free museum day. That means art (and walking). The Louvre was insane. Every single bit of wall had some sort of painting; you didn’t even know where to look. I think next time I would much rather have an audio tour or someone who knows the place, at least. I must admit, it was a bit overwhelming on its own. After the hours we wandered, it’s weird to think how little we saw: Mona Lisa (a little anti-climatic, hard to get a good look), the Venus de Milo, a huge room just of Rubens, and so much more. You could spend a day just looking at medieval Italian stuff. It’s really that crazy. Before our next museum we ate delicious crepes (good one, France) in the Tuileries and then moved on. The Musee d’Orsay was amazing. In 2 ½ hours we saw it all, but I easily could have spent more time looking at all the famousness. It was newer stuff, art nouveau, impressionism, etc, and all very exciting. We walked to Notre Dame, which was not a bad walk at all, until we realized it took an hour. Our legs were officially in denial! Notre Dame was cool, though I have to admit, after a week of churches, we were a little jaded at that point. We chilled in the park there, eating hot dog sandwiches and listening to accordion Beatles covers til the sun went down. We dined picnic-style on our king-sized bed, watching Bridget Jones en français. Day three was a bummer, weather-wise: clouds, haze, some rain, and clouds. Frustrating when it was so sunny before, but oh well. We walk on! The Eiffel Tower was about 330 steps, and I honestly don’t why we walked it. Because we’re locas. The view was exciting, but also disappointing, since we could barely see anything the signs pointed out. Sacre Cour was a medium gray spot on the light gray horizon. Tres belle. We metroed up to see it still, though, and the church was pretty, though the view was not. Getting there also was not. The metro, first of all, should have had a giant sign directing Anna and me to the elevator. Silly Americans, we didn’t think the stairs would be any worse than any other Metro station, but we were so wrong! It turned into a spiral, with every turn bringing more steps, and oh, it was a bad dream. My thighs hurt just thinking about it. Then the train up to the church was broken down, so we walked some 250 more steps up to the church. I hate that I’m not kidding. We didn’t even go up the tower, since we were barely standing at that point, and view was (sadly) grey. So we hiked back down, ate crepes sandwiches, and wandered through the classy part of town. The Moulin Rouge and Le Chat Noir were something to photograph, and then we went back to the hostel. Our last night was another bedtime picnic, watching France’s Wheel of Fortune. Sorry, but their Vanna White is kinda slutty. Every now and then she just struts across the stage, or shakes around a bit for entertainment. Huh. But I won one of the puzzles! I can’t even get them in English, but “horoscope du jour” was all me. Oui. Tuesday morning was not quite as fun, with a 4am wakeup and brief taxi crisis, but we got back to Madrid sans problem. We got home to Granada around 8pm, and that was our Paris adventure! https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3313/France/Jaime-des-croissants Travel France eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3313/France/Jaime-des-croissants#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3313/France/Jaime-des-croissants Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:07:00 GMT 0 Anna and my adventures in Paris. https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2052/France/The-City-of-Love Travel France eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2052/France/The-City-of-Love#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2052/France/The-City-of-Love Fri, 9 Feb 2007 21:16:00 GMT 0 The third and final stop of our Arcadia adventure through central Spain. https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2051/Spain/Segovia Travel Spain eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2051/Spain/Segovia#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/photos/2051/Spain/Segovia Fri, 9 Feb 2007 20:39:00 GMT 0 Segovia was a sweet little city, where we spent the morning/afternoon of the fourth and final day of our Spain adventures. First we went the El Alcázar, the castle where the Catholic queen Isabel grew up, back when Spain was just a bunch of regions, before she married Ferdinand, drove the non-Catholics from the peninsula, and unified Spain into one country. It was an interesting place, because having been much destroyed by fire some years ago, many of the walls and windows are now filled with contemporary works illustrating different parts of Isabel’s life, the Inquistion, and the Reconquista that she and her lovely husband directed. We went up the tower (because at this point we obviously have no concern for our legs) and the view was very nice. City, cathedral, mountains… The cathedral was next, it was a cathedral, I don’t really know what else to say, and then we finished at the Roman aqueduct running through part of the city. Seriously, those Romans had the construction business pretty under control. The, the little group of us quested for meat and baguettes and picnic lunched it right there in the middle of the plaza. €7 for six people. My kind of meal! It was delicious too. Yum, yum. Then it was back to Madrid fro the next leg of our travels: Paris! As our last meal in Spain, we got Italian (hey though, Madrid is the international city, after all, and I had some mad cravings for pasta). It was definitely the best restaurant experience we’ve had so far. Then we went back to the hostel, which was high-class at a whopping 18€ per person. Anna and my room didn’t have a lock, which is creepy, so the guys took this prime opportunity to be guys. Of course. First it was basic stuff, comments about the creepy-girl pictures on the wall, pointing out the old-building sounds, noting the mysterious door across our hall. Then when they “left,” they hid out in the hall bathroom clanging things against the tile walls until we found and beat them goodnight. So then, they actually tied their sheets together (being one floor up) with a bar of soap at the end and swung it against our window for an hour. Seriously. It took forever to figure out how exactly they were doing this, but when we did, we had some words. Needless to say, the 3:30 alarm came way too soon… https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3188/Spain/Segovia-etc Travel Spain eitakg917 https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3188/Spain/Segovia-etc#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/eitakg917/story/3188/Spain/Segovia-etc Fri, 9 Feb 2007 19:38:00 GMT 0