2 weekends ago we went to Barcelona, which was so fun! Barcelona has such a bohemian, authentic, beachy feel to the city, and we stayed in the "hipster" area called Borne, which was so fun. For those of you who have never had the wonderful opportunity to fly on the luxury european airline known as Ryanair, you are really missing out. And by luxury, I mean it is really cheap and you get what you pay for. We were in for quite a surprise when we nearly missed our flight due to some miscommunications about papers getting stamped, and then we got put in random seats on the plane in front of some rowdy club soccer players from Rome headed to Barcelona. They hit the back of our chair the whole ride and sang "Sweet Home Alabama" to us. We also had to pass our bags back to these stellar citizens because Ryanair ran out of room on the plane. Words cannot express my horror as my bag, containing my wallet, passport, money, everything was given to these bozos. Anyways, Barcelona was great! There was a yoga studio across from our little rented flat, and the owner was this sweet, older, soft spoken woman who studied abroad at UGA in college...small world. We walked around and saw Gaudi's cathedral, which was breathtakingly beautiful, and then we saw the Salvador Dali museum. I love Dali so this was definitely a highlight! That night, we had dinner at this really cool place on the beach called Agua, and right before dinner some friends and I found an "ice bar" on the beach, and it was SO COOL! Everything, including the bar, cups, floor, wall-everything, was made of ice. There were ice statues and it was so cool! Literally it was cool because it was FREEZING in there! Barcelona was amazing, and reminded me a lot of an European Charleston.
Last week we did a whole lot, but that is all a blur now....but we went to Siena, Assisi, Orvieto, and some other cities I will have to think of later! We got to do a wine tasting at a vineyard that is family owned and operated, and that was such a fun experience and the vineyards were stunningly beautiful!
This past weekend, we went to maybe the coolest place I have ever been in my life, and certainly the most beautiful. Some friends and I went to Interlaken, Switzerland. It was the most fun I have ever had. We stayed in Balmers Hostel, which was right up my alley. When we walked up, there were just tables of random people from all over the world sitting around meeting each other and talking, and we got put in rooms with total random people. As you can imagine, this was perfect for me! I loved every second of staying in the hostel, except for the fact that the shower was for a midget and there were no towels but other than that it was awesome haha. We made friends with some Canadian girls and some Australian and California guys! They were all so fun and the city was small and beautiful-I was totally charmed by it. Saturday we went hang gliding, and the guys that took us hang gliding were so fun and so great... running off the mountain and letting essentially a big kite pick you up and fly you around while being strapped to a crazy Austrialian man was the most fun I have ever had! Fun fact: Switzerland is the most expensive country in the world, and that caught all of us really off-guard, but after having gone hang gliding it was totally worth it! I have a video that I will show everyone soon! |
| that moment when the asians ask excitedly if they can get their picture with you..... |
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| in the town square |
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| our hang gliding group with the guys who took us! |
As soon as we get back from Switzerland (I really had to be talked into leaving Interlaken!!), we unpacked, washed our clothes in the sink, repacked, and loaded up in a van and drove 6ish hours to Florence, where we have been for the past three days. Florence is so fun and beyond beautiful! The leather market makes me drool and the people have such a different air about them than in Rome. Last night, my friends and I all met up with some girls from UA that are studying abroad here and climbed up to the highest point in the city, where you can see everything. We watched the sun set and drank wine and listened to an old Italian woman play guitar and sing....it was definitely a highlight of the trip. We also had our first "discoteca" experience, which was a cultural experience in and of itself. We just got back from Cinque Terre, which I will blog about later!
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