Adios Hermanos

I felt like I had barely unpacked from Rome when it was time to pack again for my last trip to Lagos. My friends and I had planned this trip to the coast of Portugal a long time ago and had been looking forward to our beach weekend ever since. There ended up being 8 of us going and sharing a room in a hostel, and we all left Thursday for an extended weekend trip.

The bus took about 5 ½ hours which was a bit too long for me, but we made it to the hostel easily and just in time to go out for the night. Lagos is a small town and very summer-y (it reminded me of Cape Cod a little) so it was really fun to go to the bars since everything was so close together. The first couple bars we went to were pretty empty (probably because it was a Thursday) but we came across one where we met a group of British guys who were also staying in our hostel. We talked to them for a bit before all heading back home together.

We woke up on Friday morning and after eating free breakfast upstairs, we were off to the beach. The beaches in Lagos were the most beautiful I had ever seen.

We spent the morning soaking up the sun and after lunch a bunch of us decided to swim through some of the caves. We weren’t sure where our swim would bring us, but it ended up being one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. It might not sound super exciting, but the fact that we found our own way through cliffs and caves to deserted beaches was so fun! This next picture is the beginning of our swim through the caves.

By the end of the day we were all pretty exhausted from the sun and swimming so we headed back to the hostel, where we were able to use a kitchen to cook dinner! It was so fun to make what we wanted and to do it together – living in homestays really deprives us of just hanging out and makes little things like cooking dinner together so much fun.

After dinner we went out for the night, wandering in and out of bars in Portugal, running into both friends from Sevilla (nearly my whole program went to Lagos this weekend) and friends from our hostel. It was a great night.

On Saturday we were a bit late getting to the beach due to the late night activities, but decided to take a little motor boat tour of the cliffs we had swam through the day before. We fit 4 people in each boat and for about an hour we were driven around the coast of Lagos, going even further than the day before.

After the grotto tour, we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon in the sun. Saturday night was a bit quieter than Friday, but still a lot of fun. Since we hadn’t bought enough groceries for Saturday as well we went out for a quick dinner in town.

The owner of the hostel had told us about a breakfast place in town with full meals – something we are also deprived of in Spain – so we decided to head there Sunday morning since more than half of my friends were leaving that day to head back to Sevilla. Two friends of mine, Alex and Hannah, and I didn’t have class until later on Monday so we planned to stay until Monday morning. Breakfast was delicious and the place was a cute little diner – very summery and very, very small. Alex, Hannah and I then said goodbye to our friends who were leaving, and then headed back to the beach for the 3^rd day in a row! Don’t worry Mom, I applied so much sunscreen while I was in Lagos that I didn’t even get a tan line….I guess it’s better than getting burnt…

Anyway, after sleeping on the beach a bit, Alex, Hannah and I cooked another dinner in the hostel and then headed back to the beach to explore the cliffs. We had wanted to see the sunset on the beach because there is a point in Portugal which explorers used to believe was the ‘end of the world’ because when the sun sets, it sets into the ocean. Unfortunately this spot is a half-hour bus ride from Lagos and we didn’t know that ahead of time. So instead of that, we were able to wander around the area where we had swam days before since the tide had gone down so much. It was really beautiful at dusk and a perfect way to end our last night in Lagos.

The three of us took a 630am bus back to Sevilla on Monday morning, and although I normally have class, my teachers coincidentally cancelled class on Monday so I had the day off. An art fair had opened up right near the Cathedral while we were gone so I visited that this week and even picked up a few presents!

This past weekend was our last weekend in Sevilla, so my friends and I spent it visiting our favorite places in Sevilla one last time and going out as well. On Sunday we went to a bull fight – which I had been nervous for but also excited. Every fight, around 6 bulls are killed by ‘matadors’ and I expected it to be very gory. Instead of being horrified though, I actually enjoyed it. It’s not nearly as gory as expected, since the matadors kill the bulls by stabbing in a certain spot in the back. There is a lot of art and drama throughout the match, from the uniforms to the way the bulls are killed. At one point, one of the matadors actually was trampled by the bull and had to be pulled out by other men, which was incredibly scary. I thought he was going to be seriously injured but a few minutes after limping out of the ring, he was back in to kill the bull.

The rest of this blog was written during my last week in Sevilla, and it's now May 17 and I'm back home in Connecticut! All of my finals went well, and between studying and packing, I was able to revisit some of my favorite places in Sevilla, such as the Parque de Maria Luisa, Plaza de Espana, the Real Alcazar and the Cathedral. Thursday was my last day of finals and that night my program hosted a good-bye party for us. The party was held at Rio Grande, a beautiful restaurant on the river where my family and I went for my birthday dinner! It was a perfect location and a perfect way to end my semester abroad. I was able to see many friends from classes who I might not have seen otherwise to say our finals goodbyes.

my friends Alex and Hannah at Rio Grande

my host mother, Ignacia, and I on my last day!

Although many people were crying, it didn't hit me that I would be leaving Spain the very next morning. After the party at the restaurant, a bunch of us went to the bars nearby one last time and to say some more goodbyes. After that, I headed home and finished packing until 6am, when my cab arrived to bring me to the airport. I shared a cab with my friend Alex and we made it with plenty of time for our 9am flight to Barcelona. It was nice having a friend for the first flight, but after that we had different flights home. Fortunately, my flight to London and from London to JFK both were on time and went smoothly, so I arrived home on Friday night without problem. After my disastrous trip here, I was so relieved.

It's great to be home and see my family, although it's finally hit me that I am done with my semester abroad and am not going back to Spain. I hate to think I don't know when I'll be able to return next, but I hope its soon. Spain is a beautiful country with a unique culture that I hope you all get to visit (if you haven't already)!

All Roads Lead to Rome

I’m sure everyone has heard about the volcano that erupted in Iceland about two weeks ago, which – as you probably already guessed – is the reason my trip to Italy was cut short. Originally I was supposed to fly to Milan on Tuesday, April 20, and take a train to Venice on Wednesday, but all flights to northern Italy were cancelled. The next flight out of Sevilla was to Rome on Friday, so we had to skip our trips to Milan and Venice. I can’t complain though – I know so many friends who were traveling in Europe and were stuck without a way home for over a week. At least I was stuck at ‘home’ and at least I made it to Rome at all!

So as I mentioned, I spent my extra days in Sevilla at Feria, which was a blast. The weather was great and it was so fun to see a traditional Spanish celebration like that. There was so much to take in, especially the dresses. I couldn’t get enough of them!

Friday afternoon my friends, Alex and Jackie, and I boarded our flight to Rome and got to our hostel without a problem. By the time we settled in and ate some seriously delicious ravioli and gelato, it was midnight and we decided to stay in for the night. One of my best friends from Fordham, Annmarie, is currently studying abroad in Rome so we planned to meet the next day. That was the plan until Annmarie’s friend who had visited Sevilla with her in March called back and convinced us that we are in Rome and we need to go out! So we jumped in a cab to Trasteverie, a trendy part of the city filled with bars and restaurants. Our first glimpse of the nightlife in Rome was a blast and it was so great to see Annmarie again.

We woke up the next day a bit tired but definitely glad we took advantage of our night in Rome. The first thing on our list of things to do in Rome was the Vatican. We were easily talked into a tour of the Vatican Museum, the Papal Apartments, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. It was definitely worth the money to have an educated person tell us things we would have never known on our own. Here are a few examples of what we learned…

• The Vatican city-state is its own country. There are 900 passports from the Vatican and they have a birthrate of 0%.
• For years after painting the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo physically could not look down because he did not paint it on his back, he painted it bending backwards.
• There was much animosity towards Michelangelo when chosen by the Pope to paint the chapel out of jealous, but Michelangelo didn’t want to do it either – he was a self-proclaimed sculptor.

Photos are not allowed to be taken in the Sistine Chapel so I don’t have anything to show for going, but I can say it was one of the most beautiful places I have been in. When you first walk in there is so much to see, but somehow it’s not overwhelming. There is so much detail to take in that you need more than a few minutes to observe all of the beautiful art. My favorite was the panel of the creation of Adam. Also, I think the fact that pictures weren’t allowed to be taken only made me appreciate the artwork even more in person.

St. Peter’s Basilica is the biggest church in the world – although Sevilla’s Cathedral is not far behind! I loved walking through the basilica; I thought it was brilliant and so different from our cathedral in Sevilla. It seemed to me to be brighter and more colorful.

The weather had been fairly cloudy and rainy all morning so when we left the Basilica to meet with Annmarie, we were pleasantly surprised as it cleared up to a beautiful afternoon. Annmarie first took us to Piazza del Popolo, a popular plaza near a bunch of cool places. We walked up Via del Corso, which is a main shopping street leading us to the Pantheon, which is now a church. I had no idea that at the top of the Pantheon what appears to be a large skylight is actually a hole in the ceiling. Apparently it’s a cool sight to see heavy rain coming through the middle of the Pantheon.

ice cream after the Vatican!

the Pantheon

After showering at the hostel quickly Annmarie took the three of us to a cute Italian restaurant for dinner. It was in Trasteverie, the same area we had been the night before, and the place was perfect. I had my best meal there – spaghetti carbonara!

Since we were already in the area of trendy bars, we headed back to a few of the same ones we had been to the night before and had another great night in Rome.

Sunday we woke up with slight headaches but excited to see the sun shining again. We got ourselves to the Coliseum in time to sign up for another tour, which might not have been worth the money this time. The Coliseum is huge and ancient and very cool to walk around, but I’m not sure we learned much that we wouldn’t have read about on our own, but one of my favorite facts (if I remember correctly…) is that nearly 300,000 people were killed during all of the matches held in the Colosseum, averaging 35 during every match.

After the Colosseum, our tour led us to Palatine Hill, one of the famous 7 hills overlooking Rome, and the Roman Forum…

All of that walking took a lot out of us and we were ready for another delicious lunch of pizza in a nearby restaurant, where we met an Italian man (who spoke to us in English…) but was also a tour guide. He informed us there was a church around the corner, San Pietro in Vincoli, where Michelangelo’s famous statue of Moses is kept. We went there after to check it out, and like all the churches we had previously visited, it was beautiful.

Alex, Jackie and I then met up with Annmarie again at Piazza del Popolo, this time to visit the Villa Borghese Gardens which overlooked the plaza, and were quite large. We walked to the back where there was a beautiful lake where we relaxed for a bit. Jackie and Alex then headed back to the hostel for a bit while Annmarie and I walked around less touristy parts of Rome to catch up. We stopped in a few shops, and even snuck into the apartment complex where part of Roman Holiday was filmed!

Annmarie and I caught a gorgeous sunset on the way to dinner.

We all met back up for our last dinner in Rome at a cute restaurant near the Trevi Fountain. We all got pasta for the last time and of course, finished with more gelato. I would eat pizza and pasta and gelato for the rest of my life if I could. When we arrived at the Trevi fountain Alex, Jackie and I were surprised at how big it was. The fountain is so gorgeous lit up at night (much better than at day, I’m told) and we a million photos there.

After our photo shoot, we relaxed by the fountain watching tourists come and go and talking. It was a perfect end to our last night in Rome and it was so great to spend the weekend with Annmarie. I didn’t realize how much I had missed her and seeing her made me really excited to see all of my friends from home and also to spend my summer in New York.

We did have a little time on Monday morning before our flight back to Sevilla, so we spent our time doing some last-minute souvenir shopping and visiting one last church (which obviously, was beautiful). Then we grabbed our last slices of pizza (so sad) and hopped on a bus to the airport. Needless to say, none of us were ready to leave Rome after such an amazing weekend.

Back in Sevilla, I spent the (shortened) week going to class and catching up on sleep because on Thursday after class, my friends and I left for Lagos, Portugal for our last trip of the semester. It was one of my favorite weekends ever, and I will write about that in my next post!