Spring Break 2009

i've been meaning to blog about spring break, but never got around to it until now. at the time, i had so much to say, but now, 2 weeks later, i can't seem to remember anything...so where do we start?? okayy to the beginning..

Monday, April 20th.....
Michelle came over for dinner and Claire had left for vaca, so Giles, claire's brother, was staying for the week to cook for us. the food was pretty good, it was sausages and mashed pototoes that was more like a potato sauce. anyway, after dinner, Dan came over and we headed out to the airport. after an interesting 45 minutes or so, we finally made it in the terminal. we met up with Maddy at the gate and hopped on our Vueling flight to Barcelona. due to the fact that we had booked our trip in a semi-delirious state, we had a lot of interesting connections. when we first arrived in Barcelona, we met Katherine and Megan at Placa de Catalunya where they randomly met some Columbian guys. We wanted to kill 7 hours (the entire night) in the city instead of sleeping in the airport, so stopped by their girls' hostel, which had a little elf door, and ended up going to a "closed" bar that the Columbians knew. One of the guys knocked on the silver metal garage-door-thingie and after a bit, the mini peephole/door flew open, a head popped out, turned right and left, and the door shut again. then, a bigger door that opened and he shooed us in. it was hilarious, like something that would happen in hobbitworld. there were actually some ppl sitting at the bar, and others at the tables. we had some really strong sangrias and ate yummy tapas. the one really sweet, non-creepy guy who paid for most of the stuff bought us 2 more pitchers of sangria and we ate cured ham, cheese slices, calamari, and potato wedge snacks in a spicy sauce. We stayed there until 6 AM, and when we exited the bar, the sun was rising. We headed right back to the airport, where we took a TAP portugal flight (best one of the trip!) to Lisbon.

Tuesday, April 21st to Thursday, April 23rd.....
Upon our arrival in Lisbon, we took a bus into the city, passing the financial district where all the big 4 have offices. Our hostel was really close to Praca do Comercio in the Baixa neighborhood, which is just neat rows of streets with lotsa stores. Since Lisbon isn't too touristy, they had these sweet Lisboa Day passes that included free transportation and monuments. For the next two days, we visited the Castelo de Sao Jorge, the Cathedral, took the #28 trolley (goes thru the maze-y Alfama district), went to the sandy beaches in Cascais, which was just outside of Lisbon by train. the castle was just the ruins/the stone walls, but its supposedly one of the main attractions of Lisbon. We randomly stumbled upon the Elevador Santa Justa close to our hostel where we got an okay view of Lisbon. We had a live Fado (traditional Portuguese music) dinner with Port wine in Bairro Alto. it was a really cozy neighborhood restaurant where everyone who worked there sang along, even the kitchen ladies! Sadly enough, we didnt get to spend too much time in the other neighborhoods of Lisbon, Bairro Alto, Chiado, Fatima, Park de Nacoes (supposedly a lot bigger and better than Central Park), and the River Tejo. my favorite part of the Lisbon was Belem, which was towards the outskirts of the city, where we saw a bit of the famous monastery, ate some Pasteis de Belem at the original bakery/cafe, and missed the Tower of Belem. Lisbon is kinda like San Francisco, with all the trolleys and hills, and even the "golden gate bridge" which is actually called the pont de 25 abril, i think, which means the april 25th bridge. my favorite moment the entire break was at the Pasteis de Belem place w/Michelle. ordering was a lot of fun cuz we cant speak portuguese and the waiter couldnt speak english, spanish, french, or italian, basically all the languages we tried when he didnt understand our attempt at portuguese. on the way back to the train station, passed by the President's house, which didnt seem formal enough, sauf the guards. by chance, we happened to pass by during the changing of the guards which was so much better than the one at Buckingham palace. Being the only spectators, like 2 feet from the guards with real pony-tail hats, we even got one of the guards to make eye contact with us, which is totally interdit. haha. so yeaa the pasteis was delicious and but we didnt really get to see teh River Tagus. thats lisbon for you! 2 days later, we were on the plane back to Barcelonaaaa...

Thursday, April 23rd to Sunday, April 26th.....
so April 23rd is Feria de Sant Jordi is the Valentine's Day of Catalonia, when guys their girlfriends a single rose and girls give their boyfriends a book. It was so cute, men of all ages and little boys too were carrying roses all day. There were a bunch of street vendors selling roses and books. we ended up meeting Bruno, Michelle's friend from Barcelona, who showed us around the city for teh weekend. he was so sweet, he bought us all roses, took us to a neighborhood cava bar, that serves its own cava, which is a sparking wine that tastes like a mixture of champagne and white wine. incidentally that weekend, there was a festival called Feria de Abril where ppl sip on sangrias and cervezas and danced flamenco all night. all the women were dressed in traditional Andalusian dresses or something like that. it was really neat i even got some flamenco videos that ill post on fb soon. we did all the sightseeing stuff, the gaudi buildings, the sagrada familia, park guell, and even at chocolate con churros!! ur supposed to dip the churro in the hot chocolate, which i thought was actually the drink like hot cocoa. turns out its a teacup of pure melted chocolate. yummy on a churro. drinken?? gross. anyway we had a lot of tapas, which is delicious, but really expensive and more like a snack. but we made up for it with 1 Euro dinner at the Travel Barrrr! We def didnt get to spend enough time in both Lisbon and Barcelona. didnt even see the beach! :( oh and the craziest story of teh entire trip. dan got pickpocketed at a metro station! he had his wallet in his back pocket..bad idea. anyway, this guy like pushed him on the escalator, and when dan realized his wallet was missing, he ran after the guy and was like "my wallet, por favor." he asked nicely and the pickpocket kindly returned it lol.

sunday, april 26th to wednesday, april 29th.....
when we arrived in marrakesh, morocco, we had to wait awhile at the airport cuz the guy who was supposed to pick us up (who turned out to be Mustafa!!) was running late. well he came, and we rode the van back to our guesthouse/riad. that was the craziest ride ever. the lines on the streets are merely suggestions the drivers never stop. we ate in food stalls in Djemma al fnae, the square within the old part of teh city. we bargained for stuff in the marketplace, or the souqs. and we even went to a traditional moroccan bathhouse, and got a really cultural experience. the women dont really go out, and when they do, they cover up all the way, even their faces. but in the bathhouses, thats a different story...so yea we went trekking up a waterfall in the atlas mountains and rode camels. did the whole moroccan thing. the museums were worthless tho, they were basically empty buildings meant to rip off tourists. and the marjorelle garden was just a bunch of cacti. heard the ancient pool and the spices souq were both really interesting, but we didnt have enough time. :( food was really cheap in morocco, you could get an individual portion of tajine or couscous for the equivalent of 3 euro, and the train ride to casablanca was cheap, but everything else was still normally priced. locals get charged much less than tourists, and the cab drivers dont even bother using meters for tourists cuz they know they can get more. crooks. oh, and there are prayer calls announced thru megaphones all over the town, throughout the day. wed wake up to prayer calls at 4 am and the guesthouse was really echo-y too. Mustafa, the hostel guy was so nice he even took us to a moroccan cafe, where there was a band playing 70s moroccan music. it was kinda boring, but he was really nice and he made us a lot of mint tea, which has like a pound of sugar in it.

Thursday, April 30th.....
the next day, we took a morning train up to casablanca, from which we flew to madrid, only to fly to dublin and spend the night in the airport there. the next morning, we had 3 hours to kill before we had to get back for our flight, so michelle and i went to the guinness brewery, which was amazing. we each got a Bailey's chocolate muffin, which was superyummy and then had a pint of Guinness in the sky lounge before our mad rush back to the airport.

spring break was amazinggg. we had so many good experiences, met so many neat ppl. i was really bummed to be back in nice. we only have a month left in nice :( but next weekend is the Cannes Film Festival (!) and the weekend im going to Rome. Erin was in Lisbon this weekend, and im starting to get lonely w/o her :( and tmrw when she gets back, were gonna give Claire Mother's Day flowers that I bought this morning at the marketplace in Cour Saleya with Ben. Theyre in Erin's closet at the moment..in a little glass of water in my shoe (i had to improvise to keep it upright). im sooo hungry right now, ive been eating creme de marrons, a really sugary chestnut paste, straight out of the tube. erin, come home alreadyyy!!