"My Life Be Like Ooooh, Ahhhh.."

I honestly have no idea where to begin describing one of the best weekends of my life.  First, let me just inform you that the title of this post is a line from a song that some of us dubbed our “Egypt Song” (in case you were wondering).  I feel like the line itself is pretty fitting; there is so much to “ooooh” and “ahhhh” at in Egypt, it’s unreal.  So far, it has been one of the most amazing/different/chaotic places I’ve ever visited in my life.  Here’s what I experienced in Egypt:

October 14th: This day was pretty uneventful.  Our group (sixteen of us total), left our apartment for the airport at about 5:00pm.  We arrived at the airport and checked in with plenty of time to spare, so we all grabbed a bite to eat while we waited.  We eventually took off and had an uneventful flight to Cairo.  It was really cool to see the city from the sky at night though (and I got lucky enough to be assigned a window seat on the way there!).  When we arrived, we all exchanged some money, bought our visas, and collected any checked baggage.  [*I forgot to mention: the ONLY thing I packed was my backpack!  Other than that, I only brought a small purse!!  You should all be proud.]   Then we made our way out to the pick-up area where we found our taxis waiting to take us to our hostels.  (Since there were 16 of us going, we split up into two hostels--ten in ours, and six in another).  Ours was called the Jamaica Hostel...haha.  (I know, right?  In Egypt?!)  It was located right in downtown Cairo, so that was pretty awesome.  When we got there, we checked in, and then one of the hostel workers took us walking around the city for a while.  The nightlife is Egypt is so chaotic!  EVERYONE comes out at night, and you can easily find things open at all hours of the day: we were even passing by clothing and shoe stores that were still open at 11:00pm!  Some of the Egyptians we encountered on our stay told us that Cairo is Egypt’s New York City: it’s the city that never sleeps.  After walking around for a good deal of time, we were taken back to the hostel where I promptly changed into my makeshift pajamas of yoga pants and a shirt (since I forgot to pack my actual pajamas), brushed my teeth, and went to sleep!

October 15th: The night before, during our long check-in process, one of the guys in the group kind of took charge and told the hostel staff about things we were looking to do.  So, on this day, we arranged to take a day trip to Alexandria!  Our group of ten, plus one of the guys from the other hostel, decided to go.  The hostel set up all the transportation for us, and it was pretty cheap!  We left pretty early in the morning since it was a 2.5 hour taxi ride, so I slept part of the way.  On the way there, we saw a car on fire--I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a car on fire before, so that was pretty crazy to witness.  After a about an hour and a half of driving, we made a pit stop at this restaurant/zoo.  They had a wide variety of animals: lions, ostriches, monkeys, a baboon, mini horses, and lots of dogs...ha.  I went and pet one of the mini horses (he was really cute and friendly, so I had to), and then I diverted my attention to an ostrich across the fenced in area from the horse.  A couple of minutes later, I felt a strong tug on my shirt and I shrieked; the little horse had grabbed the back of my shirt with his mouth!  One of the guys from our group happened to be near me, as well as another small group of tourists, and they all started laughing at me...I would have too if I had seen me.  After my little horse experience though, my roomie Kassidy got slapped by a monkey!  LOL.  It was really funny.  That place was neat, but also really sad.  A lot of the animals looked so sad and unhappy--I wish I could have set them all free!  :(  After seeing the animals and taking a bathroom break, we all piled back into the taxi and kept going to Alexandria.  When we got there, we first stopped at a place called Pompey’s Pillar.  Not all of us wanted to see it, so we split back up and then met back at the taxi after a while.  My friends Rose, Shami, Danny, and I decided to explore the area we were dropped off in instead; it posed as a great opportunity to take pictures.  :)  When we all met up again, we were dropped off in the city center for a few hours to explore.  We ended up wandering around for a while looking for food, and eventually decided to eat at a pretty fancy restaurant.  I ordered a couple of small side dishes, but a few people got the buffet and shared with everyone, so I got to sample a little bit of everything.  hehe.  After lunch, our group set out to walk along the sea-side for a while, however, we ended splitting up along the way.  Some set out to a fortress of sorts, and Rose, Shami, and I decided to walk around the city.  We ended up walking to a bazaar-type area.  That was interesting...let’s just say that it was here where the first of many compliments were given not only to me, but Shami as well.  It was quite hilarious actually.  We all had a lot of fun joking about all of the things that people said throughout the trip to me and Shami.  Anyway, after roaming around for a while, we all met back at the van to go to the Library of Alexandria.  It was a very impressive library, but definitely not what I was expecting; it was very modern!  It was state-of-the-art (mainly because it’s used for research now I believe), and the exhibits reminded me of being at the Walker back at home; they were pretty artsy, and there weren’t too many antiquities.  I know it’s not the original library, but I still thought it was cool seeing one of the largest and most significant libraries in the world, and I’m glad I went.  After the library, we all piled back into the van and headed back to Cairo.  When we got back, we all went out to dinner.  After that, I just laid low at our hostel with some of the girls and went to bed.

October 16th: This was a looooong day.  It started out by us piling into a taxi again for a full day of sight-seeing (with an English-speaking guide, thank-goodness!).  Our first stop was Memphis, once a capital of Egypt, and the sight where a giant statue of Ramses II was discovered.  We got to see a lot of cool things that had been discovered, and we had a little free time there as well.  There were a lot of little kiosks filled with souvenirs, so during our free time, Shami and I went to visit one.  Here, the owner showed us his cat and gave us free beads that were supposed to bring good luck (this is because they were supposed to be carved into the scarab beetle that was said to bring good luck in ancient times).  After seeing everything, we headed toward our next stop, the Step Pyramid.  The step pyramids in Egypt were the first kinds of pyramids that were built in the country (before the typical smooth-sided ones were built), so that was pretty neat to see!  We got free time to roam around the ruins for a while, so a few of us decided to actually climb on one of the pyramids.  It was pretty neat!  And Shami, Kassidy, and I wanted to say that we’ve ran in the desert, so we did a little running too!  :)  After visiting the Step Pyramid, we went to a papyrus museum!  Here, we were shown how papyrus paper was made, and how to tell it apart from counterfeit papyrus (because a lot of cheap souvenir places try to sell “papyrus” made from banana leaves or sugar cane).  I already have some beautiful papyrus at home from my grandma, so I just bought a little bookmark of sorts and got my name written on it in hieroglyphics.  After the papyrus museum, we stopped for a quick lunch along the way.  I got some falafel (one of my favorite things to eat in Egypt!), and of course, water (I drank SO much water that day!  It was very hot!).  After our pit stop, we made our way to the Pyramids of Giza.  I still can’t believe I was actually there.  They were gigantic!  It’s so crazy to think that they were all built by hand!  After a few photo ops, Shami and I decided to climb down into one of the pyramids where you could climb in for free.  It was quite an experience!  The ceiling was super low, and the shaft leading down to the burial chamber was really long.  I can’t believe that people actually climbed in those things back in the day!  I got all the way down in the burial chamber, but Shami wanted to turn back, so we left pretty quickly.  She didn’t really like being so far down in the pyramid..haha.  It was very hot and the air was really heavy, so I can see why she didn’t want to stay long.  After climbing in the pyramid and having some free time at the pyramids, our guide took us to a place where you have a panoramic view of all three pyramids together.  It was so cool!  We had a group photo op, and then...drumroll please...WE GOT TO RIDE CAMELS!  It was SO AWESOME.  Shami bartered with the guide to let us ride the camels for 30 EGP for 20 minutes (about $6--not bad, eh?!).  My camel’s name was Champion.  :)  It was a pretty exhilarating experience to ride a camel.  I kept thinking that Champion was going to throw me off or roll over or something, so I would shriek every now and then; the guide kept going “Why you do that?  There is nothing to be afraid of!”  Haha.  Poor guy.  My friend Maggie rode a camel connected behind mine; his name was Moses.  Apparently, Champion liked running into Moses (not my fault, I swear!!).  After that amazing experience, we hopped back in the taxi yet again.  This time, we went to go see the Sphinx!  That was really neat to see, and I took one of the classic “kissing-the-Sphinx” poses.  I also took the time to gather a bit of sand as well.  After visiting the Sphinx, we had one last stop: a perfumery!  We got the opportunity to learn about how it’s made, and to smell a lot of the oils (which is what they sell).  The oils that they sell are essentially pure extracts from flowers/plants.  You can either use the oil (only using a drop or two on the skin), or you can make your own perfume (they gave a list of ingredients and the amounts with your purchase).  After taking a long time to contemplate which ones to get, I bought a few oils.  Finally, after the perfumery, we made our way back to our hostel where we had some downtime before we went on a dinner cruise on the Nile!  That was so fun!  It wasn’t the most organized of things though (there was a lot of confusion concerning our reservation when we got there, and the dinner was a buffet...with no specific lines...so everyone just smooshed together when they tried to get food), but like I said, it was really neat.  We spent some time on top of the boat, just taking in the Nile and our surroundings at night.  After a while though, I ended up making my way back downstairs and sitting with some of the group.  When I got back downstairs, there was a dancer doing some crazy dance; he was really good at it!  After he was done dancing, two more guys and a belly dancer came out and started dancing.  And oh boy, was I in for a surprise.  One of the guy dancers came into the audience at one point during their dance, and grabbed my hand and dragged me to the dance floor with him!  I wasn’t the only one that they brought up (THANK GOODNESS).  So three other random girls from the audience and I helped make beats and stuff for the belly dancer.  I had NO idea what I was doing, and I looked so stupid (not to mention my group found it quite hilarious), but it was fun!  And the belly dancer lady was actually really good too!  It was definitely quite an experience...haha.  When the cruise was over, we walked one of our group-members home (she was staying in the other hostel).  After we got back to our hostel, my friend Maggie invited some of us out with her and some of her Egyptian friends!  Of course, we decided to meet them, and was that a good decision or what--I think that this was one of the highlights of the trip!  Shami, Rose, Alexis, and I went to hang out with Maggie and her three Egyptian friends (she knew them from a German camp she went to in Germany for a while), and we hung out at the famous Khan el Khal Li Bazaar.  They helped a couple of us barter with some of the venders that were still open, and Rose and Shami made some purchases (and got some really good deals since we had some Egyptians with us!).  They also took us walking around the bazaar (which was like a maze by the way) and near the big mosque at the bazaar, and then we sat down at a little coffee place of sorts.  I ordered a fresh-squeezed mango juice; it even had some of the mango bits in it, so it was really delicious!  We all just chatted a while, and then a couple of Maggie’s other friends came and joined us.  Sadly, we left pretty much right after they arrived since we were all getting tired.  It was a great night, and the guys were so nice.  [*Seriously, American guys should hang out with them for a while and get some lessons from them on manners and what-not.  They payed for everything (like, all of the juices that we ordered), helped cover the price of Shami’s purchase since she didn’t have enough money, drove all of us to and from our hostel, and were just complete gentlemen!  And they told us to tell them if we ever came back because they’d help arrange everything for us too!!*]  Anyway, it was a fabulous night.  When we got back to our hostel, we all just crashed and went to bed because we were exhausted!

October 17th: This day wasn’t nearly as packed as the day before.  We all slept in, and after taking time to get ready, I quickly rated our hostel stay online for the owner (while he watched me...that was nice of him).  I gave them a good review though because they were super great with everything, and very hospitable.  After getting ready and writing my review, Rose, Alexis, Shami, and I headed on over to the Cairo museum.  That place was very interesting--there was just stuff everywhere.  Like, it looks like someone found a bunch of things and didn’t know what to do with it, so they just put it all around the museum!  I guess you could say that it was an organized chaos of sorts.  It was very cool to be in such a historical place though.  I was literally able to touch many of the sarcophagi and hieroglyphics...it was unreal!  I couldn’t believe I was actually touching all of these artifacts from such an important place and time in history, things that were so old!!  We didn’t end up touring the mummy exhibit because it cost quite a bit of money, but we did see some mummified animals, so that was neat!  I guess I’ll just have to come back to see the mummy exhibit someday!  :)  We took a quick break in the (overpriced) cafeteria and chatted for a while, and then after doing a little more exploring and going into the gift shops, we left to go back to the hostel.  When we got back, Maggie told us that one of her friends, Wael (one of the ones that came right as we were leaving the night before), could take us back to the bazaar and then to the other side of town for the day.  We were all totally up for that, so we packed up, left a note for the others at the hostel, and checked out.  When we got the bazaar, we had a quick lunch; I had the BEST falafel EVER.  Seriously, it was amazing.  Also, during lunch, a couple of Egyptian women saw me and started smiling and pointing and what-not...well, they asked Maggie’s friend if they could get a picture with me.  I didn’t want to be rude, so I said yes.  It was really funny because they couldn’t really figure out their cell phone camera, and they were really nice.  I had Maggie take a pic for me too to remember the experience.  Gotta love having blonde hair and blue eyes!  haha.  After lunch (which Maggie’s friend treated us to by the way!), we walked around the bazaar for a while and I got quite a few goodies for a really good price!  (I also got an offer to have an Egyptian boyfriend as well, which I quickly declined and walked away...haha).  We also visited the big mosque that we saw the night before; it was very beautiful, and I loved the intricacy of the architecture.  After staying in the bazaar for quite a bit of time, we headed towards another part of Cairo called Rehab.  We ate dinner here, got some ice cream, and had some amazing donuts.  Once again, Maggie’s friend paid for everything (except for the ice cream because we refused to let him pay!...seriously, they were all way too nice to us over there!).  After our food extravaganza, Maggie’s friend took us to the airport.  We went to the wrong terminal at first, but we got to the right one eventually.  We said and waved goodbye to him (he waited for us to get through our check-in before leaving), and met up with all of the others.  Then, we just waited for our flight to depart, got on the plane, and went home!  We got back to our apartment around 2:00am I’d say, but we none of us could sleep.  Shami, Kassidy, and I exchanged stories with Kayla, who spent her weekend on the Greek island of Rhodes.  After showering and unpacking, I stayed up for a while and I skyped with Kirsten and Mandy!  It was a little difficult because I didn’t really have a voice, but it was so great talking to them.  After that, I finally went to bed.  (No worries: for those of you who were wondering, I didn’t have class the next day, so I got to sleep in!)  :)  

And that’s the gist of my time in Egypt!  It was seriously one of the best weekends I’ve ever had.  It was really great to be immersed in a culture that is so different from the United States, and to get to experience a place that I have never been to before.  As amazing as my time was in Egypt, I’m very glad I did not study abroad there (for those of you who don’t know, it ended up being my second choice for studying abroad).  The city is HOT, very filthy (can you say smog anyone?), and you would have to dress very modestly, covering knees and shoulders all of the time (which, I don’t have a problem with being modest at all--you just get very hot when you were long pieces of clothing.)  Not to mention, I don’t think I could handle all of the attention that I tended to draw over there for that long either.  ha.  But really, it was an amazing place, and I definitely would LOVE to go back again someday.  Well, keep tuned for another blog post in the near future.  Hope all is well at home!!!  <3

Life Lately!

Alright, so, I know I’ve been away from the blog-o-sphere for a while, and I apologize.  It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog, and because of this, I’m going to skip out on writing about individual days and give you a general summary of the past couple of weeks.

The day after I got back from Barcelona, my classes started.  Yayyyy...haha.  [Okay, actually, they’re not that bad.]  For those of you who need a refresher, I’m taking Greek, Photography, Brain & Behavior, Cognitive Psychology, and Research Methods.  All of my classes are taught in English, so that’s been really nice.  :)  I’ll give you a brief summary about each of my classes.

Greek: The Greek class that I’m taking is through the GLS program, not the University of Nicosia.  Therefore, I have class with some of the other people that are studying abroad with GLS this semester, so that’s been fun!  My Greek teacher’s name is Christiana.  She...is something else.  haha.  She reminds me of one of the Kardashians, that’s for sure.  She has very long, dark hair, is similar in appearance (in my opinion anyway), and always comes to class wearing her big sunglasses and looking ever-so-fashionable, so it's hard not to think of her as their long-lost sister!  She is super nice, and very helpful; if we have any questions or if there is any amount of confusion on something (which, it’s Greek, so there always is some to some extent...lol), she makes sure that the matter gets addressed and solved before we move on.  I’ve learned quite a bit in this class; as of right now, I can read Greek at a basic level, and I know how to have a basic conversation.  I’m still learning, but I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot so far.  Actually, I had my Greek midterm today--aaaaaand, I aced it!  Seriously.  I got a 100%!!!!  I made a few mistakes on the exam, but I think Chrisitiana felt that I knew the concepts well and that I had just made some silly mistakes, so that was awesome!  

Photography: Photography is also taught through GLS.  I chose to take these two courses through the program because I thought it would be beneficial to divide my time between both the program and the university: this way, I get to spend time with both my fellow study abroad students, as well as with normal Cypriot students!  Anyway, my photography teacher’s name is Nicholas.  He is quite contradictory in his nature; he is someone that I’d consider to be very soft-spoken, but also very hilarious.  :D  He is definitely knowledgeable in the field of photography (he has both a BA and an MA from his time studying in the UK), and he owns lots of cameras...jealous!  ;)  Story time: one time in class, he asked us how big we thought our field of vision was (in degrees).  Of course, out of all of the students, I  have the stupid answer (or at least, it’s the only stupid answer he heard...).  So, he grabbed me by the hands, took me to the front of the class, turned me around, had me look straight ahead, and repeatedly asked me if I could see his hands (on either side of my head) in my field of vision.  Well, it took me awhile before I could see his hands, so OBVIOUSLY, our field of vision is not 180 degrees like I thought...(it’s only about 40 I learned).  However, it’s slightly unfair because I had my thick-framed glasses on and couldn’t see out of my peripherals!  lol.  Anyway, I’ve been a lot more careful about my answers now...

Brain and Behavior: This is definitely one of my favorite classes so far.  (By the way, for those of you who don’t know, Brain and Behavior is essentially Biopsychology.)  My professor’s name is Dr. Marios Constantinou.  I really like him as a prof. so far (and I knew I would when I saw the popular picture of Homer Simpson’s “x-ray” with his tiny brain at the end of our syllabus).  :D  He knows how to command attention in the classroom and keep the material interesting (and I definitely find the material interesting in general), so it’s definitely been one of my favorite classes!  

Cognitive Psychology: This class is...interesting.  My professor’s name is Dr. Maria Hadjimarkou.  She is quite softspoken, but funny in a “cute-funny” sort of way.  Like, her facial expressions and the way that she says some things or reacts to some things is quite comical and amusing. The material of the class so far though is....meh.  For some reason, this class isn’t capturing my attention quite like Brain and Behavior, although, Maria said that we’re going to start talking about more interesting stuff next time, so maybe it will start to intrigue my attention a little more. 

Research Methods: This class is...surprising.  My professor’s name is Dr. Menelaos Apostolou.  He is a genuinely nice professor, and very eager to help anyone who may need it.  I stayed a little late after class today to work on my homework, and he was still helping one of the women in my class when I left about 20 minutes later!  The way he says things sometimes reminds me of the father from My Big Fat Greek Wedding too (with his accent and everything), so I get quite a kick out of that.  :D  For example, he (and my photography teacher actually) say “zzmall” for “small.”  I think it’s pretty funny, and I really like their accents here.  As far as the class itself goes, I’m quite surprised with it.  The material isn’t anything exciting, but I’m picking it up a lot faster and easier than I thought I would.  This course is statistics-based, and for any of you who don’t know, statistics was (and still is) my LEAST favorite kind of math.  Ever.  Either way, I don’t know if it’s just more elementary to me for some reason, but I always seem to be one of the first ones done with our exercises (not to brag of course).  All of our exercises are done on the computer, so I usually just find something to work on online while Menelaos goes around helping the other students.  I’m just glad that I’m understanding it.  We’re using a program called SPSS (it’s used back at Bethel too--it’s a universal program used for anything psychology/research-related), and the big thing that we’re learning right now is how to use the program and how to interpret the data that we are finding.  Overall, I don’t mind the class as much as I thought I would.  I just wish it weren’t a four hour long class (though we’ve been getting out a little early the past couple of times, so I guess it’s not that bad).  

Other than my classes, I haven’t been up to much since I’ve been back from my travels.  The GLS group went to Ayia Napa last weekend; that was great!  Ayia Napa is the most touristy part of Cyprus because it has some of the islands prettiest beaches.  :)  We left last Friday for Ayia Napa.  On the way, we stopped at a few places.  The first stop was the Hala Sultan Tekke mosque, the third most important pilgrimage site for Muslims after Mecca.  It was built there because, according to legend, Muhammad’s aunt fell of a mule and died at the site.  It was cool to see, but there wasn’t much to see.  I really enjoyed seeing the cats at the mosque though!  Oh. My. GOSH.  There was a VERY cute kitten there.  Literally, it was probably a week or two old--very tiny.  It made me miss my kitty very much.  :)  After the mosque, we visited the Church of St. Lazarus.  According to history, after Lazarus was raised from the dead the first time, he came to Cyprus (present-day Larnaca) where he was ordained as a bishop by Paul and St. Barnabas.  When he died (for the second, and final, time), he was buried in Larnaca, and the church was built over his tomb.  So, I got to see the tomb of Lazarus!  It was really cool, even though I wasn’t able to figure out which tomb was actually his.  (There were a few sarcophagi, all of which are empty, so it’s hard to tell which one is his, but either way, I saw his tomb!)  After we were given a little time to explore the church, we left for our final stop before Ayia Napa: a Famagusta cultural center.  Famagusta is a city in Cyprus that was taken over by the Turks when they invaded the island.  Today, it literally sits as a ghost town; very few people are allowed to enter (apparently, it would even be hard for our president to visit!), and everything is apparently left the same as it was when it was invaded (like, apparently there’s newspapers from that day and toast lying on a kitchen counter...that type of stuff).  It’s quite a sad thing, and I believe there have been efforts to get it back and to re-inhabit the city.  They’re quite a ways away from accomplishing this, but there’s always hope for the future.

After our stops, we arrived in Ayia Napa where we were set free for the rest of the weekend.  And boy, was it fabulous.  I was definitely in paradise!  The rest of the afternoon and that night, was mainly dedicated to swimming.  :)  That night, almost all of the group went out together to sing karaoke.  Which...wasn’t really karaoke because everyone always sang each song together..lol.  But I sang half a song at the mic. when Shami pulled me up to sing with her.  I have “do karaoke” on my bucket list, but I’m not crossing it off since I didn’t sing the whole song and it wasn’t really karaoke...someday though!  The next day, after a fantastic breakfast, a group of us decided to go out to Cape Greko, a serene cape where there is some pretty good swimming and beautiful views.  The water was a beautiful teal blue, and very clear.  Shami and I decided to go back into town quick and buy some goggles--it was a great investment and super cool to see the bottom!  We even saw some little fishies!  :)  That night was spent exploring the city and eating in a place that specialized in making fish (ish...I didn't get any obviously.  Although, I tried one of my friend's swordfish, and it wasn't too bad!).  The next day, we left to go back to our apartment early in the afternoon, so the rest of our time was spent eating breakfast and sleeping.  :)  

Overall, everything’s been pretty great so far (if you can’t tell by how much I’m writing!).  My classes are all going well and I’m having a lot of fun with everyone!  Well, I think that is all I’m going to write for now (because I’m pretty sure my fingers are about to fall off!).  But, don’t worry--I’ll be updating my blog again very soon because tomorrow...I’M GOING TO EGYPT!!!!!!!!  This is my first surprise destination for those of you who I've been keeping it a secret from.  :)  Have a good day/night everyone!  I’ll be writing again soon! 

Barcelonaaaa!--the final piece to my puzzle. :]

Here is my final post on my travels.  I chose this name for my post (above) because as many of you probably know, I went to Spain during my Junior-year of high school.  Barcelona was the only major city that we did not stop at, so I felt like I had essentially been missing a "piece of the puzzle."  However, now that I've been to Barcelona, my "puzzle" is complete!  :)  Here's what happened the last few days of our travels:

September 24th:

We just went through the usual routine: wake up, eat breakfast, leave for the airport, get there, get our tickets, go through security...you know the drill.  I must mention, however, that the Venice airport is probably my second least favorite airport.  EVER.  It was VERY unorganized, it took forever to get our tickets issued to us (if our flight hadn’t been delayed, we probably would have missed it), and it was SO crowded.  The only reason I like it better than the Madrid airport is because I wasn’t inhaling cigarette smoke every two feet...anyway, so, after our flight was arrived after a long delay, we boarded our flight to Barcelona.  When we arrived in Barcelona, we grabbed a couple of taxis to our hotel where we checked in, had a half-hour break to eat, and then met back up for a tour of the city.  We were shown around the city by the program coordinator for the GLS site in Barcelona; he was pretty cool!  The main thing that we saw was La Sagrada Familia, the unfinished cathedral in Barcelona that was designed by Gaudí.  It was pretty awesome, and a little different than I expected (in a good way).  While touring the city, we just roamed around the backstreets while our guide explained stuff to us.  After our tour was over, we were free to go, so our group went in search of food.  Some of us ended up buying some stuff in a small little street market, however, we decided to eat back in the restaurant at the hotel, so I saved the stuff that I bought at the market for my breakfast in the morning.  After some of the girls and I ate, I just turned in for the night--it had been a long day!

September 25th:

This was our free day in Barcelona, so I ended up sleeping in (it was wonderful!).  After I woke up and got ready for the day, I met up with Faith and Leah.  They had done some researching beforehand and had looked into different things to do; we decided to go on a bus tour of the city (because, to be quite honest, we didn’t see a ton of the city the night before since it was a walking tour...so I was excited to see the rest of the city).  When we were all ready, we left the hotel and found one of the bus stops, purchased our tickets, and hopped on the bus!  We sat on the top of the bus, so that was super fun!  Can you say double-decker experience anyone?!  :)  After maybe an hour or so, we decided to get off of the bus since we had stopped back in a major part of the city that we had been in the day before.  We ended up finding a cafe to go eat at, and then went...dun dun dun...SHOPPING!  We had only gone into a couple of stores when Faith decided that she actually wanted to go to the aquarium, so she left Leah and I while we continued shopping.  (Good thing she did because we ended up shopping for about 2 or 3 more hours!).  Do not worry though--the purchases I made were well thought out, and good bargains.  (I ended up making use of my Spanish actually because I saw a sign (in Spanish of course) saying that students could get a discount in one of the stores the day that we were there!)  It was the only time on the trip I really went shopping shopping, and since I made smart purchases, I felt really good about my day of shopping!  After Leah and I had shopped our hearts out, we decided to hop back on the bus tour, just on a different route (there were three routes to choose from).  Sadly, we were delayed almost an hour because of a protest/march that was going on.  Since it was taking forever and since the bus hadn’t come to our stop after about 45 minutes, we decided to walk to the next one...which happened to be right by one of the only things I really had my heart set on seeing while in Barcelona: Casa Battó!  It is this very unique and beautiful house that Gaudí designed.  I originally thought the outside was covered in shells, but when I got there, I saw that I was wrong: it was just decorated with a mosaic of things (it’s hard to describe...I’ll try to figure out how to post pictures on here soon!).  It was definitely cool, and I was so happy that I got to see it!  :)  After Leah and I looked at the house for a while, we hopped back on the bus.  We stayed on there until we got to the National Art Museum and decided to disembark there.  At the bottom of the hill that the museum is on, we heard music, so we went to check it out; it turned out to be a free concert!  For those of you who don’t know, we were in Barcelona during one of their biggest festivals of the year: La Merce.  This festival basically celebrates and commemorates the plague stopping before it reached Barcelona; in other words, it’s a big celebration of their evasion of the plague.  So, throughout the weekend, there were free concerts everywhere, fireworks at night, and, from what I hear, a lot of partying in the streets.  (*I was never actually downtown late at night during the festivities, so I got to avoid the huge crowds in the streets!  And thank goodness, because I’m sure it was crazy!).  Anyway, after spending a little time at the concert, Leah and I started to make our way back up to the art museum.  On our way there, we saw a bunch of people waiting for something, so we asked a man what everyone was waiting for.  He said that the big fountain that we were near was supposed to start up soon and that it would be accompanied with cooling lighting and music!  It was supposed to start in just a few minutes from the time we arrived, so we decided to stay and watch.  Sadly, however, an announcement was made that the fountain show was not going to be shown that night, so that was a bummer.  So, we made our way back to the museum, where we waited for fireworks to start.  They ended up starting in a completely wrong place though, and the best view we got was from behind some trees...  :/  Oh well!  After the fireworks, Leah and I just decided to make our way back to the hotel.  We found a place to eat near our hotel on our way back, and then I turned in for the night since we were going to have a long day the next day.  Although I didn’t quite like Barcelona as much as the rest of Spain (when I saw it in 2007), I did find it to be unique and I really enjoyed my experience there!  This was probably my third (or fourth) favorite day overall (after the days on the Grecian Island and in Florence...).

September 26th:

Insert normal wake-up/taxi/airport routine here...we finally boarded the plane.  We flew to Athens; I think I sat next to Constantia on this flight...she’s SO funny to fly with because she is quite scared of flying.  So you will see her making the sign of the cross over her body quite a few times when taking off and during times of turbulence.  We tried to distract her as much as we could.  haha.  After arriving at the airport in Athens, we waited for our connecting flight, and then boarded.  I sat next to a fellow GLSer, Nick, and in our row was a very nice woman (probably in her mid-30’s) named Carolina.  Nick and I talked quite a bit and got to know each other better which was great, but I talked to Carolina for a major part of the flight; at the end of the flight, she ended up giving me her e-mail address in case I ever need anything while in Cyprus.  She said something along the lines of “If you need anything, just e-mail me.  Like, if the students at the university are mean to you or causing you trouble, tell me and I will teach you some bad words.”  haha.  She was very nice, like I’ve found most Cypriots to be so far.  After we landed, we went through customs and picked up our luggage.  When we had all gotten our luggage, we all loaded into a big van and headed back to our apartments.  When we got back, it was getting to be pretty late at night, and our roommate Shami was still awake, so we caught up with her.  She went to Zimbabwe to visit family while Kayla and I were traveling around (since she is part of a different program through GLS), so we all caught up and exchanged stories of our time abroad.  It was a long day, so after catching up and unpacking, I went to sleep!  I had a fantastic time everywhere I went, and I definitely had an amazing time exploring the world around me.  

This, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the end of my travels...for now.  :)  

[*Keep a look-out for a couple of general posts on life in the future, and some more updates on other travels that I have planned!]

"When in Rome...": My Travels Throughout Italy

Like I stated in my previous post, after my wonderful adventures in Greece, the program took our group all throughout Italy; we ended up spending time in Rome, Pisa, Florence, and Venice.  I had a fantastic time in Italy (it was probably my favorite country that we ended up visiting!). Here's what happened:  

September 19th:

After waking up at the bright and early hour of 5:00am, I had a quick breakfast in the hotel lobby.  After, we all loaded the bus, drove to the airport, went through security...I’m sure you know the drill by now.  :D  I ended up sitting in an aisle seat by an old couple.  I ate the breakfast that they provided (since the hotel breakfast was only a croissant and water) and slept most of the way to Rome.  After we landed, we drove to our hotel, checked half of the group in (my room wasn’t ready this time), and went out for lunch.  I went out with my friends Nyika, Faith, Sasha, Kayla, and Rose.  I had a pasta dish with broccoli--it wasn’t the best meal ever, but the dish was pretty good.  After lunch, I ended up making a quick purchase at a stand on the street near our hotel.  When we got back to the hotel after lunch, the entire group went on a tour of the Colosseum, and a walking tour of the city (a lot of the old city especially).  When we got to Trevi fountain, my friend Leah and I finally had our Lizzie McGuire moment.  :)  I threw in three coins and made one wish on each (two smaller wishes on the two smallest coins that I threw in with Leah, and a big wish on the big coin that I threw in by myself).  At Trevi fountain, we all started to feel a few sprinkles...when we were on our way to the Spanish Steps, it was downpouring!  I don’t think I saw such a heavy rain all summer!  By the time we had run to the metro, we were all soaking wet!  It was quite an experience, let me tell you!  Normally, I certainly wouldn’t have minded it.  However, I had my new camera with me, so I didn’t enjoy it as much (all I could think about was keeping it dry!).  After we made our way to the metro station, we went back to the hotel.  After we had all situated and changed, a big group of us went out to dinner.  After trying to find a place to go to, we ended up going back to the restaurant that my group had gone to earlier.  Even though I wasn’t too pleased with my meal earlier in the day, I ended up getting the best lasagna I’ve ever had.  It was so delicious, and a real Italian meal if you ask me!  So I was happy.  :)  After dinner, we went back to the hotel.  I just went back to my room, had some downtime, and went to bed.  It was a veryyyy long, but good, day.  :)

September 20th:

After I woke up, I went back to one of the stands on the street to buy a cheap pair of leggings because this was the day that we went to the Vatican (and I wanted to make sure I’d be able to get into St. Peters!).  I wore a classy black and grey dress that went down to my knees, however, we were told that our knees should be covered, so I bought the leggings and put them in my purse to be on the safe side.  After I bought them, our group made our way to the metro where we hopped on the train and traveled to the Vatican.  When we got there, we got in a LONG line..while we were in line, I decided to go and grab a pastry and water since I didn’t have time for breakfast.  The street vender asked me if I was Italian because he said I looked Italian, so that was kind of cool!  :)  After I had bought my breakfast, I noticed our group walking in my direction (I was near the entrance to the museum); since we had reserved tickets, we got to bypass the standing in line!  I didn’t have time to finish my breakfast (we weren’t allowed to bring food inside), so I stuck it inside my purse (don’t worry, the security guard knew..ha).  We went inside, went through security, and then met our tour guide.  We had a tour of the Vatican museum, and our tour guide explained a lot behind the art and history of certain things (like the Sistine Chapel).  She presented a lot of information to us using a little contraption for a while, and then after her information session, we toured through the rest of the museum.  She left us right before we got to the Sistine Chapel, and we were told that we were free for the rest of the day.  So, after she was done, my friends and I entered into the Chapel.  There are no words for that place.  Seriously.  I cannot believe that the entire thing was hand-painted.  I wanted to take a picture SO bad.  Even though no photos were allowed, and there were guards watching people and telling them “no pictures!,” I know I could have easily gotten a good shot.  I felt bad though, and I didn’t want to break the rules, so I didn’t.  :(  I bought a couple of postcards with scenes from the chapel, along with a couple of other things, at a little souvenir shop after looking at the chapel for about ten minutes.  After the gift shop, we went to the Basilica.  I didn’t end up needing to put on my leggings, but my friend Faith hurried me inside saying that she saw some of the guards kind of eyeing me..whew!  I would have been fine either way though.  The Basilica was AWESOME.  It was really cool being in such an amazing and powerful place.  I’m not Catholic, but it was definitely a wonderful experience and an amazing place to see.  After seeing the Basilica, some of my friends and I took the metro and went back to central Rome where we ate lunch and did a little more shopping and sight-seeing.  We made a brief stop at the Spanish Steps since we weren’t able to go the day before due to the rain.  I bought some neat street art at the top of the steps too!  :)  We went back to the Pantheon too, and finally back to the Colosseum as well.  It was very beautiful at night, and I got a few pics that I’m very pleased with.  After the Colosseum, before turning in for the night, Leah, Faith, and I went out for some dessert.  We had a good time enjoying each others company!  After that, I called it a night.

September 21st: 

This was, quite honestly, an uneventful day for the most part.  The majority of the day consisted of a loooong bus ride from Rome to Florence.  The Italian country-side is gorgeous; I would love to go back again someday and drive all throughout Italy!  Sadly, I was pretty tired though, and for those of you who know me, I fall asleep pretty easily in moving vehicles...therefore, I slept for most of the commute.  On the way to Florence, we stopped at Pisa for a couple of hours.  In Pisa, we all took turns taking the typical “pushing-the-tower-over” pictures, and a couple of group shots as well (my tower-pushing pics didn’t turn out that great, but that’s okay!).  After our photo op, a few of us went to grab something to eat.  I spent a little time looking at all of the little touristy stands and did a little souvenir shopping as well.  After that, we all met on the bus and continued on our way to Florence.  In my opinion, we spent the perfect amount of time in Pisa; it is definitely day-trip worthy, but I wouldn’t spend longer than a day in the city.  It was really cool seeing the leaning tower though!  :)  When we arrived in Florence, a bunch of us just went out to dinner and then came back to the hotel for the night, and made some plans for the next day.

September 22nd: 

On this day, the only thing that we had scheduled as a group was a trip to the Uffizi (which, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the building, is an art gallery).  After waking up in the morning and eating breakfast, our group walked from our hotel to the Uffizi.  Here, we met up with a wonderful tour guide who took us to see the main works of art in the gallery (including The Birth of Venus, Primavera, The Annunciation, and the Doni Tondo).  It was very interesting, and actually one of my favorite tours--I just kept thinking about how so many of the people I used to hear about in my classes actually painted the things that I had seen, and that they had once been in their possession.  It just was a little mind-boggling.  :)  After our visit to the Uffizi, my friends Sasha, Leah, Maggie, and I grabbed a quick bite to eat and then walked around a little bit to kill time before...we signed up for a bike tour of the city!  After signing up, we had a little time to kill before the tour was actually supposed to start, so we explored Florence a little more and stopped outside Il Duomo for a while.  It is a magnificent cathedral from the outside; I can only imagine what it looked on the inside (we didn’t have time to go see the inside).  After our exploring, we made our way back to the bike tour office where we got free hats and loaded up our bikes.  Our tour guide grew up in the states (though she had been living in Italy for the past 10 years), and she was very nice!  She took us around all of Florence, showing us the major sites and giving us a background on the history of each place.  I snapped some tours while on my bike, which I consider to be quite a feat!  :D  Our tour guide also took us to the best gelateria in Florence and treated us to a dish; I got dark chocolate and a mixed-berry flavor.  She was right; it was the best gelateria in Florence.  After our lovely bike tour, us girls did a little shopping (though, I actually didn’t get a single thing!).  We didn’t shop for long though because we had to get ready for...the opera!  A bunch of us decided that we wanted to go to the opera the night before, so we ended up scoring some tickets to a little recital where three people (a pianist and two opera singers) performed arias.  I actually ended up LOVING it!  Seriously, I normally would say that I hate opera, but I decided to go for the experience, and it was SO good!  :)  The best part is, 100% of the ticket sales went to benefit a thing called AMALA, a charity project for children in South India.  You could buy champagne during the reception as well to help support AMALA; I didn’t buy any, but I still donated a couple of Euro because I thought that the idea to help out this charity project was so great!  Not much else happened after the opera; a bunch of the group stayed out longer, but I only stayed with them for about 20 minutes.  After, I went back to the hotel and just turned in for the night because it was a very long, very wonderful day, and I was pooped!  :)

September 23rd:

After waking up and having breakfast, our group departed Florence and made our way to Venice.  When we arrived in Venice, we checked into our hotel (again, my room wasn’t ready) and ate a quick lunch from McDonald’s.  Most of you know that I don’t really eat much fast-food in the U.S., nonetheless, McDonald’s, but I have gotta tell you, it was pretty good.  After lunch, Kayla and I got our room, so we checked in quick.  Not too long after, our group drove to a port where we boarded a Vaporetto, a boat of sorts that took us to the canal-y part of Venice.  We all broke off into smaller groups to explore the city.  Almost right away, we found an amazing little glass gallery, and I’m still kicking myself for not buying anything...I wanted to see if I could find any other galleries that day, but I never did (and I couldn’t find my way back to the first one!).  I guess I’ll just have to go back again someday to get some authentic Venetian glass!  :)  After finding the gallery, I decided to break off from my group and explore the city for myself.  I absolutely love traveling with people, but I just wanted to see the city on my own terms for once (and I’m very happy I did).  I explored the little side streets and eventually made my way to the Grand Canal (I found out later that I was the only one to do so!  Everyone sure missed out!).  Here, I stood on the famous Rialto Bridge (one of four bridges that cross the canal, as well as the oldest); I was able to find a nice couple to take my picture for me to remember my time there (don’t worry, I got lots of other shots too!).  After, I decided to find a gelato stand and copy Kayla (in Rome, she went off on her own, grabbed some gelato, and just sat and ate it at Trevi Fountain...she said it was one of her favorite things that she did in Rome).  So, I grabbed myself a cone and then made my way back to the canal where I just sat there and enjoyed watching life go by.  It truly was magnificent.  :)  After that, I slowly made my way back to our meeting point.  On the way, I met a nice older couple from Texas (they stopped me to ask me if I would take their picture).  I took there picture, we conversed a little, and then after wishing me luck with everything this semester, we parted ways.  I made my way back to where everyone needed to meet right as it was starting to get dark--perfect timing.  :)  Not too long after, we all hopped back on the Vaporetto and made our way back to the mainland.  When we got back to the hotel, I skyped with my family for a while, and then turned in for the night because I needed to get some rest before we departed for our last and final country...ESPAÑA!