Holy Toledo!

We took the train to Toledo, which is a typical small Spanish town with windy roads and really great green views. It was rainy, so I can only imagine how beautiful it is in nice weather. The cool part about Toledo is that at one time Muslims, Christians, and Jews all lived here together peacefully. You can see all three influences in the architecture and things like that.

la familia en madrid

The whole fam came to Madrid! This is Christmas dinner at La Favorita Restaurante where one minute the waitors are pouring your water and the next they are belting out amazing opera right next to you :-)

Valencia

spanish christmas lottery

The Christmas lottery is a huge deal in Europe and in Spain. All day today they were drawing numbers because there are lots of small winners and also lots of big winners. Here's a youtube video of the televised event-and yes it kinda is the most boring television ever.
They're singing the number, and then usually mil euros-which is like $1,500

Free Sahara

These signs are all over Spain. In Barcelona I saw a protest in front of the city hall and in Seville a girl was on hunger strike also in front of city hall to support Aminetu Haidar. This is what I gather of the situation:

-The girl's name is not Sahara like I thought at first, it's Aminetu Haidar.
-She is not a girl, like the poster seems, she's in her forties and a mother of 2.
-She is a western sahara separtist activist-so she wants western sahara to be independent of Morocco because of human rights and displacement concerns.
-She flew to the US to recieve a human rights award, and was denied re-entry into her hometown by Morocco because on her passport she wrote “Sahrawi” as her nationality and “Western Sahara” as her country of origin.
-However, Spain would not receive her either, and she spent over a month in the airport of Lanzarote in the Canry Islands (this is Spain) staging a hunger strike, wanting to re-enter her hometown.
-A few days ago she had to go to the hospital, clearly after not eating for more than a month.
-Now Morocco allowed her to re-enter, and no one has apologized or admitted wrong doing.

She definately drew a lot of attention to her cause, at least in Spain, I'm not sure internationally. Is this news in the US and the rest of Europe?

   

cumpleanos en madrid :-)

25th brithday in Madrid with Maria and Angela.

My backpack

I have a love/hate relationship with my backpack right now. I look at it with loathing at 5 am when I know I have to carry it to the metro stop, change metros, take the shuttle to the airport, find the easy jet terminal, pray they don't give me the sticker "odd shaped baggage" because then I have to lug it somewhere else. However, we watched Into the Wild the other night at the hostel in Barcelona, and this image is my inspiration to keep on trucking:

Guernica!!!

I saw Picasso's Guernica in Madrid's Museo Reina Sofia! They have a lot of his sketches in the two rooms near the painting, so you can look at the sketches and then turn around and compare them to the real thing :-) It is enormous and awesome!

I honestly wish I could take Civ (the course you take every single day for 2 years at Providence College) again-no lie.

cathedral y giralda

The cathedral in seville is the largest gothic cathedral and third largest cathedral in the world-first is st. peter's at the vatican, 2nd shrine of our lady of aparecida in brazil, and fourth is st. john's in ny. The audio guide in seville's cathedral will tell you it is the largest in the world (depending on what criteria you use to measure) and there is also a letter from the Guiness Book of World Records on display to prove this. The tomb of Christopher Columbus is also inside.

The cathedral is a former mosque converted by the christians. The giralda is the large bell tower sticking up in the back of the picture. It was a former minaret, which is now topped with a cross and bell.

Seville con Pepe :-)

Walking to the metro stop at 6 am with my 18 kilo backback I just had to repeat "you're going to see pepe, you're going to see pepe." And Seville is awesome, and Pepe is a really great guide, he knows lots about his beloved city. We had awesome tapas every night, and it seems pepe knows everyone everywhere. More to come on Seville :-)

Soccer Game With Octavi

Octavi has season tickets and he asked me to go-soo cooo! The stadium seats 100,000 people-incredible! Barcelona won against Espanol (another team from Barcelona). :-)

gaudi is cool

My favorite part of barcelona was probably the gaudi architecture. It could be like a normal street with shops and businesses, and then the tourists crowded around the gaudi building that looks like its from doctor suess. The sangrada familia is super super cool. I need to go back when it is finished (I really hope in my life time)!!

I am wearing my very gaudi tights!!

Dunkin Donuts

I spotted a Dunkin Donuts on Las Ramblas in Barcelona, and was very excited. I went right in and ordered a medium iced coffee with cream and 2 sugars. The girl looked at me like I was insane. "We only have one regular coffee." Ok fine. She gives me a small cup with the lid for a cofee colatta-and I was like oh I asked for meduium-this was the medicum. It was really just cold coffee with like 4 iced cubes i it. Disappointment.

Food in France

I kind of ate like a backpacker in Paris because it was pretty expensive so chinese food, shawrma, baquette and cheese, 2 euro wine, panini, churros, hot wine, crepe with nutella and coconut, crepe with chocolate, crepe with sugar...

I did try frog’s legs one day, which kind of taste like corned beef, but I wouldn't order them again.

I tried the famouse hot cholocate at Angelinas which is a fancy cafe Audrey hepurn and coco chanel used to visited. I definately vote yes, it is worth the 7 euros. It is like a melted chocolate bar, and they serve it with a picture of water because you need it.

I ate yummy food in Albane's house in Toulouse:
Duck rilletes-kind of like tuna but way better
Saucisson-kind of cured meat
Cheese quiche
Cheese with a cherry spread for dessert
Tartiflette-hot cheesy, hammy, potatoey, stringy goodness

I learned that in France it is ok to put the bread on the table outside of your plate and you put the cup in front of your plate and not on the side. However, 5 minutes into eating my bread was on my plate and my cup to the right!

Bus to Barcelona

I took a 7 hour bus from Toulouse to Barcelona, but is was really beautiful to see the scenery in southern France and to see the city as we entered Barcelona. At the rest stop I ate the 2 sandwhiches Albane made me -duck rilletes and saucisson-delicioius. And I saw the pyrenees!!! That's the mountain chain that creates the natural border between france and spain. Its always described as magestical-and it is kinda glowing even from the far-away window of a bus.

The Pink City

Toulouse is called the pink citiy-and it really is! All of the buildings including houses, museums, the univeristy dorms are all made out of this pinkish brick.

Toulouse is a really cool city with small windy streets, and really there is a cafe, bookstore, music store, small botique around EVERY corner. I think Toulouse was the image of France I had in my head-I just also thought the eiffle tower was somehow in the backdrop of every cafe.

Toulouse!

I stayed at Albane's house in Toulouse for a few days, and it was really great. Her family is so nice, and her mom made me typical French food. This is Albane, Amadine, and me eating crepes at the Christmas market in Toulouse. We went around trying to get free samples of food, and to aid us in this venture the girls pretended they didn't speak French and just wanted to try some new food. It worked reasonably well :-)

Thank you Mrs. Moran

While I was using my computer in the common area of the hostel this Canadian girl began to talk to me. She had a serious complex about America and was very upset that we don’t think about Canada but they always need to think about us before they do anything. She was talking a lot, and I was talking a little. She did admit there was one good thing about America-netflicks-and she was very mad you could not get this in Canada. She went on some more about how books cost more in Canada and you can’t do ebay. Then she had another good thing to share with me about the US-truck stops. I didn’t really ask.

Then she wanted me to youtube videos of stupid Americans who don’t know geography. I refused to do this. All foreigners love to point to the fact that Americans apparently don’t know geography at all. Then I tell them to quiz me on Europe-I’m not great but I’m ok-thank you Mrs. Moran. Then I ask them if they know all the US states and captials, because the US is more than 2 times the size of the European Union.

La reunion de Marion y yo

Marion and  lived in the same house in Quito Ecuador, and I was so happy to see her in her home country! Marion was a really great guide-showing me the Champs-Élysées and the Christmas market, Latin quarter, Orsay musuem (impressionist), Layfayette street with the christmas lights, and the best coffee in Paris-Starbucks-jeje!

Just Google It

I noticed that there have been no guided tours in any of the places I have visited, at least not guided by people. There are almost always audio guides available, which actually normally give very good information. And I also heard a woman in front of the Mona Lisa say "Oh well we can google it when we get home." I quess you don't reallky need people to guide you anymore. It seems a little sad. However, in all honesty if I was in museum at 1:00 and I had the choice of a a guided tour at 2:00 or an audio guide immediately-I'd take the audio guide.

It's True-She Follows You

The cool thing about being the persistent tourists is that hardly anyone was in the Louvre. So we could walk right up to the Mona Lisa and take a picture, when apparently usually she is surrounded so you can’t even see it. So we could walk to one side and watch her follow us, and then walk to the other side and watch her follow us-it is very true-haha.

Everyone had told me how surprised they were that the Mona Lisa is so small, that I must have pictured it the size of a thumb nail or something, because when I saw it, I was like-oh that’s bigger than I though it would be.

It was actually stolen from the Louvre in the early 1900s, and there was a world-wide search. Turns out the painting never left France, and a Louvre employee walked out with it under his jacket and kept it on his mantle piece for 2 years before he tried to sell it to the Ufizzi Gallery in Florence (where the David is) and was arrested for a few days but let out as a hero who tried to return the Mona Lisa to Da vinci's home country.

French on Strike

Clearly when I come to Paris, nearly all the French workers are on strike. This meant that things like the louvre, Versailles, the Orsay museum, ect were fully or partially closed. I did the sightseeing thing with 2 Ausies and a Californian, who were really cool. As we came close to the glass pyramid, we saw there was no queue (which is now what I call a line and an elevator is now a lift) we knew it was bad. So we walked down a tunnel area bummed and were looking into the museum through these big glass windows, and we saw people walking around. First, we thought they must work there, or be important people or something like that, but when I saw they were taking pictures I said no they are definitely tourists! And these two guys next to us, were like “we were in there, it’s open.” So we asked how to get in, and they said “you need to be persistent” and walked away. It was like when Charlie is looking into the gate of the chocolate factory and that old man says “nobody ever goes in and nobody ever comes out” and creaks away with his cart, and then Charlie really want to go in! So we decided we didn’t care, we were getting into the Louvre somehow!

Everyone was very weird about giving us information. We went up to some people coming out of the exit and I did my sweestest “ pardon, par le vous anglais?” and I get the typical French-“a little.”

“ did you just go into the museum”

“yes”

“How?”

“What?”

“The museum’s on rev- how did you get in?”

“We don’t know.”

“But you walked around and saw the Mona Lisa and such?”

“yes”

“How did you enter the museum?”

They look at each other and at us, and its real weird like they don’t want to tell us. Then the girl goes, you can get in through the mall, and they walk away.

We were like what the F?! Anways, we are very persistant, find a mall, walk to the ground floor and see the inverted pyramid. We like ran, ,skipped up to it! And we entered the groups entrance normal as anything. Turns out the strike was just for show, and the louvre was actually completely open.

Don’t Your Friends Think Your Crazy?

Trying to stay awake on the metro after a 5 hour walking tour of Paris, my new Ausie friend Brad asked, “Don’t your friends think your crazy?” I laughed, “Yes. They know I’m crazy.” It is nice to be surrounded by people whose friends also think they are crazy- crazy for taking out loans, racking up credit card debt, spending life savings not on car or a house, and for doing it alone. It’s nice to be with people who are interested in your travel stories, but not amazed. People that you can share your travel stories with and not feel like you’re bragging, because travelling is just what you both love to do, and for every story you have they have a similar one.

Backpacking it

As the four hours from Zurich to Paris drew closer to an end, I was getting so excited-I mean, Paris! Though, I also started to get a little nervous for my first hostel-it-alone experience. I have stayed in hostels and hostel-like places many times in countries like Panama, Nicaragua, and Burma-but it was always with at least one other friend. I understand how the hostel and backpacker world works, living in Tamarindo this summer was hostel/backpacker/tourist haven. I just had never really done it myself.

I soon realized that while not travelling myself, I have actually lived in an international hostel for the past 2 years-in so many ways the hostel reminded me of EF. I know the drill of waking up, walking down 4 flights of stairs, sitting at a table with people from random countries, and eating toast with nutella.

I’m actually really comfortable being with people who are speaking English in all sorts of accents, or who are not even speaking my language. More importantly, I honestly want to know where you are from, where you have been, what you do-it is not just small talk. I was super comfortable in the hostel and met lots of really cool people.

Switzerland is Awesome

These are all of the cities I visited in Switzerland!

Where can I change into my cheese clothes?

We went to a cheese factory and here are some things that I learned from Cherry the Cow on our audio tour.

We had a little trouble finding the cheese factory. In the first building we went into we realized we were in the wrong place when we saw the locker rooms, and found out we were at a hockey rink.

zug

This means both train in German and is a city in Switzerland close to Zurich, where my great surf partner Dominique lives.

I was really excited to ride the train in Switzerland and decided to have a beer while waiting for the train. I was happy to order in my best German accent “vinter bier” and lugged my enormous backpack over to the closest standing table. I was happily eating the sandwhich julie’s dad made for me that morning and thinking about seeing dominque, when I looked around and realized converse clad me was admist all middle aged business men in suits speaking in german on their cell phones.

Dominique's family was so great to me and we had a blast!

In the train from Zurich to Paris they kept saying all this stuff in French, then in English one phrase like simply “we wish you a very pleasant journey.” I want to know what the heck they are telling all the French people that I can’t know!

JungFrau

I experienced the highest point in Europe with Julie and Marie. It was so so cool!

Juju's Grandma

We spent the weekend in Grindlewald, in Julie’s grandma’s perfect Swiss mountainside house. The house is filled with things like old suspender suits from when her kid’s were toddlers, drawings from when her children were young, fotos, and fake cats that look extremely real and scared Marie and I every time we walked by. There are so many bedrooms that I got lost going back down to the kitchen.

It was honestly piqueresque. The morning after we arrived, we were eating breakfast and fog cleared, and you could see the mountains through the lace curtains.

It is one of the oldest houses in the area, and there are always tour groups outside taking pictures.

Julie’s granma is 87 and so lively and happy and funny. Julie had to translate French for Marie and I, and I’m sure if I could have understood everything staright from the mouth it would have been 10 times better. We drove her grandma to the town one morning and Julie asked her if she had enough time to get ready, and she said “oh it doesn’t matter I’m the prettiest one anyways.” We played this game which Julie translated as “go quickly, slowly” which is almost exactly like Sorry. Julie’s grandma loves this game, and Julie hates it. Julie’s grandma won, and in the morning when Julie asked how she slept her grandma said “very well, after winning last night.”

She was so wonderful to us cooking, making breakfast, tea, making coming into the room saying "cucu" to make sure the room was warm enough.

Bern

A man fell into the bear pit in Bern a few days before we visited. He dropped a plastic bag in there and went to retrieve it, obviously he had some mental issues. No one was hurt, but the Bernese are very concerned because the bear was shot with a tranquilzer gun.

I did not see the bears, which are the namesake of Bern and have a new million dollar home/large plexiglass cave by the river. It was raining, so I guess they were in their cave. I did see the Munster Cathedral, which I figured was famous, but later learned that munster is actually the German word for cathedral.

It’s so crazy to drive like an hour and the people speak a different language. In Switzerland there are 4 official language-French, German, Italian, and Romanch.

I am thankful for Fondu

I was going to make a traditional thanksgiving dinner for julie’s famiy.... but I didn’t. We had traditional Swiss fondu instead, and it was delicious. I am thankful for Marie and Julie, and all the friends I have all over the world.

Julie Frutiger

I’m about to board the plane in London and send a frantic text to Marie, hoping she has not yet boarded her plane “what do julie’s parents look like?” She apparently has not left Copenhagen yet as I get back “haha I don’t know, hope they are holding a big picture of Julie.” Turns out I had nothing to worry about, as soon as I exited the gate in Geneva I saw a man holding a sign “Julie frutiger.” I walked up to him and said “hi…(not remembering if julie said he spoke English or not) I’m Caitlin.”

Julie’s dad took Marie and I on a wonderful tour of the area near Julie’s town of Allaman including a great lunch, look at the UN building, and a drive by the lake for a sunset view of the alps.

Julie’s dad spent a year in Stockholm doing an apprenticeship roof-building. He was really happy to speak Swedish with Marie. So we spent an afternoon of some English, Marie translating Swedish to English and English to Swedish, and Marie speaking to me in Swedish and thinking I would understand.

Driving from the airport to Julie’s house you could see the snow-capped mountains almost the whole way, and it was honestly breath taking. I couldn’t stop smiling, it is like when I watch musicals-like chicago or something-and I feel ridiculous because I can’t help but smile the whole time.

swiss minarets

I was in Switzerland when the vote to ban minarets passed. It was absolutely bafalling to me that this issue could even be voted on. In all of the newspapers the politicians rightfully seem pretty concerned that the vote will hurt Switzerland's image in the world. There is a large very wealthy middle eastern population in Switzerland, and the concern is that the very tall minarets are a symbol of power. I heard the opinion that they were not voting to supress the religious practice in the mosques, just to not have the towering minarets in their cities. I also heard the opinion that "it's not like they're going to build a million minarets all over Switzerland if there is not a ban."

As an American traveler, I face critisms of America everyday, and I have my own criticisms as well. However, this news has made me reflect on the fact that I have been brought up in a country with ideals that have shaped me to not even be able to comprehend this being an issue to vote on. Though not perfect in practice, I do think that America holds the idea of equality high.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8385069.stm

This is what they sound like-I think it is so cool!

I'm working on the posts

I'm in Paris, I'm having so so much fun! I am working on the posts from Switzerland and Paris :-)

wonderful night in paris