¡Sydney en España!: April 2010

Friday night, Courtney (my roommate) and I took an overnight bus from Sevilla to the capital of Portugal…LISBON! We arrived very early in the morning because our bus driver drove insanely fast, plus we did not realize that Portugal was one hour behind Spain! Oh the fun of traveling! When the sun did finally come up and we had coffee in our systems it was time to explore! The metro dropped us off in the center of town and the first thing I noticed were all the beautifully colored houses. It was like Rainbow Road in Myrtle Beach or the battery in Charleston times a million! Nothing in the city opened until 9pm, so we had a few hours to ourselves, wondering down the small alleyways and climbing the barrios altos and looking out over the city. We went to the ocean, but there was no real beach where we were. However, I discovered that there is a Golden Gate Bridge in Lisbon! I don’t know which came first, but the red suspension bridge that we saw there looks identical to the one in California! It was a nice reminder of home! After walking up and down hills (I think the city is made up of seven main hills making it feel like San Fran.) we decided to tour the castle. This was the first medieval, typical fairytale castle that I’ve seen on this Europe trip; most of the ones we visited in Southern Spain are alcazars. There wasn’t much to the interior, but we spent hours walking all the ramparts along the exterior and had a great view of the city and the sea! The sun was shining and it was actually quite warm despite the gloomy weather report that said it would be cool and raining the entire time! ¡Que suerte!

After the castle, we did some souvenir shopping the stopped at in the center of town for a sandwich, then bussed out to a monastery on the outskirts of the city. The monastery looked more like an elaborate palace and it was right by the sea. There was a beautiful park in front of it and Courtney and I got the traditional Lisbon pastry: pastel de nata (a hand-sized pie looking thing filled with some sort of semi-sweet cream that you top with cinnamon and sugar…it tasted like oatmeal to me, but it was warm and delicious). Afterword we walked to the lookout tower that was in the sea and just enjoyed the nice ocean breeze for a while. At this point it was getting late, so we headed back into the center of town, walked around some more barrios (neighborhoods), sat in a park for a little while, then grabbed a quick dinner (at an American time of around 7pm) and headed back to the bus stop. Although we only had a short time there, our day in Lisbon was great! We got back to Sevilla at 3am Sunday morning (2 hours ahead of schedule thanks to crazy bus drivers) and slept in all day Sunday.

Monday night…Feria began! And thus we started spring break part 2!

Trolly that goes to the castle!

Golden Gate Bridge in Lisbon!

View of the castle walls

Colorful streets!

My future purple house

Capital of Portugal...Lovely Lisbon

Queen of the Castle

Castle Kitties! (They were everywhere!)

Castle Ramparts

Lovely view of the Atlantic and a Lisbon Cathedral

I love pink houses!

Typical Castle Peacock!

Monastery

Lookout Tower!!

During my Easter break, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Italy for ten days! I flew into Pisa with five of my friends from our group. After a two hour plane ride we found our way to a lovely bed and breakfast where I encountered my first European house cat! We were waiting for the owners to come let us in (we forgot to tell them our flight would put us a little later than check in time but they luckily lived 5 minutes away) when I saw this cute cat sitting in the front lawn. It was the first cat that looked tame enough to pet and I was so happy to be petting that I didn’t notice for the longest time that it only had three legs! One of my friends pointed this fact out to me and we all noticed it was a new wound because the cat (which I lovingly named Lady Guido) didn’t quite know how to walk without it yet. When we were let into our bed and breakfast, we all noticed a cat figurine on the mantle that had its leg broken off too! So funny! The owner was very sweet and she recommended a local restaurant for dinner. I had the best calzone of my life there and we all greatly enjoyed our first real Italian meal at this quaint restaurant. From our table we could see the cooks putting the pizzas into a brick oven! Very authentic! After a short night of sleep (that night was the European time change so we lost an hour) we awoke, packed up, said ciao to Lady Guido and headed to the leaning tower to take the stereotypical tourist picture holding up the tower! After our fun photo-shoot, we hopped on a train to Florence and in just 45 minutes time arrived to this beautiful city!

While in Florence, we stayed at a very nice hostel that gave us free breakfast and dinner every day! That evening we walked around the wonderful markets near our hostel and looked at the abundance of leather goods and “cashmere” scarves. The next morning we took a free walking tour with our hostel and was the amazing Duomo cathedral and other historic buildings and piazzas. On the third day I spent most of my time in line and in the Uffizi museum of Renaissance art! It was amazing to see Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” and “Primavera” in person! That afternoon the girls and I stopped for a chocolate covered waffle…one of the best things I have ever tasted!

We decided to take a day trip to the coastal towns of Chique Terre and hike along the paths overlooking the Mediterranean. There are five towns you can hike in between, or train, and we hiked the first three and trained the last. The weather was so beautiful and sunny, it only got cloudy as we were leaving! It was indescribably beautiful, so I’ll just put up lots of pictures for you!

We took a 4 and a half hour train to Rome for the last leg of our trip. The first evening we were there we just walked all around and saw the Pantheon (it was under reconstruction), visited the Trevi fountain and walked by the Coliseum. The next day, Good Friday, we had a tour of the Vatican! All the museums were so impressive and I absolutely loved the Sistine Chapel (although it was smaller than I thought it would be). Our tour guide thought we were not going to be able to get into St. Peter’s Cathedral because they were setting up for mass, but we were one of the last groups they let in! The cathedral was probably the most impressive one I have ever been in (and I’ve been in a lot in Europe)! The center altarpiece with its spiraled columns traditional of the baroque era was very spectacular and I saw so many nuns and bishops walking around getting ready for mass! That night, we went to the Coliseum because the Pope was doing some Good Friday procession and speech. I couldn’t technically see him because of all the thousands of people there, but we were in the same general place at the same time! Epic! Saturday we toured the Forum, Palatine Hill and the Coliseum. The weather was spectacularly sunny (although the entire time we were in Italy it was a little chilly because we were in the north) and I was just so awe stuck at seeing all of this historical Roman ruins! The Coliseum was of course very impressive and it made me want to watch Gladiator! Easter Sunday was the only day of the trip that it rained and by this time I had caught the cold that our group was passing around, so I caught up on sleep, visited one of the churches near our hotel and just relaxed and ate some of my last Italian food. Monday morning my friend and I checked out of the hotel, caught the bus to the airport and were back in Sevilla by that afternoon. When we got off the plane the weather was about 70 degrees and sunny! And it has pretty much been that way ever since! Italy was amazing! I saw some amazing historical monuments, ate gelato almost every day and got to travel with great people! Overall a very successful trip! Ciao!