¿Speakenzie English?

So that is most definitely not spelled correctly but you will soon get the point! Hello out there blog readers... I know it´s been awhile since I´ve blogged... I´ve been busy! But I don´t have anything to do now that I finally finished my paper. Yes mom and dad... I FINISHED it!

So... About a 2 weeks ago my cousin from up north, Jennifer came to Sevilla to visit me. Let me tell ya... that first day was rough! I´m sure it was worse for Jen and she didn´t speak the language and had no idea where she was. At least when I was dropped here I spoke the language! Anyway... in the middle of my business language class I received a call from a frenzied Jennifer who couldn´t get on the bus because it was too full and didn´t really know what to do. I was trying to help her out when we got cut off. I returned to class and explained to my prof that my cousin was stuck at the airport and didn´t speak spanish nor did she have a cell. Hehe... she laughed. And wished me luck in finding my cousin.

About 2 hours later, after an hour of waiting in the lobby of Jen´s hotel making friends with the awkward man behind the desk, Jen finally arrived and was never so happy to see me! She got situated in her room and then we headed out for some lunch. I took her to the italian place right by school I had eaten at before and we enjoyed some good food. Then I had to go back and study for a crappy test and Jen was off to explore. Ask her about her trip thru the barrio and the old guy she ran into twice. It was be more than hilarious. Let´s just say she got lost and it took her a few hours to get out. After I was done with class we went for dinner and then called it a night. She was exhausted and I was tired!

On Thursday I went to class and Jen went exploring. Then I took her home for some spanish cuisine. My señora cooked tortilla and pureed vegetables. It was actually a very tasty vegetarian meal. Then I had more class and a test and then we came back for dinner. Then, at 12:15 AM we took off for the bus station to board our bus to Madrid to catch our plane to Munich. A little over 7 hours later we had arrived in Madrid at the bus station and taken the metro to the airport. There we got a little lost, it´s a huge airport... ask my sister! And we got on our plane to Munich. Turns out there was a wind advisory and we weren´t able to take off for about 2 hours. Didn´t matter... I slept the whole time, including air time and landing. We got to Munich a few hours later and tried to figure out just how we were going to get to our hotel. Lets just say... I wish I knew more german than... Speakenzie English? Either way... it was helpful to know how to say "do you speak english" because neither of us knew a lick of german! We traveled around on the metro system to see the glockenspiel... so cool... and one of our biggest landmarks. Then we went to the English Gardens for dinner. Dinner consisted of a very large, very tasty beer, and a pretzel! Equally large and equally tasty! It was an amazing dinner. So amazing that we went back on Saturday for the same thing! Friday we called it an early night and went to bed.

Saturday morning we got up and wandered the city. On foot this time. The metro was expensive! We went to some of the bigger churches and then had lunch at the Haufbrau Haus. Here... was an even larger, even tastier dark beer, and some soup. Yum yum! Lunch of champions! After a litre of bier, the afternoon was a little more interesting for awhile! We went up the fromekirche (sp?) dome and St. Peter´s church which was rediculous! It was a crapload of stairs. And by stairs I mean extremely narrow and extremely steep. And lots of them! Either way it was worth it... The views from the tops of these churches were breath taking. We could see the snow-covered alps and everything. I feel in love with Munich then and there. Ok... it might have had a little more to do with the bier and pretzels but whatever! After all that, we went back to the English Gardens for dinner and then walked an hour back to our Hotel. Earlier that day we went to the big open air market where some other tourist made fun of me for pronouncing one of the street names something to the effect of schlopengoober. Or something of that nature. You know... nothing remotely close to what the actual name was! I forgot to mention that I didn´t know what the metro system was called in Germany so I called it the goober. After a few times Jen picked it up and that is what it was known as.

Sunday morning we took the goober out Daucau (sp?) the old nazi concentration camp. It is very hard for me to descibe this experience because it was very hard for me to be there. I saw where prisoners lived, and slept, and worked, and even the gas chambers and incinerators where a lot of them lost their lives. As I walked around in awe, realizing that because of the nature of my geneology, being Blonde with blue eyes and being a christian, I would have been saved. I would have been saved because I was "perfect" according to Hitler. Both Jen and I had a very unsettling feeling after being there but we were both glad we got to experience it. After seeing so many historical monuments in Europe I´ve realized so much about myself and history. I had always read about concentration camps, or bull fights, or gold routes and trade, and the fight between the moors and the christians, and romans and all their influence, but I never realized just how important all those things were until I´ve seen them with my own eyes. Absolutely incredible...

Anyway... sorry this was brief. I gotta run to class! Hope everything is still going well. 24 days!!

Love ya,
the bloned

Love Rome, Hate the Romans!

So... it´s been a few weeks since I was in Rome... but trust me... it´s still on my mind. I´m officially convinced that everyone needs to go to Rome once in their life. Especially if they are studying abroad and are this close to where some of the most important and influential times and events took place in history. Amazing...

So to start things off, we had to sleep on the cold, hard floor in the Madrid airport for about 4 hours before our flight left early Friday morning. We had to take the 8:00 bus from Sevilla to Madrid because the midnight bus was cutting it WAY too closely. Needless to say... I didn´t get much sleep before I went to Rome. On Friday we checked into our hostel and left to venture the city. After lunch of course. On Friday we saw the collesseum. Oh... my... goodness! The architectre, the history, the massiveness... we ended up paying for a tour... the tour of the collesseum was pretty crappy but it paid off. We got a free tour of the Palantine Hill after the Collesseum with an amazing girl from Austrailia. Like she said, she loves Rome, but HATES Romans... we all felt the same after our time there. She was amazing. Funny, nice, and very informative. She really knew her stuff. At the Palantine hill we saw the Roman Forum, the remains of where every Roman emperor lived, walked down the street that all Roman soldiers walk down before battle, saw where they left Cesar to burn on a rock for a week, and so much more. I have pictures... but flickr is dumm.

Friday evening we went back to our room and took showers and dressed for dinner. We went to this cute little place aroudn the corner from our Hostel where we proceeded to stuff ourselves silly. I had the most amazing pesto pasta I have ever had. And some authentic Bruschetta (sp?). Later we went to see the Trevi fountain at night. Qué bonita! It was so pretty. We took the traditional throwing coins over your shoulder pictures and lots more. Then we went to the little place across the street for some gelato. Here is where my night got hilarious! So the gelato man was hitting on all three of us as we entered. Well he ended up helping me with my Maxi! cone of Gelato which was delicious! I wanted Banana ice cream because it is my favorite. Gelato man proceeded to ask me if I wanted big banana or little banana. At first I just looked at him and didn´t respond... then I started laughing histerically at which point he realized what he said and laughed too. And then he asked me again if I prefered big banana or little banana. Of course I said big banana because it is my favorite and of course he had a huge smile on his face and gave me a high five. It was probably the funniest thing that had happend that day. Didn´t help that I was real tired by this point. Friday was good, long, but good.

Saturday morning, after falling asleep and waking up in the EXACT same position (sweatshirt over me head and all which NEVER happens), we got up to meet our favorite tour guide for a tour of the Vatican City. Holy crap... it was gorgeous! They said that if you were to look at all the art in the public collecion for one minute each piece, you´d be in the Vatican for over 8 weeks. If you were to do the same for the private and public collections together, you´d be there for over 12 years! How sweet is that! I got to see the Sistine Chapel and all of Michaelangelo´s work. There just aren´t words to describe some of the things that I saw there. And St. Peter´s Basilica... seriously... I´ve never seen anything that big and magnificent in my life! The lifesize statue of Mary holding a dying Jesus almost brought me to tears it was so beautiful. The marble in the place, the entire Vatican really, was just incredible. I saw the largest bathtub I´ve ever seen in my life! It was so cool! And made out of really expensive marble... it belonged to a king... go figure! I guess I gotta become royalty to have a bathtub that big! The Vatican was sweet and everything we did on Saturday was well worth it. After the Vatican we had lunch and went back to see the Trevi during the day. Definitely way cooler at night but it was well worth it to see it during the day too. Highly reccommended. So of course... since we were back by the trevi, we went back to the gelato place where gelato man was oh so excited to see me! Again, I got Banana gelato and I got lots of strange questions from him and the other guy. Then... gelato man kissed me! Kissed me! It was so funny. Him and the other gelato man were in a competition to give Amy and I more ice cream and decorations for our cones. Finally I won when gelato man put two heart shaped cookies in my cone and said, "one heart is mine, and one is yours... we will be together forever." Yeah... then gelato man asked me out for a drink in which I replied I had to stay with my friends. I was wearing my rings and he said oh... you have boyfriend... which is what I normally say to avoid europeans, but he said he didn´t care, he had a girlfriend too and we would just have a drink and talk. Yeah... I don´t think so! But it was hilarious none the less. Amazing!

That´s pretty much all of Rome... it was so cool. I can´t believe I got to see it. Really.... London and Rome go up there on my list of favorite places. I could´ve spent weeks in both places. Seriously... if you ever get the chance... go to Rome... go to London! It´s well worth the trip. More when I can... Hope all is well...

Te amo,
Grande