Portugal: Lisbon, Cascais,Sitra, Obidos, Batalla

So where did I leave off….Portugal was it? Overall Portugal was a super cool country and, despite its proximity to Spain and Salamanca in general, it was a very different place. I would say on the whole, Lisbon was the best city we visited on any of the Emory excursions.

After stopping off at our hotel, Maica gave us the obligatory three-hour tour of the downtown commercial district called the Baixa right off the water. After the tour, which ended mercifully with a beautiful view over the city from the Barrio Alto, we had some free time to ourselves. Michael, Mark and I had a great time walking around and eating some great Italian food but the combination of heavy rain and the most brazen and irritating drug peddlers (sketchy guys who come up to you with drugs on the street) forced us to hop on the metro and head to our hotel. With crappy weather and travel fatigue, we nixed going out in favor of an expedition to Wok to Walk. It was quite the journey and Michael lost 10 euro in what turned out to be an incorrect change debacle but ultimately we were satisfied and enjoyed relaxing in our super large hotel rooms.

Day Two in Lisbon turned out to be one of the best on record: Little touring, lots of free time, and one of the best nights out of the semester to top it off. After an early wake-up, we headed to an old castle on a hill called La Alfama in the heart of the downtown district by the Rio Tejo (River Targus in English.) Again it rained but we made the most of our time and its great views of the city. Having seen the castle and cathedral, we climbed back into the Barrio Alto for a traditional Portuguese lunch that was by far and away the best meal we ate as a group. The first course was a large salad and tuna dish I didn't eat much of but everyone else seemed to enjoy. The 2nd course was a phenomenal shellfish stew laden with mussels, oysters, prawns, shrimps and clams. In anticipation of not liking our main course, the cod, I ate tons of the stew. The cod, or bacalao¸ as they say in both Spanish and Portuguese, was actually decent and it was one of the few fish dining experiences I've really enjoyed. To top it all off, everyone got a dessert (I had the chocolate mousse) and coffee.

A view from La Alfama

Maica (center) with the group, having fun despite the rain

The weather cleared up so with more free time the group split up. While the majority of people headed to the famous aquarium, Me, Mark, Sydney, Michael, Amanda and Pierce explored the Barrio Alto for nearly four hours before heading back to the hotel to nap. As our wake-up wasn't too bad the next day, we knew we'd have to take advantage and hit the town hard that night. After purchasing some Portuguese green wine (it's similar to white with a greenish tint) we drank at the hotel with some music before catching the metro to the Barrio Alto. We had heard from people that this was the best area for going out and we were not disappointed. Barrio Alto is a hilly neighborhood filled with maybe 100 bars and clubs packed into a five block radius. What makes it so unique is that the police tolerate drinking in the streets so throngs of inebriated twenty-somethings walk from bar to bar, beer in hand, cavorting and yelling like it was New Years Eve. But the best part of all, and this is true of all of Portugal, is how cheap everything is. The night's highlight was Michael passing out in a club while we dragged him from bar to bar.

The Castle at Sitra
The next day was easily our most exhaustive day of touring. We hopped on our bus to the historic Belém district and saw the famous Mosteiro dos Jeronimos constructed in the typical Portuguese Manueline style of architecture. After Belém we drove 30 minutes to the beach resort town of Cascais where we ate their famous local delicacy, a spicy chicken dish called Piri-Piri. After lunch, we drove another 30 minutes to the jaw dropping town of Sintra set into a set of steep cliffs. The roads were so narrow and windy, out tour bus literally could not get to the top so we had to get off and take the public transport to the castle. Despite the increasingly cold weather and inevitable rain, the castle at the top of Sintra was the most beautiful place I we visited this semester with 360 degree views that included the entire town, the nearby river and the ocean.

The Mosteiro dos Jeronimos

A waterside monument in Belem

The beach town of Cascais

After returning to the hotel that evening around 7 pm, nobody was in the mood to go out again so we watched a movie and prepared for another early wake-up. The next morning we checked out and began to the return to Salamanca with two stops on the way. The first was the tiny town of Obidos which really had nothing to offer except for giving us the sense of what a medieval Portuguese village would've been like. We were there for maybe an hour, took pictures, and hopped back on the bus . Our next stop, around noon, was a bigger town called Batalla which, unsurprisingly had a famous monastery and a memorial tomb for dead Portuguese soldiers but not much else. It was certainly nice to see but the rain, followed by intense heat, made the cathedral tour a little less bearable than usual. Afterwards, Zach, Mark, Brandon, Laurie and I enjoyed a very nice lunch of ribs, rice and chicken that nearly made us miss the bus home. (Maica has a super-strict don't be late policy. She always threatened she would leave us somewhere if we were to miss a deadline with the bus. Though it didn't happen this semester (Mark and Pierce almost got left on the 3rd morning), apparently, last semester, someone had to take a train from Salamanca to Granada to meet the group after missing a 7 am bus pickup.)

From the Obidos ramparts

The Cathedral at Batalla
Despite the brevity of this post I want to reiterate that Portugal was a great trip. As a city, Lisbon is clean with great public transportation, low cost for entertainment and plenty of historic sites to satisfy your cultural needs. The Portuguese are very friendly (much more than the Spanish) and are known in Europe for being great with languages. As a result, everyone everywhere spoke English and as we learned, actually got offended if you tried to speak to them in Spanish. It's not that they couldn't speak it (in fact, most did) but they didn't like being confused with Spaniards and would therefore choose to respond in English when we would try speaking Spanish. Besides that, Lisbon is big but very manageable with a superb and easily navigable subway system. After the trip, many people were talking about learning some Portuguese since it has a similar feel to Spanish interspersed with some French sounds.

I'm racing to finish the remaining posts before my parents come to Spain on Sunday. Hopefully I'll in the next day or two I'll finish the group's final trip in Madrid so I can write about Barcelona (maybe) and Switzerland. Hasta luego mis lectores leales.

-Corey

Portuguese Word of the Day:
Obrigado- Thank you

Una Refleccion Espanol Sobre Todo Este Semestre

Como se he prometido, aqui es mi final suma de mi tiempo aqui. Disculpame si no puedes leer Espanol, pero esta entrada es para mi tanto como es para ti.

Técnicamente todavía no he terminado mi programa, pero bueno, estoy a punto de salir Salamanca y por eso pienso que es el mejor tiempo para escribir mi último blog. Soy consciente de que no he escrito sobre Portugal, Madrid, Barcelona y Suiza pero si escribo sobre todos, es posible que los vengan después de que hayan regresado a los Estados Unidos. Y discúlpame para mi gramática, no es perfecto (si hay lectores españoles sea obvio que no soy un nativo) pero es mejor que nada.

Looking down on Salamanca's Plaza Anaya from the cathedral's ramparts

Este semestre, los cinco meses que he vivido aquí, habían sido los mejores de mi vida. Ojala que todo el mundo tenga la misma experiencia que yo. He conocido a muchas personas nuevas y aprendido muchísimo, tanto como dentro de mis clases que fuera. Pero un gran parte que ha contribuido es suerte con mi programa, el grupo y mi familia. Mis clases no eran difíciles y todos los profesores eran simpáticos y geniales. Nuestro grupo de Emory llevamos muy bien con nosotros a pesar del hecho que nadie vinieran aquí con sus mejor amigos. Y finalmente mi familia aquí pues…. me encanta. Un gran parte de la experiencia aquí depende en la suerte del sorteo.

The cathedral in the distance from my side of the Puente Romano. My basic walk into town.

Salamanca es único porque es una ciudad muy pequeño con el sentido de una ciudad más grande porque hay una población de estudiantes desproporcionalmente grande debido a la Universidad. Por eso, hay muchas sitios muy divertidos con una buena mezcla de locales y extranjeros depende si queréis. De hecho, Salamanca, segundo solo a Bilbao, tiene la segunda cantidad de barres per cápita en España. Además de los casi 200.000 personas aquí, parece que hay solo jóvenes o viejos pero nada en el medio. Por lo tanto, cada noche, hay cosas para hacer y cada noche que he ido de marcha ha sido una noche enrollado.

Y mientras los echo de menos los Estados Unidos, mis amigos y my familia no estoy listo para regresar a mi país. Después de cinco meses, siento que solo he empezado a descubrir y entender todos los facetes de la vida cotidiana aquí. Al principio, cada cosa fue diferente hasta, después de un rato, empezó a ser lo normal. Hay cosas-como los dos besitos en cada mejilla cuando se conozca una chica nueva- que quiero traer cuando salga. Intento a regresar cuanto antes a una ciudad más caloroso como Sevilla o Valencia para hacerme hablar Castellano con fluidez.

Pero bueno. Gracias a todos para leer mis pensamientos estos meses y ojala que continúe leerlos después de que haya regresado. Gracias a mis padres muchísimos para animarme venir aquí y apoyando me cuando quería viajar. Y ya está. Estoy hecho polvo con lo poco tiempo restante en esta ciudad maravillosa me he cansado entre hacer fiestas y estudiar para mi última examen. Y pues…..nada.

-Corey

Spanish Phrase of the Day

Andar como burro sin mecate - To be wild (literally: To walk like a donkey without a leash)

The Long Overdue Finale of (the not so exciting) Spring Break Series (Part 4 of 4): Prague (and Paris for 12-hours)

The first thing I did in Prague was walk into a pole.

We were leaving the train station and with my head turned to talk to the group, I didn't see the large sign directly in my path. According to my journal (which has served as an indispensable travel companion), "It was quite embarrassing."

After stopping to pick up some liquor, we arrived at the Czech-Inn Hostel (nice wordplay right?) but due to some planning conflicts we were a bit spread out: Me, Mark, Amanda and Evelyn were in one room, Jon and Brandon were upstairs in different rooms, and Maddy and Karen were in a hostel across town.

ASIDE: The hostel was great except for two small flaws which were more inconveniences than anything. 1) As a security precaution, you had to use your keycard to access your floor via elevator. As a result, it was difficult and required luck and timing with the elevators for Brandon and Jon to be able to access our rooms. Without phones it might have been impossible

2) I'm not sure what the reason for this one was, but the showers operated on a system that required your press a button every 8-12 seconds or it would shut off the water. I understand the need to conserve water and save the environment, but 8-12 seconds is unacceptable when you are trying to apply soap and shampoo. 30 seconds fine, but this was a joke. Sorry, it got me really angry.

Some cool art in the hostel's bar

After pre-gaming in our room for a while and hitting the cool hostel bar downstairs, we made plans to meet my friends Jesse and Danny. Jesse is studying in Barcelona this semester (I actually just stayed at his apartment there for five days) and left the city yesterday 5/13. Danny is living in Prague this semester and was prepared to show me around the city and take me and my friends out for the five days we were there. He did not disappoint.

We met them at the I.P. Pavolva tram stop and, upon seeing me, Jesse ran across the street and, in an attempt to give me a hug, but ended up lifting me too high and we both tumbled to the concrete. Warning: Alcohol impairs your judgment. That could have been our motto for Prague.

Danny took us to this club called Radost which really surprised us since we were all underdressed in anticipation of a more relaxed bar scene. Wrong. This place had three dance floors, wall to wall bars, the works. It definitely set the tone for what the rest of Prague would be like. Everyone had a great time, we danced, drank, talked introduced, and met some new friends. After the club we went back to Danny's apartment and hung out. At some point everyone left except me and Jon who stayed to watch the most recent Lost episode.

We decided to take the tram home (since we were pretty sure we knew how to get back) but as it turned out we got lost and ended up having to take a cab anyway. We were a little upset we had spent the 80 crowns on it (about 3.5 euro) but Mark Amanda and Brandon (who left before us) got lost as well and spent around 400 crowns to get back. They were ripped off by the cab driver for sure and we learned the next day it is a common occurrence when the traveler(s) is obviously a tourist.

Day two. Jon moved into our room and by 1 pm we were out the door meeting Danny and Jesse at a restaurant for some typical Czech gourmet food (I had a delicious beef goulash with vegetables and a strange spongy Czech bread.) After lunch, Danny took us on a tour of the city starting with the palace and Cathedral on the other side of the river. By this point there were 13 of us (Danny's roommate from school, Andrew Hames, and his two friends Greg and Karen were visiting as well from Istanbul) so it took a while to navigate the uber-crowded Charles Bridge. The cathedral and palace were beautiful and afforded us some of the best views of the city.

A view over Prague

When we were waiting on line to enter the cathedral, a woman approached Jon and asked if she could bring her tour in. For whatever reason she thought he was the security guard for the line so he played along for a minute before admitting he was waiting as well. The woman was embarrassed, especially when Jon, Brandon and I wouldn't stop laughing.

The royal palace

Inside the Cathedral

After the Cathedral, we visited the John Lennon wall which was one of the my favorite, albeit quick stops in all of Prague. The wall, despite it being heavily graffitied, was beautifully decorated and filled with Beatles quotes, sagacious epithets and short words of wisdom including this gem I picked out: "Time you enjoyed wasting, was not wasted." I had to think about that one for a while.

The group in front of the Lennon Wall

After the wall we walked through the Old Town Square and decided that Prague had the best street food of the any of the cities we had visited. The square was beautiful and crowded, filled with all sorts of vendors selling food and useless knick-knacks. Shocker right?

That night after drinking in our room, we met Danny and Jesse along with Caroline Fires from Emory at a 80s/90s club called Lucerna. In many ways Lucerna was the embodiment of everything I had imagined about the European club scene. Loud and fun music, huge dancefloor and stage, and multi-tiered bars spread over two floors. Needless to say we had a great great time. Danny was very blackout and I lost him after maybe 15 minutes. Amanda was at the bar buying shots for the girls, knowing she'd have to take them when they refused. We didn't get back to our room until nearly 6:30 as the sun was coming up.

The next day, without much of a plan, we headed to Prague's main street, an area called Wenceslas Square and ate lunch at the vendors which had much of the same food as in Old Town. With the weather hot and sunny, we walked around for a while and wound up at the Patagonia Outlet. No one bought anything, but next door I found a great portable speaker which was, looking back on the trip, easily the best purchase I made while travelling. We were then going to go to the National Museum but we decided we would rather aprovechar el tiempo (take advantage of the weather in Spanish) and we walked through the Old Jewish Quarter. I kept feeling like I wasn't get my cultural fill in Prague but the nights were honestly too much fun to complain.

Jon, chowing down in Wenceslas Square

Another view of Wenceslas

The girls were too tired from the excessive partying but me, Mark, Brandon and John couldn't justify staying in a night so we decided to meet Danny and his other visitors at an underground, labyrinth like bar called Usudu right near the club from the previous night.

After drinking for a bit there, Danny took us to the fabled 5-story club called Karlovy Lazne right on the Vltava river. Knowing we would get lost and separated, we set a time to meet back outside which worked out surprisingly well. The club itself was fun, each floor was separated by the style of music with the top floor being a more relaxed lounge space. I wandered around for a while, collected my one free overpriced drink, and watched my friends dance like fools on the main floor before heading back outside to talk to these Portuguese girls in Spanish which they did not speak, but understood very well. We didn't get back to the hostel until close to six after watching some NCAA basketball in Danny's room.

On the morning of the 4th, the girls woke up energized (after not having gone out) and decided to take a day-trip to an ancient village with a castle 45 minutes outside the city. As we were all hung over and tired, we decided to sleep some more and ended up with me Brandon and Jon going to the zoo. It took a tram to subway to bus ride to get there but we all agreed it was worth and had a great day looking at all the animals. Not sure what more can be said here except zoos are definitely the same everywhere. Maybe a few different animals here and there but the same basics: monkeys, giraffes, zebras (that one might've been new actually) polar bears, wolves etc…

Yes, that's a sloth

And a giraffe

We got back to the hostel around the same time as the girls and they surprised me with my birthday present: A bottle of liquor (I really couldn't tell you what kind) that tasted like a pumpkin spiced holiday beverage. After finishing about 1/3-1/2 of the bottle in the room, we brought the party to Danny who was making plans for my birthday celebration that night.

Sometime after midnight, and many whiskey rounds later, the group set out for a club called Duplex. By this point I have very few clear memories of the night. The rest of what happened is cobbled together from my few moments of clarity plus the eyewitness accounts of everyone else. The walk to the club is a blur, but the one thing I do remember is asking to spin Evelyn around (she's the size of a large American Girl Doll) and nearly having us both tumble to the ground.

Apparently, Duplex was charging a cover but conveniently enough, located in the same building, was a strip club called Hot Peppers which inexplicably did not charge us to enter. I have very few memories of actually entering or being inside the place but one memory stands out clearly. As I walked around looking for my friends, a blonde stripper approached me, pointing to a chair, and said, "Sit down."

At first I thought I was getting kicked out for doing something stupid, but when I looked I saw all my friends sitting around a table and an empty chair for me. It took me until the next day to figure it out that my best friend Jon had bought me a lap dance. At some point in the night, I got separated from the group again until Brandon found me, water bottle in hand with my head down on a bar talking to a stripper seated next to me (this is what I was told the next day.) Afterwards, Danny prudently decided I was too drunk and put me in a cab to go to the hostel. Like our friends the first night, I think I was grossly overcharged for the trip home.

I'm going to gloss over some things a bit to get to the few remaining highlights of the trip. The next day we checked out, the girls left for Budapest and I moved my stuff to Danny's where I would be staying my last night in Prague. The day was uneventful, more of a recuperation from the night before, but at night we met Mark's friend Spencer Levy and his girlfriend Megan Waters (whom we saw in Amsterdam) and went to a phenomenal blues club across the river. Not only was the food and music amazing, but the coolest part was that between set breaks the lead guitarist, a 59-year-old Scotsman named Stan (of Stan the Man and the Bohemian Blues Band) would go outside the club and talk to us as he smoked a joint. We had a great time talking to him about music and Prague as we hung out outside.

During the 2nd set break, Brandon Danny and began talking to a trio of Czech girls, only one of whom knew English and was able to communicate with us. We decided to skip some of the 3rd set and grabbed drinks with them at the bar upstairs as Megan, Mark and Spencer watched the show downstairs. One of the Czech girls, who did not speak any English, sat on a barstool listening to our conversation and looking very drunk and bored. Either to alleviate her boredom or just get our attention, she turned to her purse and pulled out a butterfly knife. We continued our conversation with the English speaking one, her name was Helena, while we watched the girl with the knife out of the corner of our eyes. Suddenly, and right as our friends came upstairs from the show, the girl takes the knife and slashes it across her wrist, leaving a bright red ribbon of blood. It's hard to remember our reaction because it was a jumble of shock, fright and amazement. Immediately her friend wrestled the knife from her while we began yelling and looking around like we couldn't believe what we just witnessed. Ultimately the other friend helped the girl bandage the wound and as far as I know she was ok.

That incident was the figurative event that signaled we needed to get out of this city. The next day we packed up our stuff, thanked Danny for everything, and headed to airport to catch a flight to Paris where we would have a 12-hour layover before flying back to Madrid. Upon arriving in Paris, we had a decision to make, hang out at the airport until 6 am (because there was no where we could store our luggage) or take a 40 minute train ride into the city, hang out with Brandon's friends all night, and take a cab back at 4 am. What do you think we did?

By 9:00 pm we had made into the city and found Brian Hughes' (Brandon's friend from Emory) apartment where we left our stuff. Overall the night was uneventful, but we had a great time walking around the deserted Paris streets drinking and seeing some the city despite everything being closed.

The airport was painless but slow and once we cleared security there were neither stores nor bathrooms. The only thing they did have, in fact, was a Playstation 3 with video games which managed to stave off our hunger and tiredness until we boarded the plane.

And that everyone, was our spring break in painstaking detail. Thank you readers for sticking with this series and trusting in me to keep the blog alive (Amanda wrote an Amsterdam entry but decided she didn't like it and deleted the whole thing. Maybe by July we'll both be finished chronicling our time here.) Look for Portugal next when I get back from Switzerland on the 17th. And as the Spaniards say, "ya esta."

-Corey

Spanish phrase of the day:

Let me sleep on it- Dejame consultarlo con la almohada (literally: let me consult it with the pillow)

The Berlin Circus

Moving right along with part three of this interminable spring break series, here it is: Berlin. Our train from Amsterdam dropped us off in the huge central train station in the middle of the city and we quickly discovered that A) We were not very close to our hostel B) Our ability to read German was almost as bad as our ability to read Dutch.

As we hopped on the first intra-city train to get us to our hostel in the middle-of-nowhere East Berlin, we realized with incredulous self-loathing we had again forgotten to buy our train tickets for our next stop to Prague. Luckily, the price wasn't as astronomical as it had been to get to Berlin but we were still upset for making the same mistake…again.

After a near 40-minute train ride including one switch, we were greeted with the site of the monolithic Generator Hostel, the largest hostel in all of Germany with a capacity of nearly 900 beds. As we waited to check in and met up with Maddy and Karen (out two remaining members for this leg of the trip) we realized we were entering our first "real" hostel: Tons of kids, a full bar already in swing with some poorly performed karaoke and advertisements everywhere promoting bar crawls and various excursions.

Our eight person room was spacious and a nice change from our living quarters in Amsterdam. After showering and changing, we hit the hostel bar downstairs while we watched an inebriated group of teenaged Brits perform an odd medley of karaoke songs, ending with the Bar-Mitzvah special "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias.

ASIDE: Having turned 21 during our spring break trip (not until Prague), I feel I am now of sufficient age to look upon teenagers as immature young'ns no longer in my peer group.

Having consumed a sufficient amount of alcohol, we hopped on the above ground train only to discover, as we reached the last stop, we had gone in the wrong direction. Now who looks like the inexperienced ones.? So there we were, really in the middle of nowhere East Germany at 12:30 am without a clue of how to get back to our hostel. As luck would have it, we saw two men sitting at a bus stop and one happened to speak English. He managed to tell us we would have to wait for the bus, take it seven stops, switch to a train, and we would end up back where we started. The man's direction were spot on and, dismayed and frustrated by our failed attempt to go out, we settled for Burger King and went to bed. So much for a crazy night out.

After waking up and finding little enjoyment in the Spartan hostel breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and bland cereal, we checked out and made the trek into the center of the city where we had two more nights scheduled at a new hostel called "Circus." Evelyn's brother had stayed there last year and recommended it highly to us. Because it had been under renovation for the last two months, we couldn't stay there our first night in Germany and had to wait for its grand re-opening which coincided with our 2nd day. A risky bet for sure, but it was a gamble that paid off in dividends.

Not only was Circus located right near all the major sites, but it was by far the best hostel we stayed at and relatively cheap for all the amenities they offered. Because they were still technically working on the front façade of the hostel, they felt it necessary to offer (as were one of the first groups of guests since it had opened that morning) free perks like a complimentary 4-hour walking tour, free haircuts, cake in the afternoon and, our favorite, a free keg in the bar both nights at 8pm.

With a few hours until check in, we took up the offer for the walking tour and had a great afternoon seeing all the major sites including the Berlin Wall, the National Museum, the Holocaust Memorial and the Parliament building. At the end of the tour our tour guide Matt recommended the "anti-pub crawl" if we were looking for a night activity. The anti-pub crawl was actually just another pub crawl but the group was a little smaller and the guide takes you to more off the beaten path kind of bars.

Fast Forward to 8:00pm.

We head to the bar downstairs and, not surprisingly, we are the first guests there, leaving us ample time to drink as much free beer as possible before the other guests start to get wise. Our drinking would've been more successful but we discovered a Nintendo 64 and a Super Nintendo with Street Fighter that occupied a lot of our bar time.

It's now 11:00 pm and after initially getting lost, we meet the anti-pub crawl group at this first bar called "Yesterdays", pay our 10 euros (completely worth it), receive our first round of free shooters and hop on the train for the 2nd bar. The 2nd bar was great because it had a ping pong table in the middle but everyone got to play at the same time. For a 5 euro deposit, you get a paddle and anyone in the bar that has one participates in an "around the world" styled game where you hit the ball and run to the back of the line on the other side. If you miss you're out. Everyone was having a good time so we stayed there for a bit drinking and playing ping-pong until our hippy chick guide announced it was time to go next door to this sketchy restaurant for our 2nd shot.

ASIDE: Berlin has a very interesting law that states that guides/leaders of pub crawls cannot pour drinks directly for the people participating in the crawl.

As a result, the 15 of us piled into this small restaurant where the bartender there took the bottle from our guide and poured us our shots. Almost immediately afterwards, Mark runs outside and vomits. This is the last thing he remembers before blacking out until we got home way way later in the night.

Our next stop was an overpriced absinth bar which at this point is no longer a novelty. I've often described absinth as tasting like death mixed with black licorice. The highlight here was introducing myself to a kid named Tyler who as it turns out goes to USC and knows the one kid I'm friends with there: Jack Robbins.

Our next stop on the tour was a terrible and empty goth bar whose name wasn't worth remembering. After yet another round of shots, Brandon and I, shall we say, expropriated a bottle of Jack Daniel's and absconded with it outside. It's worth mentioning here that drinking on the streets ("botellon" as we say here en españa) as well as the public transportation is completely legal in Berlin at all times of the day. Pretty cool right?

After gathering our group from that terrible bar, we set about finishing the handle as we took a long train to the crawl's final stop at a big industrial club just outside the city center. The other main perk of the crawl was not having to pay a cover for the club, and getting to skip the growing line outside. We felt like VIPs as we were ushered in through the anxious crowd. Without realizing it, I was still holding the now mostly empty bottle of whisky until the bouncer patting me down said, "hey, you can't come in here with that." Afraid I was in trouble, I put the bottle under a table but it wasn't a problem.

The club was, well, a club. Loud techno music, tons of spaces, flashing lights and sweaty people. Not really my thing, but once in a while it can be fun to dance like an idiot when you're amongst friends. The space was huge and looked like a converted or abandoned warehouse. We stayed there for maybe 2 hours (I'm really guessing here) before we decided we had enough. At some point, Jon and I got separated from the group and found ourselves outside talking to two German guys and this guy from Africa. When I asked him what country he was from he replied, "No country man, Africa is one." I wanted to get into an argument with him about how his statement couldn't be further from the truth, but I laughed instead and just let it go.

Getting home that night was difficult without a sober navigator but at the second tram stop the four of us guys hopped on a tram going in the wrong direction without the girls. When we got off at the next stop, we realized that we were at the first hostel right next to the Burger King, so we got on another tram going in the opposite direction and wound up, back with the girls right where we started.

At that point we gave up and took cabs home after we got some late night pizza. Overall, a fantastic night, especially when we realized Mark had no memory of any events after the ping pong bar.

On our 3rd day, the girls decided to go shopping while we headed for the German history museum. On the way we lost Brandon (this also happened in Amsterdam though for a shorter period of time) so it was just me Mark and Jon. The museum was very interesting and thorough, especially seeing their coverage of World War II from a German perspective.

The rest of the day was spent walking around, eating bratwurst and searching for a beer garden we weren't able to find. That night we went to the bar again at eight, but without much of a plan we ended up drinking in our room for too long and everyone got tired. We managed to mobilize ourselves and found a local bar, but we couldn't muster the energy to have a repeat of the previous night.

The next morning we went to see the largest remaining piece of the Berlin Wall which is now covered in a hodgepodge of colorful and symbolic paintings. Unfortunately my camera was dead, but it was a unique and sobering experience, especially being able to freely walk through exposed sections of the wall.

So that was Berlin; A great time in a cool city I'll probably not be going back to anytime soon. The kind of fairytale Germany I was expecting with beer halls, blond Bavarian girls in pigtails and fat guys in short shorts is germane to Munich in the South. Oh well, maybe on my next time Eurotrip.

The last funny story from Berlin was boarding the train for Prague. We entered through the last car by mistake, but the free compartments were in the front. The eight of us with, bags in tow, had to literally fight our way against the crowd walking to the back of the train to find seats. Because the seating was in the style of private compartment, there was zero passing room in this narrow hallway and we kept getting pressed against walls and squeezed against strangers to pass one another. At one point Mark's backpack got stuck in a door passing between train cars and he was immobilized. After a 20 minute struggle the girls found a private compartment while the rest of us found seats in another car. Luckily, a German man who spoke English told us that the car we were in would be de-coupled from the train in Dresden and we'd have to switch before then. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers.

Expect Prague next. It might take a while to write since it was our longest stint of the trip and I'm travelling to Madrid and Toledo on Friday. Ciao ciao.

-Corey

Spanish phrase of the day:

Mi gozo en un pozo- What a shame… (literally translates as "my pleasure in a well")

P.S. Pictures weren't working this time (stupid blogger site), so I'll publish them as an addendum (is this a word?) to this post when possible. Gracias para su paciencia.

I-Amsterdam

How does one talk about Amsterdam? I've been wrestling this one for days as I prepared for this entry. On the one hand I want to tell you all about it: Everything we saw, did and experienced but on the other hand Amsterdam is like the Las Vegas of Europe, you already know what we did because you know the reputation of the city.

Amsterdam is a contradictory city. In one sense it is the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah most exemplified by a walk through its famous red light district. On the other hand it is a staggeringly beautiful and clean city with tons of green space, quaint canals, and unique and colorful architecture. People ride bikes everywhere, the above-ground tram is fast and efficient and everyone speaks English as if it were the official language. But let me start from the beginning lest I lose my train of thought and go off on a tangent.

Looking out over a canal

We arrived in Amsterdam and our excitement to see the city made us forget to buy train tickets to our next stop in Berlin (this would come back to screw us 2 days later.) We hopped on the tram and, like Brussels, we could not figure out how to pay so we decided to take our chances and just ride it out. We got off at the "Museumsplein" stop and met our friend Ethan who had left Brussels a little earlier than us. He brought us to our hostel where we met my friend Jonathan Zuckerbrod who would be joining us for the rest of the trip.

Our three nights at the Inner Amsterdam Hostel were easily the most expensive for what was clearly the worst hostel of the entire trip. I guess it goes to show the popularity of the city. Our room consisted of three bunk beds with less than a person's width of floor space and a bathroom where the shower was not separated from the sink or toilet. As Jon pointed out, "You could easily take a shower while sitting on the toilet."

We threw our bags down and within 10 minutes of arriving we were out the door, led by Ethan who was eager to show us the places he had discovered in those few hours by himself. A 20-minute walk ended with our arrival in "Leidesplein" square, which, if you ever go to Amsterdam, is a super-touristy area that marks the "beginning" of the city.

Leidesplein Square with urinals in the middle

ASIDE: Amsterdam is shaped like a fan with ever expanding tiers starting at the Central Train Station and moving outwards. the next tier consists of the red light district and beyond that the coffee shops and shopping districts until you pass Leidesplein square and all the way to Vondel Park, where our hostel was located.

Our first stop was obviously the coffee shops but I was a little disappointed with the whole scene there. I had envisioned small and quiet cafes with ample seating where one could have a conversation in peace but this was not the case. Most places we went to were loud and noisy bars with little room to accommodate our group comfortably. The one exception was Barneys which I'll get to later.

The coolest part about most of the places was actually buying the marijuana or hash. Each shop would have its own menu with at least eight different strains to purchase varying in price depending on their strength. Certain shops would have even have descriptions like, "full bodied high, giggly and introspective." But let's face it, when you're getting that stoned none of the descriptions matter. Other places sold pre-rolled joints, space cakes, and offered its customers use of bongs and vaporizers to enjoy their purchases. We tried it all, but I left the city feeling like I hadn't experienced an authentic coffee shop. Maybe I had over-hyped it in my mind but the whole seen was very gimmicky and rushed. Not for me.

After our first coffee shop, the Bulldog Palace in Leidesplein square, we emerged from the sunken bar hungry, red-eyed and maladjusted to the bright sun outside. We decided to find some food and, speaking for our entire group here, Amsterdam did not disappoint. They had everything from pizza to shwarma, fast-food, automats, restaurants like the Pancake Corner and, our favorite, Wok to Walk. This amazing Chinese food restaurant (though a little overpriced as everything was in Amsterdam) became our go- to meal maybe two or three times during our few days there. I loved it so much I have since been back to their newest one in Lisbon and plan on going to one they have in downtown NYC this summer.

The group eating Walk to Wok (From right to left: Ethan, Evelyn, Jon, Brandon (with head turned), Amanda, Mark)

After eating and strolling around the city for a few hours (as well as a few more stops in various coffee shops) we found ourselves in the red light district. The red light district is a crazy crazy place filled with too many drunken British tourists, bars, coffee shops, peep and sex shows (yes, there is a difference), and various erotic museums. The craziest part of all is the prostitutes who stand in bikinis within see-through glass doors that look out on all the action outside. As you pass these doors, the prostitutes will try to make eye-contact with you and lure you inside. Snapping a picture of this madness is usually very difficult as the prostitutes will jump behind a curtain and give you the finger if they see you with your camera out. This happened to us many, many times.

The red light district at night

We wanted to see a "show" but the price was too high for something we knew we would lose interest in after 10 or so minutes. Instead we got more food and walked around some more because, despite its seediness, the red light district is beautiful at night, lit up by garish neon lights on both sides of a narrow canal.

Our 2nd day in Amsterdam was spent enjoying the beautiful Vondel Park for a few hours in the early afternoon before we moved on to the Van Gogh Museum. I can say with confidence I have never enjoyed looking at art more in my life. We were there until the museum closed, moving very slowly from piece to piece including one stop where (I kid you not) Mark, Amanda and I looked at a painting titled "In the Woods for a full 12 minutes . If there was one attraction I would recommend in Amsterdam it is that museum.

After the museum we attacked the famous "Iamsterdam" sign and got some great pictures of us climbing on the massive letters. The highlight though was the moment Ethan had climbed the lowercase "a" and couldn't figure out how to get down. Realizing the impending hilarity of the moment, Mark filmed a great video of Ethan attempting to get down, but instead falling and rolling to the floor. If he lets me, I will try to post the video here.

Evelyn, Mark, Brandon, Ethan, and Bruce on the I Amsterdam sign

The next day's highlight was going to breakfast at Barneys. Barneys is a coffee shop well known in Amsterdam for not only its high-quality product, but its partner restaurant called Barney's Uptown right across the street. At the behest of Ethan, we went to the coffee shop after waking up, bought a few joints between the group, and went for the most amazing (yet again overly expensive) breakfast I have eaten in my four months in Europe. By the time the waitress came to take our orders, we could have eaten anything and it would've tasted good, but my scrambled eggs wrapped in a Dutch pancake were nothing short of divine. By the time we paid our check, it was 3:00 pm. After breakfast we went to the train station to buy tickets to Berlin and were shocked to find they cost over 100 euro a piece compared to the 25 or so we spent getting to Amsterdam from Brussels. That was our punishment for not buying the tickets as soon as we arrived.

After the low-light of getting train tickets (and realizing we had all spent way too much money in this city) we went to the Heineken factory which, in my opinion, was a complete waste of time and money. My dad and I did the Guinness factory tour in Dublin last summer and it was so much better than Heineken it nearly ruined the experience for me. Obviously it was fun to drink at the end but the tour was a waste. The coolest part was looking at the antique Heineken posters.

And that, dear readers, is a summary of all the major highlight from Amsterdam. Obviously there were more trips to the red light district, more coffee shops, and more eating but you get the picture. Amsterdam is beautiful and fun but in many ways it's too much of a good thing. Three days there was nearly more than enough and while I'm glad I made the trip I don't think I'll ever be going back.

The last morning we hopped on a 20-minute train to Hilversum, Netherlands before switching to another six-hour train to Berlin, where the real craziness of Spring Break began… I'm sorry it took so long for me to write this blog, but with the weather as nice as its been and the minimal class I've been having, the last thing I've wanted to do is sit inside on my computer. Trust me I will be better about writing in the near future as I still have to tell you about Berlin, Prague, and most recently Lisbon. Adios todos.

-Corey

Spanish phrase of the day:

Que sea lo que dios quiera- I've done all that I can do

Andalucia y el Principio de la Semana Santa (Amanda)

HI TEAM. It's been a while, like many many weeks, I know. How's it going, todo bien? Bueno. Good to hear. Well I obviously have so much to write about, I honestly don't even know where to begin. I feel like Corey covered a lot of what we've done in the past few weeks... our perspectives are probably pretty different but you get the general idea! Andalucia was great- I absolutely loved Sevilla and have definitely been considering going back there after I graduate to live for a little. I celebrated my birfday there (he cumplido 21 años! Felicitaciones!) which was really fun but not the typical 21st birthday celebration, which I was fine with because we were all so exhausted from the jam packed days that Maica planned for us. After the Flamenco show that night we went to a really cute outdoor cafe and drank wine and ate tapas for hours- it was great, and even though I didn't take 21 shots (I just typo-ed and wrote shits, which I almost kept but didn't... that definitely didn't happen either, sadly... I never poop in Spain, so 21 shits would have been lovely (I don't know who reads this blog but I assume it can't be more than 3 or 4 people, my parents included, so hopefully that was ok to say. I'm sure it's fine...)). ANYWAYS. At midnight, all I wanted to do was coger a McFlurry but they closed right as we were walking up so we had to settle with a shoddy Burger King one which was not nearly as satisfying. If I had my way, I would have eaten 21 McFlurries on my birthday instead of doing 21 shots, but as it turned out, I didn't do even 1 of either. Oh well, life is really really tough sometimes.

By the way, I think I had been to a fast food restaurant maybe 5 times in the past 5 years before I came to Spain.... Evelyn has converted me into a lover and I am so angry about it. We LOVE McD's here, especially the Toblerone McFlurries (yes, you read that correctly. TOBLERONE), and the euro cheeseburguesas are usually the cheapest and easiest option when hunger strikes/when I'm not hungry at all from stuffing my face with lomo and patatas but just feel like one.

So, yeah, Andalucia was great (sorry that was incredibly vague and I didn't really say anything about it... Corey's has more details) and everybody was really great about my birthday all weekend (Maica bought me cake and our big lunch together and everyone sang, it was so sweet)... so even though I didn't celebrate americano style, I considered the entire weekend an unforgettable birthday celebration. (Cordoba wasn't anything that great, but la mezquita was beautiful and Granada was MUY lindo, the Alhambra was incredible- the best tourist attraction I've been to, and Sevilla, well, I left part of my heart there.)

THEN, we had one day in Salamanca to prepare for our 3 week long (Corey's was 2 because he went back with everyone else a week before Evelyn and I) Semana Santa. This day was LOCO, chicos, let me tell you. First of all, I was running around all day trying to get everything together for the trip, had to drop off my laundry (which consisted of about 70% of my wardrobe), bought some shoes (sexay Converse to walk around in), had to go to class, had to spend time with Conchi before I left her for so long :(, etc. Funny story.... when I went to pick up my laundry, I was shocked to find out that place had closed. Before 8 pm. NOTHING closes in Spain before 8 pm. And even funnier, they didn't open until 10 am and my bus to Madrid was 9:30.

After panicking only slightly, selling Karen my bus ticket, trying to get a ticket for the 11 am bus with the boys, realizing they were all sold out, and then eating about 6 Principes to calm my nerves (they were necessary), Mark agreed to pick my laundry up for me in the morning and bring it to the airport. THANK GOODNESS. So the next day, I take the early bus with the girls, we get to the aiport, no pasa nada, then I get a call from Mark. "Hi. You're going to hate me...." As it turned out, he picked up my laundry no problem but accidentally left it on the bus. HA. Now it is really funny, but at the time I was about to go on a 3 week vacation with less than half of what I intended to bring, clotheswise, and worse, I was afraid I would never see the rest of my clothes again! Long story short (that's a lie, it's already been a long story), we called and email the bus station many times and finally, by the time we got to our hostel in Brussels, they said they'd send it back to Salamanca and Miguel ended up picking it up for me. It was a very stressful start to trip but turned out fine and the girls let me borrow clothes (and we went SHOPPING, claro).

Before I start talking about this adventure, I just have to say that this may have been the best collective three weeks I have ever had and as cliche as this sounds, I really think that these travels were lifechanging. I couldn't imagine our trip going any better, or, more importantly, spending that time with any other combination of people. We all got along so incredibly well, got so much closer, and had SO. MUCH. FUN.

So... Brussels was a really great city- I am glad we spent the least amount of time there and went there first because it was probably my least favorite place (which doesn't imply anything bad at all- it had really tough competition). We literally ate our way through this city. We did in every city actually, but our days revolved 100% around eating here. We had an ungodly amount of Belgian chocolates (really as good as you would imagine- I was thinking of you, dad, the entire time), a plethora of Belgian fries with their thick creamy sauces, many Belgian waffles (stop. just stop), and oh, maybe one or two Belgian beers. The beers were the best part, only because of Delirium. It is this very cool bar that has three levels (it's pretty huge) and over 2,000 beers on tap. We tried some pretty ridiculous beers. My favorite was this beer that was 11% alcohol but tasted great. We also tried some wheat beers, a few really fruity beers which were actually very delicious- my favorite of those was this coconut beer that tasted like heaven. Anyways, being at Delirium was very fun (we went a few times) and we met a lot of really cool people there. Also, I loved our little apartment that we had and we got to cook our own dinner one night FINALLY- yumzo. Overall, it was a good warmup for the rest of the trip...

So, as I am writing this, I am lying outside by the cathedral in the grass, the sun is shining, Jillian is eating an orange, Miguel is feeding me alimentacion at intervals, Mark is interjecting sexual inuendos at more frequent intervals, Corey is sharing his new speakers with the ENTIRE world, and Jackie is sitting on my butt giving me a back masssage. Life is WONDERFUL. I just wanted to paint you a little picture of what our life is like now that Cursos Internacionales is over. We still have Emory classes, but that is just one a day in the afternoon (Tuesdays my first class is 7:15 pm. No big deal). As excited as I am for this summer, I would be perfectly happy staying here for months. I am so so happy here. Yesterday I walked home from Cuatro Gatos (our favorite cafe that we spend maybe 5 days of the week at) listening to my music and I couldn't stop smiling. I would even start laughing sometimes thinking about something that happened during the day. I can't remember the last time, if ever, I was this euphoric.

Sitting by the cathedral on a beautiful sunny day. (Mark, Corey, Jillian, Jackie, and me)

Anyways, I have to go to class in a little and I have to do some work before it (I would complain right now but I haven't opened/touched/thought about a book for the past month. So I feel like that would be a little inappropriate). I will write about the rest of spring break and Portugal.... oh Portugal, the best weekend of the entire semester (I don't consider spring break as part of the normal semester) in a later post. Adios for now, I'll try to be more descriptive and post pictures in my next one. BUENAS TARDES todos, I hope everyone (all 3 or 4 of you) is doing well!

Besos,

Amanda

Brussels or Part 1/4 of the Spring Break Saga

Now begins part 1 of 4 of the spring break saga, also known as the glorious two weeks of traveling Europe. It's going to take a little while for me to go through the entire break because A) It's a 4 part series B) With the weather as nice as its been, I'm unmotivated to sit inside and write C) I'm going to Portugal on Thursday and will need to write about that as well.

Our trip begin, as all trips out of Salamanca do, with a bus ride to the Madrid airport, where we caught a flight to Charleroi Airport in Belgium. From there it was an hour shuttle ride to the Brussels main train station where we had to take the metro to our hostel.

ASIDE: Public transportation would be a comical motif of the entire trip as we discovered most cities do not have compulsory system for using the metro.

We bought tickets for the metro but found that there was nowhere that required you hand them in. Unlike New York City, you can just walk right up to the track without passing through any sort of turnstile machine. After that first time, we didn't buy a ticket for any public transport system until Prague, the last stop on our trip.

When we exited the subway, my first impression of Brussels was, "This looks surprisingly like Atlanta." Very modern buildings, wide highways, and lots of cars. Until I saw the above-ground tram darting though the streets, Brussels at night was indistinguishable from any modern city in the U.S.

We found our hostel, this would be my first hostel experience, and discovered instead of a typical room to share we had rented a full apartment with a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and an upstairs loft where Brandon and I slept. There was plenty of room for the six of us.

A view of the city, before the Magritte museum

Our travel fatigue was soon overcome by the excitement of being in a new city for the "official" start of our vacation. Our hostel, we didn't realize until later, was a 15 minute walk from the center of the city but since it was late, we settled for the first restaurant we came upon and ate a late but delicious meal in an old square near where we were staying. I ate spaghetti Bolognese (since the menu was in French, it was the only thing I could understand.)

The next day we woke up early and after consulting a map, still managed to walk 45 minutes in the wrong direction, through Brussels' little Turkey before we found the right direction. The center of the city was small and bustling with quaint shops, crowded outdoor bars, and a plethora of French fries and chocolate fountains.

The group enjoying some french fries

We walked through the beautiful plaza in the center of the city took a self-guided, and not worth it, tour of the chocolate museum (despite all the free chocolate one could want and a chocolate making demonstration.) It was about that time we lost Brandon who wandered off on his own. We wouldn't see him for another four hours or so.

ASIDE: Brandon wandering off was another common theme of the trip

A view of the main plaza

After the museum, we saw the famous statue of the little boy peeing "Manneken Pis" before heading, with Mark's prodding, to the Magritte Museum. René Magritte was a surrealist artist during the 1st half of the 20th century who's most famous works include a man with an apple for a face wearing a bowler hat and a picture of a pipe with the words, "this is not a pipe," printed below. With a student discount, tickets were practically free and was definitely worth the trip inside despite the fact that his most famous works were not there.

After the museum, we met our friend Ethan, who had been studying with us in Salamanca, by a fountain in the park. We decided then to try and find the holy grail of bars known as Delirium. This bar, in the year 2004, held the Guinness world record for most variety of beers with 2004. It was a massive building, with three full floors, space for hundreds, and more beers on tap than you could count. The menu was like an encyclopedia with beers ranging from 2 euro to upwards of 40-50 euro for a single glass. That afternoon I tried Duff, Homer Simpson's brand, and Delirium Tremens, the bar's own brew that at one point was named best beer in the world. It wasn't that great.

The famous "Delirium Cafe"

We went back to the hostel, found Brandon, cooked some pasta for dinner, and decided we didn't want to go out too hard since we were leaving for Amsterdam the next day. Karen too was leaving in the middle of the night for Dublin and we didn't want to abandon her. In the end we went back to Delirium, drank some more, made some friends, and observed some obnoxious Americans singing songs. We tried to speak only in Spanish so the other people in the bar wouldn't look down on us. There is a large amount of anti-American sentiment in Europe an it's pretty easy to see why, although Obama has given our country more international credit that Bush ever did. We came back around 2:30 am and went to sleep knowing the next day we'd be taking a 12:18 train to the Mecca of most college students: Amsterdam.