Write Blog: Check!

Hello everybody!  So I know it has been awhile since my last post.  It's been on my To Do List for awhile...and by awhile I mean like three weeks.  But hey, better late than never, right?! **Warning: This is a long one.**

So quite a lot has happened since my last post.  I took another trip in Spain.  This time I went to the south to visit one of my favorite places in the world: Granada!  I went for my friend Anna's birthday in October.  We got there on a Friday late at night.  Since we arrived so late we decided to call it an early night...except we were starving.  And it just so happened that our hostel was right near one of my favorite cafes: Cafe Futbol.  So we ran over there to get some of their famous chocolate and churros, which I missed so much!

 I mean...look at those beauts!  They're just so fantastic and I miss them dearly!  

Back to the point, though.  So we got our food and went back to the hostel.  The next day we kept ourselves busy!  Bless Anna, she let me track down my old apartment, my favorite bakery, this devil bird plaza I always walked through, and my school.  It felt like nothing had changed, even though it had been two years.

Next it was time to once again visit my favorite cathedral! (If you haven't noticed yet, pretty much everything here is my favorite.)

After walking around for a bit we decided to do a tram tour of the city, stopped at the tea shops, got more churros and chocolate, and walked around the shops.  That night we celebrated Anna's birthday at my favorite Irish pub.  Yes, yes.  I can hear you all from here.  An Irish pub in Spain?  Why would I do that?!  Well it was right next to our school and the owner is super nice.  So that where we went to celebrate another year of Anna! And lo-and-behold...the owner remembered me.  I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing...but hey, I am hard to forget!

That next morning we got up bright and early to be at the Alhambra at 7am.  We didn't have tickets and it can be hard to get them.  Lucky for us we got our tickets with plenty of time to explore before our bus home!  So our last day in Granada was spent at the Alhambra, and I don't think we could have had a better last day.

So that was adventure one.  Adventure two was the following weekend when I went to visit my friend Stephen who is studying abroad in Växjö, Sweden.  Getting there was an adventure within itself.  So I get to the Madrid airport and wait in the RyanAir line for twenty minutes just to be told I printed the wrong thing and need to go to the other line and then get back in this line.  So I go to the other line, get back in line, wait another thirty minutes, just to be told I didn't need to be in line at all.  So that was cool.  I really enjoyed it.....

Finally I got on the plane and landed in Copenhagen.  I would like to take this moment to thank Stephen from the bottom of my heart for taking the 2+ hour train ride from Växjö to Copenhagen to pick me up.  The direct train stopped at 6:30pm....my flight got in at 7:30pm.  So bless that man's soul for helping me get to his city because if I had to do it alone...I'm not gonna lie...probably would have cried.  So after taking a train, a bus, another train, and walking 45 minutes in the fog at 11:00 at night, we finally made it to his place, where I was treated to mac and cheese.  And yes, it is important to note this because I love mac and cheese and missed it dearly.

The rest of the trip included walking around the city and his school and enjoying Swedish food.  Because in our family food is top priority.  I had a kanelbulle and meatballs and mashed potatoes with lingonberries.

I was loving all the leaves on the ground...because I can't seem to find any in Madrid.  They sweep the streets every night and take away my leaves!!  So needless to say I was being very overdramatic when kicking the leaves.  Overall I loved Sweden!!  It's absolutely beautiful and I can't wait to go back!!

Now back to Spain.  There are so many cities to explore just for a day.  These past few weekends I visited El Escorial and Segovia.  If any of you get the chance to visit, I definitely recommend these cities!!  They're easy to do in a day, but are gorgeous and full of history!

El Escorial 

El Escorial 

El Escorial 

El Escorial 

El Escorial

Segovia

Segovia 

Segovia 

Segovia 

Segovia

You could say I've been busy, and you'd be right.  But I am loving every second here and can't wait to see where my next adventure takes me.

Hasta luego!

My First Adventure

So I'm writing this blog post a bit late due to the fact I am very forgetful and easily distracted by youtube videos.  But even so, I want to share with you all my first adventure in Spain.  

My first trip was with my two friends, Anna and Carmen, and we went to the north of Spain to the town called San Sebastian.  We started our adventure on the ninth of October.  I had to work that day, so I took the six hour bus ride to San Sebastian solo and met them late that night.  I was literally too exhausted to do anything, so we went straight to bed that night.  

The next day was my friend Carmen's birthday!! So we decided to take a day trip to Bayonne, France.  It was only an hour bus ride from San Sebastian, so we figured, why not!!  So we got up bright and early that morning to head to France for the day!  After leaving our Airbnb, which is an awesome website I would totally recommend if your traveling, we walked around for an hour to try and find lockers to put our backpacks.  We were staying at a different hostel that night so we needed another place to put our stuff for a bit.  We first went to the bus station...but there wasn't a bus station, just a small building where they sold the tickets.  We were told that the main train station had lockers, see headed that way, until we found out it was a twenty minute walk.  Instead, we decided to try the smaller train station near the center of the city.  That one didn't have lockers.... But the beach did!!  So we headed there....and were told the lockers didn't open till 10, which was when our bus was leaving.  So that was a no go.  So in the end, our backpacks came to France with us! 

As soon as we got to France the first thing we did was ask about the chocolate that Bayonne was so well known for.  We were directed to a street that had so...many...chocolate...shops.  I'm pretty sure this is what heaven looks like.  So we walked up the street and ending up getting a small cone of different types of chocolate to try.  They were beyond delicious!!!

The street we took ended up taking us to the cathedral.  The inside was beautiful!  It even had a little courtyard that reminded me of Harry Potter.  So naturally I loved it!!

After the cathedral we found a market.  Since it was about lunch time we decided to get a baguette, a hunk of cheese, and some wine.  We decided to walk towards the water and found some benches to sit and eat.  

After lunch we decided to see what was on the other side of the bridge.  There wasn't much, but we did fund the chocolate factory!!  Sadly, they weren't giving tours that day, so we just got some chocolate and headed to catch our bus to San Sebastian.

When we got back we went straight to our hostel to drop off our stuff and head to the beach!!  When we got there the sun was just starting to set.  It was beyond gorgeous!  The pictures we took do not do it justice.

After sun set we went back to the hostel to get ready to celebrate another year of Carmen!!!  Our hostel was in a great location!  We were right in the heart of the San Sebastian night life.  In the north of Spain, in Basque Country, they have a food called pinchos.  Pinchos are like the tapas of Basque Country.  However, instead of the restaurant just giving you food, with pinchos you pick what and how much you want.  The dishes are also more elaborate and the restaurants take great pride in their pinchos.  We had fried meatballs, croquets, sandwiches, fish, and much more!  It was all so delicious!!

These are some of the pinchos in a bar across from our hostel.

The next day we walked around San Sebastian some more.  We found path that followed the water, so we took our time walking from one side of the city to the other.  San Sebastian is an amazingly beautiful place.  If any of you have the chance to visit Spain, this place is a must!!

After San Sebastian we went to Pamplona.  This is where they have the Running of the Bulls.  We got there on a Sunday night, so a lot was closed.  But that didn't stop us from wandering around.  We ended up finding the Plaza de Toros, which is famous for its bullfights and is the end of the Running of the Bulls.

On our last day we got up early because we had to leave at 1pm. We started by just walking around a bit.

In Pamplona is part of the Camino de Santiago.  While trying to find the trail we ran into two ladies who were walking it together.  They were from the United States and explained to us a little bit about what the Camino is.  One lady said this was her third time walking the Camino and it was different for her each time. There are different paths people can take. The first time she went she took a longer trip that took her two months to walk. The second time she walked less and took more transportation. This time she is just doing as much as she can. One thing that she said that really stuck with me was that the Camino de Santiago is individual. Nobody can tell you if you're doing it wrong or right. It's about your own journey and what you want to get out of it.  She then told us that the three of us were taking our own journey on the Camino, no matter how short it might be.  Before we left them they explained that you can tell if somebody is on the Camino because they will be wearing a shell on their backpack, and the trail is marked with a yellow shell on a blue background.

After taking our short journey on the Camino de Santiago we decided to walk the Running of the Bulls path.  All I kept thinking was that I could never ever do this!! There's one road that leads up to the Plaza de Toros that felt like to took forever just to walk it...just imagine if you were running for your life with bulls chasing you. No thank you!

Overall it was an amazing first trip!! We did so much in just a few short days. I can't wait for my next adventure!!

Hasta luego!