Day 79: 11-11-11 and Prague

     I have been waiting for 11/11/11 for literally years! I was standing right outside of Starbucks and the statue in Westminster Center when I made my ultimate wish. Prague has been really cold and Caroline and I are pretty tired from poor sleep on the bus ride.

     Euroadventures gave us a tour of the city. We saw a statue of a guy sitting on a horses' stomach while the horse is hung upside down from the ceiling. Apparently this is Czech humor. From there we walked to the Plaza with the Astronomic Clock Tower. There were Christmas mini shops set up in the middle of the Piazza. The City is known for their "Thousand Gold Spires" and you can see them everywhere.

      The Czech souvenirs are pretty awesome. There are 'Czech me out' shot glasses and 'Praha drinking team' sweatshirts. I really enjoy these. My favourite part of Prague has been the Lennon wall. It was a wall that was compltely graffiti-covered in quotes and pictures and love things. It was so colourful. It changes daily so I would love to see this every day that I'm here.

Day 75-78: A Regular Week

     Nothing crazy happened this week. I picked my classes and got everything I wanted, I decided to start the entire show of Lost from start to finish while I'm still here in Italy, and started planning a lot more trips.
     I grabbed lunch with Nick at the Oil Shoppe one day; this is a great place to get cheaper sandwiches! Tonight (Thursday) I left for Prague at 8pm and the bus is going to take about 12 hours to get there. The last thing I saw before falling asleep was the gorgeous mountains in Austria.

Day 74: More Spain!

     The pastry shop near our hostel had the best pastries for breakfast :). We started our day there and then went to The Chocolate Museum. Our ticket to get in was a bar of chocolate! It was a nice way to pass the time because chocolate sculptures are a cool idea. We didn't have much time in the city today, as we had to catch the bus back to the airport. The trip home was easy and I will have to come back here some day!

     However, I did have a moment of culture shock. I ordered a caesar salad and was really excited to finally have this again! But that is not what caesar dressing is in Spain. It's actually mayonnaise. Yuck! I definitely won't be ordering that again.

Day 73: Gaudi Art and Ice Bars

     Today was my first experience with Gaudi Art. Caroline and I took a bus to Guell Park. This place is really awesome because not only is the art really unique, but also has great views of the city. One of the museums had some furniture that he made. I think Lady Gaga would've liked it: it was cool looking but completely impractical.

     Sagrada Familia is also Gaudi Art. It's a church of sorts. It's really big and is a crazy shape. Recently the inside was finished, but they still haven't copmleted the outside. The inside has mile high ceilings and the stained glass made beautiful colours dance across the white walls.

     After this, we got some hot chocolate. It is so thick and I'm not sure exactly how it's made but I've never had anything like it. We spent the night on the waterfront. At the restaurant where we had dinner, it just so happened that Caroline knew the two kids who sat next to us! What a small world. After dinner we went looking for IceBarcelona, an ice bar right on the beach. There was a lot of night life to choose from, which is very different from Florence. It took awhile to find but was totally worth it.  Everything, including the glasses, were made of ice! Today was one of the best days of my life, despite the terrible weather!

  

Day 72: Barcelona!

     This morning Caroline and I took a bus and a plane to get to Barcelona! Flying RyanAir is definitely an experience; the entire 75 minute trip is an advertisement. We had to take an hour long bus to get directly into the city and then spent awhile trying to find our hostel. We had our own room and a balcony overlooking the street.

     The metro wasn't hard to figure out because I lived in Boston my whole life. The first place we went to was Montjuiic. We ate churros and saw where the 1992 Summer Olympics were held. The whole city is much larger than Florence and I was already in love with it!

     La Rambla is a nice hangout spot and the Mercat was a cool open air market that we visited. We walked up and down La Rambla until we reached the waterfront. It rained this whole time but I had a blast. After a lot of walking, we decided to try and find Gimlet, a mojito bar on the other side of town. We completely overestimated how far away it was; we stopped at a restaurant along the way and even though we were three doors down from it we didn't go in. Barcelona is an absolutely amazing city, I can't wait until tomorrow to experience more!

Day 70-71: Same old week days

     Getting back to schedule wasn't hard; my week days are pretty much becoming the same so I won't explain them in much detail. It is really exciting to plan all the trips I have coming up. Tomorrow I have to wake up at 4:55 to go to Barcelona!!

Day 69: All Saint's Day

     I came back to Italy on a holiday; the family was sitting down to dinner. I am definitely glad to be back! Caroline and I are booking our trip to Barcelona for next weekend. I was exhausted from all the travel again so I went to bed early tonight.