Finally.
So I did a bunch of traveling last month and had such and amazing time. I think I will do a somewhat condensed version of my travels.
First of all I was in Rome for New Years with my friend Christine. We spent 5 days there and 4 nights. It was a really great experience and we got to eat a lot of gelato. Mmm. We saw all the wonderful things one is suppose to see. The coliseum was by far my favorite of the old roman things. It was really amazing. Those Romans had their stuff together. I had so much fun traveling around with one of my friends. We ate a lot, laughed a lot, and took way too many pictures- so all the great things’ traveling is suppose to be about happened. We even managed to go see a movie in Italian in a very small cinema with snacks. It seemed to be an okay movie from what I understood of it. The city was beautiful and I loved the streets and the balconies and the cats. ALSO I loved the fact that there were orange trees all over the city. We continually tried to pick them and after a few attempts realized you shouldn’t eat them because they are horrible and sour. But it was exciting nonetheless succeeding in picking roman oranges. Hooray. We had a few wonderful days weather wise and then a few rainy ones as well. We still managed to walk around constantly and had pretty sore feet by the end of the trip. New Years itself was so much fun. It ended up pouring down with rain so our original plans of seeing concerts at piazzas were nixed. We went out with some of the people we met at our hostel and tried to find some bars to go to instead. We ended up getting lost (I’m not sure how because I had a compass and I was using it) and came to bars that were all closed for private parties. This one group decided to let us come into their private party because it was so close to midnight. They liked us and let us stay, which was wonderful. There was tons of great homemade Italian food and lots of champagne plus an openbar. The people were all really great and interesting to talk to. I was able to practice Italian, Spanish, and then test out my beginner’s Turkish. It was such a random night but really turned out quite wonderful. It was also nice to ring in the New Year for the second time with Christine. It was meant to be. Then the next day after eating, having coffee, eating some more and a 5 hour delay we headed back to Madrid.
From our 24 hour stop off in Madrid we headed to Porto, Portugal. We went there with two of Christine’s wonderful friends, Jem and Tom. We stayed for three nights and four days I believe. I really loved Porto. It was slightly run down and had really great windy streets with a lot of splendid character. Also there were occasional old people hanging out of their windows just looking around which is always good. All the houses were tiled there so it gave the town this great glossy look. We walked around a lot and saw all the things to see and ate a tremendous amount of bakes goods. Most of the baked goods there were tinted orange. I’m not sure why that was but it was something special and I liked it. We tried the Portugal specialty the franceshinia too. It was basically a sandwich with every type of meet (including hot dogs cut in half) and then covered in cheese and this special sauce. It was interesting to say the least. We should have stopped after we all split our first one though. On one of the days we went to the beach. It was really great. It rained all day but cleared up and had an amazing sunset. There were Portugal surfers there as well. I didn’t even know they existed but they do and were at the beach. On the last day we did two Port wine tours. It was really interesting. I learned a lot about port wine and that I don’t really like to drink it that much, very sweet. Maybe with snacks it would have been better.
From there we headed back to Madrid. I attempted to do some sight seeing but I managed to catch the worst week in Madrid probably out of the whole year. It was cold and rainy and then cold and snowy. It really put a damper on exploring. I did get to go and see the Guernica though. It was really amazing seeing it in real life because after learning about it. Not being an art buff I appreciated the fact that it was so big. Who knew?
After Christine’s family that she stays with offered us one of their vacation houses for the weekend Christine, Jem and I headed to Salamanca. The house we stayed in was very nice and we spent the first night bundled up in blankets and watching tv episodes on the computer. It was cold out. The next day… my birthday… we made it out and explored Salamanca. It is really a beautiful town. I think it would have been more enjoyed again if it was a bit warmer but at least we got sun. The sky was so amazing there. It had really wonderful and crazy sunset-ness going on. I really enjoyed that. That night we went out because it was MY BIRHTDAY! Hooray. We celebrated the fact that I turned 23. Before heading out I got birthday flan and champagne. I was in Spain and flan with a candle was definitely called for and it was amazing. It was a nice night out and great to celebrate with friends. The next day, after nearly getting snowed in, we headed back to Madrid.
I ended my 3 weeks of traveling in Madrid and followed Christine around, visiting her life for a while. It was nice. Madrid seems like a really fun city to live in for sure- a lot of tapas, bakery, and drinks. Plus they get naps during the day, so that is nice. I managed to get most of my sight seeing done despite of the cold weather. I had an amazing time traveling with Christine. It was really sad to go but I love that I had the chance to travel with one of my friends from University and get to bond even more in foreign countries. We had a lot of good laughs and I didn’t even get annoyed at her once! What a successful trip.
After coming home from Madrid I had less than 24 hours in Dundee to pack up my life and move to Turkey for my au pair job in Istanbul. BUT that is another thing to blog about. THE END.
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