London, England

Last weekend (Oct. 10-12), some of my friends (Betsy and Alison) and I made a trip up north…to LONDON, ENGLAND! You can probably tell by the all-caps that I had a great time! We arrived at the London, Stansted airport around 1 in the afternoon and then took a bus from the airport to the middle of the city, which took about an hour. Although we were anxious to see the city, the hour went by fast because we met a guy on the bus who was from Vigo (one of the coastal cities in Spain we have visited) and we ended up talking with him the whole time. He was extremely good-looking and very nice…no worries mom, still planning on coming home in December :)! We ended up exchanging numbers with him so if we are ever in Vigo again we can meet up, but considering I wasn’t a huge fan of Vigo (other than the islands), I don’t think that will be happening. I found it kinda funny that our first encounter with someone in London was a man from Spain who spoke nothing but Spanish. I was SO excited to be able to speak English in London and here I was on the bus STILL speaking Spanish, LOL. Once the bus dropped us off at Liverpool Station, our next task was to take the “tube” aka the Metro/Subway to meet up with the girl we were going to be staying with (Betsy’s friend from KU who now lives and works as a teacher in London at Westminster Academy). We asked a lady for directions to the nearest Metro Station and she looked at us like we were crazy and said (in an English accent, so she was obviously from England) “I don’t know”. After taking a second to think about it, we realized that we called it the Metro and not the tube, which is a total no-no in London…People only know it by the “underground” or the “tube”. We gave it a second try and asked a man where we could get on the tube, and he pointed us in the right direction. He was very friendly and I so smitten by his accent (I’m in love with English accents for some reason). Betsy, Alison and I found our way to the tube, bought an Oyster (Metro Card) and were on our way, or so we thought. We ended up waiting for about 20 minutes when it was supposed to come every 5-7 minutes. Then, once we were on the tube for a couple minutes it came to a complete stop, but not at a station, just in the middle of the track. We ended being at a complete stop for about 20 minutes because there wasn’t a platform open. Just imagine…the oldest running subway in the world, packed full of people, extremely hot, and me being a little claustrophobic wanting to scream with frustration. And on top of that, there was an older man starring at me with googly eyes in a Mr. creeper kind of way…no bueno! Let’s just say that I’ve had my fair share of Subway rides in my day and this was by far the worst Subway experience ever…thank god the trip goes up hill from here! ;) Once we finally starting moving again, we made it to our stop and walked to the school where Betsy’s friend Beth works. Alison and I met Beth and we all took a little tour of Westminster Academy. It was amazing to say the least. I can’t even describe this place, it was the coolest school I’ve ever seen. After our mini-tour of the school, we walked to Beth’s flat, dropped off our luggage and headed out for dinner and drinks. Beth’s friends/co-workers (other teachers) go out every Friday after school so we met up with them. All her friends were great, and I absolutely loved listening to them talk with their cool accents…I wish I had one! :). We actually kinda ate 2 dinners, lol. Because us girls skipped lunch because of our travel schedule, we went to a Mexican restaurant at about 5:30. This is the first Mexican food I’ve had the opportunity to eat since I’ve been overseas so you can imagine how excited I was! It wasn’t very authentic, but it was still delicious. I had chicken enchiladas, rice and beans, and a margarita…and let me tell ya, I was in heaven! After our meal, we went pub-hopping. First, The Cow and then The Skid. Both are local pubs that Beth and her friends frequently visit. At the Skid I had my first taste of Strawberry beer, it was yummy! At this point in the night we met up wit Alison’s friend Kate, who is from KU on a study abroad program in Ireland and come to London to visit Alison for the weekend. At about 11:00pm we ate our second dinner…Indian food. This was yet another first for me because I had never tried Indian food before. I taste tested a few items and liked one or two of them. A lot of the food was a bit spicy for me because they use a lot of curry, but some was enjoyable. I have to admit, I probably won’t willing eat Indian food again any time soon. After our second meal we walked back to Beth’s flat and chatted for a bit before going to sleep. Saturday morning we woke up and headed to Portobello Market. For those of you who have seen the movie “Notting Hill”, this is the market that Hugh Grant walks through while the seasons are changing. The market is huge…it goes on and on for blocks! There is all kinds of stuff from food, to antiques, to clothes and jewelry. I was tempted to purchase a lot of things, but refrained and limited myself to one dress. Before leaving the market, we got some to-go-food from a “Panera-type” place and walked to Hyde Park for a picnic. Hyde park is a famous park in London and is absolutely huge! It happened to be a gorgeous day so our picnic was wonderful. Actually, we experienced great weather the entire weekend. The temperature was in the 70s which is summer weather for London. After we ate, Beth sent Alison, Kate, Betsy, and I on the Big Bus Tour…which is one of those big red buses where you sit on the top and they take you to all the attractions of the city. I really enjoyed this part of the trip! I not only saw a lot of cool things, I got to learn a lot about the history of London because it was a “headphone-guided” tour. We ended up being on the bus tour for about 3 hours as it took us to different parts of the city, including… Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Picadilly Circus (a smaller version of Times Square), Big Ben, The London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Tower Bridge, the London Bridge, The Tower of London, The Globe Theater (Shakespeare’s Theater), and St. Paul’s Cathedral (where Prince Charles and Princess Diana were married). Side Note – While on the Bus Tour I got a surprising call from Kim. Her and Michael's flights got all messed up and instead of making it to Nice on Saturday, they ended up being in London…small world, huh!? Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to meet up because I was on the bus and they didn’t have a way to get a hold of me because they were on a pay phone, but no worries…I will see them when they arrive in Santiago very SOON! After the Big Bus Tour was over, we did a little shopping and then headed back to Beth’s to freshen up for dinner and a night out. We ate dinner at a nice Lebanese restaurant where the food was quite interesting. I had never tried Lebanese food before so I was excited to add another first to my list, especially because I feel like this whole trip has just been a list of firsts for me. It is probably the first time in my life that I am truly out of my element and I am glad I am getting opportunities to step out of the box or out of my comfort zone…it feels great! :). The food ended up being really good, the only thing I really didn’t like was the duck. After dinner Beth took us to Camden where there is quite the night life. We hung out at a bar drinking cider and chatting. It was a nice relaxing place and we had a lot of fun. On Sunday morning we woke up really early and ate a wonderful breakfast buffet before heading to Picadilly Circus for a little more site seeing. We met up with our friend Ben who got to London on Sunday morning from Ireland, where he spent Friday and Saturday with our other friend Kyle. Since he hadn’t seen everything we had, we did some stuff over again, such as the London Eye (although we didn’t actually go up in it because it was expensive and the line was long), and Big Ben. We all jumped back on the Big Bus Tour (the tickets are valid for 48 hours and you can “hop-on” and “hop-off” wherever you want) and got off near the River in order to jump on a River Thames Cruise boat….where we got to see the city from the water, which was a really neat perspective. The boat took us to the other side of the river where we got to see the Globe Theater up close. It was really neat to be seeing something so old and famous! After visiting the Globe, we visited Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, it was Sunday so Westminster Abbey was closed and we weren’t able to go inside, but seeing the outside was good enough for me…it was phenomenal. (Sorry, but I don’t have pics of Westminster or Buckingham because they accidentally got erased from my camera). Buckingham palace was pretty cool as well. It is kinda neat to be looking at a place where the Royal family once lived (they live in a different, smaller palace now-a-days). After yet another full day of site-seeing, we headed back to Beth’s to freshen up for dinner…which is always late (just like in Spain and pretty much all of Europe). Around 9pm we headed to a restaurant for some Fish and Chips. I was told I couldn’t leave London without eating them, so I didn’t! The fish was delicious, and the chips (fries) were good too! :). We decided to have a chill night considering we had to wake up at 4am to catch a cab to the bus station, then a bus to the airport. So after dinner we watched a movie and went to bed. Waking up at 4am was so not fun, but I am becoming more and more accustomed to terrible travel times and waking up at the wee hours of the morning to catch flights. I slept on the bus to the airport and when I got there, I didn’t have a good experience. Because I had mousse and hairspray in my bag, they had to “confiscate” it and throw it away, and because they were “suspicious” of me after that, the airport security people felt the need to empty every pocket of my entire bag, do tests of my things (such as mini-shampoo and conditioner) to make sure they weren’t contaminated, and make me take off my shoes, belt, coat, scarf and jewelry in order to search me. First of all, I was tired and so not in the mood, secondly, I was a little bit humiliated considering everyone else was passing through security just fine while I was on the side being searched hard core. I felt like some sort of terrorist and as you can imagine, it wasn’t a good feeling. After about 30 minutes of being at security, I finally was able to repack my bag and head to my gate. Luckily, the flight was smooth and I slept the whole way! We ended up getting back to Santiago around noon and I slept from then until about 7pm…I know, ridiculous, but I was so exhausted from the entire weekend. When I woke up, I uploaded some pics in order to have a full memory card for my week trip to Madrid and then began to prepare to leave once again. I basically unpacked my bag, to just turn around and repack it because I left for Madrid the following morning at 8am. I am quite the traveler, I know! Overall, my weekend in London was fantastic. I absolutely loved just about every minute of it. The city was beautiful and there was so much to do/see there. The people were fun and vibrant and just like most big cities…London was full of life! I really enjoyed the big city feel and for me, London was a European New York and I love New York! :). I’ve been here for a while and have traveled a lot, but London was the first city where I could see myself living. I could picture in my head my life in London, which I think is a pretty cool thing, because although the other cities I’ve visited so far have been beautiful and great, they are places that I enjoyed visiting for a small period of time and not places I could see myself returning to. Don’t go getting all worried though, although I would love to live a period of my life in London, it is pretty much out of the question because the cost of living there is ridiculous! Everything in London was super duper expensive and the exchange rate is terrible. For every US dollar I had, it was only 50 cents in pounds, so for a typical 10 pound meal, I paid 20 dollars. I think the cheapest meal I ate was still about 17 US dollars, which is a lot for a small non-gourmet meal. Because London was the first city I had my new camera to use, some of the pics didn’t turn out so well because I was playing with the settings. Also, as I mentioned above, I don’t have pics of Westminster Abbey or Buckingham Palace because they were deleted from my memory card. I’m not sure how, it might have been an effect of me messing with my camera settings, who knows?! Most of the pics I took, turned out well…You can check them out on my Shutterfly: http://mexigurl14.shutterfly.com/

Bilbao, Spain

It has been a while since my last update…so sorry, but I have been a traveling fool lately and haven’t had time! This is my attempt to try and catch up! The weekend after Oporto (Oct. 3-5), I went to Bilbao, Spain with Val and Alison, but before I give you any details, let me just express the excitement I felt to see Val when she arrived in on Tuesday. I was so excited I almost cried! It was fantastic to see a familiar face for the first time in a long time. Val was extremely exhausted from her travels so we didn’t do much on Tuesday, but I did take her to see the cathedral because it is the one “must-see” in Santiago. We didn’t do a whole lot while she was here because it was a jam-packed week for me as far as school goes, but it ended up working out because it gave Val a chance to rest up for Bilbao. We left on a 10 hour overnight bus Thursday night at 11pm. The first hour wasn’t so great because my Dramamine hadn’t kicked in (Yes, my stomach is just that weak…sad huh?) but once it did, I was out for most of the trip. One side note on taking long bus rides…Don’t do it if you’re a senior citizen. I was amazed at how many old people were on our bus. They were so uncomfortable, cranky, and not so friendly and although I was a bit annoyed, I felt bad for them. I noted to myself…When I’m old, I’ll pay the extra money and take a plane, it’s much quicker and less painful! We arrived in Bilbao at 8:45 Friday morning, ate breakfast, and checked into our hostel. We spent most of the afternoon walking around and shopping. There was a festival going on so we took a little walk through some of the tents set up with jewelry and other things you could buy. Then, we went back to our hostel and took a nap! You would be surprised at how much traveling takes outta ya…it can get quite exhausting, and when you are used to having a siesta…your body counts on it! (Who knows what I’m gunna do when I get home. I might have to bring the “siesta” custom home with me and always take a nap from 2-4 everyday…yeah right, I wish!) After we woke up and got ready, we enjoyed a couple bottles of wine before jumping on the metro and meeting up with some of Val’s friends that she met in Madrid her first week in Spain. They go to school in California and are in Bilbao on a study abroad program. We all headed to “Mao Mao Beach”, a nightclub in Bilbao. I think it’s funny that so many things in Spain are in English, such as names of restaurants and discotecas…I mean Mao Mao Beach, come on, how un-Spanish can you get!? Also, a lot of “graphic tees” have words in English written on them. It is also really common to go to bars here that play American music, only most of it is way old school, like 90s music. Every now and then you hear more recent American stuff, it just depends on the place. Mao Mao Beach was a pretty big place with lots of young people, of course. I had a lot of fun dancing and hanging out, especially because I was with Val. I think I could have been at the worst nightclub in the world and had fun just because she was there, LOL! The club had a pretty interesting atmosphere…shirtless buff bartenders and girls in bikinis dancing on a stage, not your typical American nightclub. The music was mainly Spanish Techno, which was fun, but got a little old after awhile just because it’s hard to dance to and I really like to dance when I’m out! :). At about 4am we left Mao Mao and because there wasn’t a taxi in sight, we started walking toward the metro station. While walking, we were on a serious hunt for a McDonald's, but unfortunately, never found one. I know what you’re thinking…how American of us to want McDonald's after drinking at 4 in the morning. I know it sounds crazy, but we were on a mission and seriously thought we might come across one because Bilbao is such a big city. To our disappointment, we never found a McDonald's or food in general…Spain doesn’t have 24 hour places! Thank goodness for McDonald's, Ihop, the Waffle House and other places in America that stay open 24 hours…I’ll utilize these places for sure when I get home and I will appreciate them like never before! We ended up walking a pretty long way before we flagged down a taxi and asked him to take us to any restaurant he knew of that would serve food (at this point we didn’t quite realize this was an impossible task). He ended up driving us a little ways before dropping us off at a corner, pointing at a building and telling us to wait 2 hours until a restaurant opened. We couldn’t believe it. This guy seriously just pulled over and told us to get out of the cab and wait. We think he might have been a little annoyed by us considering we were 3 American girls speaking English loudly in the back of his cab. Keep in mind we had had a few drinks by this point and were seriously hungry and probably annoying…poor cab driver, but he still had no right to just pull over and tell us to get out! A little side note -- My Spanish has improved since I’ve been in Spain, of course. Not drastically, but definitely an improvement. I understand a lot more now than I did before. I also can read and write better. Where I struggle is speaking, which is a little ironic considering I am Mexican and most people assume if anything, I would be able to speak great and lack at the other parts. Usually I know what I want to say and which verbs to use, I just find it difficult to conjugate a verb in the correct tense on the spot, which is why it sometimes takes me 5 min. to get out one sentence, LOL! I find that when I’m tired, cranky, or in a bad mood for whatever reason it is even more difficult to speak Spanish. I can’t explain it, sometimes I am just not in the mood to even try because my mind doesn’t process things. Other times, like when I’m in a really good mood or have had a few drinks, it is a lot easier for me to speak Spanish. I think it is because I am a lot more confident in these cases and don’t think about things as much, I just let them come out. Although they might often come out wrong, I usually get my point across and people understand me. As far as classes go, I am doing pretty good. I am understanding my professors A LOT better now than I was in the beginning. I have done a pretty good job on almost all of my homework assignments, quizzes, tests, and mini-papers. I have been disappointed with a few of my grades on assignments, but I guess I can’t always expect to get As…it’s unrealistic and shockingly, I have come to accept this. I guess I can’t have the same expectation as I do on assignments in English, considering I’m doing work in a completely different language. All that matters to me is that I’m trying, and that is an accomplishment in itself! Not everyone is able to learn another language and if it were easy, everyone would do it, so I take pride in the fact that I’m putting time and effort into doing something that not everyone is cut out to do. As most of you already know, I am a woman without a whole lot of patience and I am completely willing to admit that, but with that being said, I have to take this into deeper consideration when I get frustrated with myself. There have been times when I have wanted to just give up and forget about Spanish and learning a new language, and those are the times I need to have patience with myself and realize that learning a language is a process and it doesn’t come over night. I know I can say it now, but it is easier said than done. It is difficult for me to have patience, especially with myself because I have high expectations for myself, but I am learning slowly how to handle things better and with more patience. Now, back on track…After the cab driver pulled over and made us get out of his cab, we asked a few people wondering the streets for directions (I know not very safe, but not much more could have been done), and found our way back to our hostel. At this point we were so tired and frustrated that we just went to bed. On Saturday, we slept in a little. Once we woke up and got going, we went to Burger King for lunch. We actually asked a couple of people on the street if there was a McDonald's around (we were STILL stuck on McDonald’s for some crazy reason), but most of the people we asked looked at us like we were crazy and said they didn’t understand us. This wasn’t because we weren’t speaking their language because we were, it was because they didn’t know what McDonald's was. When we told them it was a restaurant, they continued to look at us like we were crazy and said they had no idea. We, being the “Americans” we are, were shocked. How can people not know what McDonald's is. I feel like even if you have never eaten it, you would at least recognize the name, but that’s not the case here! Anyhow, after we ate, we visited the Guggenheim. For those of you who don’t know what that is, Google it…it’s very neat! There are different Guggenheim's in different big cities and the one in Bilbao was awesome. I wasn’t really that impressed with the content of art inside the Guggenheim, but the building itself was amazing! After a couple of hours walking around the Guggenheim, we headed downtown to check out some famous churches. Along the way, we met a pretty cool guy named Cyrus. He was traveling around Europe alone for a couple months and happened to overhear us girls speaking English so he decided to ask us to hang out. We, being the open-minded people we are, said of course. We ended up checking out an old church on our way to dinner. It was really neat because there was a wedding going on. So here we are, taking pictures inside this church while the wedding party is doing the same. I know what you are thinking…wedding crashers, lol…but that wasn’t the case. Apparently, the church is always open to the public. After walking the city for a while we, with our new friend Cyrus, ate dinner at a really nice restaurant with delicious food! We decided since we had to leave so early on Sunday morning, we would call it an early night, so after dinner we headed back to our hostel and went to bed. Val took a taxi to the airport at about 4 am and Alison and I headed toward the bus station around 9 am. The bus ride on the back to Santiago was very long, but I managed to get a few things done, including writing a few post cards. Hopefully some of you guys reading this have received those now! :). Overall, my weekend in Bilbao was fun, especially because I was with Val, but it definitely wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. It may have been a bit better if we had the time to see the other “sites” of the city, but because of time and weather restrictions, we didn’t get to do much. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it was pretty cold and rainy the entire weekend we were in Bilbao. Although it wasn’t my favorite weekend so far, it was definitely fun and I will forever remember the weekend I hung out with one of my best friends in Bilbao, Spain! Not a whole lot of people can say they hung out with their friends in a foreign country, so I feel pretty blessed!...Thanks Val! ;) I didn't have a camera in Bilbao so I stole a couple pics from Val...check them out on my Shutterfly: http://mexigurl14.shutterfly.com/

Oporto, Portugal

2 weekends ago (Sept 26-28) I went to Oporto, Portugal with 5 friends from my KU study abroad group. We left Friday morning by bus and got to Oporto in the afternoon. When we got off the bus, our first order of business was to eat, we were starving! We walked for what seemed like forever until we found a restaurant that looked good…we were SO right. It was delicious. Although it is quite possible that anything would have been delicious at this point because we hadn’t had a single bite of anything all day! After we ate we spent about an hour and a half looking for our hostel! It was so frustrating because although we had a map, we were incapable of finding this place. The map of Oporto was obviously in Portuguese and so difficult to understand because it doesn’t list all the street names, only the bigger ones…thus making it difficult to find your way around. The upside to it taking us forever to find our hostel was that it allowed us to walk around the city. Although I had my eye out for our hostel, I was also observing my surroundings in general. I liked what I saw. The city was vibrant and the people seemed energetic and fun. Unlike some of the cities in Spain I have been to, people were walking through the streets with a smile on their face. Because school just started (In most of Europe, school starts in October), there were lots of young people. We even saw what we figured to be sorority/fraternity hazing…groups of people walking down the street with matching shirts, singing, dancing, and following the commands of their “leader”. Eventually, we found our hostel, got all checked in and decided to take a little siesta before getting ready to go out and do some more exploring. When we all got up and got ready, we headed down to the port…It was awesome. The pics I have don’t do it justice, especially because they are night shots. (Check out my Shutterfly page: http://mexigurl14.shutterfly.com/) I would have taken more pics of the port the following day, but my camera broke on Saturday morning. (No worries, my fabulous family bought me a new one and sent it to me…Merry Christmas to me!!) We asked a local for suggestions on restaurants and he pointed us in the right direction. The place we ate dinner was near the port and happened to be the best food I’ve had thus far! I took some pics so you all could take a peek at my delicious Portuguese meal! Dinner was fabulous because of the food, the atmosphere, and the waiter…An older man who spoke a little bit of Span/Port/Eng/Chinese and was so enthusiastic and fun. He played the piano and sang for us all while being an attentive and good server. Needless to say, he got a fabulous tip! :) After dinner we went port wine tasting....yes, I said port wine tasting…how lucky am I! The place we went to was a port wine school/bar/shop. The 6 of us sat down and had a nice man (who spoke English, thank god) explain everything you would ever need to know about port wine. We then got 6 different types of port wine and were told the order to drink them in and what to eat with each of them, which consisted of apricots, prunes, and chocolate. There were 2 wines that were VERY strong and bitter for my liking, but overall they were delicious. It was a great wine tasting experience. I thought about buying a bottle of port to bring home, until I realized how expensive they were…sorry family, you’ll have to do without port wine this Christmas! After the wine tasting my friends and I went to an Irish Pub for a while then headed back to our hostel. The next day the girls took a trip to the Contemporary Art Museum while the boys walked across “the bridge”. I won’t say the art museum was bad, because I have an appreciation for art, so I’ll use the word interesting to describe it. The neat part about it was the landscape outside of it. As you can see in the pics, it was beautiful! This is the point where my camera broke so you won’t see any more pics of Oporto after the museum. We met up with the boys in the evening and took a boat out onto the river…it was breathtaking. The boat ride lasted about an hour and it took us down the river to where it opened up into the ocean…I wish I would have had my camera because there aren’t a whole lot of words to describe! Seeing the city from the water was neat, a different perspective that I thoroughly enjoyed. Saturday night we ate at a really nice pizza joint. We ate pizza and pasta and let me tell you…YUMMY! After this meal I decided that I loved Portugal, lol! After dinner we had an interesting encounter. We met 3 German students traveling around Oporto for the weekend. Come to find out, they are study abroad students going to the University of Santiago…some school as us! What a small world huh? We meet Germans in Portugal who go to the same school in Spain as we do…too funny! They ended up telling us about a nightclub we had to go to, so our Saturday night/early Sunday morning ended with drinks, music, and dancing at a fun night club just minutes from our hostel! Sunday afternoon came too soon and it was time to catch our bus home…yes, I officially declare Santiago home. You wouldn’t image how much I miss my own bed (here in Spain) when I’m away on weekend vacations staying in hostels. Some general observations of Oporto – One of the not so good observations I made was the lack of dental hygiene these people had. I have never seen so many people with awful looking teeth. Mom, considering you work in a dental lab and notice people’s teeth all the time; you would be in complete disgust! It made me rethink my career goals, instead of majoring in Journalism; I should go to dental school and move to Portugal…these people need a tooth savior! I bet I could make a lot of money by doing this, then again…it might be a tad far fetched considering the only word I picked up while in Portugal was “Obrigada” aka “Thank you”. Portuguese is very difficult to understand, I think I’ll stick to learning Spanish! Overall, I loved Oporto. Not only is it a beautiful city, the people are great…nice and lively! The architecture of the main bridge over the river is amazing. I can’t imagine living there and seeing this every day. The temperature there was great and being so close to the water, there was always a nice little breeze. I am excited to return to Portugal soon, only this time a new city…Lisbon. When Kim and Michael come to visit (just 12 more days…so exciting), we are spending 3 days in Lisbon, which is said to be the most beautiful city in Portugal…I can’t wait!