Sicily, Barcelona, Brussels, and Marseille!

These past two weeks have been packed full of traveling. I’ve been on 7 flights and I’ve spent only one night in Rome over the past 14 days! Last week, half of my architecture class went north to see Venice and half went south to Sicily. I was in the half that went south and it was interesting... It was nothing like I expected it to be. We stayed in the city of Palermo for the first two nights and I was not impressed with the city at all. It was absolutely disgusting and a little scary in some parts. One of the days they took us to see a castle and as soon as we were done I went back to the hotel and stayed there until morning when we left. I just had no desire to be out on the dirty sidewalks smelling all of the trash and seeing all of the poor stray dogs everywhere. The only plus side to the city was that it was extremely cheap so I was able to save some money while I was there!


A pretty church in Palermo- all of those decorations are mosaics!


Cute stray dog that followed us around everywhere


Ew. This is the HUGE trash pile right outside of the grocery store. It smelled terrible.


A pretty church that we did some sketching in

The next two nights we spent in Castellemare which is a town right on the sea and it was a million times cleaner and more charming than Palermo. We had a bus that took us around to see the countryside of Sicily and it was absolutely gorgeous. I felt like I was in a dream the entire time! Castellemare and the countryside definitely improved my first impression of Sicily and made up for the disappointment that I felt in Palermo!


The city of Castellemarre where we stayed!


Landscape Art- this used to be a town until it was ruined by an earthquake. Someone covered all of the ruins in concrete and now you can still walk through the "streets" of the town


Meagan and me on top of the Landscape Art


Landscape Art


Sicily Landscape-- so pretty!


A Beautiful Greek Temple that we could see from our hike! This is why I felt like I was in a dream...


Up close!


A Greek Temple that was reconstructed from its ruins after it was knocked over by an earthquake!


On Friday I headed back to Rome to unpack my Sicily suitcase and repack it for spring break with Marty! I left Saturday morning, and after getting a 50 euro bus ticket and waking up face to face with a random Italian guy on the plane, I made it to Barcelona. We walked around Las Ramblas (a touristy street), down along the port, and through the Gothic Quarter and we ate tapas at a cute little restaurant in a Gothic Square.


Waterfront of Barcelona


A pretty bridge in the Gothic Quarter

On Sunday we got up and headed to the football stadium with our fingers crossed to try and get tickets to the soccer game that night. I think we got some of the last seats together and we were so happy! Then we went to see the Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudi which was absolutely amazing. They have been building it for 100 years and they don’t expect to be done until 2060! I definitely am going back there once it is finished, it is going to be gorgeous! Then we headed back to the stadium to watch the Barcelona-Valencia football game! It was really fun for me even though I know nothing about soccer and I think that Marty loved it too. Afterwards we went back to the Gothic Quarter for dessert.


We got tickets!!!


Me and Marty outside of the Sagrada Familia


Inside the Sagrada Familia


Future Towers!


View from inside the tower


Outside view of the Sagrada Familia


Pretty stadium!


Marty and me at the soccer game

Monday, we had our “park day”. We got up and went to the Boqueria, which is a food market just off of Las Ramblas. We picked up some food for a picnic lunch and I got a delicious strawberry-coconut smoothie (let’s make one of those this summer, mom). Then we went up to Park Guell, which was also designed by Gaudi. Marty called Candyland because of all of the food- shaped decorations that were everywhere! It was really pretty and it had a bunch of walking paths with beautiful views of the city. Then we walked down the Passeig Gracia, a road with some more Gaudi buildings and a bunch of restaurants and shopping. We got a snack and then went home to take a nap (poor Marty was still getting over jet lag at this point) and headed up to Montjuc in the afternoon. It was a weird park, interrupted by a lot of roads, but it was really pretty. The Olympics were held on this hill in 1996, so there were lots of sports arenas and pretty buildings. At night we went out to eat at a restaurant called Tapas, 24 which had some really good tapas, and we met up with Marty’s roommate and his girlfriend for some drinks afterwards.


The Boqueria


Park Guell!



Gaudi Building on Passeig Gracia


The Olympic Torch

On Tuesday, we were really depressed because we had to leave Barcelona. We woke up and walked along the waterfront for a few hours (and got our first sunburns) before starting our RyanAir adventure to Brussels. It was a little frusterating because the RyanAir airport is an hour outside of Barcelona, and an hour outside of Brussels as well, so we lost a lot of time to traveling. Marty’s brother told him to expect an adventure when flying with RyanAir and we got our first one literally two minutes into the bus ride. We were going down the road and all of a sudden we heard a scream behind us and I looked back and the bus door was wide open. There was a girl who looked like she was going to cry and I did not know what happened. Everybody was yelling for the bus driver to stop and he just kept on going for almost two minutes. Finally someone ran up and made him stop and we learned that the door had just flown open when the bus was moving and the girl’s purse fell out onto the road. She had to go running back to retrieve her purse while the bus driver fastened the door closed with a piece of string. Pretty high tech, huh? Luckily no pieces fell off the plane, and we made it to a cute little bed and breakfast in Brussels that night. The man who owned the place is an artist who lives with his dog and he has the coolest apartment ever. We stayed in a room above the kitchen and he set out a breakfast every morning before he left for work and we got to sit and eat with his dog. I loved it, but it made me miss Nellie!


A pretty sandcastle on the beach!


The Boardwalk of Barcelona


Our Breakfast at the B&B!

Wednesday we wandered around the city of Brussels for a couple of hours and I had no idea what to expect. We found a little square called the Grand Place which was surrounded by beautifully decorated buildings. We also found a Cathedral that was absolutely gorgeous and we took a bunch of pictures in there. We tried some Belgian beer at an outdoor café and we had the necessary Belgian waffle with Belgian chocolate on top from a little street vendor. YUMMM. I am a huge fan of Belgian food now. In the afternoon we went to see the Mannekin Pis, a really famous fountain of a boy peeing and it was so small! I sometimes wonder how some statues become so famous… That night we had the best dinner of my semester abroad at a little corner restaurant right by where we were staying. I had ribs with salad and potatoes and it was sooo good! Afterwards, we went out for some more Belgian beer at a bar by the Mannekin Pis that was recommended in all of the guidebooks. It was really nice and cutely decorated


The Grand Place


Cool building in Brussels


Brussels


A necessary Belgian waffle!


Mannekin Pis Statue


Cute restaurant on the corner where we ate dinner



The Grand Place at Night

On Thursday we had another travel day, so we got up early to go shopping for some souvenirs (Belgian beer for Marty and chocolates for me!) Then we had a picnic lunch in yet another cute Belgian square and headed back to the airport to head to Marseille. We got to our hotel and tried to walk around, but absolutely nothing was open, not even a restaurant! We walked for about 2 hours and after finding nothing we went back to the hotel and ate chocolates because we were hungry and there was no food in the city!

Friday, we woke up and the city was miraculously alive! We learned that the French are not night people. Once the sun goes down, they go home. But in the morning the stores were open so we got some food and caught a bus down to the sea where there was a National Park (or that’s what it would have been in the US) called the Calanques. It was beautiful and we went hiking all day. We got back to the city at 5:30 or 6 and tried to eat dinner but the man made fun of us for wanting to eat so early and would only give us coffee. So we waited around for a while and had French crepes for dinner.


The Calanques


Pretty pretty sea


Marty and me at the Calanques

On Saturday we went around the Vieux-Port in the city and saw the sea and the boats and all of the shops. We hiked around and stopped in a couple of churches and had a pretty relaxed day after our exhausting hiking the day before!


Boardwalk of the Vieux-Port


Vieux- Port


A pretty church in Marseille


View of the Vieux- Port

Sunday we both headed our separate ways and I got back to Rome around 10. It was an amazing 2 weeks and I am so amazed by how easy it is to travel within Europe!

My weekend so far.

On Friday, our history teacher took us to see this church. That dome that you see is actually flat. An artist painted the dome on canvas and it was installed in the church. If you stand at the right angle, it looks like a real dome! Cool, huh?


After our walking tour on Friday, a couple of my friends and I walked around the Borghese Gardens before going to the Villa Borghese to look at some art. The park is so pretty!


I found Roman lilacs in the Borghese Gardens!! You can just imagine how happy this made me.


A lake right in the middle of the Borghese Gardens.


Villa Borghese: home to hundreds of absolutely beautiful paintings and sculptures. I went here with a couple of friends after our history tour and I fell in love with Bernini. They have 4 of his statues here and it is amazing to see how absolutely great he is! I could seriously stare at one of his statues for hours... I don't think that i could say that about any other piece of art. Amazing. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures anywhere in the museum, so I don't have pictures of his statues :(


This is why I don't cook... I absolutely love this coffee machine, but I forgot to put the filter on this morning, and this is what happened to the kitchen. It was absolutely hilarious, but it took FOREVER to clean up! The coffee actually shot all the way across the kitchen and stained our white walls. Oops.


We went to see Richard Meier's Jubilee Church this morning (Saturday). Gorgeous. BUT closed. It was like a scavenger hunt to get there... it took us over 2 hours (two buses plus one metro ride) the stops were so hard to find and we had to have a customer at a cafe lead us to the final bus stop! But we made it there and we looked around the outside, which was exactly how I imagined it (although there is a huge fence that closes it off from the community, making it look more like a prison than a church) I'm going back tomorrow morning to see the inside!!

This week I am off to Sicily for a field trip with my class and then I head to Spring Break in Barcelona, Brussels, and Marseille with Marty. It's going to be an exciting couple of weeks!