Quick Tidbits

1. last night i went to a spanish discoteca (mostly spaniards and spanish music instead of more international music and international people). at one point in the night they played "follow the leader" by the soca boys!!! i got sooo excited because it reminded me of puerto vallarta cerca 2000. the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire! we don't need no water, let the mother fucker burn! burn! burn! anyway, the spaniards were really into it and basically started line-dancing.

2. after spending the past weekend in france, i realized that french men are exponentially more attractive than spanish men.

3. thursday i'm done with classes for winter break! in a week i'm going to london!!

4. i eat a lot of dried fig and cheese sandwiches.

5. if i buy a baguette in the morning, it's gone by the time i go to sleep.

6. i still procrastinate heavily.

7. i got really into the t.v. show Dexter

Recent Travels and Turkey Day

Belgium, Netherlands, Thanksgiving, and Paris. Long Overdue Post

My last post ended seeing me on my way to Brussels, and it’s now been almost a month since the last post so quite a bit has passed. I’ll pick up where I last left off…

(+) 3 tapas: Brussels 24-hour adventure
While it was a bit of a trek getting to Brussels, it was completely worth it. Once I reached the city I wandered around by myself for about 6 hours without a map or a guidebook, which led to quite an interesting experience. As I searched around for 2 hours for a place to eat, I stumbled upon some pretty amazing sites. The whole city was entirely charming and beautiful. I was able to see the Bours, Saint Catherine’s Cathedral, the Grand-Place (city hall and world heritage site), a really cool derelict church, a courtyard that people don’t often go to because it’s out of the way, but very beautiful, and the major shopping area. I sampled some Belgian cuisine for lunch at Fritland, trying the beef carbonnade, Belgian fries, and a Jupiler beer. I also sampled quite a few dark chocolates from Leonidas. Eli finally got out of class and took a train over to Brussels, so I was able to meet up with him and our couchsurfing host, Jack, about 7 hours after my tour of the city. The three of us, and Jack’s girlfriend, went out to dinner then hit a popular bar for drinks. At this bar I was able to try my first Westmale, a true Belgian beer! The next morning before leaving I acquired my final treasure on the hunt for Belgian cuisine and had a scrumptious Liege waffle before boarding the train to Amsterdam!!

The Grand-Place, lit up at night!

(+) 2 tapas: Amsterdam 24-hour adventure
Awesome, beautiful, picturesque. Eli and I walked around a bit, Eli acting as tour guide since he’s been lucky enough to visit a couple times. The first day we hit most of the main sites, Dam Square (?), flower market (not so impressive), Van Gogh Museum, and the Rijksmuseum. At the Van Gogh Museum we got to see an art piece titled “For the Love of God”, which is this amazing platinum skull encrusted with over 8,000 diamonds!!! It was magnificent and beautiful but totally ridiculous and costs over 15 million GBP to produce. Later that night Eli took me through the Redlight District which was a complete, inescapable shock. Someone also offered us cocaine, which we politely declined. That night we had an awkward and uncomfortable couchsurfing experience, which is the reason for Amsterdam only receiving 2 tapas. The next day we hurried our asses out of that place to explore the rest of Amsterdam. We went to the Albert Cuyp Market, then the Anne Frank Museum (which we unfortunately did not have time to go into due to the long line and time constraints of travel). Instead I took lots of pictures from the outside and lots of pictures of dams in adorable Amsterdam. Then we walked over to Eli’s favorite pancake house, which turned out to be amazing. It was basically a closet at the top of really steep stairs, but turned out to be a hidden treat! After the pancake we left to go to Maastricht, and I was sad to leave, but am sure I’ll go back someday.
Just another dam, and me...

(+) 3 tapas: Maastricht by night
We got to Maastricht at about 6pm due to having to change modes of transportation 3 times because of train work :( boo. Eli made dinner for me and Josh (his older brother), we played a few drinking games, tried to rally the troops to go out, and eventually wandered from bar to bar in the little Dutch town. We had a great time going out, but I unfortunately had to wake up at 6am for my flight out of Eindhoven and hadn’t gone to bed until 4am. It was totally worth it being able to have fun with Eli and Josh and to explore Maastricht’s nightlife.

Josh, me, Eli

A few weeks later…

(+) 2 tapas: Thanksgiving, Spanish style
The UC coordinators here in Madrid organized a fancy sit-down dinner for every UC student studying in Madrid. This was interesting, it being the first time the year students got to meet and mingle with the semester students… which never really happened anyway, even after the large amounts of alcohol consumed by everyone. We ate some delicious food, even if it wasn’t as “traditional” as promised, and played some trivia games. I won a cookbook all about potatoes. I was really happy until I discovered that all the measurements are in Spanish, which means they aren’t actually measurements at all, but rather sizes to eyeball. Afterwards everyone went out and had a good time celebrating our holiday of family and gluttony!

(+) 2 tapas: Thanksgiving no. 2
Tina, one of the girls here for the year, invited everyone over for a second, more traditional Thanksgiving at her house. Everyone brought their own special dish (I brought Gung Gung’s candied yams), and Tina took care of the Turkeys. My low expectations for university students’ cooking were greatly exceeded, and the dinner was a complete success, as I left over-stuffed, happy, and tired.

(+) 2 tapas: Thanksgiving no. 3
Susi decided to make a Thanksgiving dinner for her roommates (2 French girls, a Spaniard, and Belgian) and invited me over to enjoy it! She whipped up a delicious meal which ended with Nico’s guest (an Argentinean bard) singing songs to us accompanying his voice on guitar. Que divertido!

And another week later… I will try to be brief, but we’ll see how well I’ll do.

(+) 4 tapas: Paris!!
Day 1: In the morning Jen (cousin, host, tour guide extraordinaire) and I visited mom’s recommendation for a good macaroon: Laduree. First real, French macaroon - very delicious, very expensive. Next we walked around the St. Germain area where I picked up my first real, French crepe. Also delicious. We then wandered over to the Notre Dame cathedral, explored the inside, and took lots of pictures. Next we walked over to the Louvre and took more pictures outside before we had to go back so Jen could get ready for work. After some napping I then walked over to the Eiffel Tower, about a 25 minute walk from Jen’s apartment, and basically took it all in for an hour. I got back to Jen’s at about 830 when she was done with work, and we went over the Champs Elysees for more sightseeing (Arc de Triomphe) and dinner. We ate at Leons where I tasted my first real, French “moules et frites” – mussels and fries.

Macaroons from Laduree, mmmm.

Notre Dame, crepe in hand.The Louvre

The Eiffel Tower sparkles at night! (It's lit up blue as the current host of the EU)

Champs/Arc combo in the middle of the intersection!

Day 2: In the morning we went far north to go see the Sacre Coeur. After lots of picture-taking, tourism, and exploring of the area, we went to Le Bon Marche for lunch. Again, we went back to Jen’s before her work and took another nap. After I woke from my nap I met up with my friend Jenna (who’s studying in Granada but happened to be visiting Paris at the same time) at the Louvre. Being Friday night after six, we were able to enter free as students. Exploring the Louvre felt like reliving AP World History in high school because I was able to see all these things that I had learned about then, like the Code of Hammurabi and ancient Egyptian society. I also got to see the famed Mona Lisa, which was exciting but definitely overrated.

At the bottom of the Sacre Coeur

Me and Jen in front of the Sacre Coeur. Other tourists just take crappy pictures.

Day 3: I woke up early to go visit the Palace of Versailles. I was really excited for this visit because I’d wanted to see it since learning about it during that AP world history class. The Palace was also set up with Jeff Koons’ pop art exhibit. The palace was amazing, beautiful, and extremely gaudy and I really enjoyed Koons’ art displayed all around the palace. The fabled gardens were larger than I had imagined, I only wished it were a warm summer day rather than a really cold, wintry one so that I might have been more willing to spend the afternoon there rather than leave after seeing what I thought was “enough”. The rest of the afternoon resulted in a failed attempt to check out the catacombs, and instead investing in some scrumptious looking pastries. That night I met up with Zoe (one of my best friends from high school, studying in Paris for the semester) and we went out to dinner in the Odeon area. It was great to see her and sample real French food together (i.e. escargot, a little too earthy for Z).

Jeff Koons' "Balloon Flower" in the middle of the courtyard in front of the palace.

Side of the palace from the gardens

The gardens of the palace

Day 4: The first Sunday of every month most of the museums in Paris are open for free. Jen and I took advantage of this and went to the Rodin Museum where I got to see the Thinker and the Gates of Hell. After the Rodin we strolled (and by strolled, I mean we took a lengthy walk) over to Angelina’s, mom’s other recommendation for great hot chocolate. Definitely some of the best hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted. We then walked through the Tuileries, which are pretty unimpressive in the winter, on our way to the Musee d’Orsay. Unfortunately the line on this particular free-Sunday was the size of a line for Disneyland, so we skipped it and went to la Marais, which is the Jewish quarter of Paris. We pretty much walked around and window-shopped for the rest of the day before getting one of the most delicious pita/falafel/kebabs I’ve ever had. After that we went back to Jen’s where I proceeded to pack up for my loathsome departure.

Cousin Jen and 'the Thinker'

The Rodin Museum - how cool would it have been to live here???

Paris was beautiful and amazing, filled with delicious food on every corner and beautiful architecture on every block. I was sad to go, but somewhat relieved to get back to Spain where the food is much cheaper and the people speak a language I understand. I’m excited to go back to Paris in the summer with my sister!!

P.S. My personal thoughts on the French public transportation system (RER, underground, train, tram): goddamn awful. Awful design, awful people who work for it, confusing signs and network.