25/05/09
After a decent night sleep we decided to meet up with my good friend and roommate next semester, Dan Klein, for lunch. We went out to the Duomo checked it out and went inside. Another nice looking church, but then again I have seen a million churches in the past 5 days. There we met up with Zak, David's model friend, and Dan. We went out to lunch at Dan's choice. It was true Italian food to say the least. The best noodles I have ever had, some pizza, a salad, and risotto. After lunch Zak and David had model appointments to make so me and Dan headed out to walk around and relax in Milan. Again it was upper 90's. I was pretty much used to sweating at this point of my trip; all day everyday. We went to their shopping district. Milan is apparently the capital of fashion currently. We walked by stores that I wouldn't even think of stepping foot in at this stage of my life. Stores that had clothes so expensive that you could probably by a cheap car in place of that new suit you bought. We then went to the park which was right next to the castle there. We ate some gelato and sat in the park under a shady tree and just talked and caught up with each other. Its always great to see a familiar face who knows and understands you so well; especially in a country that you have never been to. After hanging out in the park for about 2 hours Dan headed back to his dorm to finish up some school work and I headed back to David's to grab him and his roommate for the night. They got ready and we headed to Dan's dorm. His dorm is located in what used to be a hotel. A very nice dorm situation with balconies and a common area to cook and hang out. We then hung out and had a few beers outside and went to a bar where we got pretty happy and I headed back to the dorms and slept! Great relaxing day of not soo much tourism which is what I needed.

26/05/09
We started our day with McDonald's I got the McBacon and it was the worst tasting burger I have ever had in my life. Never again. We then got on a train and headed to a little city called Verana which is located on Lake Como very near to Belagio. The train ride was awesome in itself as the train followed along this lake. The cool thing about Italian trains is that you can stick your head out the window. So like a dog in a car I had my head out the window the whole time snapping pictures of the beautiful views. We got to this city and bought some gelato while walking along the lake. A very relaxing and tranquil area with the lake and in the background was the Swiss Alps. We found a VERY small beach. We were literally the only people on it and we jumped into the crystal clear water. The water was so clear that the girls were too scared to jump in cause the could see all the fish swimming around. We then dried off in the sweltering sun and walked around the city. We ran into the same people that we ran into at Cinque Terre which was pretty funny. We found a restaurant on the lake and relaxed and drank some slushy below freezing drinks to cool ourselves off. We then headed back to Milan. I didn't have much money nor did Dan so we decided to stay in for the night. We went to eat at an Apertivo which is you buy a 8 Euro HUGE alcoholic drink and then you get all the food you can eat from a buffet. There were salads, noodles, and pizza. We stuffed ourselves full each going up for 4ths. We then hung out outside on this big balcony with many other students that live in his dorms. We talked until the sun came up and watched the sunrise over the suburbs of Milan on the roof.

27/05/09
After not sleeping the whole night we went out for a sushi lunch. The sushi wasn't that good but whatever I tried sushi in Italy. Again another sweltering hot day. We walked the streets of Milan talking and just checking out the sights. There were a few canals, and apparently Milan was like Venice back in the day before it was built up and a city completely centered around the canals. We walked for a few hours and after sweating like a pig we headed back to Dan's dorms showered, grabbed my stuff and headed out to catch my 7:40 train to Barcelona. I didn't want to pay the extra 20 euros for a bed so I got a seat, but I was so sleep deprived I am sure I slept a good 4 hours or so. I was up every half hour/hour but I think I did sleep good because

28/05/09
I felt semi-rested when I got into Barcelona. I grabbed all my luggage which costed another 50 euros for leaving there over 10 some days. With all my bags in hand I headed to Madrid to grab my flight home! Got into Madrid around 4ish and dropped my bags off at a consignia again for a few euros and walked around the city of Madrid to say goodbye to Spain. I stopped at Eroski which is the main supermarket in Bilbao and grabbed a little dinner and ate it on a bench. I then stopped at a bar and had a drink. Met a man from the United States who has lived in Spain for the last 30 years of his life. Left the states around my age and raised a family in Spain and loves the decision he made. In my sleep deprived depressed mind it sounded like a great idea and something I would love to do, but lets see where life takes me. I then went back to the airport to sleep until my flight the next morning. I tried sleeping next to a security checkpoint since I couldn't check into my flight, but it was too loud. I then walked around for awhile when I found a cafe area with a ton of people sleeping around. So I grabbed myself a spot on the wall and was reading. I then started up a conversation with a nice lady from Brasil in which we ended up talking all night...... I was sleep deprived yes, but I love meeting people from new places.

29/05/09
The thought of Home had finally set in. It was a bittersweet thought. The sweetness of seeing my family and friends whom I haven't seen in 5 months and the bitter of leaving a life that I had grown to love and people that have literally made me their family. I was laeving with the feeling "Whenever you return to Spain, you have a home." When someone can say that to you, it brings a tear to your eye and a feeling of warmth to the heart. I made one last call on my Vodafone to say goodbye to a friend and turned it off for the last time. I was one of the first persons to clear customs and found a bench to sleep on and slept for an hour when I was awakened by chatter close to me. I realized it was some girl who was in the same line for the same plane as me earlier that day. I talked to her and she was a Spanish student doing the exact same thing I was doing Jan 12; heading to a country she had never been before, to stay with a family she didn't know and assume a new life. She was extremely nervous and I talked to her in Spanish and calmed her down and told her I would help out. We somehow sat next to eachother on the flight to Canada as I wowed her with stories about America. I helped her clear customs and make her flight to New York and she left me with "Whenever you come back to Alicante, you have a place to stay." I am now much more considerate of people visiting my country and those that have an interest in our culture, because I was once that person that was saying "What the HELL do I do." I grabbed another flight from Toronto into Chicago O'Hare and as I saw the sun setting on the skyline as we pulled into Chicago I felt a feeling of warmth in my heart and butterflies in my stomache.

Thank you so much Spain for everything that you have taught me about myself, I will return one day; maybe to live......

The first picture is of Me, Zak, David, and Dan in Milan, Italy. Funny that 2 kids you have known for years and years end up meeting you up in a random country.
The second picture is of BEAUTIFUL lake Como
The third is of me and Dan hanging out on a bridge over a canal in Milan.

24/05/09
So I woke up relatively early and decided it was time to leave for Florence. I decided that I was not going to stay in Florence and just do a day trip there and then head to Milan for the night. I am a smart thinker and know ways to save money! So I hopped on a train to Florence, which turned out to be a Eurostar train which is not covered by the Eurrail pass so I got hit with another fine. I was not really that impressed by the city of Florence when I got there. It might be because I went on a Sunday and a lot of things were closed and not many people were out, but I don't know. I bought a map and some travel agent lady pointed out the things I needed to see, and I was off. I checked out the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella, Basilica di San Lorenzo, Catedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, Piazza della Signoria, and Ponte Vecchio which was a bridge that lasted past WWII because, the "story" behind it, Hitler loved the bridge so much that he let it stand after he bombed all of Florence. It used to be the place to buy gold back in the day. They had a huge gold industry in the old day. Then I went to Piazza Michelangelo which had a beautiful panorama of the city of Florence. On my walk to the Piazza I walked passed a church that had mass going on. I listened in for awhile as the people sang in Italian which made my day. In the Piazza I grabbed some Chocolate Gelato (I became addicted to gelato in Italy) and sat taking in the city of Florence. I currently had no idea where I was going to stay when I got to Florence. It was a Sunday night and didn't have any numbers of my friends. I had sent them e-mails but hadn't had time to hear back from them. So I was looking like I was sleeping in the train station when I heard some ladies talking English. I immediately started talking and walking with them. They informed me that they were heading to the internet cafe. It was a longshot but I went with them to check my e-mail. When I got there I had a message from David Mintz with his address. So after seeing all the sights that I needed to see I headed out to Milan. I met a nice Milanese lady on the train who gave me directions in broken English on how to get to Davids. I got to David's around 10:30, and he was completely surprised that I made it to his place, but what can I say? I am a world traveler. His apartment is a 2 bedroom one bath place with a rooftop balcony. A very nice place centrally located in Milan. We talked and ate a little then went to bed. The first picture I posted is of the Catedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, a gothic style church finished in the 1200s. The next is a panorama view of the city which has a river running through it.

23/05/09
After a well deserved good night sleep I woke up around 9:30 and headed out to see Rome. My camera ran out of memory since I had over 200 pictures on it so I have no pictures from this day but I did see a lot of cool things. I started at the Castel S. Angelo. This building was once used as a castle for the rich and powerful, had a prison, and was also used as a fortress. It was an amazing building filled with interesting artifacts and had a beautiful views of the city of Rome. I then went to the Vila Borghese which was a park filled with museums and many people. I walked through the Kings once private gardens (which were huge, well maintained, and looked like something out of a movie) checked out some monuments, and relaxed by a pond. I then grabbed a slice of pizza for 3 Euros. The cool thing about Italy is you can by pizza, they will cut it off, weigh it like its deli meat and then charge you for it. I got sausage, cheese, and mushroom, but there was no sauce on it. That is the cheapest way to eat. I then did a ton of walking while just looking around and taking in the town and then went to the Musei Capitolini which is the oldest public museum. It is in a building from the 1500's and I feel like the building was a piece of history itself and didn't need to house precious artifacts. The ceilings were covered in paintings from famous artists and the whole building seemed to have a story to tell. I have noticed through my trips in Europe that ceiling were a lot more important back in the day; covered in art and detail. Not anymore apparently. I then went outside and took a nap outside the colliseum and next to some ancient ruins that have recently been discovered on a bench under a tree since the sun was still beating down on me. After doing some more walking I headed back to the hostel to pick up my journal and upload my photos so I could continue using my camera. I then took a walk and grabbed banana, mango, and coconut gelato and sat outside writing. All flavors were so delicious. I then grabbed a beer and relaxed as the sun set over Rome. After that, we headed out for the spanish steps pub crawl, which started on the Spanish Steps which are a huge group of steps that lead to a church. We went to 4 bars and then out with some cool Italian guys. Many people have said that Rome is a dangerous city, but I never felt endangered. I did watch a lady get her bags robbed but that was because she was an idiot. If you put your bags down in the middle of a crowded street and not watch them, they are obviously going to get stolen. In any big city that you encounter. I will definitely return back to rome on another day. I will put up some pictures of Rome now that I have a few. These are all at night, but some of the sights look magnificent at night. I put up two pictures, one is of the Vittori Emmanuele II Monument, and the second is of the Spanish Steps

20/05/09
We woke up a little later due to our late night the night before and got ready to leave the southern part of France. I really enjoyed it immensely. We got on a train and headed to Monaco. Monaco is its own small country and just FILLED with rich people. We got in and realized that something was going on.....the Grand Prix was the next day! All the roads were set up with barriers and there were seats on all the streets. It was once again swarming with people on an extremely hot day. We once again went to a grocery store to get food and I got chips, swiss cheese, and a sausage that I was fairly sure needed to be cooked before eating. We sat by the water on a street where the Grand Prix would take place the following days. After food, we walked around the city of Monaco and checked out the sites. Basically the sites of Monaco consist of viewing the lifestyles of the rich and the famous. I went to the bathroom in a five star hotel. Don't know how they allowed me to walk in and use their facilities but it was interesting! As we walked down the streets we saw Bentleys and Ferraris on the streets like it was no big deal. Literally 1 in every 10 cars was a 100K car. We rode the bus through the city and got a view of everything we could. There were rolex dealers, ferrari dealers, designer clothes dealers, and just anything that was upper class you could buy. We then headed to the beach. This beach was a gravel beach and sort of hurt my feet, but it was ok. Once again I swam in my underwear and am completely sunburned. Visiting this city made me realize that I have to purchase a yacht and summer in Monaco. The set-up of the Grand Prix in Monaco was so cool. Especially as we rode the bus and took the hairpin turns around the soon to be track. It reminded me of the videogames! We then got on a train and headed to Pisa. Getting into Italy is my new goal for the night. To make it cheap you have to take trains that just cross the border. After just crossing the border you can get on a train that is owned by that certain country and that way it won't cost you too much money. That is what I learned from my Eurrail adventures. So we got on the train and got to a city right over the border and then transferred trains to get into Pisa. We got into Pisa around 2:30 AM in the morning with no idea where we were going to stay. We found a HOTEL, yes a HOTEL. This hotel was pretty ghetto tho with the bathroom outside of the room. We were satisifed with the fact that it costed 25 Euros a piece so we booked it.

21/05/09
So we woke up at 9:00 AM and headed out after 5 hours a sleep. The theme for this trip, like every other theme of all my trips is "you can sleep when you die. I once again was sleep deprived the whole trip but it was worth it. So we headed out and took a quick picture at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I can not post it because I currently do not have the picture, but I will put it up when I get it. We took the cliche picture where it looks like you are holding up the tower and then we took off for Cinque Terre. It was an hour and a half ride into Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre basically means 5 cities and is exactly that; five cities along the sea and up in the mountains. Known for its beautiful views and hiking trails. We started hiking and ran into time trials for a cycling event called "Giro D'Italia". Apparently Lance Armstrong was there, but we didn't see him exactly. These cyclists were literally going 40 MPH down these winding hilly streets. We continued our hike and Alex took us off the beaten path and we got stuck in an extremely mountainous terrain where they were farming something I had no idea what it was; it looked like wine or something along those lines. We then had a troubled time getting back to the trail but we did it. We then took my advice and headed along this trail up a huge mountain; we had to stop a few times to catch our breath and took a look behind us to see where we came from. We finally got to the top where there was a city and we asked for directions in broken English/French/Spanish. We walked along a trail that had to be about 4 miles that took us through forests into an opening where we were basically on top of the world. We could see forever down the sea and little towns below us. It was quite breathtaking. It took us over 2 hours to conquer this trail and we barely ever saw people. It was a quiet very relaxing walk where you were able to think about life. It was very mind clearing on some trails where one false move would lead to a 100 ft tumble down a sure death fall. I am not even joking about this, there were times where it was extremely scary and you literally needed to hold on to trees to cross parts. I won't lie and say that my heart wasn't racing at times. Finally we made it to the next city tired and ready to swim. There wasn't any beaches in this town so we hopped on the train and went to the next town on the line. Waiting for the train we met some people from Chicago who had children that actually went to the same Highschool as I did! Such a small world. We found the sea and went swimming. We jumped into the chilly water and swam around. Alex got scared because we saw a baby Octopus swimming around by us. I won't lie it scared me as well. We found a cliff and climbed up and did some cliff diving which was cool too. We then grabbed a bottle of white wine that was made in Cinque Terre and grabbed a bite to eat. I had stuffed Mussels which were delicious, but small for the price we paid. So Italy, as well as France, is expensive. We then headed back to our hotel from the night before at 10:00 PM to pick up our bags. Alex was extremely tired and suggested we stay at the hotel and I said NOPE were going to Rome. We found the next train to be at 2:30 AM. So we went to the train station Alex slept a bit and I stayed awake too scared to close my eyes with all of our luggage around. So we get on this train at 2:30 AM which sure beats paying for sleeping arrangements and head for Rome.

22/05/09
We got on to a completely packed train. Like I explained before 6 seats facing each other, but the problem was all these seats were taken so we had to sleep sitting up. I got about 45 minutes of sleep and we got into Rome at about 5:30 AM. I had only slept a bit but I was wide awake. Pulling into the city of Rome was the craziest feeling ever. I couldn't belive I was going to a city that I have heard so much about. Alex went to get ready in the train bathroom while I waited once again. We then headed to the Vatican Museum around 8:00 and got into a HUGE line. Luckily we got into line early because if we were an hour later or so we would have been waiting all day. The Vatican City is a wall enclosed city within Rome. It has its own currency and post office. I am not exactly sure if people live there. The museum had a plethora of statues and art work. We then headed to the Sistine Chapel which is where the popes are elected. You have to be quiet in there and you aren't allowed to take photos, but I did sneak a photo of the Creation of Adam by Michelangelo. Which is once again not with me currently. Thats the famous two hands touching painting. It is on the ceiling and I was in awe when I saw it. Literally my mouth dropped and i went "OOOOOOO." I then split up with Alex to get some alone time and headed to St. Peter's Basilica. It began construction in 1506 and finished in 1626 and this thing is massive and is able to hold about 60,000 people. It is considered one of the holiest sites in the Christian religion. I was going to go to the top but the line was a few hours long and I didn't feel like doing it. So I walked around, prayed a little bit, which is a lot to say to a man who isn't that religious. It gave me chills to stand in that church, the atmosphere was that strong. So I started to wonder aimlessly through the city of Rome. It was once again an extremely hot and sweaty day. I went into another church (the name is on my pictures!!!!) and then asked some Americans (cause Rome is filled with them) where I should go. They pointed me in the direction of the Vittorio Emmanuele II Monument. It was made to honor the first king of a united Italy and I couldn't believe that this was just a monument. The beauty and detail of this monument is comparable to none other. Not to mention it was HUGE; probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen. So I climbed to the top and looked around and spotted the Colliseum also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre because it was built by the Flavian family (or their slaves) in 70 AD. Seeing that site gave me chills once again. So after all this touring, sweating, no eating, and no sleeping I figured it was break time. I hopped on a random bus, and got of in a place that looked cool. I walked around forever looking for the right place to stop. Saw some sights on the way and finally found my place with 3 Euro beers and snacks! Ate a pretty subpar tuna sandwich and had a beer and met some lady from Canada. Her name was Ana and she was a 35 worker of the Canadian government. She had been there a few days and agreed to show me around. She first took me to the Pantheon which was built for all the gods and refurbished in 126 AD. It is unknown how they created such a huge dome so early. There was a opening right in the middle where the sun could come in. Very cool. We then went to the Fontana di Trevi which is the largest baroque fountain in the city and was also stunning. We did the tradition tourist thing and threw money over our shoulder into the fountain as a promise to return to Rome. Rome finds a way to steal money from me in every which way. We then hung out in a plaza and watched people go by. The plazas are decorated nicely with beautiful churches, monuments, and fountains. I then met up with Alex in the train station and we left to find where we were sleeping. It turned out that there was a very big soccer game going on in Rome so it was hard to find cheap rooms. We met some guys who were pushing a barcrawl and they had connections with hostels. They made some calls and found us a sweet hostel for 25 euros a night. We shared a room with 6 other people who did not speak english, french, or italian! After that I took a desperately needed shower and then we headed out to dinner. I had clams with spaghetti and then calamari. After dinner I passed out immediately. That was the most packed day I have ever encountered. They say Rome is an extremely huge city, but I was able to take down the majority of it in one day. I felt confident in my navigational skills.

I don't currently have the pictures to articulate what we did for the first part of our trip, but I want to write what we did while it is still fresh in my mind.

17/05/09
We got up early in Marseille, France and headed out. We grabbed breakfast at McDonalds and walked to the Basilique de Notre Dame de la Garde. This was a huge church on top of a hill that overlooked the whole city of Marseille. There were many islands surrounding the huge city. The views were amazing. We then walked to Fort St. Nicholas which was from the French Revolution. Sadly the whole thing was not open because they were doing construction. We then stopped for a beer on the street and met some ladies from the United States who were on the same type of adventure that we were; going from town to town on the trains. We then went to Cathedrale La Major. We then went to another church. It was an extremely hot day so we decided to get on the bus and head to the beach called Plage Du Prophete. The beach was small but beautiful and surrounded by mountains. I didn't have my swimsuit on me so I stripped down to my underwear (which is normal apparently) and took a dip in the fresh water. We then took a nap. We then headed back on the bus. What I have learned from the south of France is that it is extremely expensive. We bought dinner at the grocery store because we did not want to spend money on a dinner. It was still expensive; I bought a can of ravioli for 1.50 Euros which was a subpar dinner. After getting back to the hostel Alex took a nap and I continued to walk around the city. I love hearing the sounds of the bustling city and not being able to understand anything anyone says. I walked to another huge church and then headed back to the hostel. I woke Alex up and we went and drank a beer purchased at the Supermarket with our feet in the Mediterranean Sea. We then walked around the city. We met some guys that spoke some English. These guys were definitely on drugs. Their names were Jamelski, Fayce, and Vladmir. Jamelski had lived in New York for some time and was in France to start a rap career. He wasn't really a good rapper but he was an interesting cracked out character. We hung out outside and had a beer with these guys and just chatted it up while we watched them rap battle eachother in French. It was quite cool. We then headed back to the hostel to call it an early night. We had another early day ahead of us. My overall thoughts on Marseille were that it is a beautiful city with really nice people. I have learned through my travels that the people can make or break the city that you visit. The atmosphere was also a little on the shady side.

18/05/09
Alex got up at 6:30 and I got up 10 mins before we needed to leave. We finally left the hostel at 7:45. We got on a 8:29 train and headed to Cannes. The thing I didn't know is that I needed to make a reservation with my Eurrail pass, which I did not do, so that ended up costing me a little bit of money. We arrived at Cannes and took the walking tour (which was basically a path highlighted on a map). Our first stop was, once again, a church on a hill where we saw a panorama of Cannes. Cannes is definitely a smaller city then Marseille, but you can tell that it is filled with money. Huge yachts are docked, red carpets are rolled out all over the place, and people are dressed to impress. They had a ton of shopping, but it was a little out of our price range, and I wasn't on this trip to do shopping anyways. We then walked along the waterfront where million dollar yachts were docked. They had bigger televisions on their boat then we have in our house. These boats were from all over the world and just looked made of money. We then walked down a beautiful beach and Alex grabbed some food. We then split up so Alex could shop and I stopped at the grocery store in hopes of finding cheap food. I picked up the cheapest bag of chips which turned out to be peanut butter flavored, and a thing of meat and cheese. Which also turned out to be expensive; impossible to make it a cheap trip when you NEED to eat. We got lucky and were in Cannes during the film festival so this little city was bustling with people all on their cell phones, and all looking like they had money. I have never seen prettier girls and more fashionable men. You see Ferraris and Lamborghinis driving down the street and it is no big deal. We then found a red carpet and tried to enter to see some movie premieres, but you need a ticket to enter and they are impossible to come by. We then found a beach that was right next to the film festival. The beaches there were relatively topless which made it an interesting walk. I brought a swimsuit this time so we changed and jumped in the water and once again took a short nap on the beach. After, I realized that I was completely sunburned from the day before and this day. It was once again around middle 90s outside so we were sweating. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and looked out of place. We then found that a pretty popular movie was going to get premiered so we waited for that to occur. We watched them roll out the red carpet and then an hour later escort cars started pulling up and famous people got out of the back. These people were dressed even better then the people we saw on the streets. We saw the kid from Slumdog Millionaire, Clint Eastwood, and Hillary Swank. I wasn't too impressed with seeing these people, but Alex loved it. We then got on the train and headed towards Nice. The ride was about an hour long to Nice. We found a Hostel that was in Alex's book and it was sort of like a frat house. It was beautiful on the outside and had tons of rooms. We shared a room with two random Canadians. We then went out for dinner at a restaurant where no one spoke English, so I just pointed at things and ended up having a dinner of Chicken in a wine sauce, and some vegetables which was really good. We then headed back to the hostel and went to bed to start our day off early.

19/05/09
We woke up around 9:30 and ate breakfast, which was included, at the hostel. We then took off to explore Nice. They had a really cool old square where you could go shop and of course I ended up waiting while Alex spent more money on a dress and a few rings. We then climbed a hill where we could get another panorama of the city. The city was pretty small, but not as small as Cannes. We walked to a waterfall and then headed down and walked through the city and decided to head to Antibe. Antibe is where a lot of the movie stars stay while they are spending time at the Cannes Film Festival. Antibe was an extremely small beachtown that once again had a ton of million dollar yachts. We grabbed some beers and went to the beach. We drank and took a dip in the water and enjoyed the beach. This beach was pretty small, but completely packed with people. I then met some Australian guys who were playing frisbee and I joined in playing with them. After, we talked and they were all in Antibe looking for work. Apparently there are thousands of huge yachts that need deckhands to wash the boat and take care of it for the millionaires that own them. Would not be a bad lifestyle to hang out on a huge boat in paradise all day. We then headed back to Nice on the train where I had a Doner Kebab. After we drank a little at our hostel and met some people from Finland who had just finished Film School. We then went to an Americanized bar called Wayne's and had a drink and talked to people. There were a bunch of people dressed up so we started talking to them. These adults were in Nice for a Coal Convention. We talked to them and made friends with all of them. We walked home to the birds chirping and went to bed. My opinion of Nice is that it is a pretty big town with a Suburban feeling. I never felt in danger once while I was there and I realized that I really didn't see any homeless people. I would love to visit Nice another time.

I am going to open up with the fact that I finally made it home. After traveling for about 30 hours straight and trying to sleep on a train one night, and a marble airport floor the next my bed felt great. But the point of this post is to explain my 14 day trip of insanity through France and Italy. So I will start from the beginning.

15/05/09
I had woken up that morning and checked my book to see that I could catch a train at 10:00 PM to get into Barcelona in the morning. We had a closing session for school at 5 that night. So I went to lunch with my house mom and walked her to work. We said our goodbyes, and some tears followed. She was my mother for 5 months and saw me everyday during those 5 months, it was hard not to cry. We had a connection to each other. So I got on the metro at like 3:30 to go book my train before I went to the ceremony. I had all my luggage and got the station and asked them about the train to Barcelona which they seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. So I moved to my next option. Is there any way that I can get to Barcelona by tomorrow morning. The lady did some typing on her computer and found a train into a town called Burgos where I could then transfer to a train to Barcelona.....the problem was the train was leaving in 10 minutes. I said book it, called my friends and told them goodbye, I will not be at the ceremony. With this change came some unexpected costs. I had to book a ticket in first class on a train that was leaving at 2 AM from Burgos. So I was out of Bilbao for the rest of my life, but my heart will always remain there. I can not thank my parents enough for allowing me to do the experience of study abroad. Not only did I learn so much about the culture, the language, the people, and the continent of Europe; I also learned so much about myself. So I get on this train to Burgos and get a call from my buddy who is angry at me cause I seemed to have pulled off the best grades out of all of our friends (4 As and a B, but I am not bragging). I get into Burgos around 7 PM and notice there is an earlier train and go talk to someone about this problem. I solve my problem of the expensive first class ticket on a 2 AM train by purchasing a second class ticket on a train that is 2 hours earlier. I am quite the problem solver. So I get on this train which is a night train. On night trains they have 6 seats facing eachother in this small room. The seats can pull out all the way to make a bed. I am in the room with some random girl and another guy, so we all sprawl out and fall asleep........I don't because I am too excited and full of emotion. This lasts an hour as the train makes a stop in another town and more people enter. So we get woken up by a family who is in our car.

16/05/09 (Since it is now after Midnight)

I change seats and sit next to the girl so that the family can sit together. We get to talking and I make a new friend named Yaiza from Galicia. She doesn't speak ANY english besides Hello and a few random words like Butter. We have an interesting conversation and we watch the sun rise as we pull into Barcelona; this watching the sun rise while I pull into cities becomes a normality on this trip. So I get off the train and I have no credit on my phone to get into contact with my travelling partner, Alex, but luckily Yaiza was nice enough to let me use her phone. We call Alex, I meet her up and we say our goodbyes. Me and Alex drop off the bags we are not travelling with and head out to check out Barcelona for a few hours before our train to Marseille. We had a coffee, since we both haven't slept and went to the open air market to grab some food and then went to the Segrada Familia. We then catch a train, I found out you can travel for free if you do short distances. So we go from Barcelona to Cerbere, France which is right on the border of Spain and France. We then caught a train to Narbonne and finally Marseille. These train rides were so beautiful since we literally followed the Meditteranean sea the whole time. There were times where it was the train, ocean, and then swamp on the other side. I felt like I was travelling through Louisiana. At this point on the train we have no idea where we are going to stay or even if we will make it to Marseille, but we do make it to Marseille and start walking around looking for Hostels. I walk into everyone looking for the cheapest price. I find one for 15 euro and say book it. This hostel was extremely dirty with a non functioning elevator. Its about 10 minutes away from the train station and in an area that is extremely Arabic, but we are fine. So we walked around a little bit, grabbed a glass of wine, and had a bite to eat. We head to beat early and thats the start of our Europe trip!

Time is winding down here, and I completely loved my experience abroad. Not only have I learned so much about the culture, the language, and the people, but I also learned soooo much about myself. I am writing this post because I am going to post a picture of my senora and I. Also here is my schedule for next weeks Eurrail trip:
5/16 to 5/29
Marseille, Nice, Cannes, Cinque Terra, Monaco, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan!!!!