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!!!!

15/04/09
Today we woke up in the Jump Inn Sharm and headed to the Sea Club all inclusive hotel. We all got there a little tired from our travels and headed to the beach on the Red Sea. We snorkeled a bit in the coral right off of the beach and saw some extremely colorful small fish. We then caught a few more rays of the sun and swam around in the water. There was a pier where you could jump into 20 ft of water and it opened later on in the day. We all jumped in and realized we were SURROUNDED by jellyfish. We all freaked out and swam back to the pier and got out of the water. That was the last time we went in there. We then played Bocci Ball with a few old Italian guys and then got ready for dinner. This hotel made me feel like I was in Cancun; just with a much prettier view. We were all still tired after dinner and knew we had a long day ahead of us so we finished our night off laying on the beach and looking at the stars.

16/04/09
We woke up in the morning and headed out to go snorkeling. We got to a dock where we found out that Pat's uncle had gotten us our own private boat. We sailed for about 45 minutes where we stopped at a huge coral reef. We all jumped in and snorkeled for about a half hour. We saw some of the craziest colored fish we have ever seen. Bright greens, turquoise, pink, and bright yellow were some of the colors of these fish. We then got on the boat and sailed for another half hour to see some more coral. Once again, extremely beautiful I dove to look into a cove; I saw some beautiful fish but got burned by fire coral on my arm. We then had lunch on the boat. We had some fish that was literally the freshest fish I have ever eaten. It melted in my mouth. We then snorkeled/swam a little bit more in some open water and headed back to the dock. We got into the bus and headed back to the hotel where we ate dinner and decided our plans for the night. We were offered to go to a club, but it was 30 Euros, and we didn't have that type of money. We went out on our own and caught a bus to the city of Sharm. This bus was a local bus that drives people home from work. We got us 7 into this mini bus and when we got there the driver wanted 30 egyptian pounds. Pat worked his magic once again and got it down to 15 egyptian pounds which is roughly 3 bucks. Yes, a 20 min ride for a total of 3 bucks. When we got to downtown Sharm some people decided to go to the casino; I once again didn't have money so a few of us went to the Hard Rock Cafe. We hung out there for about an hour and then went to Panorama which is a bar that overlooks all of Sharm. We hung out for one beer and then headed back to the hotel. When we got back, those that had gone to the casino were all depressed. Thats their fault. When we were in Sharm I realized how much Muslims hate Americans. Everytime I told someone I was American they had a wise comment like "Oh where is your horse?" or "Where is your gun. Are you in the mafia?" I finally realized that I could not tell people I was from America anymore and started telling people I was from Spain. It stopped people from trying to sell me things because when I spoke Spanish they didn't understand and just forgot about me. I am an itelligent one......remember that.

17/04/09
After about 2 hours of sleep, we hopped on a plane to Cairo. 45 minutes later we are grabbing our bags and heading to the city. We got to our hotel which was right on the Nile. Once again a thanks to Pat's uncle. We put down our bags and met up with Pat's uncle at his office. We had a traditional Egyptian coffee which was a lot thicker then American coffee. Walking through the streets during lunchtime was insane. People were literally ON the streets praying as loudspeakers blasted prayers in Arabic. People could not drive down some streets. We then went out to lunch.....to McDonald's. The menu was in English and in Arabic and it was quite funny to get McDonalds in Egypt. It tasted the same. After lunch we went to the Cairo museum where we saw many artifacts that were discovered in tombs; many of the artifacts were from King Tut. The luxury and detail that these artifacts had from about 5000 years ago. I can't believe some of the things these people brought with them to the afterlife. We then went to a street market where people tried to sell us a ton of stuff. I did not have the bargaining skills nor the money that Pat had so I didn't purchase anything. Pat got a bunch of gold and silver things for his family for pretty cheap prices, but I didn't see anything I liked.....seriously. I am a horrible shopper, I needed a girl with me, preferably my mom. She would have LOVED it. It was fun walking around there and just watching all the people. It was the coolest type of people watching I have ever seen. We then went back to the hotel and headed out to go to Chilli's for dinner. It was good, once again tasted the same, but Pat LOVED it. It was in a huge mall; bigger then Woodfield. 7 floors and quite the hoppin place. This mall made me feel that Egypt wasn't third world. We then got into 2 cabs and rode home. These cabbies were friends and were quite speedy. Weaving in and out of traffic. I said earlier that driving in Egypt is crazy. Its even crazier when your in the car that when it passes you your like "OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT DRIVER THINKING." We all held on for dear life as we made it back to our hotel in half the time it took us to get to Chilli's. After getting back to the hotel I laid in my bed and listened to the bustling Cairo city and went to bed.

18/04/09
I woke up earlier then everyone extremely thirsty. We could not drink the faucet water so I went out for a walk to purchase water. I walked to the Nile and found a vender who sold me a huge water. I then walked back to the hotel to wake everyone up and we headed out to Giza to see the pyramids. Giza is about 30 mins out of Cairo. We got to the pyramids and went into the Great Pyramid. Seeing the pyramids was breathtaking and going inside the pyramid was a little claustrophobic. There wasn't much to see inside but it was just cool climbing sideways to the center of the pyramid. We then took camels to the panorama where you could see the city of Egypt and all 3 pyramids. We stayed there for about 15 minutes learning about the history behind the pyramids and then we took the bus back to Pat's other uncle's house. This uncle is EXTREMELY rich. Pat says he is one of the top 25 most rich people in Egypt. He owns the largest steel company in Egypt. His house was 7 floors overlooking the pyramids. It has its own pool, basketball court, soccer court, tennis court, garden, animals that they kill to eat, a guest house, a pool house, and 8 full time servants. So we had a huge meal, literally 15 plates filled with all different types of food; liver, veal, salad, soup, sausage, and anything else you could think of. His aunt and uncle were not eating due to the fact that they were fasting. We then went to their roof and watched the sun set on the pyramids. One of the most amazing views of my life. The sky was a beautiful orange and the sun set RIGHT over the pyramids. We then played a game of basketball and swam a little. We talked to his uncle and around 10 at night we headed back to the hotel. We went out in Cairo that night to a local club.

19/04/09
I woke up and headed to the airport. I travelled from Egypt through Frankfort to Madrid. I then caught a bus back to Bilbao. 18 hours later I was back home in Bilbao. This trip was a trip of a lifetime.......... I can never experience anything like I just did ever again. A lot of these stories are just the straight facts. Once again I am doing this for the majority of me remembering what happened. There is a lot of further explanation I can give on the status of Egypt, my feelings for the people, their economy, the history I learned, and the things I saw. There just isn't enough time to write down everything.........
That is all, please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments!

13/04/09 Luxor, Egypt.
We once again woke up around 6:30 AM and headed to the Valley of the Kings. We got there around 9 AM and I would say it was already 100 degrees out; literally I had already undressed myself down to my undershirt and had my other shirt over my head to block the sun. The Valley of the Kings is an area where 63 tombs of old kings have been found. They literally just found the 63rd one and believe there to be a ton more in the valley. It is a mountainous region that had tombs dug into the mountain; how anyone found it I will never know. Our pass allowed us to see 3 tombs, so our guide took us through a bunch of the King Ramses tombs (there were like 10 King Ramses')
Sidenote: All of these excursions that we took costed me half price. Before I came to study abroad my parents intelligently bought me an ISIC (International Student Identification Card) and that was the only type of identification they took for students pretty much.... Also the Egyptians are extremely racist against other cultures. While I was paying 30 egyptian pounds (like 6 bucks), normal people were paying 60 egyptian pounds (like 12 bucks), Tannous, an egyptian citizen was paying 4 egyptian pounds (less than a dollar).
So we finished visiting the tombs and hopped on the bus to go to Al-Deir/Al-Bahari Temple. This temple was a long HOT walk away. By this time it was like 11:30 and ATLEAST 110 degrees out. So hot that our tour guide didn't walk to the temple with us and went back to the bus. We went, walked through the temple, took a few pictures and went back to the bus. We then headed back to the bus. As we drove back to our Cruise Ship we passes many small villages. People were swimming in the small river that we were driving alongside, and houses look liked they probably didn't have running water. I am willing to argue with anyone that Egypt IS a third world country.
We got back to the boat and laid on the deck for awhile. We were still docked in Luxor and we saw a guy baithing his horse in the Nile. Tannous loves animals and I really wanted to swim in the Nile so we headed down to talk to this guy. I asked the cruise boat manager if I could jump in the Nile, and he told me it was strictly forbidden to swim in it due to the fact that it is so polluted. I was extremely saddened by this fact, but realized I did not want to end up in the hospital that night so I took his words of advice. We went and talked to this man and Tannous spoke to him in Arabic explaining our situation; I sneakily put my foot in the river. I can now say that I have "been" in the Nile (cross it off the list). This man was dressed in nothing but his "Gap" white underwear so I considered him to be a poor man, but he told us he owned a Felluka boat and was willing to take us out on it that night no charge. So we go out with him on his boat and he takes us to a small island. We go on the island and sample some bananas that were picked right off the tree behind us; these bananas were probably the most delicious bananas I have ever tasted. I never thought I could use the word juicy to describe a banana......but I just did. This man was extremely nice and invited us to come back to his village. We agreed and went back to his village to play a game of soccer. His friends vs. Us..... Egypt vs. The United States if you may. We walk through his town as all the kids, who know absolutely no English, scream "Hello!" to us. I know immediately I was safe in this village as I watched 6-10 year olds outside playing makeshift games of soccer and running around on the sandy roads. We walked to the local YMCA and started a game of soccer. We had no shoes, so we played barefoot on this cementlike surface outside with the lights shining on our game. We ended up losing 2-1 but it was a great time playing a game of soccer against Egyptians. We then went back to a local watering hole, had some Fantas and relaxed while Hassan's wife cooked us dinner. After, we went back to his house to eat. We were not allowed to see his wife because it is against Muslim culture. So we sat down and ate his wife's cooking; delicious whole chicken, potatos in a red sauce, cucumber and tomato salad, and bread. We ate until we were stuffed and then relaxed on his roof drinking tea.

14/04/09
We packed up and got ready to check out of the cruise, but before we completely left Luxor we went to the Karnak Temple. We went solo, without a guide and got there. Just so you know I am not lying about the temperature a message board read 42.5 degrees celcius at about noon when we headed to the temple. So we get there and we only have an hour to spare because Tannous has an earlier flight then us. We pay for our tickets and some guy offers us his guide services for 100 egyptian pounds. We say no and he goes down to 50 pounds. Thats under 10 bucks for 6 people so we decided to go with it. This guide was amazing, knowing we had to go fast, he took us through the temple within an hour pointing out amazing things. He explained the reason that the faces were messed up on all the statues was due to the fact that when the Christians came, they thought that the spirits of the God's in the statues were still alive and looking at them. So they scratched off their eyes, ears, and nose so they couldn't hear, smell, or see the people. He also showed us how they put color to their images using sandstone that was in the tomb itself. We then went back to the ship. Tannous took off and we waited a few hours to leave for our flight. Around 4, we caught a cab to go to the airport, checked in and got on a plane towards Sharm El Sheikh. This was probably the bumpiest flight I had ever been on and as I calmly looked around at all my wide eyed friends, I realized that I have no problems with travelling. I think that comes from my dad. Anyways, 45 minutes later we are landing in Sharm El Sheikh. We get to the "Jump Inn Sharm" a hostel I booked and Tannous had already talked to his Uncle. We are not going to stay here all three nights, but only one. The next two nights will be spent in an all inclusive hotel right on the beach of the Red Sea for about the same price. Once again, Pat's uncle has hooked us up. We check out the streets of Sharm El Sheikh which remind me of Cancun. There are a ton of bars and restaurants all wanting your business and people will stop at nothing to try and get that business. We ate a bit and headed back early, ready for another long day tomorrow.

The first picture is of our 5-star cruise boat. Presidential Nile Cruises (TELL YOUR FRIENDS) I know what your thinking. That doesn't look like a 5-star cruise ship. Please remember that the Nile River is a lot smaller then what a normal cruise boat would be on. Believe me, the food, service, and adventures we had on that boat make it a five star cruise boat. Pat was hungry one night and walked to the kitchen at 2 AM. They served him. We were royalty on that boat. No doubt.
The Second picture is sort of an action shot of us walking down a street in the village of Luxor with Hassan. Notice the kids outside, the sand road, and the lack of neon signs.
The third picture is of us all on the small boat heading to the island with Hassan.
The fourth picture is of the sun setting while we were on the island. Look how picturesque that sunset is!

10/04/09
So I landed in Cairo around 11 PM purchased a visitors pass for 15 dollars and wondered out on to the streets and realized I had no phone that worked in Cairo and had no idea where I was going or how to get there. So I asked a guy in a suit if he spoke English and he said yes, and he let me use his phone. None of the numbers I had were working so I had to call the only other number that I had, Pat's grandma. This lady is 85 years old, doesn't speak english and is hard of hearing. This gentleman talked to her (repeated a bunch of his sentences numerous times) and got me a number to reach Pat. He came with his uncle and picked me up and we headed back to his Uncle's place to gather everyone. His uncle's place is located in the center of Egypt and it is a beautiful 3 bedroom 3 bath upper middle class apartment. Driving in Cairo is chaotic. No street lights, no lanes, no rules. I held on for dear life is cars cut us off and sped right past us. Kids walked through traffic like it was no problem. I can't explain it at all... Cairo is a city of about 24 million people and I feel that everyone was on the road at that time. The horn is a completely overused object. We then went out for dinner and sheesha at about midnight. Sheesha is flavored tobacco traditional to Egypt. It is served in a 4 foot high water pipe. I had a tradition meat dish and sat and talked until about 2 in the morning. Dan's flight didn't get in until 3, but ended up being delayed so we stayed up to wait for him; we had a flight at 6 anyways. The craziest thing about that night was that around 4 o'clock in the morning a guy got on a loud speaker that you could hear all throughout Cairo praying in Arabic. It gave me the creeps to hear it. You could hear other people following his prayer, and the cats and dogs of the streets howling.

11/04/07
After not sleeping at all the night before we boarded our plane around 7 A.M. to Asuan Egypt. We flew into Asuan and basically flew right into a desert. Once again we got picked up right at the door. Sidenote: Throughout me talking about this trip, it will seem like we are royalty. We honestly got treated like royalty and I can't thank Pat's uncle enough for everything. Pat was on the phone with him every half hour, if anything went wrong, or whatever. He got us hotels, tours, and travel for dirt cheap. He literally MADE this trip. We leave the airport and head to High Dam which was sort of like the hoover dam on a smaller level. It produces enough energy that Egypt can export energy to other countries. We then went to Philae temple. This temple was on an island so we had to take a small boat to get there; it was ghetto to say the least. So we see this temple, and having not eaten all day, sleep deprived, sweating, and in need of water, I did not learn much about it. Our guide was going on all these tangents about ancient Egyptian gods and history. I was completely lost. We then ate Guavas off of a tree, lets face it I have a horrible stomache and I am going to have stomache problems, why not enjoy the things I eat. After getting back to the bus, we went to a place where they make their own perfumes out of flowers. We didn't enjoy it, but the girls in our group LOVED it. We then got on the bus and were harassed by vendors trying to sell us crap that none of us wanted. Tannous would just speak in Arabic and the people would realize that we were not in the market to purchase their things. Then we headed to the Cruise. Pat's uncle is director of operations for a 5 star cruise line down the Nile. After a long day of travelling and sightseeing we dropped our luggage in our rooms and went for a few drinks on the top deck and watched as we sailed down the Nile. We then went to a delicious dinner and passed out listening to the waves of the Nile as we cruised along.

12/04/09 (Easter Sunday)
We awoke at 6 A.M. ate breakfast on the cruise and then headed to the Edfu temple. After a long night of sleep I was able to understand the history a lot better. The temple was dating back to 237 B.C. and it blew my mind standing in the middle of something that was created over 2000 years ago. Just looking at the structures, I wondered how they put everything together without any technology. After going to the temple we headed back to the ship. We left for Esna right away and made it there about midday. Everyone was sleeping as we docked, we then left and went through a lock in the Nile river. As everyone slept, I sat on the deck and watched small towns pass us. These towns made me realize how much of a third world country Egypt is. If this was any other country the Nile would be covered with million dollar mansions, instead it is covered with houses that look like they barely have running water. I then took an hour nap as we docked in Luxor and we got up and got ready for dinner. We said grace and had a delicious Easter dinner on the cruise. It was Pat's birthday a week ago, so we were to celebrate it that night on the cruise. He got Happy Birthday sung to him in Arabic, Spanish, and English and the chef on the boat cooked him his own special cake. We then got dressed up in Gabalas which are traditional egyptian wear; long robes worn on a daily basis. We hung out with some of the other people on the cruise and enjoyed the calm night on the Nile.
Literally, how many people can say they slept on the Nile and cruised down it for 3 days? Not many

This first picture is a view from our boat as we cruise down the Nile.
The second picture is of us dressed up in our Egyptian Wear.
The third picture is at Philae Temple.

Hola,
I have officially made it back to Bilbao! I am so happy to be back, but have a ton to talk about. I guess I will just start from the beginning and see how it flows. I wrote in a diary everyday so that I could remember all the little details that triggered something in me or made me realize that I was not in America.

07/04/2009
I packed up all my stuff and took a bus to Hendaye which is on the border of France and Spain. The people living here speak both French and Spanish, but more French then Spanish; they also speak Euskara because it is a part of Pais Vasco. So I get on a train headed to Paris. Sidenote: I paid a total of 33.30 Euros to get from Spain to Paris, I am quite the smart shopper. So on this train, its all French. I have my IPOD on, but I am not listening to it because I am just taking in all the sounds of the train. In Europe they have those phones that play music, and its all the craze to listen to the music on your phone as loud as you can in public places. So there is a guy on the train playing the music on his phone. A lady comes up to him and asks him to turn it down, he nicely replies with a no. Then a big guy gets up and into his face yelling at him about turning down the music. He argues back and this goes on for about 20 minutes and I am just sitting there laughing at these people screaming at eachother in French. So the stereotype of the "loud obnoxious French" was actualized within 10 minutes of being in France. So 7 hours later my train pulls into Paris, France. I get off realizing I have NO money on me, and make my way to the train station. I find some way to pay for the train, hop on and make it to Pat Tannous' dorm room. It was late at night by the time I got in so we stayed in knowing it would be a long day the next day.

8/4/09
Pat insisted that I didn't need to get up early here in Paris, but I didn't believe him and woke up at 9:45 AM. Pat took forever to get ready, but whatever. We finally left his dorm and headed to the Latin District to grab a bite to eat. We stopped at a Doner Kebab which is a chain restaurant throughout Europe serving Gyros and other things like that; it was my first time to one and no one could believe I went that long without stopping at one. Tannous had school, so we walked over to his school, which was about 4 rooms, and he set me loose in the city of Paris with all of his ID cards. His ID cards were able to get me into whatever I wanted for FREE. This literally saved me over 100 Euros. So I walked around, saw the outside of the Pompidou which is a contemporary art museum, and is architectually contemporary. I then went to the Louvre. It was a beautiful day in Paris so I hurried through the Louvre. The Louvre used to be where they protected all the art during the French Revolution so that other countries would not steal it. I saw the Venos de Milo and the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa, I feel, was a little overrated. It was in a room filled with 100s of people and it took me 5 minutes to push myself to the front. I can cross it off the list at least. After I got into the Louvre (for free), I tried to go to the Dorsay, but the line was just too long to wait in. I then went to Notre Dame. That was the most beautiful church I have ever seen. Once again I used Pat's ID to climb to the top for free. I started getting a little claustrophobic halfway up as my heart started racing. I finally made it to the top and was taking in awe at the view. I could see all of Paris! I saw the huge bell weighing over 13 tons and was done with my visit to Notre Dame. 400 steps later I was finally on solid ground and ready to continue my excursion of Paris. I grabbed a Crepe and walked around for a little then headed back to Pat's dorm. We then got ready and went out to Montmartre which is a church overlooking all of Paris. We sat there, drank a beer, and watched all the local entertainment. The steps of Montmartre is a place where a lot of people sit and relax. There are street performers and a ton of things to watch. It started raining, so we headed back to Pat's dorm and called it an early night.

9/4/09
We woke up and went for breakfast. Tannous had to leave for Egypt, so he threw me the keys to his dorm as a last resort and said had fun. We had got in trouble the night before because he is not allowed to have overnight guests. After we had breakfast Tannous left to pack his bags and get ready and I went to the Arc de Triompe. Once again climbed the steps and saw the city of Paris from a different view (for free). I saw the Eifel Tower in the distannce so I headed that direction. It was a lot farther away then I thought it was, but I finally made it there. I took a nap in the grass, under the sun, looking at the Eifel tower. Once again it was so touristy. I did not plan on going to the top, but if I did, it would have taken me at least 2-3 hours in line. I took some pictures of it and stared at its gracefulness for about 5 minutes. Then I headed out and continued my walk. I had no idea where I wanted to go, and wondered aimlessly until I saw this gold topped building in the distance. I had no idea what it was but I went in using Pat's card once again. It turned out to be the tomb of Napoleon. Napoleon's tomb was huge and decorated to excess. When I die I would like to be buried like Napoleon (remember that family). I then went back to the Latin District to meet up with a friend of mine. We then went out for the night, and walked around the streets of Paris.

10/4/09
I woke up and headed to the airport. I have become completely independent since I have gotten to Europe. I can travel any city, find my way around any city, and even make a few friends! I made it to the Airport in plenty of time for my flight. I sat next to a lady from France and a man from Egypt. They entertained me with stories of France/Egypt throughout my 5 hour flight. People always say that France is extremely expensive; well, it is. I was able to do it on an extremely cheap budget because I had friends to help me out. I had the time of my life in Paris, but once again it was way to touristy for me. I hate waiting in lines and dealing with people that have no idea what is going on. As I sat on the plane and watched the little plane on the map move closer and closer to Egypt, my excitement arose. I had no idea what to expect, or what I was going to see or do. I was about to land in the Middle East. In Africa. To places I had never experienced before in my life.

The first picture is of me on top of the Arc de Triompe. You can tell why I thought it would be possible to walk to the Eifel Tower. (That day I probably walked at least 10 miles. Look on a map at the distances from the Arc de Triompe, Eifel Tower, and Napoleon's Tomb.......)

The second picture is of me on top of Notre Dame. It was amazing seeing the detail up there with the gargoyles. They seem to watch over the city.

The last picture is of Napoleon's grave. You can see how awesome the building looks, and why it would attract my eye from the distance.

Well all, this should be my last post for a few weeks since I will be out of the country and out of the continent for a week or so, but I just wanted to give you my travel itinerary so you know where I am at.
I leave next tuesday (one week) on a train to Paris, France.
I will be in Paris for 3 days and fly out on Friday for Cairo, Egypt.
On Saturday April 11th, I will be making my way to Asuan, Egypt will we will be taking a cruise down the Red Sea (That is the benefit of having a buddy who has family living in Egypt)
We will be there until the 14th when I will travel to Sharm El Sheikh Egypt and we have a hostel booked close to the beach for 3 more nights.
I will then travel back to Cairo on Friday, April 17th.
I will be in Cairo until Sunday, April 19th when I will fly back to Spain.
I plan on bringing a notebook and documenting all of the insane stories and interesting situations I get myself into in Egypt considering there will be a huge language barrier and culture I have no even come close to experiencing.

I don't know why I haven't given this number out earlier, but my number here is (034)-664-551-216. I should have my phone on me the whole time I am in Egypt, but I probably will not answer it if you were to call due to the fact that I will get roaming charges. If I am in Spain and you were to call I am pretty sure it is free for me (MUAHHAHA).
So I hope everyone enjoyed their spring break, as mine is just about to start. I am two days of school and a relaxing beachlike weekend in Bilbao away from the trip of my lifetime.

Hola,
Sorry I have been really busy. I had two tests last week and it was just chaotic. I am horrible at Spanish grammar so I spent a lot of days after class getting tutored on how to use the grammar that we learned. Ok so whats been going on:
Last weekend I went to Madrid to hang out with the family. I booked my flight way in advance so it would be cheap and accidentally booked a night earlier. When I got to the Bilbao airport it literally looked like a tornado went through there. There was garbage all over the place, shredded paper, and just a mess. When I asked what happened I was told that the cleaning crew went on strike, but before they went on strike they decided to make a mess. I LOVE SPAIN! I arrived Thursday night and the family didn't arrive until Friday morning. So I met up with Luisa Thursday night and we went out for dinner. I have lived in Spain for over 2 months and this was my first real Tapas experience. It was delicious, but not quite filling enough. We then left and walked around, I didn't have much money for a place to stay so we started looking for a hostile for me to stay in. I finally found one for 20 euro for the night and experienced my first hostile. It was nice because I did end up getting my own room, but the bed sort of had a musk to it and I woke up at 4AM with a backache, sore throat, and stuff nose. I tried to sleep on my back the rest of the night which didn't work out and I left the hostile at 8 AM in search of the hotel I would be staying at with the family. I knew i couldn't check in before 11 or so, so I grabbed a little breakfast and a newspaper and sat outside in sunny Madrid reading and eating. When I could finally check in I took a shower and immediately napped. I woke up and shortly my family arrived! They were definitely jetlagged so we decided to take it easy that Friday night. We hung around the area walked around and what not. It was great to get some motherly love and comforting, something I do miss from the states. Saturday was another beautiful sunny day and we decided to go to the Palacio Real. I had been there already from a previous trip, but I knew that Mom and Madison would love it. We did that, came back took a siesta and went out to dinner. Mom and Dad had talked to the flight attendant who was from Madrid and he had suggested a Paella restaurant so we went there. We ate seafood paella with calamari, shrimp, clams, all the works it was undescribable. Mom loved it and would entertain us by eating the heads off the shrimp. That pretty much highlights my third and final trip to Madrid.
This weekend I am staying in Bilbao once again. La Rioja is wine country in Spain, where most of the Spanish wines come from. It is known all over the world and a few of my buddies who know wine well have told me that I do have to drink a La Rioja wine. Well thats all they serve here and finally yesterday we decided to go visit a Bodega which is a place where they make and bottle wine. We didn't make a reservation for a tour and completely forgot that siesta is a normal Spanish thing and arrived around 1 in the city of Haro which is part of La Rioja. We saw some bodegas which ended up being closed, and decided to go grab a wine and some lunch. We stumbled upon a restaurant that had cuts of meat. This was the first time I had had a steak anytime in Spain. We had some of the local wine, which is really cheap because they can just get it by walking down the street and then we headed out. We talked to some people and found some bodegas that were open. Tasted a few wines, one that was from 1987, and that pretty much consisted of our time in Haro. We have decided that we will go back, with a reservation next time now that we know a little bit more information.

Hola,
So this weekend I hung out in Bilbao for the first time in a LONNNNNG time. Thursday we finished school and immediately went to the stadium to buy tickets for the Real Madrid vs. Athletic soccer match. We stood in line for two hours to get our tickets. After I went home, took a siesta and went out for the night.
Friday I spent the whole day on the beach. When I say the whole day I mean I woke up and went to the beach and went home around the time the sun was going down. It was a very relaxing experience, but the water was extremely cold. I am so happy that I live 5 minutes walking from the beach. After I went to the beach I came home to eat, took a nap, and then went to walk on the beach for the night. I made it an early night because I knew that Saturday had so much to offer.
Saturday I woke up and went for a run. Once again, along the beach. After the run I ate. A few hours went by and it was time to go to the Athletic game. My friend Alec was bringing his house dad so I stopped by to pick them up. Alec's house dad was probably the funniest spaniard I have ever met. He was so excited for this game and was going insane. We got on the train at about 7:30 and headed down towards the stadium. When we got there we walked around the stadium and found where the players enter. We waited the for a half hour for all the players to enter. It was insane how the crowd was. There was probably 200 people screaming at the busses as they entered into the stadium. No one cared about rules. For security though, they had about 15 men in riot gear. When I say riot gear they had on everything and were ready to go. They had on their helmets and masks to cover their face. It was quite intimidating to look at these guys and made me think twice about any attempts I wanted to make to get close to the players (just kidding the thought never crossed my mind). After we saw all the players we walked around the stadium a little bit more before entering. There were so many people out and about it was insane. It was even hard to walk. When the gates opened we entered and Jose (Alec's house dad) explained to us it is sort of a free for all for seats, so we sat in some seats that were close to ours but weren't exactly ours. We never had a problem. Our seats were exactly what we wanted for waiting in line 2 days early and for 2 hours. We were in the 4th row on the north side of the field. As the stadium started to fill up it just kept getting louder and louder. These people really have a passion for their soccer. Everyone was singing chants and yelling at the players. The cool thing about Bilbao soccer is that everyone on the team is from Pais Vasco. When you put us up against a team like Real Madrid where only 2 people are even from Spain and they are signing out huge checks to their players, you can understand why I knew we had no chance of winning. We went through the first half with the score being 2-2 and I thought we might actually put up a fight. In the second half the game was finalized at 5-2, but that didn't stop the loyal Bilbao fans from chanting. They continued to haze Real Madrid all the way through the 90th minute. I have respect for their admiration of their team. People were throwing half eaten sandwiches, garbage, whatever they could find at the Real Madrid players and the Refs. I have never seen a ref taunted so bad before I saw a soccer match. In this stadium they do not sell liquor due to the fact that liquor is an inhibitor to more drunken soccer hooligan problems. They do allow you to smoke cigarrettes in your seat though. I went to the game wearing an Athletic flag which got me a lot of comments I did not understand and numerous high fives. Since soccer is pretty much the only sport played in Spain fans do have quite the passion for it. It is a memory I will never forget! Here are some pictures from the game.......

To start out my week, my mom came home wednesday with a bag and when she opened it and inside there were 5 whole fish! Her friend is a fisherman and knows I like to eat fish so he caught some special for me. How she cleaned them up was not with a knife, but with a pair of scissors. She took the pair of scissors and just cut off the heads and then ripped the spine out of the back. It was fun to help her prep the fish and it tasted extraordinary with some garlic, oil and salt. Very simple. Very tasty. I believe it was Mackerol.
So Friday we went on an excursion to Bayona, France and Hondarribia, Spain with school. Bayona is the capital of the Pais Vasco of France. To expand on that I live in an autonomous area of Spain where they still speak their own language Euskara and this area in France is part of that same autonomous region. By autonomous region I mean that they still have their own government separate of Spain. Many of the "socialistas" wish to keep this area as separate from Spain as they can. Thats why the ETA continues to bomb places that represent corporate Spain. Many people hated the idea of the Guggenheim coming into Bilbao because it would make the area too touristy. But that is a whole different area. So Bayona was my first time in France. It was really funny because I would try and speak Spanish to people completely forgetting that they spoke French. We visited a huge church called "La Catedral de Santa Maria" and walked around the area. We tried some delicious chocolate and had a crepe....very stereotypical I know but it was awesome. It was a beautiful city right on a river and it was really cool to see all French all over the place. After the France part, we went back into Spain for lunch. We ate at a traditional cider house. A cider house brews their own traditional liquor and we all tried it. It came out of these huge wooden barrels that were installed in the walls. The liquor tasted like nothing I have ever tasted before. It tasted like a weaker whiskey mixed with a ton of wood. I enjoyed it, but a lot of people didn't. We then had some paella and for a main course fish. After lunch we went to Hondarribia which was an extremely small fishing town on the ocean. I wasn't too thrilled with it, but that could be because it was raining. After the excursion we got back to the bus station just in time to leave for Luz Ardiden, France. The Pirinese Mountains are the huge mountain range in the north that is a natural border for Spain and France. They are the best skiing you can get. When we booked the trip I looked up the place and I was a little worried because it had like 6 chairlifts and did not look too big. When we got on to the bus we were the only American kids, the rest were Spanish, so I knew I booked a good trip. I talked to the bus driver for the first part of the ride and he explained that yea this place wasn't big, but it was tall. I didn't quite understand what he was talking about. He was a really nice guy to talk to his name was Manu. So 4 and a half hours later at about 1 AM we arrived at our place to stay. Even at night you could see the huge mountains surrounding us and there was about a foot of snow on the ground!!! We pack 6 people into a place that should sleep like 3 people and wake up 6 hours later to go snowboard! We get on the bus to go get our gear and stop at a market where some lady starts questioning me in French. She must have understood I had no idea what was going on cause she stopped trying and walked away. We then headed towards the mountain. That was the scariest drive I have ever seen a coach bus do. Tons of hairpin turns, cars stopped in the road putting on tire chains......it was nuts. We finally reached the mountain and headed up the chairlift. We got there at about 9:30. The Sun was shining bright and the skies were the darkest blue I have ever seen in my life. So we get up the chairlift and take off as a group of 6 down our first run. It was amazing, such nice snow. We get down and I am already sweating. I had on a hoody and my northface and it was too much. The cool part about this place was that nothing was blocked off and the whole mountain was basically yours. We were going down parts where no other person had gone. So much powder snow that when you turned quick it shot up 10 feet in the air. There was one point I had to take off my board and I took a step and was knee deep in snow. As the day went on the "clouds" rolled in. I say clouds because this was not a fog. We were literally in the clouds. As the clouds rolled in we kept snowboarding. The mountain cleared out because you could only see like 10 feet in front of you. I am not being overly dramatic with this. Literally 10 feet. We were on the chairlift and you could BARELY see one seat ahead of you. We were snowboarding down the hills and with our group of six we had no idea where we were going. We would go only in the direction of down. Literally our conversations would go like this "Where are we?.....Where are we going?.....I don't know down is this way so lets go this way...." So that went on for an hour or so as the clouds cleared out it was time to head back. We got back on the bus and went to the town for a little dinner and to buy groceries for the next day. We had a nice sandwich and sat outside staring at the mountains. We then went back and had a beer and literally went to bed. We were all completely dead tired. Sunday morning I woke up with a sun burnt face. I put on some SPF 15 lotion and headed out for another day on the mountain. We tried soo hard Saturday to keep the group together spending a lot of time waiting for the girls and whatnot. So Sunday we decided to do our own things. Us guys put on our Ipods and just boarded together for awhile, when we got split up. We already said instead of waiting that we should just go on. The mountain was too big to wait for eachother or find eachother when getting lost. So about an hour into it I was split up from the rest of the guys. I was on my own with my Ipod snowboarding and it was probably my favorite part. No one to wait for and no one to be bothered by. I would literally snowboard down a hill, cut the whole line of people at the chairlift, because i was by myself, and go up. I loved snowboarding with my Ipod. It was the first time I had ever done it and it was like dancing in the snow. I was carving to the beats of songs and dancing around. I must have looked like a fool but its ok. So I spent a good 4 hours by myself because I literally could not find anyone else. We made it back to the bus returned our gear and headed home. I got home and opened the door and said hello to my mom and she immediately started laughing at my sunburn. And today all my teachers made comments about my sunburn, but it was completely worth it. In my business spanish all 6 of us that went snowboarding had it and every one of us had sunburn and our teacher completely loved it.
Pictures: The first picture is my attempt at being artsy on the chairlift, and to show you I wasn't lying about the extremity of the visibility.
The second is of me up in the mountains. Beautiful eh?!
The third is of the Ciderhouse. Someone getting some cider!
That is all for now!