Gran Canaria

Ooh Gran Canaria. For such a short trip, with so very few people on it, you have provided me with memories and stories that I hope to never forget. Lucky for you my dear readers, I will divulge the details of this trip to you! So here are the statistics: 3.5 days on the island, 2 people (Arinelli and I), 1 studio apartment style hotel room, 2 beds, 1 balcony with 1 table and 2 chairs, and 3.5 days of 75 degree + weather.

So the trip started off Sunday afternoon when Arinelli's host dad drove us to the train station. From there we took a train to Santiago de Compostela, a bus to the airport in Santiago, and a 3 hour flight to Gran Canaria. When we got to the airport we still needed to get to the hotel and my parents had told me to just take a cab, bill it to them, and consider it part of my birthday present. So we hopped in a cab but quickly found out that it didn't accept credit card. The cab driver told us that it would be about 60 euros, so given that we were tired we do that instead of trying to figure out the bus system at 11:00 at night. The cab driver was so nice and on the 30 minute drive to the hotel he told us all about the island. He pointed out the most populated parts of the island (Playa del Ingles and Maspalomas), told us to try the famous Canarian bananas, and roasted potatoes with a special spicy-ish sauce on top. He even stopped the meter when it got to 60 euros since that was the price he told us, and didn't want to charge us more. So nice!
We got to the hotel and realized that when the online reviews said that it was on top of a mountain, they truly meant a mountain. I was expecting something like Mount St. James that Holy Cross is perched upon, but this was a whole different animal. If you didn't want to spent 30 minutes going down, and who knows how long going up, a taxi was really necessary. This taxi driver was so nice though and let us run in the hotel to check in and drop our bags, and he drove us back down the mountain without charging us the 3 euros that it usually cost to drive down. We grabbed some dinner and explored the "shopping center" which honestly felt just like something you'd find in Florida. We also quickly realized that were were in British/Norwegian/Swedish/Danish tourist-world. Everyone, including the people who worked there spoke English. Needless to say, it didn't really feel like Spain, but that does not in anyway mean it was bad!

 The next day we were ready to start vacation! We headed down the mountain and made a bee-line for the beach! We had a great day just relaxing there, and even got lunch at a restaurant right on the sand. Around 4:00 we headed back and stopped at a kiosk advertising dolphin rides. The guy who was working there though said that something that we might enjoy more would be the "party boat". It was 3 hours on a giant catamaran with drinks and food included. There was a hot tub on board, and they boat would dock and give us the opportunity to jump off and swim around. We figured that it sounded good to us so we put our deposit down, and then continued on our merry way to the supermarket. Given that we had a kitchen in our room we decided that we would save money and make dinner ourselves. We also grabbed some cheese and crackers for a Carlson tradition of happy hour on the deck. After our happy hour we headed down to the pool to discover that we basically had the entire hotel to ourselves. Minus one "car wreck" couple. I call them the "car wreck" couple because they were a Spanish couple that were both insanely, out of this world, unnaturally tan. The girl clearly had a lot of confidence too because despite a not so stellar body, she was rocking the topless + thong bottom look. Arinelli and I couldn't peel our eyes away even though we wanted to! I'd say by the end of the trip we had gotten a little more used to the whole topless thing, that being said, neither of us decided to try it out. I still don't understand how 2 friends can be laying on their towels, having a nice conversation, with there boobs hanging out! Strange.

The next day we headed down to the beach again to spend the morning there before going on the party boat. They told us that people could start boarding the boat around 3 so we headed there a little early. Little did we know that the boat would be about an hour and a half late. Finally we headed onto it and it was a lot of fun. The boat was huge, there was a DJ playing good music, drinks, food and a bunch of young people on it. My only complaint is that we weren't moving a lot. We basically sailed like 30 minutes, put the anchor down for 2 hours, and then sailed back for the 30 minutes. I did jump off the back of the boat while we were stationary though! I was a little nervous that the water was gonna be freezing, and they warned about a strong current, but the water was gorgeous, and hey, I'm still alive so the current didn't take me away!
I even met a Swedish boy on the boat! I tested out the few words I know in Swedish, you know the basics, thank you/you're welcome. Unfortunately he couldn't really understand either of those words when they came out with a strange English/Spanish accent, so it was a good thing that he spoke English perfectly. We even ended up exchanging phone numbers and meeting up again later that night.

And what an interesting night it was. The area where all the younger people, and cool bars/pubs/clubs are is about 25 minutes away, so we needed to take a bus to get there. So we hopped onto the bus, but we really had no idea of when to press the "stop" button and get off. So when finally got off and realized we had no idea where we were, we hailed a taxi that basically brought us around the block to this place called the Kasbah which is just full of bars. It's also full of club promoters. Literally within 50 ft we had at least 5 promoters stop us, and try and convince us to go into their bar. Let me say that they are VERY persistent. It was kind of annoying, but I'd take that over the 2 person team that tried to sell us cocaine! One of the strangest moments of my life, ever.

We then went into the bar that we thought the Swedish kid was at and got sucked into buying the "happy hour deal" which consisted of 3 drinks. However, Arinelli and I aren't so sure of the amount of alcohol that they put into these drinks. We still had a really good time though there and at the other club we went to. We missed the last bus to go back to our area though so we had to take a taxi. We ended up meeting nicest taxi driver #2 when he let us pay for the 30 euro ride with all the money we had, which was only 25 euros.

The next day we headed out to an area called Maspalomas, which was such a cool area. The beach has huge dunes, there's a legitimate desert, and gorgeous hotel resorts there! But our real inspiration for going to Maspalomas was our search for....

CAMELS!!

That's right! We went on a camel ride. I must say that those animals are not very attractive and I am SO glad that we were the last one in the line. I did not want a camel all up in my business, near the back of my head or anything like that. I've heard stories about their spit... After the camel ride we grabbed some lunch and then went to chill on the beach. By that time it wasn't super hot so we didn't go in the water, but it was perfect temperature to just relax. I even ended up falling asleep listening to some Bob Marley on the beach. This is my life!?

For some reason when we got back to the hotel both Arinelli and I felt a little sick so we spent a good hour or more lying on our beds complaining about our stomachs. We rallied though for some happy hour and dinner. Plate du jour was chicken with the famous spicy-ish red sauce of the Canary Islands, with flan from plastic containers for dessert. We kept the night relaxed just hanging out in the room reading our books and magazines and talking.

The next morning we had to be out of the hotel by 11 and we didn't even think to ask if they had a place where they could store our luggage so we spent most of the day in a park on a bench with our bags. Most likely looking like homeless people. We then headed to Subway to get some lunch and sat there for a while with our bags. And then the journey home began. Sit tight kiddos, this is quite a story as well.
So we took a bus to the airport. After a little confusion and having to go through security twice, we got to the gate. We boarded onto the plane no problem and landed in Santiago around 9:30. We then needed to catch the bus to bring us to the train station. We were a little confused though and were apparently sitting in the wrong spot and missed the first bus (they come every 30 mins). So we waited for the next bus, when we got to the train station we realized that there were no more trains coming. We were so shocked. Neither of us had really planned it out, we were just assuming that they'd be going until at least midnight. At that point we met kind taxi man #3. After explaining our situation to him and asking if he knew any cheap hotels he took out 2 cellphones and started calling people and hotels/hostals. He brought us to a nice place so Ari and I dropped our bags and headed out to find some food. Both of us were just mentally and emotionally spent after that so we headed back to our room. For some reason though neither of us had a good night's sleep. The next morning we grabbed some breakfast and headed back to good old La Coruña.
So that was my trip! I hope that everyone is having a great Easter and I can't wait to see ya'll soon!!
Love you!

P.S- Shoutouts go to everyone who sent me a card! Love getting mail!

I'm officially old

Friday was my birthday which means that I am 21 and can now buy alcohol for the first time ever! Oh wait... I've been doing that since August 21st in Spain. Turning 21 in Spain was a bit anti-climactic, but it was still a lot of fun! Everyone except for Arinelli has left for their Semana Santa trips, so we went out Thursday and celebrated with our Spanish friends. As it often does, the night ended up with Kebab sandwiches by the beach, something that I immediately regretted. It's a big sandwich, not a particularly healthy one, being eaten at 4:30 AM, a few days before going on a beach vacation. Oh well, it was good in the moment!

Arinelli, Maria, Me, and Camino

They next day Arinelli came over to my house for lunch which was so much fun. We played with the girls and then had a delicious meal consisiting of prawns, steak, chocolate cake, and even some rioja wine! So good! Later that afternoon the two of us headed off to Marineda City. Marineda City is a big shopping center that just opened up on Thursday. It's actually the largest in Spain and the third largest in Europe. The mall was the size of a normal American mall, and being in it did actually make me feel like I was in America. Especially when we got authentic cinnamon buns! Yumm!!

Arinelli in her dream house

After exploring the mall we decided to go into Ikea, Although I'd been to the one in New Haven, I'd forgotten how long of a process it was to walk through those! A few hours later we reappeared from it. It was a lot of fun though, and Ari and I gathered ideas of what we want our future apartments/condos/homes to look like. We also looked really cool when we started to take pictures of each other pretending that we lived in the exhibition pieces that Ikea sets up. It's like playing pretend/dolls, except for 20+ year olds! We were so excited when we finally arrived at the cafeteria because they were offering a special of 10 swedish meatballs for 1 euro! Since Arinelli has never had swedish meatballs I had planned on introducing them to her and splitting a plate of them. Unfortunately, the moment we got there they pulled the tape across the entrance to the buffet and announced that they had just closed. Oh well, that just means that we'll have to go back!

My hair attacked my face

That night we went to Abica for dinner, and as always got delicious food. To celebrate my birthday we decided to split a bottle of wine. I think the wine got us both talking though, because although we finished eating in about an hour, we were there for almost two and a half hours, finally leaving at 1:15 AM! The next day we did a little shopping and walked around. There's this old castle/fort in Coruña which used to defend the city, so since neither of us had been there we decided to check it out. It was free entrance which is good, because there wasn't much to it. It was so nice out though so it was fun to just walk around and check out the views of the port. It was a little windy though as you can see from this photo!
Today we're heading off to the Canary Islands! The trip is a relatively simple one, taking a city bus to the train station, train to Santiago train station, bus to the Santiago Airport, Fly to Gran Canaria airport, taxi to the hotel! Oh and the hotel doesn't have 24 hour reception so our keys are going to be left for us in the mailbox and then we have to find our way to our room!
Okay, so maybe not that simple of a journey there, but only one airplane! The rest is just little filler transportation means. I'm sure we'll be fine though! I'll get back Thursday, so get ready for a travel blog post!

Oh Nothing's Sweeter

So I remember listening to this song in the summer, and belting out the line "couldn't want to get going, but wasn't quite ready to leave" and absolutely loving it and connecting with it. I was so excited to go to Spain, but so scared at the same time. This song recently came up in my itunes, and listening to it now I have a completely different perspective. It's not just that one line that get's me, but all the lyrics.
It's a song about summer obviously, but also about home, being where you're comfortable, and not wanting to grow up and change. All things that I can definitely understand.
Hope you enjoy the song! Even if you've heard it before, take a moment for yourself. Close your eyes. Listen to it. Listen to the lyrics. We all need a break every now and then :-)

Where's the pause button??

You know the Adam Sandler movie where he finds that magical remote control, where he can pause, rewind and fast forward life? Well, I could definitely use that right now, if anything just for the "pause" button, maybe I'd utilize "rewind" a little, but I'm trying to test out this whole "live with out regrets" idea.
See the thing is, I need this special clicker because this year has gone by way too fast. So much of this year was spent adjusting to this new life that I now have. Learning the language, learning the culture, the higher education system, living with a family...and the list of things big and small goes on and on. That being said, I think I finally get it, and I feel comfortable and now it's almost time to leave? That doesn't seem right!
Now you may think that I'm being a little dramatic, I mean 2 months is a long time right? Well although the general pace of life in Spain is pretty slow, I'm pretty sure that the rest of my time here is going to FLY by. Let me give you a break down of how the rest of this year is going to go.
Well next Friday is my birthday! Yay! Then two days later, Sunday the 17th, Arinelli and I leave for the Canary Islands. We come back on Thursday the 21st, and then we're either going to stay here and relax, or we might go to León with her host family. The following Wednesday the 27th, all 6 of us in Coruña leave for the south of Spain with our housing director, Pablo. It should be a really fun trip, especially since Holy Cross pays for everything! We're down there until either Sunday or Monday the 1st or 2nd of MAY (that's right, it's MAY ALREADY) We'll be in Coruña the weekend of Saturday the 7th and then the next weekend I'm heading to Italy with Elena to meet her family who still lives in a little village in the south of Italy! I then (for now) plan on having 3 weekends in Coruña until I leave for America on June 11th!
So that's the breakdown, and it's pretty surreal! I have bi-polar emotions everyday. One second I don't want to leave, and the next second I can not wait to be back in West Hartford, and even Holy Cross next year! Of course, that being said, I'm 100% positive that next year I will be wishing I was in Coruña on an 80 degree day in April, with a 5 minute walk to the beach. That's life though right.
Shout out to my mamaaaa who sent me a fantastic package full of reeses products. Yummm! Now the only question is who will eat more of these easter candy reeses eggs, me or my host sisters?

Another perspective

Hey everyone!
I just wanted to let you know that you could read about Audrey's visit to Spain on her blog by clicking here. It's always fun to see how another person describes the same vacation, and what things pop up out in their mind.

Barcelona

Well after a verrry busy and long week, I'm finally getting the chance to blog about last weekend! So last Wednesday I got a visitor! After many long and strenuous hours of traveling my ex-roommate, Audrey arrived at the Coruña airport!! Unfortunately I was able to make a sign for her, but hopefully she was still happy to see me and have someone meet her at the airport. From there we went to the hostel in Coruña that we were going to be staying at together. Given that we're poor college students studying abroad, we were in seventh heaven seeing our "Deluxe" room that had a giant window looking out to the street, a double bed, a little table with two chairs, one random mini-sitting chair, and a private bathroom with a toilet that made a noise similar to a foghorn when you flushed it. While I know that sounds like I'm being sarcastic, we actually REALLY happy with it!
After finally getting settled it was around 5:00 when we decided to go out and find food. Fun fact about Spain: there is NO food being served at 5:00. Lunch stops around 4:30, dinner starts back up around 8. Restaurants are closed in between. After walking around, and by around I mean all over the city, we finally ended up at La Bombilla, the famous 1 euro tapas joint in Coruña. Thankfully, as always, the food was delicious and Audrey loved it. After we refueled up we went to go do some shopping. Apparently the stores in Galway aren't really top-notch, she's only bought like 2 pieces of clothing there! Yeah...that's pretty much all I've bought too....(lies). We had a pretty low-key night given that I had an in class essay the next morning, and Audrey was pretty tired from all of her traveling. The next day I had a busy day of classes so Audrey was able to catch up on her sleep. We did manage to grab a delicious lunch at a restaurant called O'Galiñeiro right near my house. Although we had only planned on staying in Coruña for one night, and then heading to Santiago for Thursday night we decided that it would just be easier to stay in Coruña both nights. Thursday night I introduced Audrey to the Spanish night life, which I'm pretty sure she enjoyed, despite the challenge of staying up until the wee hours of the morning.
The next morning our travels to Barcelona began, and as always, there are stories! The plan was to take a train from Coruña to Santiago, and then find a way to get from the train station to the Santiago Airport where our flight was out of. So we had written down the times of the trains leaving from Coruña going to Barcelona. So we decided to take the 11:19 train, we woke up in time, get on the city bus to bring us to the train station. Audrey then whips out her Iphone where we had written down the time, and we see that neither of our train options were leaving at 11:19. How we BOTH got that time in our head, I do not know. Given that the train station and the bus station are close to each other, we decided to get off the city-bus at the bus station to get some information about the buses to Santiago. There was one that would get us to Santiago 30 minutes earlier than the train so we decided to take that one. We were waiting inside the station watching the board, waiting for the platform number to come up, and as soon as it did we went downstairs to find the bus. Well we found it as it was slowly backing out of it's spot. Audrey runs up and knocks on the door, and even though the bus driver didn't seem particularly happy with us, he opened up the luggage area, and let us on. After getting to the bus station in Santiago, we bought tickets for a bus that would bring us to the Santiago airport. After waiting for 15 minutes downstairs where all the buses park, we finally found the gate where that specific bus company parked. Unfortunately, the airport bus apparently parks somewhere else because 5 minutes later, we saw a completely full bus with a picture of an airplane on it turn the corner and leave the station. So 30 minutes and 20 euros later we arrived at airport in taxi. From there everything went smoothly and we arrived in Barcelona!

Audrey and I spent the afternoon walking around and anxiously waiting the arrival of Elizabeth, Claire, and other friends from various study abroad sites. Claire had her own travel issues and ended up coming in later, and then went straight to visit her friend from home who was studying in Barcelona. Audrey, Elizabeth and I went walking around in search of some food. We ended up at some little bar that had tapas and feasted on cockles, home fries with a spicy sauce (patatas bravas) and chicken wings. The food was cheap, simple, and pretty darn good too.

The next day was our super-tourists day. Elizabeth, Claire and I who were all in one hostel met up with two Holy Cross kids who are studying in Scotland with Elizabeth that morning. We met at The Cathedral (sorry I don't know it's real name!) and from there we started walking the city. We went to a gorgeous basilica, and then headed off to Park Güell. I was really excited to go to this Park since I didn't get a chance 3 years ago when I was in Barcelona with my parents. It was designed by the artist Gaudi, and is really modern, and funky, with bright colors, and crazy shapes all over the place. On our way to the park we had grabbed sandwiches, so we had an amazing picnic in the park, sitting on the longest bench in the world (according to our friend Michelle), listening to live music, and basking in the 75 degree weather. This is my life?

Wait, your ceiling doesn't look like this?

From there we went to La Sagrada Familia which is the huge cathedral also designed by Gaudi. This gigantic church broke ground in March of 1882 and they're expecting it to be done in 2026! You know what they say: measure twice, cut once! You have to make sure everything's perfect! In all seriousness though, if you ever get the chance to see this you'll understand the undertaking of it. It's also pretty inspiring that all costs of the construction come from donations to the church.

Putting on a brave face

Claire, Elizabeth and I decided to pay the little extra to climb up the towers. Somehow we managed to get lost and go in a big circle, despite there being pretty basic signs with a stick-man following an arrow down stairs. Whatever...we just enhanced our tour. The views from up there are pretty impressive of the city. Although you take an elevator up the tower,  you have to take stairs to go down and they're quite tight, dark, and long. Let's just say that none of us really enjoyed the stairs down, but Claire in particular was not having much fun with it.
After Sagrada Familia we were all pretty wiped out, and in a weird daze so we decide to split up in our 2 hostel groups and meet up later for dinner. The 4 of us stopped at a bakery on the way back, and got a little food and sugar to fuel us a little longer. We then headed back to the hostel and all took some naps before showering up and getting ready for dinner.  We ended up going to this place called Tapa Tapa for dinner. It had a really cool vibe, but was very clearly aimed at tourists. It was a little pricier than I'm used to for tapas, but it was a fun restaurant for our crowd. Our friend Kate and her friend from home who was studying in Barcelona for the semester also joined us. It was good to sit down in a relaxed setting and get to know everyone.
The next morning I headed out back to La Coruña. It was a quick weekend and I wish that I could have gotten to spend a little more time with everyone. For better or for worse though, summer is soon approaching and we've already made plans to all get together.
Love you all!