It's a small world after all

Not only am I studying in Spain, but our program gives us a week break in the middle to rest, or in our case, explore Europe. We chose to go to Rome, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Barcelona. So now I will try and recount all of my adventures of the last week in some sort of organized fashion. Let's start with Rome.

On our first afternoon in Rome we went to the Spanish steps and ate chocolate and strawberry gelato. We wandered through the streets of Rome and around every corner was another fountain or church. Our hostel had pasta (for free!) every night for dinner and so the first night at dinner we met two girls Liz and Virginia who were traveling Europe and a group of boys who were studying in Germany. Virginia invited us to Halloween party that was at an apartment of a friend of hers. First, her friend happened to be from Carpinteria, close to Santa Barbara, and knows the sister of one of my good friends from Westmont. Second, the apartment overlooked the colosseum, which was lit up because it was night. It was epic. The next day we went to the Vatican, where all of the good looking Italian men work, and where my camera broke. So all the pictures you are going to see are going to be from the first day of Rome. It guess its good that I like to write so that I can describe it all.

We toured old Rome, walking through the ruins was incredible, I tried to imagine what it would have looked like back when Rome was the center of the world. We also toured the inside of the colosseum and after returned to our hostel to find that the featured film of the afternoon was gladiator. On our last night in Rome we got more gelato (chocolate chip and tiramisu this time for me) and went to the Trevi fountain to throw in our coins and make wishes. I won't tell mine, or else it won't come true, but it was good.

Next was Berlin. We spent the first night wandering Hackescher Markt, the Jewish quarter, and eating currywurst (spicy sausage doused in ketchup and curry). The next morning we decided to go on a walking tour. It was freezing in Berlin, but also so beautiful, all of the leaves were changing colors and when the wind would blow all of the leaves would fly across the streets. I love fall. A lot of Berlin is still under construction, a lot of the statues in the city were taken down during WWII and hidden in rivers and reservoirs, so a lot of the buildings look new, but have really old statues. We also saw the remains of the Berlin wall and stood above Hitlers bunker. And we ate German chocolates.

Amsterdam was really interesting as well. Think of the small world ride at Disneyland, and thats Amsterdam, except maybe not as cutesy and sweet. We took a walking tour here as well (we are all about our walking tours). We went to the headquarters of the Dutch East India company, Amsterdam was where the first stock exchange was, and then second was in New Amsterdam, aka New York city. Amsterdam also had all of their Christmas decorations up already. Jill wants to move there, but Im not completely sold, it would be too cold for me, and dutch is difficult to understand even though most people speak English as well. The guy who worked at our hostel was really interesting, he had this haircut, well more like someone chopped off all his hair except for one giant lock. He was from Greece and was heading to China the same day we were heading to Barcelona. He also told us that we enjoyed Amsterdam like his mother would (hint) But we were okay with that decision. Oh and we went to the Van Gogh museum, like all of the other Amsterdam tourists.

Okay now Barcelona. Truthfully, I can't tell you that much about Barcelona. Upon arrival, walking to the bank, Jill was robbed. They took her purse, which contained no money, but everything else of importance was in the bag (hence why there will be no pictures of other places we went). So we spent the evening at the police station, the next morning at the airport trying to figure out if she could fly without a passport (future reference, you can't even if it is a domestic flight). So we ended up taking the high speed train home. As we got off the train in Sevilla, we ran into a girl that we met our first night in Rome on the platform. Seriously a small world.
Aside from Barcelona, it was a fabulous vacation, I really want to go back and spend more time in Italy and Berlin.
On another note, I have almost obtained the package that my mom sent me. The Spanish post office gave it to another girl on our program and she will be bringing it to me at school in about 20 minutes! I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And last night I got to chat with one of my best friends, Josslynn who has been my encourager and lifeline to my friends back at Westmont while I have been here. It made me so happy!

"We're waking up...." -OneRepublic