Missing Spain...

I made it back home, and am already hard at work taking MORE summer classes at JMU. Apologies for getting lazy about the blog in my last week… it was just so busy and I was having too much fun!

I can’t believe how fast this entire month flew by. During our last week, we stayed around Tarragona and got to enjoy our beautiful town. On Tuesday night, we had a fancy dinner at a nice Italian Restaurant called Pizza Nostra. It was really nice to see everyone dressed up and enjoying PIZZA & PASTA! Afterwards, about half of the group went to a really cool lounge called La Fabula for a drink. It was such a nice spot, and I wish we would have found it earlier in the trip!

Below: Group at Pizza Nostra and outside of La Fabula!

On Wendesday, we took a trip to a monestary, called Poblet. We took a tour around the monestary and grounds and it was very beuatiful. I was just a little bummed we didn't get to see any monks! But, we did learn some interesting things about the monks. We saw the room where the sleep... but there were no beds. They sleep on the floor of this room! Also, they only get to have one blanket (I would die because I sleep with 3, even in the summer)! But on really cold nights, two of the monks are able to sleep next to eachother, that way they can join their blankets together and sleep under two! To sleep next to one another, one of the monks has to be old, and one has to be young. I'm not exactly sure why, but a fun fact none the less!

Following our Poblet tour was a wine tour! We went to a beautiful vineyard and learned about the process... tired to anyway. The man giving the tour spoke SO fast. Twice, our teacher told the man we were students and asked if he could speak a little slower. Obviously, he didn't get the memo! But the vineyard tour ended with a wine tasting, so the trip wasn't a total waste :)

Below: Me, Sam, Lindsey, and Erica enjoying our Vino Joven (A young red wine... the old ones are so dry)!

Thursday was our last day of classes, and then we went to the beach for the rest of the afternoon. On Thursday, we also had a special dinner. We went out for tapas and a flamenco show! Flamenco is a Spanish dance, and we even got to participate! They invited everyone up on the stage, and it turned into one big dance party. Even our teachers danced! It was SO fun.

After the show, we headed out to the Thursday hot spot… Greenback (aka Jimdels)! Once again, it was a veryyy late night, but we all had a really good time. We were all a little tired in the morning for our final exams, but luckily they weren’t hard. After our exams, the university had a send off lunch for us at a really nice restaurant (this week was full of fancy meals)! We were seated outdoors, but under a little shelter… which came in handy when it started POURING rain.  The lunch was so nice because everyone from the group was there, along with our teachers and professors from the university that we’ve gotten to know.

And the food was delicious… check out my salmon!

Friday was a really good day, because Manolo also made us a special meal for dinner. When we got to Bar Delta, the table was covered with food and wine. It was quite a feast. We got full pretty fast, and just when we couldn’t eat anymore… HE BROUGHT OUT MORE FOOD. We felt bad wasting because him and his wife cook everything themselves. It must have taken them forever to make it all. SO, we kept eating. We ended up taking home huge platters of food because there was so much left. Our group took a picture with Manolo and his wife, and we’re going to send it to him. It was so hard to say goodbye to them, and I miss them so much already!!! Saying bye to them was a huge wakeup call that our trip was coming to an end, and I started to get really emotional.

That night, we went out to the discoteca a few towns over, in Salaou. We have been talking about going there all trip, so we figured our last weekend was finally the time to do it. We took the bus there and back, and even met some really nice Americans! We had sooo much fun, but the sun was up when we got home. I’m not sure I’m cut out to party like a European!

After a few hours of sleep, I headed to La Playa de La Mora with Sam and Hannah (the beach we stayed at a few weekends ago). Our teachers have a house there, and they invited us to a cookout at their house for dinner, so we figured we’d go early to have some beach time.  We had lunch at Bar Luigi, which was where we ate breakfast when we were staying there. Luigi remembered us and was really excited to see us!  The weather was PERFECT (high 70s and sunny) for most of the day, but it started getting a little windy towards the end of the day. Luckily, it was just in time for us to go to the cookout. Their house was so cute and we sat out and grilled on the patio. We talked all about our favorite memories from the trip, and had a great time together. I’m so lucky to have such amazing teachers!

I'll leave you with this picutre of some of the girls outside of the Tarragona bus station. TGN is the abbreviation for Tarragona, and the girls standing in the letters helped make my experience so amazing. I'll be friends with them for a long time and we'll always have Tarragona<3

Salvador Dali Museum!

On our way home from France, we stopped at a town in Spain called Figueres to visit the Salvador Dali museum! Dali was a very interesting (and strange) man, but his art is incredible. It is full of double meanings and symbolism, and I LOVED learning about it! Here is the outside of the museum... how cool!

This is one of my favorite paintings that we saw...



At first glance, I saw the two women wearing red and green in the top right corner. But if you look again, you can see the face of a matador! Samantha and I loved this painting... Sam even bought a small print of it in the gift shop! We had a great time in the museum, but after out guided tour, we were SOO hungry. I set out with Lindsey and Sam to find a nice spot to eat. We ended up ordering a bunch of RANDOM food and sharing it... chips & guac, tortellini, a pizza, and sangria! It was a weird lunch, but we were excited to get a break from seafood! After lunch, we had a lot of free time to wander around the town. Only problem... it was siesta time, so a lot of the stores were close! On our walk, we saw a sign that said "New York Brownie" and of course that caught our eye. I am the biggest sucker for chocolate, and I have been pretty deprived on this trip. Many times in the past 3 weeks, I've said, "I would kill for a brownie with ice cream!" Lucky for me, that's exactly what the New York Brownie was :)

It cost 4.90 euros, but it was definately worth it!!!

Collioure, France

This weekend, our trip was to a town in Southern France called Collioure. It is a beautiful town that is both on the Mediterranean and tucked in the Pyrenees Mountains. The bus ride from Tarragona took about 4 hours. While on the bus, our teacher handed us each a piece of paper and told us we needed to write a poem (in Spanish) because we were going to visit the gravesite of a famous poet, Antonio Machado. I was so happy when we arrived in Collioure because it was so cute! Only problem, was that the sky was looking very grey! Sure enough, it was pouring by the time we arrived, and we all got soaked as they handed out our hotel keys. Samantha and I shared a room, band it was MUCH nicer that our accommodations in Barcelona! After settling into our rooms, the group went on a castle tour. For the first time, we didn’t have a guided tour and that was really exciting (there’s only so many guided historical tours I can take)! But rather than wandering around aimlessly in the castle, I thought it would be fun if I pretended to be the tour guide. I made up stories about every room, even saying that one of the jail cells was my sister’s room… sorry Mary! We had a good time with it, and took some beautiful pictures.

 

Below: Samantha and I are in love with Collioure... and each other!

After the castle, we (and our poems) headed to the gravesite of Antonio Machado. It is tradition for students to bring and read poems when the visit Machado's grave. So, we exchanged poems and read each other's poems aloud. It was a really neat experience, and I'm happy to have been part of the tradition!

We had an hour of free time after the poetry reading, so we walked around town and did what I do best… shopping! There were sooo many cute stores, so I was having the time of my life. In France, I felt like a foreigner for the first time when my friend, Amanda, and I were trying to order ice cream. In Spain, I know enough Spanish to fit in… but not in France! The only word I know is merci (thank you), so I just kept smiling and pointing and saying “merci” over and over! Luckily, he was a very nice Frenchman, not the stereotypical snotty one!

Later on, we took a little train around the town, through the vineyards, and up the mountains. It was nice to relax, take pictures, and see everything Collioure had to offer. It is such a gorgeous place! For dinner we had crepes, which I didn’t particularly enjoy, but I’m always up for a cultural experience! At least now I can say, “I’ve eaten crepes in France.” The dessert crepes were a little better… they were covered in Nutella, so how could they not be?! It started raining again after dinner, so I opted to hang out in the hotel rather than go out.  I was tired after a long, yet amazing day :)

The beds in the hotel were sooo comfy, but I didn’t sleep very well because of a crazy storm. The thunder was so loud! I was a little cranky in the morning, but my croissant at breakfast made everything better. There must have been a whole stick of butter in it because it was the best croissant I’ve ever had! I ate breakfast quickly so I would have a little bit of time to explore the outdoor market before our bus left. I ended up buying a print of a painting by a local artist! She was the nicest old lady and I’d love to go back and get some of her originals some day!

I wish we would have spent more time in Collioure… I love it so much! But we had to leave early Sunday morning. We headed back to Spain and made a stop in a town called Figueres to visit the Salvador Dali museum. It was a great day… which I’ll write about after I get some sleep!

Port Aventura

On Fridays we don't have classes, so last Friday we went to an amusement park... Port Aventura! The park itself is divided into 5 sections, China, Polynesia, Mexico, Far West, and Mediterranean. Each section of the park was themed and decorated accordingly. Here we are in China (below) excited to get on the first roller coaster of the day! Let me just add that we waited in line for TWO HOURS for this roller coaster. It was fun, but not enough to justify that wait!



For being such a large park, there weren't that many rides, and there were only two roller coasters. Since everyone was pretty much waiting on the same rides, most of the lines were really long, which got pretty annoying towards the end of the day. My group had planned to eat in the "Mexico" section, because we were really looking forward to the burritos and guacamole we saw on an advertisement. When we showed up to eat at 4:30, the restaurant had alreay closed, even though the park was open until 8. For some reason, most of the restaurants at the park closed early... except for the hot dog stands, but God knows I won't eat one of those! So, we ended going on one more ride and headed back to Tarragona for dinner. We all went to bed early that night to rest up for our weekend in France :)

Heaven on Earth

Yesterday afternoon, we took a daytrip to Montserrat... or as I like to call it, Heaven on Earth! Montserrat means "jagged mountain" and from pictures, you'll understand. The shape of the mountains themselves are so strange, and were really amazing to see up close!

At the top of the mountatin is a really famous monestary, and many Catholics make pilgramages there to see the Black Madonna, which is an incredibly famous wooden statue of Mary and Jesus. I won’t bore you with an entire history lesson, but it was really amazing to be there and touch the statue!

I feel really lucky that I got to see it, because getting up there was no easy feat. The monestary is LITERALLY on top of the mountain, and our bus ride up there had me a little (ok, more than a little) nervous! The roads were very narrow and the guardrails were very small.

Unlike my mom (sorry mom, it's true), I'm usually not freaked out by heights and wouldn't call myself a back seat driver, but even I found myself praying on the drive up there! At one point, my friend Kelsey and I even yelled "BUS!" as another tour bus started driving towards us coming down the mountain. The road didn't look wide enought to fit both of us, but it did. I'm sure the bus driver has driven this mountain a million times, but I was still a worry-wart. Is it possible I'm turning into my mother?!?!?!

The drive to the top was definately worth it. The view, the mountains, and the experience in the monestary were absolutely incredible. For me, the picture below is priceless and the memory will last a lifetime!

(This is at the top of the mountain, and behind us are the valleys below. I am 5th from the right!)

Home Sweet Tarragona

After such a relaxing weekend, I wasn't looking forward to getting back to classes (especially knowing that everyone in the U.S. was off for Memorial Day)! But it was actually nice to be back in our routine, and classes were very interesting. In my Culture & Medicine class, we learned about La Peste Negra (The Black Death) and watched a really cool video. Did you know that the first evidence of biological warfare comes from the Middle Ages during the plague? Soldiers would catapult the bodies of infected soldiers into enemy camps to spread the disease to their enemies! Cool, right? After lunch on campus, Sam and I opted not to go shopping with some of the others in the group, and she took a nap while I did some reading! Then, we had a really special dinner! Remember my post last week about the Roman style dinner we had at the travel agency, Elit International? Well, dinner was there again, and this time we made our own PAELLA :) Paella is one of my favorite Spanish dishes, so I was really excited to make it for myself! Here is out final product... so awesome!

Today, our class schedule was a little bit different. They often divide all of the students into two groups based on the classes they are taking—a medical and a culture group. I, of course, am in the medical group. Today, the culture group went off on an excursion in town, and the medical group had a “conference” at school. Our university has great practical medical facilities, complete with equipment and dummies to practice all sorts of procedures. Today, we learned the Spanish terms for all kinds of medical equitpment and practiced CPR procedures (in Spanish) on a dummy. Luckily, my partner, Hannah, did everything right and I were able to save our dummy!!!

On Tuesdays, we also have an additional culture class in the afternoon, and today's topic was music! We learned about some popular Spanish artists and got to sing some of their songs. The class ended with a duet, with each half of the class singing one of the parts. It was so funny! And now I've been singing "Mi corazon.... sin tiiiiii" (My heart... without youuuu) stuck in my head all day...

CAMPING

Ok... so the title of this post is a little deceiving. This weekend, we didn't actually go camping, but to a beach resort called Camping en La Playa de La Mora. It is still techincally in Tarragona, but is about 30 minutes away from our dorms. So, we were instructed to take the city bus to get there. The bus stop is only a few blocks away, but with our luggage for the weekend, it was a bit of a hassle. To make matters worse, not everyone was there where we were supposed to meet, so we wasted a lot of time trying to gather everyone. Finally, a bunch of us decided we would just go to the bus stop and go, and the stragglers would have to take a later bus. Well, wouldn't you know, just as we rounded the corner to get to the bus stop, we saw our bus pulling away (4 minutes earlier than scheduled I might add). We weren't really sure what to do at that point because, according to the schedule at the bus stop, another one wouldn't be coming for over an hour. But after talking to several people, it turned out that another would be arriving in about 30 minutes, so the whole lot of us sat on benches like homeless people for a while, bags and all.

We finally arrived at La Playa de La Mora, and the beach was gorgeous!!! We walked along a mini "boardwalk" which had three restaurants and a store, but nothing else. It was small, peaceful, and perfect! The place is called Camping because of the lodging. We stayed in rustic cabins up on a wooded hill that overlooked the Mediterranean. We were randomly assigned four people to a cabin, and luckily Sam and I got put in the same one! Here we are in our cabin before the Barcelona futbol game...

After settling in to our bungalow, we went to one of the beach front restaurants for lunch, then hit the beach! The waves were a lot of fun that day, and we really enjoyed ourselves in the water… especially after the purchase of a Hello Kitty raft!!! After we were all “beached out” we went to check out the pool. It was amazing! It was huge and lined with palm trees. I took a little nap in a lounge chair and did a little reading!

For dinner, we ate at a nice restaurant right next to the pool. The restaurant had prepared a special menu for us, but it was very poorly translated into English! For example, for starters we could have one of several salads or a "broth soap!" Our of the teachers that is with us is a professional translator and he was laughing out loud! Since most of the menu wass lost in translation, Sam and I both took our chances ordering "Escalope Milanese" thinking it MUST be a dish with scallops. Wrong!!! Turns out, it was a breaded type of steak, and we all know I don't eat steak! Luckily, the portions around here huge, so I was able to steal chicken from other people's plates! After dinner, a bunch of the girls got together for wine in one of the bungalows. It was the perfect, low-key night to top of a day of relaxation!

Breakfast the next day was at one of the beachfront restaurants. The restaurant is owned by the cutest old man in the world, Luigi. We really bonded with him, and he was so sad to see us go today. He even told us his address, so we could send him post cards from the United States!

We spent most of Saturday on the beach, then went to the pool for a few hours before dinner. I defnately caught some rays! Then we headed back to the bungalows to get ready for the big futbol game! Saturday night was the Champions League futbol final between Barcelona and Machester United. We just visited the Barcelona stadium last week, and were excited to rock our new jerseys! We ate dinner at the poolside restaurant again, which was perfect because they have a few big screen tvs. Here we are by the pool in our jerseys (Sam, Me, Hannah, Katie)

We watched while we ate (I ate chicken, not Escalope!) and then stuck around after dinner to have a beer and watch the rest of the game. Everyone in the restaurant was dressed in Barca colors, jerseys, and some even had team flags. It was so exciting, and reminiscent of the Superbowl! Barca won the game, so it was basically the best day ever!

This morning, we had to check out of our bungalows at 10 AM, and then we headed to Luigi’s restaurant for breakfast! Since it was nice out, we decided to stick around for a while and take advantage of the beach. We had already check out, so we had our suitcases with us on the beach. We looked pretty silly, but whatever! Around three, a bunch of us decided to head back to school to get started on laundry and homework (and blog entries)! It was a really relaxing weekend, and I was sad to see it end!

I'll leave you with one more picture... The lighting in our bungalow was so bad, that we did our makeup out on the deck! Haha