"Wait, where did we get that wine??" BARCELONA!!

It's about 8:00pm on Saturday night here in Uppsala and part of me wishes I could still be enjoying the amazing sunshine and beautiful beach in Barcelona!! Before we left I had no idea what to expect from the city, all I knew was that it's about 20 degrees warmer than Sweden and let me just say, the weather did not disappoint! The city itself is truly like paradise, with palm trees everywhere and a beach to hang out on, I'd say this trip felt the most like vacation!!

I went with three other girls from my class and we had a blast!! We got there late Thursday night and took a taxi to the hostel. On our way, Serena asked me where the hostel was and I told her it looked like it was in an area called 'Las Ramblas.' She laughed and said 'uh oh, that's on the list I looked up of the top 5 places to avoid in Barcelona!' After that we were all a little skeptical of the hostel and were convinced we were headed for the ghetto of Barcelona haha. But once we got there, our pre-conceived notions of the area quickly changed! Not only is Las Ramblas one of the most hoppin tourist areas in Barcelona (for those of you in Boulder, I'd relate it to a giant Spanish version of Pearl Street), but our hostel was super nice! As we were checking in, the receptionist kindly informed us to try and avoid paying for anything with our credit cards, because all the shops in Barcelona charge an ADDITIONAL 7% fee on top of what the bank charges you for international transactions. Needless to say, an ATM was one of our first stops the next day!

Las Ramblas

We spent most of Friday exploring the city and just getting a feel for Spain's culture. We ended up buying a two-day pass for one of those tour buses that are double-decker style with an open deck on top to see the sights. Anytime people go to Europe in a movie, I feel like they always show them touring a city on one of these buses so I felt like such a typical European tourist, but loved every minute of it! Between Friday and Saturday the bus took us ALL OVER the city...

Camp Nou, where Barcelona's national soccer team plays!

After a full day touring, we stumbled across Barcelona's famous outdoor market. This market was amazing!! Not only was it huge, but it was filled with every type of fresh food you can imagine! Definitely something you don't just stumble across in the US haha. 

mmmm yummy!!

Soooo many gummies!!

For our first night, we set out to eat traditional Spanish food, so we were determined to find cheap tapas or churros. Due to our inability to make a decision as a group haha we failed at both, but did manage to drink the traditional Spanish beverage, Sangria (which I'm sure most of you are familiar with, but it's essentially a form of red wine juice) at Barcelona's very popular Fairy Cafe!

While we were there, it just so happened to be what is known as Barcelona's 'Carnival' weekend. After experiencing it, I'd pretty much say it's Spain's combination of halloween and a masquerade. In celebration of the weekend, Las Ramblas was filled with street performers...

Allyson and I gave this guy money for sitting like a no-headed statue, so he jumped up and took a picture with us!

bahahaha!

Saturday night was definitely the most eventful! We decided to go on a pub crawl organized by our hostel, which was a great deal because we went to 3 different pubs (with a free shot at each one) and then ended at a club without having to pay the minimum 20 euro (~$26) cover charge or wait in line! We decided to embrace the city's carnival spirit and got dressed up for the night! 

We had picked up a couple of cheap bottles of wine to enjoy while getting ready (people in Spain don't even start going out until 11pm or midnight and don't usually come home until the wee hours of the morning, so we figured why not kill time with some wine?!) Anyways, we were opening the second bottle when Michelle (yes, there was two of us on the trip!) says "wait, where did we get that wine??" After some initial confusion, we realized we had grabbed someone else's wine out of the hostel's refrigerator having mistaken it for our own. Turns out another group had bought the same type, but had labeled their bottle, which we failed to realize in time. This whole situation was pretty hilarious at the time, but quite possibly a 'had-to-be-there' kind of thing! Anyways, throughout the night, we discovered that random Spanish guys stand in the middle of the street trying to sell you single cans of beer, but turns out if you actually buy the beer from them it's just a cover up for the drugs they're selling. We also discovered that the main pick up line in Barcelona consists of two words: "Hola bitch!" Not exactly classy, but apparently it works for them. 

We spent the majority of the rest of the trip relaxing on the beach and soakin up the sunshine! It was a perfect girl's weekend and a type of Spanish paradise I'll never forget!

The International Gasque!

It's about 10:00pm on Wednesday night here in Uppsala and you're probably wondering what amazing trip I'm going to tell you about this time. Well surprisingly, I stayed in good ol' Uppsala for the weekend! As much as I'm loving the whole traveling thing, it's been nice to stay put for more than a couple days haha. Life in Uppsala has definitely picked up. I've been a little busier with school (weird right?!) and enjoying the warmer weather we've had this past week...finally got above zero degrees celsius! For those of you that are used to F (like me haha) that means that we finally got some weather above freezing temperatures!! It couldn't have come at a better time either because this weekend was the International Gasque (spelled just the way it sounds)!
Before I left for Sweden, they told us about these things called 'gasques' at my orientation. After now experiencing one for myself, I'd describe it as an upscaled Swedish version of prom. The night essentially consists of everyone getting dressed up (girls in formal dresses and guys in suits/tuxes), eating dinner, and then dancing the night away at the after party. Sounds pretty familiar right?? Well if I had to choose between the American Prom and a Swedish Gasque, I'd pick the gasque! The entire event is an elegant display of Swedish culture and tradition!
I started the night off by getting ready with a few other girls, you know the usual dress, hair, and make-up stuff!

The gasque was hosted by the V-Dala Nation, which is one of the larger nations in Uppsala. We got there at 5:30pm, but didn't actually sit down for dinner until around 6:30pm. They had free champagne for everyone to sip on while we waited to go upstairs for dinner. The room quickly filled up and by dinner time it was packed! Apparently there was about 400 of us international students at this gasque!

Everyone downstairs, drinking free champagne, waiting for dinner...

Finally around 6:30pm, the guy in charge of the gasque came downstairs, blew a horn (what would later be known as the drinking horn) and announced that dinner was ready! We headed upstairs to a giant ballroom, lined with about 15 long tables, all beautifully set for the night's meal...

After sitting down and getting settled, a bunch of waiters lined the room and gave every person a shot of Swedish Schnapps. Here began a long night of drinking! We were not allowed to take the shot in one gulp, but had to pace ourselves so that we took it in three different sips. This was because we sang Swedish songs in between, which all end by saying 'Skol!' (or 'Cheers!'). Basically the night consisted of singing, then drinking, then singing, then drinking, then singing, then drinking, and finally food...but only the appetizer. We were served reindeer and salad to begin with, which was surprisingly very tasty!

After the appetizer, we were given another shot of Schnapps and proceeded with more singing and drinking. For dinner they gave us moose meat with mashed potatoes and for desert we got this custard-like substance with raspberry sauce...all delicious!! By the end of the meal (which lasted until 10:30pm I might add) I'd consumed 2 shots of Schnapps, a beer, 2 glasses of wine, and 2 shots of baileys with dessert. Needless to say, everyone was drunk! In between the singing, drinking, and eating, we were also entertained by an orchestra, an all-boys acapella group, and a group of drummers. Here's the best group of the night!...A bunch of Swedish Boy-Scout look-alikes singing Backstreet Boys...

Once dinner was all said and done, they cleared the tables out of the ballroom and started the after party, which included a live band, open bar, and karaoke! We danced the night away, or at least a good chunk of it and I got home around 3am. Overall, the night was filled with good food (intertwined with lots of alcohol), good people, and a ton of Swedish culture and tradition. It was an experience completely unique to Uppsala and a night I'll never forget!

"I Love You Baby!"....BERLIN!!

It's about 5:00pm on Wednesday evening here in Uppsala and I successfully travelled to Berlin and back this last weekend! I went with eight other people who are all from Chicago, so everyone kept joking about how it was the Chicago kids and me, but don't worry I represented Colorado quite well!!

Anyways, we spent the night in the airport on Wednesday night because our flight was super early on Thursday morning. After that experience, I can definitely say that sleeping in an airport to save money is overrated! My bed consisted of four wooden chairs pushed together, so needless to say none of us got much sleep that night. Our flight was only an hour-in-a-half and then it was about a 20 min train ride into Berlin from the airport, so we were all pretty exhausted by the time we got to the hostel. The hostel was nestled in a Turkish community in the city, so we had all sorts of kebap restaurants to choose from for food. We shared a 16 bed dorm room with a bunch of couches to hang out on in the common room. The people that worked there were extremely helpful in showing us how navigate the metro system (in a group of 9 people, this wasn't always the easiest task haha!)

Our room in the hostel!

So after settling in, we spent most of Thursday just walking around the city. Sense we were all exhausted from the night before, we ended up taking like a 3 hour nap and then headed out for the night! We wanted to keep the night low key, so we ended up going bowling of all places! This is where I tasted my first real German beer! Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of it, but I know it started with a 'W' haha. 

I bowled two strikes right away so I was pretty excited!

Probably one of the funniest stories of the whole trip happened on our way back from bowling. We were on our way to the metro and were trying to figure out which train to get on to get back to the hostel. Out of the entire group, this older guy, I'd say like 50s or 60s comes up to me and wants to shake my hand. You could immediately tell that he was really drunk and had glitter all over his face so was most likely coming from somewhere shady?? Anyways, I'm trying to ignore him sense he's a creeper...we finally figure out which train to take, get on, and he follows me to my seat. He keeps asking to shake my hand, I realize he won't leave unless I do, so I shook it real quick and said hi. He was swaying back and forth and wouldn't leave us alone so we walked down a couple cars on the train to try and get away from him. He wasn't scary or anything, just wasted, so at this point we're all laughing a little. We were still waitin for the train to leave and I was pretty sure we'd gotten rid of him when all of sudden he appears in the doorway. So basically, he'd gotten off the train and then followed us on the outside. He was standing half in the door half out of it staring at me, then blows me a kiss, points directly at me, and slurs out 'I Love You Baby.' It's hard to describe how funny of a scene this was but we were all cracking up! He finally got off the train before it left and after that it became the running joke of the trip that I'd found myself a "sexy" German boyfriend haha!

We spent most of Friday taking a free walking tour of the city. The tour was AWESOME!! Our tour guide's name was Simon and he's originally from the UK. He knew so much about Berlin's history! I'm so glad we did this, otherwise we would have never seen nearly the amount of places that we did!

Simon, the tour guide!

Brandenburg Gate!

The most expensive hotel in Berlin, it costs $12,000 per night to stay in a presidential suite. This is also the hotel that Michael Jackson was staying in when he hung his baby out the window!!

The Holocaust Memorial...intentionally designed for everyone to interpret in their own way.

Cool pic at the Holocaust Memorial.

The Berlin Wall

Checkpoint Charlie (what it used to look like...)

What it looks like now...basically just a tourist attraction!

Humboldt University...where Albert Einstein studied before coming to the US!

Berlin's giant cathedral...there's no escaping religion in these cities!

After a long day touring the city, we decided to take the edge off with a beer...or two...ok maybe a few more sense we did a PUB CRAWL!! We went to 5 different pubs throughout the city and it was a blast!

We managed to wake up Saturday morning, pull ourselves together, and spent most of the day touring a concentration camp. The camp was located about a half hour (by train) outside of Berlin. When we got to the train station, we walked the same path that the victims did when they were brought to the camp. I'm really glad we did this tour! Even though it's a depressing subject for vacation, it's such a vital part of Germany's history. Overall the camp felt pretty eery. The stories that our tour guide told us about the camp's history and what went on behind it's walls are some of the saddest things I've ever heard. Not to be a downer, but just to give you an example, the camp is surrounded by electrical barbed wire charged at 300 Volts. Many of the victims got to the point where they wanted to commit suicide, so the most popular way of doing so was by throwing themselves at the fence. However, there's a 'neutral zone' in front of the fence warning all victims that they'd be shot if they stepped into it. So when a victim would attempt to commit suicide, the Nazi guards would shoot them as soon as they reached the neutral zone, but not kill them, just to injure them to make it harder to kill themselves against the fence. 

Too many stories exist just like this one. Most people wonder why anyone would want to go back to a concentration camp and relive its history. But with the way it's been preserved as a museum-like atmosphere, it's used as a learning tool so that we can learn from our history and never repeat its mistakes (something my history teachers have always told me, but I've never quite appreciated until now...)

The entrance to the camp. 

What they wore. Their clothes were designed to be too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Basically anything that would make them uncomfortable or humiliate them was done to them.

They were all assigned different colored triangles when they got there. The color of the triangle signified what 'type' of victim they were (i.e. criminal, homosexual, Jew, etc.) The Jews were given yellow triangles and treated the worst. 

At the end of the tour, our tour guide concluded with a poem and then reminded us to appreciate the fact that we get to leave the camp's gate and go back to our daily lives, something the victims of the holocaust never got to do. This was definitely a moment I'll never forget...

We got to leave the camp, the victims never did...

This experience was one I'll never forget. The weather was about 30 degrees F, so the tour itself was FREEZING! Even though the weather made the tour hard, I realized that it made me appreciate what we were learning even more. Knowing the victims were only given their uniform for warmth, while I was walking around bundled up in my warm clothes, scarf, gloves, and jacket really helped me recognize the reality of the awful conditions of the camp. 

So to move on from the depressing nature of the day, we headed back to Berlin, ate a hearty meal of good ol' German brats, and left to spend another night in the airport. Looking back on it, the trip overall was a great balance between history and drunkin fun haha! Definitely a very different feel from the chique culture of Paris, but AMAZING all the same...

PARIS: Two of my Best Friends, Delicious Crepes, and SO Much History...

It's about 4:00pm on Sunday afternoon and I've officially visited both Paris and Berlin within the last two weeks! What a life right?!
Paris was an AMAZING weekend! I started the trip off by staying in a hostel in Stockholm the night before my flight because it left super early the following morning. Staying by yourself in a hostel is definitely a tad uncomfortable, but I made the best of it! In fact, a very significant part of my trip started here, with a conversation I had with another guy in my room. I'm pretty sure he was from somewhere in Africa and while we were both getting ready for bed he says to me: "You're so lucky your native language is English." I replied by saying: "Ya, but sometimes I feel ignorant since I don't know another language." He replied: "Why? You don't need to."
I didn't think much of this until the next morning when I was sitting on the bus to the airport. I realized he was right, I am lucky to have been raised in a country where English is the native language. You can travel almost anywhere in the world these days and pretty much assume that most people will speak English. I started thinking about who chose English as the universal language? Who decided the English language is in some way better or easier or more common than other languages? After taking four years of French and coming nowhere close to being fluent, I'm very aware of how hard it is to learn another language. Basically what I took away from this small conversation is how the English language is something we take for granted everyday in the US and how we really are lucky to be raised around the language that for one reason or another is becoming universal. Communication is a vital part of life, but something like a language barrier should never be the reason why someone can't succeed. I'll never experience that, simply because of the environment I was born into, but so many people in the world do, which I never quite recognized until now. So thank you random man in the hostel! haha.

Anyways, back to PARIS!! I got there early in the afternoon (two Thursdays ago) and after figuring out how to navigate the metro system, met up with Gabby. We stayed with her host parents, who are extremely wealthy (which is an understatement!). Julia Roberts owns a house on their same block, just to give you an idea of the chique area I'm talking about. They gave us extra food in the fridge, an extra bed to sleep in and then left for the weekend, leaving us the house to ourselves. As if being in Paris isn't cool enough, we were basically spoiled for the weekend too! Here's a picture of the pathway leading up to the house, it's beautiful!

We saw SO MUCH for only being there over the weekend. Gabby was the perfect hostess and showed us everything a tourist would want to see, but also areas you wouldn't necessarily know to go to unless you lived there! We started Friday off by visiting the Notre Dame, only the first of MANY cathedrals we saw throughout the weekend. Gabby kept joking about how she was secretly converting us haha, but in reality there's just no escaping Europe's religious past.

The Notre Dame...it's beautiful inside and out!

The Seine river...runs alongside the Notre Dame.

After Notre Dame, we walked along the Seine river, which basically runs through the middle of Paris. We stumbled upon this awesome bridge with a bunch of locks all over it...turns out it's called the 'Lover's Bridge' and people buy locks to symbolize their love. So of course we bought a lock and now share a piece of our love for each other forever in Paris!

Our lock!!

The Seine river at night...Gotta love the reflections!

We visited the Louvre on Friday night because it's free after 6pm on Fridays! Yes, we saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and so much more. And yes, the Mona Lisa is a bit of a disappointment in person...much smaller than you'd imagine, but still way cool to see!! It's awesome to have learned about a lot of this stuff in my history classes and then actually see it in real life!

Gabby and I outside the main entrance of the Louvre!

To end a full day, we walked down the Champs-Elysees, which was probably one of my favorite areas of Paris! As we were strolling down the main street of Paris, we stumbled upon a pretty big protest of people standing up for Egypt. Apparently Parisians love to protest anything they don't like, so it wasn't like this was anything new. But the atmosphere around the protest was awesome to witness in person: Egyptian flags being waved everywhere, cars passing by honking their horns, and police protecting the area, but letting the people embrace their right to protest at the same time! The street itself is very city-like, but gorgeous to walk down at night since it leads up to the Arc de Triumph!!

Arc de Triumph!

On Saturday we visited another cathedral called the Sainte Chapelle. After standing in line for a solid hour, finally making it through security, and paying 8 euros (which is about $10) to get in, we walked into the cathedral and found nothing special. The room was your typical European cathedral with some big pillars, small stain glass windows, and a larger figure of Jesus at the front. We all took pictures since that's what you're supposed to do as a tourist, but were overall unimpressed. I even commented to Gabby how waiting in line and paying to get in all turned out to be anti-climatic. Just as we were ready to leave, we saw a couple people walking down a very narrow staircase in the corner. Curious as to where they were coming from, we ascended the spiral staircase to find a huge and GORGEOUS room surrounded by an amazing display of stain glass. We quickly realized this is why the Sainte Chapelle is so well-known and were a bit embarrassed by the fact that we almost left without actually seeing what we were supposed to...ignorant Americans right?? haha!

Sainte Chapelle!

The rest of the day was filled with more cathedrals, crepes, and finally the Eiffel Tower!! Like Piper, the reality of being in Paris with two of my best friends didn't truly set in until we walked just a few blocks down from Gabby's house, turned the corner, and saw l'tour d'eiffel lit up, in all its glory!! Describing it in words is impossible, but if I had to choose one word, I'd say BREATHTAKING! Something everyone should see at least once in their life!

Notice the reflection of light...this is why I LOVE rivers!!

I'm framing this one!

With her host family out of town and the kitchen to ourselves, we ended the weekend with a delicious, homemade dinner, complete with salad, pasta, french bread, cheese of course, and wine! 

Since I've been here for just over a month now, the reality of studying abroad has obviously set in. However, it wasn't until I was in Paris with two of my best friends that I consciously thought about how lucky I am to be only 20 years old and have this opportunity. It's truly an experience of a lifetime and I'm appreciating every minute of it! So as corny as this might be, I'll take one sentence to thank mommy, Mike, daddy, and Linda...without you guys I'd never be here :)

Anyways, enough of the mushy stuff! This is long enough, so I'll update you on my trip to Berlin in a couple days!