So, highlights from Nice-Dublin!
The South of France was beautiful, and I was so happy to be with Austyn and Katy! We spent a couple relaxing days in Nice, Audy and I went to Monaco and pretended to be rich
This is the Monte Carlo casino, which we went to but did not gamble in, since we were just pretending to be rich.
We took an afternoon trip to Aix-en-Provence in hopes of finding fields of lavender but found out we were a week too early due to the cold winter, but found a park with my name spelled correctly instead
There were really only homeless people hanging out in it, but still super exciting!
We spent a night in Montpellier, where we ate our final French crepes, the went to Barcelona!
Barcelona was just as fun the second time around, except for a traumatic experience with a man taking his pants off in a seemingly lovely park.
After Barcelona Katy left and Austyn and I continued on to Valencia, where we met former exchanged student Marta and had a wonderful time!
A highlight was wandering through her grandparents farm, where they grow all kinda of fruits and vegetables for the family. Her grandmother stuffed us full with all the fruit from the farm, it was amazing. The next day Marta showed us all around Valencia, which was beautiful, with her friend Maria, and treated us to delicious fartones and Horxata!
Audy with our tapas, two of which we got for ordering water
Austyn in the garden of the Alhambra
After Granada we made the long trip to Lagos, long because we took a train to Sevilla to take a bus to Faro to take a train to Lagos. We made it though! And were greeted at our hostel with free sangria and shells to paint, which was awesome.
The next day we ate pineapple pizza and took a kayak tour, which turned into a private tour when we were the only people to show up, with tour guide Duarte who is, self proclaimed, better than Ronaldo at soccer. We relaxed on the beach for the rest of our time in Lagos and then moved on to Sevilla.
When booking our hostel in Sevilla, we picked a hostel and were in the process of booking in when we realized the middle day of our stay, there was only one bed available in the cheapest room. We decided to book it anyways and then go back and book just one night in a more expensive room, however before we booked for the second time, while looking for the hostel's email address we discovered the hostel still had a bed available for the night we wanted on another website. So we booked it!
When we arrived at the hostel and told them our names to check in the immediate response was "ohh you're the tricky girls!!" Because we had unknowingly booked the same bed before they had time to take it offline on the other site.
After a quick lesson on how hostels work and Austyn was persuaded into signing the back of her credit card, we checked in and went to bed.
Sevilla was great fun, with a combination of visiting the tourists sights, Briana's neighborhood, Austyn decorating me with flowers, and celebrating my birthday!
We got lost in the maze from the third task from the Triwizard Tournament. Luckily, we had our wands
Audio found a boyfriend. Don't worry mom, he's willing to move to Wildwood!
You're not supposed to eat these oranges. They don't taste good.
Even though we were "tricky," we quickly made friends with 4 funny British guys who owned our hostel, and for July 4th/ my birthday they grilled burgers on the roof and we all ate cake and wore birthday hats
At one point Austyn and I decided we wanted watermelon (okay, mostly me. Only me) and bought a giant watermelon.
When we were a mile from our hostel. That I then had to carry a mile back home.
But you need watermelon on the 4th of July! It was also used in the making of my watermelon-kiwi birthday mojito, which was took close to 15 minutes to make...
I definitely had a great birthday in Sevilla!
After Sevilla we headed to Morocco. The arrival started off a bit shaking, the drive to our hotel took over 3 hours instead of 30 minutes due to some sort of parade that we ended up just having to drive through. However everything we did after that was well worth it!
Our first stop was a blue city with the funniest tour guide ever, we found out halfway through the tour that he had his iPad under his arm the whole time. He was also on TV in all of Europe and friends with Barack Obama. Or, he said he was.
After this we were taken to some
Cave filled with lots of elementary school children that we did not exactly love
It definitely had a pretty view though! That is supposedly Africa.
After the scary cave we rode camels around a parking lot! The tour said it would be a beachside camel ride, and the parking lot was next to the beach, so this was somewhat true
It was pretty terrifying.
The next, and our final day, we finally had couscous!
Audy got couscous itis.
After this we went back to Sevilla for a night, and then in the morning Austyn left for Paris without me :(
I went to Mardid which was just as hot but not as much fun as Sevilla, and then started on the longest travel of my trip.
I took an overnight train from Madrid to Paris, and then was planning on taking the 3 hour train from Paris to Amsterdam, but when I arrived in Paris I found out all the high speed trains were full, so instead, I had to take a series of regional trains
Luckily, I met two girls doing the same thing pretty early on so I had some company!
Amsterdam was a lot of fun, but I was quite glad I made friends because we got lost in the red light district for.. Awhile.
After Amsterdam I headed to Brugge, a beautiful little city in Belgium where I ate lots of waffles and French fries
The Prime Meridian runs through Brugge
Look at me, I'm in two hemispheres at once!
After Brugge I went to Brussels, and my hostel was next to the Godiva factory, which was actually a lot less exciting than it seems, and I was glad I spent more time in Brugge (thanks for the tip Anna!)
If you've made it this far down... I'm now in Dublin, which is slightly less exciting now that during Saint Patrick's, but still a blast!
Tomorrow morning I head to London and I will be home in seven short days! Get excited mom and dad!
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