LOVE

I know I need to blog about Prague, Venice and now Amalfi.. but I just wanted to get some reflections down while I had a couple minutes. :)

Whenever I look on facebook I always see so many people complaining about their lives..  they’ll put up sad or angry songs or make status’s like, I HATE EVERYTHING.. blah blah blah..  and it sort of makes me want to punch them in the face.  Of course I understand the occasional emotional day, everyone needs those every once in awhile.  But what I cant understand are the people to dwell on it.. So maybe your boyfriend of 4 months dumped you or you have a lot of school work.. maybe your friends have been getting on your nerves or maybe you just feel stressed about something going on in your life.  I have always tried to be the kind of person who focuses on the positive and stays happy even though things may be sucky.  I have learned over here that life is WAY to short to spend even one day upset about something.  If your upset, find a way to release it and move on, dont blab about it over facebook secretly hoping to get sympathy from anyone reading it. Maybe I am currently biased because my life is sort of awesome right now, but I think everyone can make their life awesome if they choose to.

So anyway, thats my rant for the day haha.. BE HAPPY YA’LL, Life is short but sweet for certain :)

A couple little things I wanted to note before I forgot:

I was going to the bathroom the other day and I turned around to flush the toilet and a memory rushed back into my head of the first time I used Elena’s toilet.  I had really no idea how to flush it because it’s a button you push down on the top in the center which seemed alien to me.  I went to press it and somehow I accidentally almost dropped it on the floor but it went inside the top of the toilet and got all wet and I had to reach in and get it out haha.  Embarrassing.. I’m such a loser.

Elena’s snoring is OUT OF CONTROL.  I thought my mom’s was bad.. NOPE.. this lady is almost as loud as the ambulances driving past my window every 4 seconds.  The other night i could here her roaring in MY room.  We live on complete OPPOSITE sides of the house.. like we could NOT live any farther apart haha.  Sheeshh Elena.

Elena has started to every once in awhile instead of a fruit basket for dessert she will cut up fresh strawberries and soak them in wine.  The first time I saw them I almost pooped my pants.  They are AMAZING.  We have had them twice since and I always get super excited when we are going to have them.  Elena gives me a little extra because she knows I love them so much haha.. good lady.

Last week we had a food outing to this Food Fair in Florence that was basically a whole BUNCH of vendors lined up in an old train station with samples ready to talk about their products.  So what im saying is, it was like heaven.  It was actually a pretty fancy place but I didnt know that so I was literally wearing a t-shirt.. oops.. while guys walked in in full suits haha. FINE BY ME!  I swear I havent seen to many hot Italian men in one pace before.. it was kind of ridiculous.  So anyway, our teacher Diletta can talk for days and she kept talking to this BORING olive oil man.. NONE of us wanted to try olive oil.. have you ever tried olive oil??? NOT FUN.. I know I described it earlier when the Barilla man came but it just sucks and makes you want to cough..  So we HAD to stand there and try 4 different ones until we finally broke free from her and were on our own to try things.  We tried everything from ice cream to spreads to beans to chocolate to meats to cheeses.  YUM.  The most shocking thing there was, what I thought was a ball of cheese with olive oil drizzled on top.  Actually it was yogurt ice cream with olive oil drizzled on top.  Sounds freaky right? WRONGGG.  Absolutely BANGIN in your mouth for real.  I went back two more times.. oops :) I love melenzane which is sort of like the Italian version of bologna and they had super yummy samples of that too.  Tried a whole bunch of different kinds of dessert from chocolate to cookies to nuts to fruits..and I also, without even knowing, tried my first meringue.. not gonna lie had to look that up to spell it.. and it was SO GOOD! :)  Definitely gonna have to start eating those more often.

One unfortunate new thing here is mosquitos.  Italians dont believe in screens, which before had never been a problem because I had never even seen a fly or any other type of insect here.  However now, there seems to always be one single mosquito flying around either me or the Jes’s room.  I woke up today with my first bite :( Jes got one on her face though so i’d much rather have one on my arm haha.

A reflection on our group: 

We have all gotten so close, especially recently.  Before we sort of were divided into two groups that did their own thing but starting in Venice, we really started combining and it has been so great.  My dad gave me an idea to close out my blog to write something nice about each girl and I think thats a WONDERFUL idea and I will surely be doing that a little later on.  Other study abroad groups are going through big schools like Syracuse and they are big groups from all over the country.  I think that would absolutely be fun and you would surely make a lot of friends, but I honestly dont think it even compares to our JMU group.  JMU is the kind of school you look back on ALWAYS with great memories and a sense of belonging.  It has been said we lack diversity, which may be true on some level, but the people there come from all walks of life and yet EVERYONE has one thing in common, their LOVE for JMU.  I think being a JMU student makes you a more passionate person.  I’m not sure if i’ll ever find such a close knit community as JMU has, I can only hope.  This quality in all of us studying abroad over here I think has really given us something special that other study abroad groups dont have.  We are all bonded through JMU and we are SOOOOO grateful that we dont have to say goodbye at the end of this trip.  Seriously, 3 months with these people isnt enough!  We have become SUCH good friends I was talking to Lauren the other day and she is sort of a silly lady like me, just playing around and never really being serious.. but I said to her, I know this may sound corny, but I feel like I have gotten SO many more bridesmaids here I dont know who to choose! haha and she completely agreed!  We were saying our bridal party is just going to have to be bigger than expected because we know over the next year at JMU we are going to keep getting closer and we are the kind of friends that, even though we may not see each other often, we will always be close when we reunite. I am so excited, already haha, for our reunion at my beach house.  It’s gonna be so great to have everyone together again and just sitting around reminiscing about all the insanely greeat times we had here.  I decided I am going to try and make a slide show for everyone to have :) 

I know that pretty much everyone loves their college and has a great time with great memories and great friends, but I honestly feel bad for anyone who doesnt go to JMU.  This school is known for their hospitality and warmth and I know there is no other school like it.  Here is a video of what I mean :)

http://www.jmu.edu/come2jmu/in3words.shtml

Alright now that I have blabbed for days on how everyone in the world should go to JMU.. let me discuss some things I miss from home.

-being able to walk down the street and blend in: getting a cat call when you’re wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and your hair up.. kind of freaks you out.. try dressing up and going out.. HA.. yeah right.. good luck, especially me with the blonde hair they DROOL over. 

-the food: I know you may think I’m crazy and I will certainly miss the food here times a million when I’m back in the states.. but honestly right now all I can think about it Chick-fil-a.. and Chipotle.. and the Inside Out tacos my family makes, and ESPECIALLY alllllll things crab my family eats.. that crab cake sandwich from whatcha call it in Hunt Valley.. the crab cakes I make, the cream of crab soup from Santoni’s (really everything from Santoni’s) and OF COURSE the crab imperial we ate for special occasions.. or just because we really want it and Farmer Tom’s has some crab meat haha.  I miss being able to cook, and to decide what I want to eat rather than something just put in my face and thats what I get.

-I also miss being able to work out whenever I want:  At home I can always go to the gym with a friend and at JMU I can work out in like 4 different places, but here the only option is to run and I cant do that with the shoes I have on these wobbly cobble stones.  I get shin splints sometimes just walking on these streets there is no way I could run them.

-I miss not having to unlock 4 locks to get into my house.  I personally think its ridiculous.

-I miss cuddling with my doggy.. SO MUCH.. I always say to my friends here “I want his body on my body” hahahha.. they think i’m weird.. but anyone who knows Winston understands haha

-I miss driving and being able to get to places quickly.  Walking has certainly saved me from gaining 500 pounds here.. but my feet need a break and I would love to just casually drive along, windows down and the radio up.. sort of a simple pleasure to me

-I miss being able to talk to anyone the second I want to.. I know.. spoiled brat first world problem haha.. but seriously when something happens in your day and you want to share it and laugh about it with someone it’s so nice to be able to text them real quick and tell them.  I miss that here.

-I miss my clothes, and my shoes.. another spoiled brat first world problem haha.. but I really do.  I cant wait to come back home and have my wardrobe more than quadruple ( I dont know another word with a bigger number haha, sextuple? octuple?  Ehh.. you know what I mean)

-Oh this is a big one, I cant wait to come home and be able to UNDERSTAND PEOPLE! I miss English.. and being able to snoop on conversations and know if people are talking about me or being able to talk to random people and make friends.  You dont realize how often you do it until you dont have it anymore

-I miss making money, rather than it just going down down and wayyyy down haha

-I miss water being free.. and ice cubes.. cuz those things dont exist here

I think that’s it for now.. ill update again if anything else comes up haha.. but I just wanted to get some things down before I forgot.. So anyway, i’ll try and update again tonight to get caught up.. have a good day! :)

Love always :)

All about Barca!! Woohoo.. so I’m gonna be honest the only reason why I am writing this blog post right now is because my internet is cutting out LITERALLY ever 10 seconds.  Alice is being a HUGE bitch tonight and I am sitting here getting so angry I almost chucked my computer across the room.. first world problems.. UGH.  So instead, I chose a healthier alternative and chose to do something I have been telling myself to do for weeks.. and that I promised myself I’d do before tomorrow.  If Alice wasn’t being a bitch, I probably wouldn’t have though.. so all who are reading this, and to myself in the future, I guess you can give Alice some thanks.  You wanna know what I tld myself I’d do to make it better? Drink wine:) tehe… Got a little bit of my extra classy 3 euro bottle twist off cap white wine left over so here I go.

Barcelona.  Absolutely Gorgeous.  Great beaches, live music out and about, super friendly people and we had a GREAT hostel.  I know that sounds like an oxymoron but it’s true.. I highly recommend it to anyone going to Barca.  Alright so here it goes.  It’s our spring break and we are PUMPED about not having to do any work for about 10 days.  Whoever thought of spring break is a genius.  Originally we were going to go to Greece for the first half of break, but that was too expensive, and then we were going to go to Malta, but our stupid permesso di sogiorno meeting was scheduled right smack in the middle of our break so that just didn’t work out.  So Barca for five days was it.  The theme of this trip, so graciously put into words by Bekah.. is “All of the members in our group are crucial!!”  A nice follow up to the original said by Sam, “Guy’s, we’re like… a group!”  At first when she said this I just laughed at her silliness.. but then I realized how completely true it was haha so it became one of the themes of Barca.

I know I usually have funny airplane stories but unfortunately I don’t remember any from Barca.. so I’ll just have to begin when we arrive.  We were nervous about our hostel because of the sort of scary experience we had in Paris.. and really you just never know what you’re gonna get with them.  Well we got there relatively easily and walked in and it was gorgeous!! Clean and decorated all beachy and cute with a nice little lounge area and just adorable we were so happy.  However, we were all staying in a 14 person room so we were still a bit nervous about that.. but hey, we’re young and we actually don’t care at all.. as long as we got a bed with no diseases on it.. we’re good.  So we go to put our stuff down in our room and it’s actually super convenient because beside each bed is a corresponding cubby that only opens with your specific room key.. and all of your stuff fits right in there! Sooo much better than having to carry your stuff to a public basement that resembles a dungeon like in Paris.  All of our stuff was locked away and right next to our beds :) We were hungry so we decided to immediately go explore and have lunch outside somewhere.. Plus it was super sunny and somewhat warm, which we literally hadn’t had one day of abroad so far so we were beyond pleased.  We walked to this little square and looked for a relatively cheap place to eat and found this tapas bar that seemed good.. Oh AND we wanted Sangria.. real Spanish Sangria.. WOOHOO!! Haha So we sat down at this little place and were looking over the menu and our “server” came over to take our order.  By “server” I mean most likely the owners 13 year old son, who didn’t speak any English.. and actually spoke Catalan.. which btw is COMPLETELY different from Spanish.  We all had had some Spanish in high school and some in college so we felt like we were gonna be okay communication.. but actually Barca is in the region of Catalonia and they speak Catalan.. which has some similar Spanish words but they actually pronounce them more like French words.. weird I know.  So this poor boy had no idea what us crazy Americans were trying to say.. so we just ordered 2 pitchers of Sangria and sent him on his way while we decided what to eat.  As we were reading the menu I saw that they had calamari which made me very happy because I LOVE calamari.  So I mentioned it to the table in case anyone glanced over it and got a reaction no one at the table was prepared for.  Sam, cute little Sam, slams her menu down, looks directly in my eyes, and says with a STRONG force.. almost yelling but not quite.. “YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ME!” hahahahahaha omg I thought we were going to die.  We just blankly stared back at her, not really sure how to react and she just continued with, “I LOVE SEAFOOD!!” We all busted out laughing and it became one of the best jokes of being abroad so far.. still quote it pretty regularly today.  So at first me and Sam split the calamari and chips and salsa.. but then of course we were still hungry.. so we got another calamari and a French fry to try and fill us up.  It was super yummy.  The calamari was really fresh and soft and deliciouso.  The “chips” were actually doritios, but hey, I like Doritos.. fineee by me!  Sitting in the sun with sangria was SO nice it was like we were all high we were just so happy!  After just hanging out for a little while, we decided to head over to the beach which was about a 20 minute walk.  Then we tried to pay.. DUN DUN DUUNNNNNN.  All of us in twos had split tapas and they were all different prices.  Plus we had to split the sangria seven ways.. and I think 1 person had exact change.. some only had twenties and I think there may have been a 50 in there too.  YIKES.  So we try and ask them to do it separately.. but even if they could’ve understood us, or had been willing to do it, we still would’ve wound up all owing each other money since it was so complicated.  So we literally stood in the restaurant for 20 minutes at least trying to figure out everyone’s total and trying to figure out a way to get everyone’s change back correctly.  After SEVERAL tries, we finally got it and apologized profusely to the people and said we were never going back there again because we were too embarrassed haha.  So then we used our map to make our way over to the beach and to get there to you to walk along a really big port with a bunch of boats.  It was so pretty.. and fancy restaurants and palm trees lined the outside aka HEAVEN!  As we are walking we really just want to soak up the sun so we see a little crowd of people sitting on an area with steps and a live singer dude in front of them.  We go over and join them and are just blissful with the sun on our faces.. The guys plays some cool relaxing beachy music and it was so nice.. but I was a bit more anxious than the rest to get my toes in the sand so I say maybe we should go soon and we agree to go if the next song isn’t good.  So what does he play?  Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles.. WHAT?  IS THIS REAL LIFE??? I could’ve sat there all day long if he was gonna play those kinds of golden tunes.  Couldn’t have asked for a better moment.  We ran into the other group of JMU kids there actually coming back from the beach and they made us excited about going there as well as the fresh market we had heard about.  So we made our way over to the beach and me and Lauren were the only ones who were brave enough to take off our shoes and go in the FREEZING water haha it was WONDERFUL.  Who cares if its freezing if it’s the OCEAN IN BARCELONA?!?!? We took a couple pics and then we were all tired and wanted to shower so we headed back to get ready for the night.  We all napped and took showers and were headin out to dinner but we had no idea where to go so we asked the front desk of our hostel where to go.  She told us a cheap tapas place and we went in and they were playing old reruns of Grey’s Anatomy so I was PUMPED haha I thought this is the place for me.  BOY was I WRONGGG.  Alright.. so clearly everything is in Spanish/ Catalan.. but they also had an English menu.  Lucky us right? NOPE!  We ordered what we thought was cheesy taquitos, mozzarella sticks, fried fish, and Sam got mussles in red sauce.  What we actually got was three plates of cubed cheese, three more plates of weird (I think goat?) cheese breaded and fried (and not in a good way) and Lauren’s fried fish was actually two small, whole (scales, eyes, bones and all) fish on a plate.  Sam’s mussels were good.. but everything else SUCKED!  And by sucked I mean, was really awful.. and we all felt gross afterwards because we just ate a BUNCH of cheese and fried stuff (including more cheese) YUCK.  Lauren was definitely a trooper with her fish through and ate almost all of it.  She said after you picked away the scales and bones, the fish itself was actually pretty good, there just wasn’t much of it after you got rid of the nasty stuff.  What she meant was.. it was barely tolerable.. and she was hungry and didn’t want to pay for something else. Haha.  Never again.

To help me remember my trips to blog, I write down little notes to remind myself of the days activities, what I ate, what I saw, where we went, etc.  My next note is, went to a small tapas place and split some sangria and white wine and I honestly was just about to write.. I have no idea what this is referring to because I don’t remember doing this (not because I was drunk, but because it was forever ago and I get all my nights confused haha)  But LUCKILY I remembered! And I am so glad I did because it was such a funny night.  To cheer us up after that nasty meal, we wanted some alchy :)  We stopped in this random place on the way back to our hostel and I got some sangria and the other girls split a bottle of wine.  At first we felt really awkward because there was a bunch of creepy men staring at us and it was just uncomfortable.. but eventually we just said buck it and did our thang.  They had some good American music on so we were bumpin by ourselves at the table haha.  Some were embarrassed.. but I was just rockin.. why would I care if they think I’m crazy haha.  I was whippin out some pretty bangin dance moves sittin there and Weatherly called me out on one of them and made it another classic joke.  I was attempting to fist pump but I guess it looked more like I was a cowboy in a rodeo or something so everyone made fun of me for a good while haha.  99% sure the owner thought we were wasted off one glass.  Who knows, maybe we were ;) haha.  We didn’t stay out late cuz we were tired from traveling so we just went back to the hostel and crashed

Sheesh over 2000 words and I just finished Day 1. Good Lord.  Alright so Day 2.  We woke up kinda early to go on this free walking tour our hostel offered.  Our tour guide, Natti was certainly a character.  She was 18, been on her own since 15, used to make a living selling hash brownies in the sketchy parts of town (her words) and just decided on a whim to move to some other exotic place I cant remember right now.. crazy chick.  Oh yea, later on in the trip we were on a bar crawl and, highly intoxicated (I hope) pulls us all in a circle around her and proceeds to pull down her pants and show us her tattoo RIGHT above her vag.  YUCK!  Thanks but no thanks..  I think she was partially also asking if she had too much vag hair to hook up with some guy she was talking to cuz she hadn’t shaved in awhile.  WE DON’T KNOW YOU.. DO NOT SHOW US YOUR BUSH.  Sheeshhhh.. people these days.  So anyway.. we go on this tour that focuses on Gaudi who was a huge architect/artist dude in Barca.  It was pretty cool we got to see a lot of Barca and we saw some really cool building like La Casa Mila, La Sagrada Familia, and others that I’ll never remember the name of.  The best part about this tour?  Everyone on the trip will totally agree with me: meeting our totally awesome Aussie friend, Will!!!!  He was just traveling alone and actually staying in our room, so we started chatting and by the end of the 2 hour tour we were pretty much best friends.  We told him he was stuck with us 7 girls for the rest of the trip haha and I honestly don’t think he had any idea what he was in for.  We are now his “crazy Americans.” :) Gotta LOVE him!!!  So after the tour we (and from now on whenever I say “we,” Will is included, because he doesn’t leave our side for the rest of the trip until we literally get into the cab to go to the airport :( super sad moment.  Okay so after the tour, WE ;) go to the fresh market that everyone has been talking about for lunch and these fruit smoothies I kept hearing about.   Guess what flavor I got?  If you didn’t get Strawberry.. get outta here because you don’t know me.  Guess what flavor I got again as we were leaving the market?  And the next day also?  Mmhm.  I cant help my love for strawberry it’s not my fault.  So we walk around this super cool fresh market and everything is so COLORFUL!! That’s one of my fave things about Barca.. bright colors EVERYWHERE!!  Super bright fruits and candies and everything just looked so pretty.  After I finished my smoothie me and Allison got little pineapple boat things which was just cut up pineapple served on the pineapple itself.. pretty delicious (my second favorite fruit)  Then we were still hungry so we went over to this organic food bar and got some Spanish rice and falafel sandwiches.  YUM.  We sat outside on a curb to eat because we wanted to be in the sun.. silly Americans haha.  As we were eating some Spanish boys came up to me and asked if they could ask me some questions.  I saud sure and their first question was something like.. “How do you feel the world is doing today?”  Obviously taken off guard by the deep complexity of this question.. I was unprepared and graciously passed them off to Allison who I knew would have all the answers and love to give her opinion.  Of course, I was right.. and answered them all like she was in a beauty pageant (which we learned after, she had done before haha.. allison..)  That was a funny random moment for sure.  Afterwards we just strolled down La Rambla, a very famous street in barca and just relaxed.  We saw a sex shop and Sam said she had never been in one before so of course we took her in so she could experience it haha.  A couple stripper butts (yea real butts) later, we decided it was time to head out.  We were walking around the port again and saw that there were boat cruise tours for only 6 euro!!  My only question was, is there alcohol on this boat?  Hey, don’t judge.. im on spring break remember?  At least I’m not doing keg stands in a bikini in Panama city beach like the rest of JMU haha.  There was alchy so I was DOWN.  And the last tour was leaving in about 10 mins.. talk about PERF! :)  We got on and immediately got some cava (pink champagne) to take up to the top of the boat.. yup, living the high life.  We sipped on our champagne and Will and Jes got jack and cokes hahah, gotta love em.  It was actually really fun because we were all in such a good mood and we were really starting to get to know Will.  We enjoyed the sun and the views (and the alchy) and just soaked it all in.  After the tour we headed back to the hostel to rest and get ready for the night :)

Our hostel had this deal where you could go with a guide to try some local tapas and then see a flamenco show.  We were pretty excited about it and although it did wind up being sort of a let down, I was still glad I did it.  The tapas places was awful and super rude to Natti because I guess our hostel told them they found a new, better place to go from now on and we were like the last ones using this place, so I guess they were pissed and basically refused to give us a table or any food and the “unlimited sangria” we were promised was one small glass each.. no water no nothing.  The plate was small, although good, and we were all still really hungry but eventually we just got over it.  Will had to go buy some food before the flamenco show though haha.  So we left there to go to the show and it was super cool, but I was hoping for more of a production.  There was a band and two women flamenco dancers that were really good and the music was cool, but the place was tiny and the stage was small and I was just kind of hoping for something more.  Oh well, it was cool to see.  I don’t know how much a normal show is but we probably got what we paid for.  So then we go out to the square off the flamenco place to wait for our third “tour” of the day.  Technically.. its called a “party tour” for legal reasons, but actually, it’s a pub crawl.. which is basically one of the best inventions man has ever come up with.  Free drinks at multiple bars, no entrance fees into clubs, and you go with a huge group of people and just get schwastey wasted haha.  While we were waiting for the other group we of course took this opportunity to take some pics.  We have fallen in love with jumping pics so we decided it would look cool to get one of us mid air jumping off the fountain in the center of the square.  We all held hands and jumped and it was maybe about 3 and a half feet down.. which really isn’t that high, but for some reason, as we all landed.. it felt like a shock went through our spines and our entire bodies like we had just jumped off a building.  OUCH.  We all moaned, laughed at our moaning, and then moaned some more cuz it really freakin hurt.  Not only was the jump a fail, but the pic was a fail too but we were NOT doing that again haha.

So the pub crawl.. oh im sorry “party tour,” began at an Irish bar where we drank Sangria and played the best round of Thumper, or as I knew it, Zoo, that I’ve ever seen in my life.  It was like 10 of us playing and we were just the right amount of tipsy where we could function and get a good set going, but someone was def gonna mess it up.  If you don’t know what game I’m talking about, I feel sorry for you.. because its AWESOME.  Too hard to describe here slash I don’t feel like it.  Just know that it involves animals, chanting, and fast paced clapping haha.  So after that we go to a shots bar, where they have the infamous ABSINTHE.  Ruh roh..  Contrary to popular American belief, absinthe does not make you hallucinate or black out to the point of insanity.  Even without knowing this however, we were all excited to try it haha.. that is, until I smelled it.  You know the smell of black licorice?  The smell that everyone hates except for those occasional weirdos who like it and once you know that about them your opinion of them has changed forever?  Imagine a bright green, highly alcoholic, liquid version of that small.. and attempt to think about taking a shot of it.  NOPE.  Not gonna happen for me.  If I ever start taking absinthe shots, be worried because I’m probably bulemic because the only way in hell I would ever do that is if I wanted to instantly vomit afterwards.  Everyone else took them though.. I guess they are bigger troopers than me.  I’d rather be a little puss and not drink it than embarrass myself by upchucking all over everyone in the bar, so I guess I did everyone a favor.  This bar is where Natti decided she wanted to show us her vagina… we still had 2 more places to go.. yikes.  Oh, totally forgot.. all of my friends did body shots.  Enough said.  So the third place was a club that we weren’t at for very long.  Then came our final destination, Apollo, a huge dance club.  It was super fun.  Everyone was drunk ESPECIALLY ALLYson haha and it was 80’s night so it was a lot of fun to sing and dance around like silly girls.  We danced literally for hours.. and I had to dodge one of the guides from trying to dance with me THE ENTIRE TIME.. ugh it was so annoying.  Then Jes took over so I was free :)  ALLYson gave me a lap dance.. th at was hilarious.  **Side note: I don’t think I have blogged about what ALLYson means as opposed to Allison.  Allison is my roommate, a nice normal girl.  ALLYson is her alter ego that comes out on rare occasion when she is wasted.  We love her.  We love Allison too, but ALLYson is hilarious so we get excited when she makes an appearance.**  So we just casually looked at the time, which we hadnt done all night, and realized it was 4:30 in the morning. YIKES.. Time to go haha.  We all PTFO at the hostel the second our heads hit the pillow.

Everyone, especially Allison, woke up hung over the next day.  I was fine cuz I didn’t even drink that much, and I think Sam and Arienti were okay too but I cant remember.  Me and Sam went to KFC for lunch, don’t judge, it was exciting, and the other girls went to the market again.  Then we decided to SHOPPING!! Wahoo!  We took the metro to the mall and went in the first store, Primark, that was said to be like the best, cheapest place to go in Barca :) Bekah and Lauren got a bunch of stuff, Sam got a shirt and I got a super cute dress that everyone loved on me :)  It’s a kind of dress I would’ve never bought for myself, but I’m so glad they convinced me because now I LOVE it!! :)  After that we came home and were going to “nap” but actually we just layed in our beds and hysterically laughed for hours.  At first, it was just me, Bekah and Sam, then slowly the other joined in until it was all of us making jokes and being lazy and having SO MUCH FUN.  It was def one of my favorite days abroad so far.  I have a list of inside jokes on my phone so I wouldn’t forget them, and normally I would write them all and attempt to explain them, but this post is getting absurdly long and I’m only halfway done so ill just save that for another time haha.  Then for dinner, me, Sam, Bekah, Lauren, and Arienti went to this cool restaurant while Allison, Weatherly and Will went to a Barca B-team soccer game and stadium tour.  Me and Sam split calamari again and I got a chicken dish and we all split a paella, which is an extremely mixed rice dish in Barca.  It was yummy :)  Then we were walking and decided we wanted dessert! Haha  We stopped in this place along La Rambla and I got the best crepe I’ve ever had in my life, better than all the ones I had in Paris.  Weird I know.  I got strawberry and sugar in it.  Sounds simple and kinda weird? NO. It is DELICIOUS is what it is.  I have to see if I can attempt to make them at home somehow because it was BANGIN.  That night we didn’t go out thanks to the previous night’s activities and we just hung out in the hostel lobby for a bit.

The next day, Day 4, we slept in and had breakfast at the hostel.  This day was our beach day and we picked the PERFECT one to do it. :) We all stopped in a grocery store on the way and got wine and some fruit and snacks and laid out our towels, turned on some tunes and soaked up the precious sun.  We had so much fun just relaxing and not having 300 things to get done in a day it was so nice.  We ate lunch right on the beach also and it was really yummy.  We got back to the hostel later on and took naps and then got up to get ready for dinner and going out.  We missed Italian food so we asked If we could find some good and cheap and the lady at the front desk told us about this pasta bar where you can pick and choose your ingredients.  I know from working at Hillendale, where every Thursday night is pasta night.. that pasta bars, are THE BESTTTT.  Like, wonderful, really, really wonderful.  So we went there and they certainly lived up to my expectations.  It wasn’t expensive and it was DELICIOUS!!!  I never want to repeat places on my vacations because I’d rather see new things, but this place, I wanna go back there RIGHT NOW.  After dinner was DRINKING TIME :)  Our last night of drinking in Barca.  We were told about this shots bar and this club Razzmatazz so that was the plan.  The shots bar was AWESOME.  Like this place you will never see in the US.  They lit everything, I mean everything, on fire.  There were hundreds of different kinds of shots and we had no idea what any of them were so we just trusted the bartenders.  The very first one we took was called a nipple and was a yummy shot with a chuck of orange and whipped cream on it.  YUM.  Some other had m&m’s on them and other kinds of fruit, some you had to take through a straw to get the fumes out too? Whatever that means.. but my favorite was the boy scout.  They poured us our shots and then gave us a stick with a marshmallow on the end, like at a campfire, and lit the entire section fo the bar on fire and we toasted our marshmallows and were told to put it in the shot and then take it.  It was AWESOME haha.  The funniest part of the night was when the fake penis’s came out haha.  We saw there were some rubber penis’s behind the bar and asked them what they were for.  The reply was “The Monica Lewinski.” So we just laughed and were like haha okay whatever.  Then we noticed at the end of the bar, two college American guys dressed in frat clothes (haha losers) were being blindfolded and the penis’s came out.  The guys had no idea what was going on in front of them but the bartender put whipped cream all up and down the penis’s and made them lick it off and scream in Spanish that they loved penis hahaha!!  Then somehow they put a beer inside the penis, shook it up and said open your mouths! And the beer came shooting out of it into their mouths. TOO FREAKIN FUNNY!!  Everyone was laughing haha it was great.  Then we were off to make our way over to Razzmatazz.  We were told this club was huge and had multiple rooms with different kinds of music and we were excited.  It was actually pretty hard to find since we had no idea where we were going.  Will was drunk, and wanted us to be drunker, so on the way to the metro station he stopped in a grocery store, bought a bottle of absolute and a 2 bottles of soda and we mixed it up for the ride.. haha gotta love Will.  As we were waiting at the metro these stupid annoying teenage boys kept trying to mess with us and were speaking in Spanish so we didn’t know what they were saying but we knew they were talking about inappropriate sexual things by their mannerisms.. if you get what I mean… They seriously would not stop and we all started to get kind of angry because they were touching us like grabbing our arms or touching our backs and that is NOT cool.  Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and my Baltimore hard core came out and I said some choice words and may or may not have made some gestures myself…  luckily that sort of seemed to work slash made all of my friends laugh and lightened the mood, and then the metro came and they got on and we decided to catch the next one J haha.  So we get to the stop and get off and have no clue where to go.  We sort of follow the crowd hoping we are going in the right direction, but slowly start to realize this “crowd” we are following is all super creepy gothic people with multiple piercings and spikes and chains and all black…  Bekah and Arienti are the drunkest at this point and we see a line that looks like a line for a club and stand it for a hot second and then realize this CANT be it because we are among ALL goth people.. we tell Bekah to go look up front to see the name and she comes back and says Nope! But if we cant find razzmatazz, the cover charge here is only 5 euro! Haha thanks Bek.. just 5 euro, and your soul to the devil.  Eventually we find razzmatazz and we are so excited!!  But we get there 10 minutes before it even opens so at first there isn’t many people there but eventually there was.  Apparently there was multiple levels and rooms in this place but we couldn’t find any of them and that kind of just made us want to find these “secret rooms” even more haha.  So me and Bekah took it upon ourselves to go find them and after a little exploring we found all of them!  So fun!  One of my fav moments there was when me and Bek found this one empty room that no one had gotten to yet and we decided to take advantage and use the bathroom.  On the way into the bathroom there was cool spotlights that made us feel like models haha.. hard to explain, but so fun!!  We danced and drank and I know I had SOOOO much fun there, I was just in such a good mood and so happy haha.  We stayed there till 4 and then made our way home.

The next day Weatherly wanted to go to the mall since she missed it the day before and I really wanted to go back because the first time we only made it through the one store and then ran out of time.  The mall was 3 stories and HUGE and I really wanted to explore and go in some of the cool stores I saw so I told Jes id go back with her.  We made the 30 min metro ride over there, only to find out that the stores were closed L that was a sad moment for sure.  Then we had to make our way back to make it to Park Guell in time so we just wasted our morning by accident.. oh well.   Then the whole group when to Park Guell which was totally awesome.  We stopped in souvenir shops on the way and got a couple things.  I got a mosaic sea turtle, which I was SOOO excited about.  Also found my dad’s Barca jersey for much cheaper there.  The walk up there felt like we were walking up a mountain in the dessert for days.. but when we got there it was SO worth it.  This park is definitely one of the most gorgeous places on the planet.  It looks out over the city of Barca and I cant even imagine how pretty it is in the spring with all the flowers.  We walked around and explored and took a bunch of pics and had a great time.  Weatherly decided she wants to get married there haha.  Then we went back, took a nap and we decided to make a family dinner at the hostel that night to save money.  Plus we were leaving at like 3 a.m the next morning.  Sam and Will made dinner which was pesto pasta, sautéed vegetables, and garlic broccoli.. YUMMMMM!!!! We had eaten so much fried food there we just wanted something fresh and yummy and man this dinner was delicious.  Sam is funny and made 5 boxes of pasta for us 8 people so obviously we had like over half of it left haha but all I knew was there was a lot of food, and it was SUPER good.. and it was like 3 euro a person.  We stayed at the table and talked for awhile while some trickled to bed to get a couple hours sleep before the trip back.  Some didn’t sleep at all.  We packed our bags and sadly said goodbye to Barca and much more sadly, to Will, who had literally become a part of the “group” that I mentioned in the theme of the trip in the beginning of the post.  We felt like we were losing one of us study abroad buddies and it sucked :(  The travel back was not so fun because it was exhausting, and we slept all the next day, but Barca was truly an unforgettable trip.

I know I still haven’t blogged about Prague, and I also wanted to blog about my past weekend and the day I had this past Monday.  But I’ll have to do it later because it’s 1:13 in the morning and i just typed over 6000 words and we leave for Venice in 7 hours!!! :) Cant wait to go on a gondola ride and cross off yet another thing from my bucket list.  So excited!!  That’ll be another blog post to look forward to :)   But for now goodnight ya’ll!

Love Always <3