Livin' la Vida Española: Feria de Sevilla

Our 2nd spring break started with some good friends helping me celebrate my 22nd birthday. Had SO much fun. We got tapas at Bar Coloniales and went out for a night on the town. Thanks to everyone who helped me celebrate - you guys are awesome!

The first stop on our journey was Madrid via a 6 hour bus ride. Madrid was a lot of fun...not because of the city itself but because of the experiences we had and memories we made there. Not really much to see there besides the Mercado de San Miguel, Botin - the oldest restaurant in the world, Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Catedral, Royal Palace, El Prado (2nd largest museum in the world) and Campo Santiago - home of my true love, Cristiano Ronaldo and the Real Madrid futbol team.

After all my traveling, I've learned that the trip is what you make it; it's not only about the things you see/do. Especially as my stay in Europe is coming to a close, my main goal for Madrid was to experience a little more of what Spain has to offer, meet new people and enjoy some good company :) I would say that I definitely achieved this goal...first off, we shared a room in the hostel with 2 girls from Barcelona who we made good friends with. We got to learn a little bit of Catalan (the dialect in Barcelona) and had a lot of fun with them. The first night, we bought 3 bottles of wine but realized we had no opener. Us and the Barca girls tried for about 2 hours to get it opened with keys, scissors, pens, etc. but didn't succeed. When we finally got it opened, we couldn't drink it in the common areas of the hostel (silly rules) so we drank the wine, in our hostel, on the floor, in the dark, while whispering...all to avoid waking up another person already sleeping in the room...talk about hitting rock bottom. The next day, we took a 3 hour tour with a tour guide who was high the whole time. And finally, we created our own little bar crawl to celebrate Mifflin. Went to 5 bars, took a shot at each and found a Taco Bell by the end of the night. I'd say that's a success... :)

Now ROME is a different story...

I loved everything about Rome. The history. The monuments. The boys. And of course, the FOOD :)

Started our Roman adventure when we flew from Madrid to Rome on 2 hours of sleep. Also lost my phone on the plane...shocker, but that's neither here nor there. Started off by getting some great Italian food at a restaurant that had 100 different pastas -- fantasy made reality? I think so... We then went to the TREVI FOUNTAIN where reality started to sink in. We took pictures, made a wish and sat on the steps for a while just to soak in how lucky we were to be in Rome. (We found out later that we didn't follow the "rules" for making a wish in the Trevi Fountain...so our wishes that we contemplated for some time may never come true!).

We then hit up the Pantheon and the Spanish steps which were both amazing sights.

We went to Vatican City on Wednesday which is a walled-off part of Rome that consists of some 100 acres and holds the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, the Pope's house, about a bajillion museums, etc.

Day 3 of Rome started out with the famous Colosseum. Even by the 3rd day we still felt like we were dreaming seeing all of these famous monuments. We also went to Paletine Hill and the Roman Forum. (These 2 things are a big part of Roman history - Paletine Hill held the cave that was the alleged home to Rome's founders, Romulus and Remus and the Roman Forum is the ancient city center).

The legend of the Trevi fountain says one who throws a single coin into the fountain will return to Rome one day. I will not be upset if this comes true for me in my life :) Already missing Rome.

Got back to Sevilla and experienced the infamous FERIA DE ABRIL. For those of you who don't know, Feria is basically like a carnival, wedding and tailgate all mixed together. A wedding because people dress up in beautiful dresses and suits to celebrate, a carnival because there are rides and a tailgate because there are tons of tents ("casetas") where there is food, drinking and dancing. Feria is Sevilla's biggest festival and the reason we had this week of from classes. I was able to see what Feria is all about this weekend and even got to go to a bullfight. Overall, Feria is making it SO hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I'm leaving in a few short days!