long time, no talk =)

Hi everyone! I know you've missed me and I apologize! We stay so busy here and when we're not on the go, sleep is the next best thing, although we rarely get any. I am currently in Milan, we got here this morning. Three things I will say so far about Milan...great shopping, delicious pasta, and sexy men in suits! We did a little shopping today, but will probably do more tomorrow. Rewind to the past week and a half. I think I told you about Barcelona. It gets pretty crazy there. The beaches are gorgeous, the city is lively, and the pickpockets are plentiful. Some guy got robbed, another girl got her camera and wallet stolen. It's always chaos with this group. Paris was extremely beautiful. We did tons of sightseeing! A few of the things were the Louvre where Mona Lisa hangs, Notre Dame, the key lock bridge, Versailles, Arc de Triumph, ummm the famous macaroon shop, Eiffel Tower, Moulin Rouge, and tons of shopping, walking, eating, exploring, drinking, partying. You name it, we did it! Paris was great, but it was really relaxing to head to Switzerland. We weren't there for long...only passing through. We stopped by Geneva, had lunch (it's sooo expensive in Switzerland) and toured the European headquarters of the EU. Then we got to Chamonix, which is a ski resort town nestled in the French Alps. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been! No shit!! My favorite city of this trip so far! We took a cable car to the top of Mount Blanc which is the highest peak in all of Europe. WAIT until you see these pictures! Words can't describe!! We had a really relaxing time in Chamonix. Thank god because we needed it. We had our midterms the other day so the day before we had a major cram session and kindly rewarded ourselves to a huge party in the backyard of our hotel. We almost had too much fun because last night the hotel almost kicked all of us out. It was a great time! I have made so many amazing friends and learned so many things I could never even explain to you. They say studying abroad changes your entire view of life, well, they are completely correct. I never want to come back to the states. I love new places, I love the unknown, I love meeting new people, new cultures, new languages..its just downright the best experience of my life. Tomorrow is a new day and I will try to keep up a little better than I have done. Wait until I get home and can post the pics, you think you're jealous now, just WAIT!! Anyways I hope you enjoyed this little tidbit of my travels but we have to get up early and take the subway to class for a guest speaker, so I will end on that note. XOXO from Milan =)

FRIDAY CONTINUED

No freaking wonder Europeans suck at tipping, because they literally don't know any better. Anyways we gave him like 5 euro over because we didn't have change and he literally wouldn't give it back to us. No biggie. While at dinner, one of the girl's friends was in town to visit because she was doing her study abroad in Madrid, so she hung out with us for the night. We finally learned how to use the metro (subway). It was pretty easy and cheaper than cabs, not to mention an experience in itself. We went all over downtown. Saw a couple of the Gaudi masterpeices. He is an architect that designed lots of sturctures like 100 years ago and his structures are still in the process of being built. They are out of this world. If you've never heard of him, you should look into that. Anyways all the stuff we visited, it was really cool because the girl from Madrid is an art history major and gave us details about everything we saw. It was like our own personal tour guide, but for free! Winning! We went to the mahic foundtain, but caught only the tail end of it. Whatever, it was freakin awesome! Ok, all this stuff I'm talking about has a million pictures to go with that, but is going to have to wait until I get on an actual PC to upload because right now I'm writing this all on ipad. It was about midnight by the time we finished all of this. We are cows and wanted dessert, so we went to to eat and this place called "TapaTapa." What a happening spot! I had fried artichockes..delicious. Then Catalan creme brulee with "carquinyoli" which means traditional biscuit but more like a biscotti. For some reason that was written down in the journal I've been keeping in order to remember all the things I do everyday for blogging purposes. Like I said, no brain cells. Today feels like yesterday, yesterday feels like a month ago. All in all, we have all been experiencing this really weird feeling. It's hard to descrive, only the group that T'm with knows what we're feeling like. It's like youre so exhausted one minute on the verge of falling asleep in your food, and the next minute, wide awake, ready to run a marathon. I don't know what it is, but its annoying and I hope it goes away soon. I think maybe it's from the lack of sleep, adrenaline, excitement, exhaustion, and lack of water. Water is so damn expensive. It's like unreal. Not even worth it. However, tonight, I bought a gallon at the supermakret for .90 euro! usually most small bottles are like 2-3 euro. So maybe I will stay hydrated and feel better. Wow I ramble. So, I love creme brulee, but this was not good. The weird thing is is that it is one of the must trys in Catalan (the region of Spain we're in). Ok then we took the metro back to the hotel and went to bed. And now I am so grateful I wrote all this because now I can go to bed. My friend Hannah and I have an extremely busy day planned for tomorrow so I can't tell you all the awesome things that I did today, but I will catch up tomorrow. Signing off from Barcelona for now! Goodnighhhhttttttttt and thanks for reading ;) xoxox

Friday: June 7, 2013

I have to start by saying this, this blog is the most stressful thing about my trip. After wandering around for like 14 hours a day, then coming to the hotel and trying to remember what I even did that morning is so difficult. Don't get me wrong, I am more thanexcited to share this experience with ya'll, but if I sound like I'm rambling or if stuff doesn't make sense, it's because my brain is fried. LOL. Point of the story, you people better enjoy this!! Okay rewind to yesterday, Thursday. We woke up, duh, had breakfast as usual. Since we are all spending so much money, we cannot justify not waking up and eating free breakfast at our hotel everyday, and it's actually really good. We hopped on our bus and headed to the "Damm" brewery. It wasn't too far. It's the largest brewery in all of Europe and damn it was big..haha, get it? Damm! haha omg sleep deprivation. Ok. The guy gave us a brief history, etc. on the brewery, but he pretty much only spoke spanish so Hugo, our director, had to translate most of it. Did I tell you that Spain spanish is much different than Mexican spanish? Anyways he showed us some of their marketing techniques such as the commercials, and I have to admit watching them makes me want to jump on a boat, go to Ibiza and drink some beer. They released a 3 minute long commercial on you tube like 3 days ago and it already had like one million something likes. Anyways they were cool, you should google them. Ok, we took a tour of the brewery and watched how the bottles went thru the assembly line and whatnot. It was pretty cool, but they wouldn't let us take any pictures because it made the workers feel like they were "animals at the zoo." Haha I snuck a couple tho. Such a rebel! Damm produces all kinds of stuff like water, juice, beer, blah blah blah. It makes some crazy number like 300k an hour. Anyways then we got to sample them or should I say we got to drink them. We could have as many as we wanted, of all different kinds. My favorite was called "Damm Lemon 6-4" It tasted like beer lemonade. They gave us a bottle of one of their special beers to take home, I forgot the name and I'm too lazy to get up and look at what kind it was. We took the bus back to the school. Thankfully, the spectacular six didn't have class until 4 and it was only 1. We put our time to great use and cabbed over to Parc Guell. It is a must see, must do in Barcelona. It was absolutely breathtaking. The views of the city alone were enough to blow your mind. There were all of these benches that were like handcrafted out of different colored stone that lined the park. They had many vendors and I bought a bunch of souvenirs. I can't tell you what they are, because some of them might be for YOU! We went to this open area in the park and had ham and cheese croissants and sangria. That's the thing here..sangria and effing ham. Always ham. Good thing I eaat pork. Then we took a cab back to our school. Oh wait rewind on the cab ride to the park we packed like sardines in the cab, 4 in the back, one in the front. On the way back, they told us only 4 to a car, so we had to find a van. Well this asshole tried to charge us 4 euro extra because we "occupied an extra seat." No thanks buddy. We said umm absolutely not. We threw the money at him, without the extra euro, got out and shut the door. We're American, not stupid! We had class. It was good. Classes here are all so interesting so it's actually not bad to go to class. Plus, Peter, our teacher let us out early, and he accompanied us on our route home. Previously, we had taken private busses to school everyday and this is the first time we were taking the bus. So there's like a million forms of transportation here. The bus, the subway, and something else. Confusing but after day 4, we got it down..for the most part. We were all pretty hungry so we went to our rooms for like 15 minutes tto freshen up, then met in the lobby. We decided to go to dinner where Peter, our teacher, had gone the night before and said it was really good. For the first time I tried 'pan con tomate' or bread with tomato for you bad spanglishers. It's like the equavalent to brushetta in the states. It's yummy, I had it today too (Saturday  which actually I don't think I'm going to get there tonight, but I promise it will happen ;) I also had garlic shrimp (ok, but not for 12 euro, it was like 6 baby shrimp in like a boiling butter sauce), and these mild peppers kind of like shishito but I don't remember what their called (and once again I don't feel like looking at the receipt). Another thing I've been keeping receipts, etc as keepsakes in order to write better blogs. That's obviously not happening. Oops. Sorry friends =) The waiter sucked. They all suck here. Maybe I'm too critical, considering ya know, but he sucked. Tip is also included here everywhere you go, and it is very uncommon for you to leave extra. HAHAHa imagine that.

Ok, where was I? There are 6 of us that only registered for one class, instead of two. For me, I couldn't take more than one per UHD. It kind of worked out nice though because we have more free time to explore. After International IQ class, the other students went to their other classes, and the six of us went exploring. We first found bank and withdrew cash. I think the exchange rate was about .75. Better than .67 at the airport! We found a little bakery, where I had a small spinach quiche and some salami looking sandwich thing, it was gross. Across the street of the bakery was a small store that sold notebooks and paper and stuff, so we all bought notebooks to take notes in our class. After that it was time for our class, cross cultural communications, to begin. Our teacher is Peter. He is originally from Germany, but has lived and studied all over the world. He told us this would be our most knowledgeable and interesting class of our entire college careers. No joke! He's really good. For me, being so close to graduation, it was pretty cool to hear him talk about things that I have already learned in my international classes. It's like the light bulb went off, it was great! Class was short, only about an hour and a half. Then we went to lunch, by this place that was across the street from the bakery we went to previously. Since I didn't like my sandwich earlier, I ordered a burger, thinking it would be filling and good. Man, I was wrong it was so gross! It was basically raw and on a hard bun with a ton of mayo. yuck. I ordered an iced tea, Lipton is a glass bottle of course, haha. We had to catch the bus at 2, so we rushed out of lunch. Next, we took the bus through the wine country to Codorniu winery. First, we listened to a lecture of the history of the winery, what wines they make, stuff like that. Then, we watched a video which basically said what the lecture said. The winery was sooo pretty and HUGE! It's over 500 years old and still family owned. They mostly make "cava" which would be the equivalent to champagne. We took a tour, you'll have to see pictures later, but I mean the place was massive. I don't even know how to describe it. Since its 3 AM and I'm tired, I don't feel like going into detail ;) We sampled two of the different wines. I'm not a wine drinker really so I didn't like either. One was like a sparking rose, the other a chardonnay. We got back on the bus, and I immediately fell asleep. The rides is about 45 minutes back to the hotel, and when we go to the hotel I immediately passed out. My roommate and a bunch of others invited me to dinner, but I couldn't keep my eyes open, nor was I hungry. I took a couple hour nap. There is apparently a famous EDM DJ from Ibiza or something playing tonight at a club called Opium in downtown Barcelona. I think his name is Danny Avila. Although it sounded fun, I was not in the drinking/ being hungover mood. Instead a couple of us went to dinner. I found a place on Yelp that we didn't end up going to, but we found this awesome place called Once Upon a Time (OUT). It reminded me of a Flora and Muse, if yall know what that is. The waiter was so friendly and helpful. The menu was all Spanish, not mexican Spanish, Spain spanish..MUCH different. We ended up sharing hummus and a French cheese plate. I had what was like a pot roast with a bone. It came with carrots and onions in this red wine sauce. Sooooo yummy! Atmosphere was amazing, very open, good music, all in all, a wonderful night. Then we left and headed back to the hotel. Here I am!! Well, now that I've figured out how to write in my blog I will try to keep in touch everyday. Hope you enjoyed my first post and please send comments! Buenos noches!! Goodnight from Barcelona!! xoxo

Barcelona, Spain

Greetings from Barcelona!!! Time to play catch up from day one. Ok, where to start...The plane ride over was not half as bad as I imagined. My flight was at 12:30 PM on Tuesday afternoon and I arrived in Newark, New Jersey a little early around 5ish. Rewind to the day before. Forum Nexus (the greatest study abroad EVER) emailed me the day before I left to inform us that another student and I would be taking the flight from Newark to Barcelona together. So, when I arrived in Newark I met up with Mike. It was kind of cool to at least have someone to get off the plane with. The flight from Newark to Barcelona was about 8 hours, which wouldn't be so bad had my seat reclined! They had all kinds of free movies, tv shows, and music. Unfortunately, I could never fall asleep on the plane. We arrived in Barcelona around 9 AM (7 hours ahead of Houston) and had no difficulties passing through customs. We went to baggage claim and thankfully, our bags arrived shortly after us. The airport in Barcelona is amazing, very modern. We met up with the interns of the study abroad in front of a specific coffee shop, where Travis and Tiffany showed us to a cab. The cab ride to our hotel was only about 25 minutes, and honestly it kind of felt like we were in Arizona, haha. The streets are so narrow, many motorcycles, crazy drivers, and lots of one ways. We pulled up to our hotel and the program director, Hugo, was awaiting our arrival. My room was ready so I got all checked in. Probably like 20 other students had already arrived and were waiting and introducing ourselves in the lobby. They were about to go to lunch, so I ran up to my room, threw my bags in here, and met them downstairs. None of us had any clue where we were going so we randomly just started walking down the street. The weather is gorgeous, about 65, maybe 70. (who knows everything is celsius here) The group split into a few different groups and five of us wandered into a cafe. They didn't have many options, but I ended up splitting a Margarita pizza with one of the girls. It was almost like cheese baked onto pita. We went back to the hotel, Catalonia 505, and I came back and relaxed in my room until around 5. Then, the majority of us had arrived in Barcelona and we met in the conference room of the hotel for orientation. 4 hours later we had given briefs intros of ourselves, met our professors, got our schedules, and had a brief overview of Europe and the EU. After orientation, 9 of us girls hit the road in search of somewhere to eat for dinner. We ended up at "Vasi." I sat with 2 girls, ironically, who were both from Greece. Anyone that knows me knows my obsession :) It is very common in Spain to order tapas 'small plates kind of like appetizers.' Two of us had a local beer, I can't tell you the name, but it was pretty good, very light. We shared a liter of water. Everything is glass bottles here. If you order water, there are no free refills and the bottles are tiny. Hello dehydration haha. The three of us ordered random things and split everything. We had these chicken skewers which came with some kind of barbacoa sauce, tasted more like barbecue though. We had these things that were like a puff pastry stuffed with caramelized onions, and brie. DELICIOUS! Also we had this poached egg, potato, and prosciutto dish, also pretty good. Lastly, croquettes de jamon. All in all, great dinner, and pretty damn cheap. 29 Euro for the three of us. After that, some of the students were going out to the bar, but we were extremely exhausted and jet lagged so we wandered to a small dessert shop. I let the waiter pick mine, something with chocolate. It was like a chocolate moose pie. After that, we walked back to the hotel, I attempted to blog and upload pictures, but was unsuccessful. I finally went to sleep around 12:30 and woke up to jack hammering in the street outside of our window at 6 AM. haha Welcome to Barcelona. Ok, so today I got up around 7, took a shower, went down to the lobby for breakfast. It was pretty good, some normal  American stuff (toast, eggs, bacon) and some other things like ham, mozzarella, and tomato. Oh, I forgot to mention everything is ham here. Weird. Wait, Hugo taught us to say interesting, not weird. We got on a private bus at 8:30 and headed to school. The bus had free wifi, everything has free wifi, it's awesome! Our school is called IQS School of Management. Apparently, it started as a very prestigious chemical engineering program, and they recently added onto it. It's an amazing building. We had our first class, the  one that everyone must attend, called International IQ. It was super interesting and very informative. We learned about the European Union, what countries joined when, the capitals of the countries, and geographic location. We were also given a detailed schedule of the next month. After looking over the schedule, is when I really started to fall in love with Forum Nexus. I thought everyday we would have class from this time to this time, then the rest of the day would be free for exploring. Totally wrong. We will have two international guest speakers, take 7 professional visits, explore, travel, study and attend classes. I cannot express in words how intrigued I am!! I tried to keep an open mind
and have no expectations, but this program is a million times more awesome than I ever imagined. Everyone is so friendly, so enjoyable, so easy to get along with, and so cultured (I'm so jealous of all the places these kids have gone!) Yes, kids. I'm the grandma of the group! There are two other graduate students that might be my age. Ok running out of room, have to post this, and I'll finish...

testing 1,2,3

I have no clue what I'm doing...