avignon

ok so the last part of my trip was in avignon!
getting from granada to avignon was interesting. i thought i had a booked a flight from granada to madrid at 9.05 in the morning and then had a connecting flight to marseilles at 2. apparently i did something wrong because not only was the 9 flight not at 9.05 but at 9.50, but i somehow managed to book myself on the 2 pm flight... so... problem. i ended up having to buy another ticket from granada to madrid because i was going to have to buy a new ticket in any case. funny related story: zaid ended up missing his flight from barcelona to paris... we laughed about our mishaps together.
anways.
so i get to the airport way early because i take the bus thats 3 euro versus a 30 euro taxi. it was weird waiting for the bus at 6 am when all of the club goers were going home. anyways, i eventually got to marseilles where i was told there was a train station to get to avignon. but i apparently have to buy tickets at the airport, but they only have machines, and just fyi for every american person that travels to france... your credit card WILL NOT work in these machines. i, of course, knew this already because i've been here for awhile, but when i get on the bus (oh yes, it took me some time to realize that i needed to take a bus to the train station...) the bus driver asks me for my ticket and i go "sorry, my card doesn't work" and he seemed very flummoxed and informed me that there was no person to buy a ticket from, even at the station. ok, so i get on the train without a ticket.... and ask the controleur to sell me one. so it was quite a production. anyways, i finally get to avignon, and my hostel is very easy to find (YAY!) and end up walking around the city. go check out the pont d'avignon which only goes half way across the river and just wander this way and that before having dinner and calling it a night, since it had been a long day.
the next day i wake up and go to the palais des papes which was very interesting! i got the audio guide here too and it was much better presented! i really enjoyed the tour, but i could tell that i was ready to be back in paris..i was tired.
my admission to the palais also got me admission to the pont d'avignon so i went on it and did the audio guide there too..i was way tired by this point so i didn't really glean much. then i had a crepe (which i had missed so much) and just wandered around waiting to get on my train!
it was nice to be back in france where i spoke the language, legit.
anyways here are some pics:
pont d'avignon close to sunset:

palais des papes: (at a weird angle...)

granada

so on wednesday i left sevilla for granada. i took the train and it was slow and stopped everywhere and was bumpy... i've been spoilt by the trains in france obvi. anyways, i get to granada and find my hostel, which was a little difficult because 1)i don't speak spanish (obvi) and 2) i'm by myself at this point and 3) the streets in the part of granada that the hostel in is cobblestones and uphill and twisty and wind-y and not really labelled. anways, i get to the hostel and see my friends from sevilla! we go up to the rooftop terrace because its gorgeous and warm and we all like the sun. so we hang out up there and meet lots of people, which is good for me because at 8 pm that night they left me!:( they had a night train to catch to barcelona so we really just had the afternoon together.
anyways, we met lots of people, and i hung out with these people all night. they were all really cool and we had a lot of fun.
the next morning i woke up and decided i was going to go on this free walking tour the hostel offered before going to the alhambra. so that is what i did. it was a pretty good tour, i was sad i didn't get to stay for all of it because there is a specific time that you are allowed into the alhambra and if you miss it...tough luck. i also booked this ticket like.. two weeks before i even left for spring break because you can't just go up to the alhambra and expect to get tickets...its that popular. (and they limit the amount of people that can go in..)
anyways, the walking tour: we went up the albacyin (i'm not really sure how you spell it) but its another hill in granada (a hill the overlooks the alhambra) and this is where all of the regular people lived back in the day. it was really pretty. i learned a lot of fun stuff too, like when the christians finally captured granada they didn't build one new thing, they just put christian stuff over top all of the muslim stuff, so mosques became chruches, and you can really see this because the minaret became the bell tower and there are always 3 brass balls on the top of the minaret and these weren't taken down, a cross was just added. its very interesting. our guide also pointed out the only mosque in granada, which is very new, i think he said 2005. crazy! our guide was crazy and i really enjoyed him!
then the alhambra:
so the alhambra is a bunch of old palaces of rulers before the fall of granada. i didn't really learn much there to be honest. i got the audio guide, but it was really poorly done, and it was really hard to get a sense for things in the rooms. don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, but a little overrated in my opinion. i think if you go you should try to get a guided tour. one of my friends summed it up pretty well: i liked the views of the alhambra better than actually going into it. i sound so cynical, there were just so many people (in this instance i'm going to digress for a second: the french usage for lots of people fits so much better in my opinion: beaucoup de monde: lots of the world.. i legit feel like lots of the world was at this place with me!).
anyways.
that afternoon i then did some shopping in all of the moroccan themed (i think this is the right word?) shops... bought a fair amount of stuff... all for so cheap! loves it.
then i chilled on the rooftop terrace again, and then hung out with my friends from the night before, went on a tapas tour: delicious. legit, probably some of the best food i have ever eaten was at one of these places. probably helped that i was STARVING...
so that was granada! it was a very pretty city and i had lots of fun! which is good cause i was a little worried about being in a city by myself...
anways here are some pics:
view of the sunset from the rooftop terrace at the hostel:
view in the opposite direction from the rooftop hostel: those are the sierra nevada mountains!
the alhambra from the valley in between the hill its on and the albyacin (again, sorry for the spelling)
some of the decorations in the nazarin palace:
water was very important for the rulers who lived in the alhambra: for obvious reasons, they were from north africa where, in case you hadn't realized, they lived in desert conditions (shocking, i know). so they really celebrated water in granada:

sevilla

so on sunday zaid and i had a flight back to madrid (it was our go-to spot in spain apparently) and then immediately got on a train to sevilla. loved sevilla, it was just so chill.
so. we got into sevilla late on sunday night and saw 3 friends from our program who were already there (we knew they were there, so this wasn't random at all...) and we just hun gout for a bit, talking and planning for the next day. we decided that we would sleep in (yay!) and then have a picnic on the river and then get churros... so thats exactly what we did. we went from breakfast to go buy food at the supermarket and then straight to eat that food on the river! it was really pretty and sunny, and there was this crazy dog who kept trying to get food off of us. he didn't though! and then the churros and chocolate... a little overrated in my opinion. i think it would have been better without the chocolate and if there was powdered sugar on top instead...like funnel cake haha. oh well. then our 3 friends had to leave to catch their train to granada (where i would see them again). i decided to do a bit of reading on the rooftop terrace, and then decided to walk around...so i walk around, wandering this way and that just enjoying how i have no idea where i am going because none of the streets are straight and i don't have a map, and its sunny and warm! so i wander for about an hour, then zaid comes and meets up with me, where we wander some more and then decide its time for sangria, so we sit and chill and drink sangria. sevilla is basically just chillin the whole time. later that afternoon(or evening if you will) zaid and i meet up with benj and like.. 4 of his friends and 2 of our friends and just hang out until its time for us to change into warmer clothes before tapas and a flamenco show! it was benj and one of his friends and zaid and one of our friends who go to the show and it was cool, free, so not the best, but still good because i had never seen it before! that was basically the first day.
the next day benj offered to walk zaid and i around and show us te city, so we woke up and did that, and then met up with our friends to do the cathedral which was cool, mostly i liked seeing the views from the top of the tower. then zaid and i went to plaza de espana, which if you know episode one of star wars, will be familiar, and then chilled in the gardens by it eating lunch and just enjoying life. and then we thought, its time for more sangria, so we do just that. and just chill some more. (legit, thats all sevilla is about!) then zaid needs to leave, which marks teh beginning of being on my own (weird!). that night benj says he has to go to a concert for one of his classes and asks if i want to go, and i'm like sure. apparently its this really famous traditional sevillian music group, so listened to them for an hour and it was good! then we just hang out.
i left around 11 the next morning!
here are some pictures:
a view from our river picnic:

view from the cathedral tower as seen from plaza nueva or nuevo or some spanish name like that:
hanging out enjoying our sangria:
gold tower: where ships departed for the new world back in the day!
part of the top of the cathedral (the 3rd largest in the world after st peters and st pauls) and some of sevilla...it was gorgeous.
orange trees in a courtyard of the church: you could smell all of the orange blossoms basically as soon as you got off the train. it was glorious.
gold alterpiece in cathedral: it was HUGE. the picture doesn't really do it justice.
plaza de espana:
where we ate lunch!:

lisboa

so on friday afternoon zaid and i had a flight to lisbon! zaid turns to me on the plane and goes "katherine, you know the only thing i know about lisbon?" and at the same time both of us go "that they speak portuguese!" so obv zaid and i were going to this place with NO idea what to expect, but it turned out wonderfully.
one of my friends gave me a recommendation to stay at the travellers house hostel in lisbon, which has been consistently ranked as one of the top hostels IN THE WORLD for the past few years. so ture. such a great place. we get to the hostel after a long bus ride (we of course opt for the cheaper bus that makes stops everywhere and we're standing up for 40 min) and everyone was just so nice! they give us a tour of the place, which has a tv room, free internet, a lounge area, kitchen, dining room, a book shelf with lots of travel guides and a shelf where you can exchange books and a dorm fridge that has soda, water, and beer. they also explain about the events they do everynight, and that night happened to be a tradtional portuguese dinner. one of the guys also sat use down and put a map in front of us and said these are the places you should go. and wrote stuff down and circled and everything. he was great. then we saw our room, which had nice comfy beds, and a place to store your stuff and lock it up! obv i'm impressed with the hostel. legit, go to lisbon and stay here. totes worth it.
so anyways, then i walk around the city a bit while zaid is napping, buy some stuff, admire all the pottery (i am my mothers child) and then chill for a bit. that night i do the traditional portuegues dinner dealio which had chorizo, cheese, bread, smoked ham, butter, olives, and red wine... only 4 euro! it was really good, and the guy cooked the chorizo on this little pottery pig, it was pretty cool. hung out the rest of the night.
the next day did some sightseeing, went to castel sao jorge, a flea market, wandered around the alfama district which is the oldest part of the city, then went up to some ruins of an old monastery, did some shopping, napped a little, then zaid i went to this restaurant that the hostel recommended. it was traditional portugeuese food and apparently portugal missed the memo that europeans eat small portions, cause the amount of food we got at this place was insane! NO ONE could finish it! we got a rice, fish and shrimp dish and when we sat down we got a calamari salad thing (that wasn't bad!) and some fried cod fritters or something... we also got free after dinner drinks that i guess are typically portugeuse, it was cherry flavored. i wasn't a huge fan. hung out with people the rest of the night in the hostel.
the next morning we woke up and checked out and then went over to belem where they have monuments to the explorers (since this is really where it all started) and then a monastery and, the best part, the BEST PASTRIES YOU WILL EVER EAT. they are called pasteis or something and are basically just custard creams, but they were SO GOOD. SO GOOD. then that marked the end of our time in portugal. it was sad leaving!
it is legit one of my fav cities, i would highly advise everyone to go there. everyone we met was super nice!
here are some photos:
that is the castel sao jorge on the hill up there:
a lot of the houses are covered in tile: i thought it was cool!
one of the views from the top of the castel:
i just like this shot: saw it when we were wandering around the alfama district!
another view of the hill the castel was on, just from a different side, so on a diff hill!
the ruins of the monastery:
the monument to explorers:
so good: and it brought me back to samantha brown. love the travel channel. when i told the guy at the hostel i did know about this place i think he was happy i knew SOMETHING about the city haha. go me.

gran canaria

so on tuesday morning zaid and i left early for gran canaria! we were both very excited to get to the beach and just lounge all day! however, we chose to stay in las palmas, which is the capital city and on the north side of the island. for anyone who is thinking of going this is a MISTAKE. DO NOT stay in las palmas! las palmas is a city that you visit from the south of the island. it really is just a city, and it rains there a lot. so the first day we got to our hostel, which was really...interesting. we had our own room and our own bathroom but the bathroom was not fully enclosed, it was open at the top so you could talk to each other while someone was in the bathroom.... so our arrival on gran canaria was a little bit of a letdown. but we rallied and decided we needed food so we walked trying to find an open place, which we found, and it was a local place where we got huge bocadillos for SO CHEAP. it was amazing. we got cokes, and 2 big sandwiches each, and neither of us knew how much it was going to be, but each of us though to ourselves, ok, this was a big sandwhich, i'm ok paying 5 euro for this sandwhich. our total bill was 7 euro. great. then we walked down to the beach, but by this point it had clouded up and was starting to rain, so we went to an i nternet cafe to figure out what we would do with our lives for the rest of our time in gran canaria. so we looked at places to go out that night etc, and then we were talking about going to the south of the island the next day for the whole day and so we were trying to figure out the buses to come back, we decided to just completly move there since the buses stopped early. so we found a place to stay and moved there the next day.
the night however, another epic adventure ensued.
whilest at the airport we got a flyer for outlet malls and the flyer said there was a mango and a zara outlet so that basically equalled katherine's heaven. it also said we could get there by public transportation, so we go to the bus station, and ask at information, and the lady there tells us to get on bus 80, so we go to bus 80 and ask the very nice man "las terrazas?" and show him a flyer and he goes no, so we start to walk away, but the guy must take pity on us, cause he honks at us (that was loud!) and tells us to sit down and he'll take us to the bus we need to take. so he takes us to the other bus station and tells us "uno, you need one" so we go to bus one and we do the same thing with this driver "las terrazas?" and show him the flyer. the guy looks at us, and must thinkwe're nuts and sort of grimaces and says fine, but points to the first seats on the bus. so we're driving along, and after about 20 min of driving on the HIGHWAY the bus driver points at us, points at the outlets across THE HIGHWAY and points to a stop ON THE HIGHWAY and then proceeds to stop and tells us to get off. so zaid and i got off of a bus ON THE HIGHWAY and had to walk down a dirt hill to get under the highway and to the outlet complex. apparently the flyers lied about public transportation access, and the only entrance was through the parking garage which took us a long time to figure out... so when we finally got in we were a little disappointed..i did find some good things at mango...but thats about it. and we had to take a taxi back cause neither of us was enjoying the thought of walking along the highway till we came to a bus stop..... so we went back to our hostel to change and rest before going out that night, but that turned into falling asleep at like.. 10. it was ok though.
we woke up the next morning and hauled it over to the other side of the island. best decision ever. it was sunny and warm and legit a resort. so we got to our hostel which was actually this guys house that he rented two extra rooms of, and then immediately went down to the beach where we stayed for the remainder of the day. that night we went out to this really cool area which was basically a shopping mall of bars, coolest complex ever, and we went to go see a drag comedy show. i had NO idea what we got ourselves into, but it was hilarious all the same... but the jokes did get kind of old so we peaced a lil early.
the next day we went to a different part of the beach that was a farther walk but toally worth it because there were sand dunes! it was basically a little mini desert! and spent the monring/early afternoon there before heading back to shower and then catch our bus to the airport.
we were both SO exhausted. we were spending the night in madrid at my friend casey's apartment again, and we were supposed to get there around 1 and we had planned earlier in the week that we would just go straight out...since thats what time everything start anyways.... however, when we got to madrid i looked at casey and zaid and was like... uh..not happening, i was just too tired. its ok though, we woke up the next morning and went to the prado for 30 min, but i saw all that i wanted, goya and valezquez (which i cant spell...) and then we got on a flight to lisbon!
here are some pics of the canary islands:
this is the beach in las palmas: see why we were a lil disappointed?
playa del ingles: the other side of the island: compeletly different!
the dunes:
before starting our trek over the dunes to the beach!

les vacances de printemps!

ok so i just got back from my epic spring break. i'm going to talk about each of the places i went in separate posts though cause it would be ridiculously long if i didn't.
so.
the first part of my trip: paris to madrid!
so i went on most of this trip with one of my friends from my program here named zaid. we decided we would take the night train from paris to madrid. quite an adventure. for one, it was like a fourteen hour trip. we left sunday night at 10 pm, and arrived in madrid on monday afternoon around 2. for second, our train ticket said "paris-irun" and then we would catch a train from "irun-madrid." however, at 6.30 in the morning the conductor comes over the loudspeaker of the train and says something that I don't hear because 1)i'm asleep 2)its over a loudspeaker and 3)its 6.30 in the morning so i'm asleep but zaid pokes me to wake up cause everyone else is getting their stuff together. i say to zaid, we still have an hour before we're supposed to get to irun, let me sleep! right after those words come out of my mouth the conductor goes "terminus: bayonne" and zaid and i look at each other like... what the hell? and then he goes on to say that to get to irun there will be a bus waiting in the parking lot... so we troop off the train and into the parking lot where about 7 buses are waiting, but not all of the buses go to the same destination, and of course the signs indicating where the buses are going are on 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper. of course. so we eventually get on the correct bus and basically laugh for 15 min straight that the guy who sold us our tickets would neglect to tell us about this bus situation, and because it was 6.30 in the morning. i fall alseep and eventually zaid goes, katherine, i can't read the signs anymore, and that is how we crossed the border into spain...a 30 minute bus ride. legit, an adventure.
the train ride from irun to madrid was gorgeous, all mountains and blue skies, and fields.

in madrid we stayed with one of my friends from AU named casey who is studying there this semester. she has an apartment and very kindly offered to let us stay there! so we did, and she was nice enough to show us around the entire city too! that afternoon we walked basically all around the city. we went to this cool park that i think was called retiro park (please excuse my spanish....) which had this really pretty lake/pond thing that you could rent rowboats on, a crystal palace, and ducks and turtles, and lots of people. it was a gorgeous day so we sad down and just chilled for a bit. casey also introduced us to the wonderfully cheap prices of food in spain: we went to this place called the ham museum (in spanish of course) for lunch, and i got 2 huge bocadillos for two euro!
then we walked over to el corte ingles which is a huge department store and zaid and i decided we needed to buy a spanish phrasebook... this turned out to be only semi-helpful in the long run but hilarious too... then we walked over to plaza mayor and then to another park by a palace...
then we went back to casey's apartment and hung out for a bit before going out for tapas at a place called el tigre where you buy a beer and get tapas!!! food in spain is great by the way. that was our first round in madrid!
ok here are some pics!

this is the park:

turtles in the park!:
crystal palace
seista-ing in playa mayor
me in plaza mayor:
the park by the palace that i can't remember the name of:
el tigre tapas!:
the three of us enjoying the tapas:

day trip two and life

so last saturday we went to rouen and giverny.
rouen has a the cathedral that monet painted so many times in all of the different lights. however, the cathedral was a little underwhelming in my opinion... most of it got destroyed in WWII so its ben rebuilt, but the tour guide emphasized how much got destroyed in france so that not all the money could go to this one cathedral, so while its all in one piece at the moment, there is very little to look at. here are some pics:
this is the facade monet painted so many times

this is the inside:

these are the oldest thing in the church: stained glass from the 13th or 14th century:ok thats the church.
rouen is also where joan of arc was burnt at the stake. so we saw some of that too.
we then went to giverny which is where monet had his gardens that he painted so much. it was BEAUTIFUL. even though it was grey and a lil chilly the flowers were blooming! here are some pics:ok so that was my day trip!
that night we went to go see monsters vs aliens (an animated movie) in french and i understood most of it! it felt pretty great haha.
then last sunday i went to the marche aux puces which are flee markets. it was glorious. and SO HUGE. we could have spent a lot longer looking at them all, we only went through one and half markets of about 6!
this week was pretty chill, just excited for spring break!
and TONIGHT I LEAVE FOR SPAIN!
i'll have lots of stories and photos when i get back!

allez les bleus!

so last night i went to a football match: france vs lithuania. it was a world cup qualifying match and france won! yay! it was a lot of fun, well i mean the game wasn't the most action packed game ever, but there were a lot of moments where france ALMOST got a goal and so everyone groans and yells and boos and all sorts of stuff together. i went with some friends from my program and some people i've met here in paris and some of their friends. in the end france won 1-0. i have to say, EVERYONE took the train to the game, like EVERYONE i have never seen so many people waiting to get on a train, and the stadium was full..completely sold out! here is a pic after france scored their goal:

this is at the very beginning of the match when they were doing the national anthem:
l'equipe de france after scoring the winning (and only) goal:
ok i just thought that i would tell everyone about the game! in other news i had my midterm today, i forgot what school was like... seeing as this is the first hard work we've had to do all semester..we had to write 2 in class essays...my life is just so hard. haha.
this weekend i got to rouen and giverny!