España!

What a whirlwind week it's been! After a few days in Paris with my dad, we headed to Valencia, where we spent another few days, and then this morning I headed to Madrid! Needless to say, I'm exhausted, but I'm excited to start this program too. Here are a few pictures from Valencia and Madrid, both absolutely beautiful cities.

The flower bridge, or puente de las Flores, in Valencia is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

While walking in the Madrid city center today, Sol, we happened upon a huge football celebration. The Athletico team in Madrid beat Real Madrid in a tournament, and that was huge cause for celebration.

Roma!

Only a few more posts and I'll finally be caught up -- just in time for my program in Madrid to start!

Rome was definitely one of my favorite cities: partly because I was finally recovering from that frustrating upper respiratory infection, partly because it was warm and beautiful there, partly because of the amazing food, and partly because we had one of the best teachers leading us through the city to look at some of the most amazing pieces of art.
 Another exciting aspect of our trip to Rome was that we visited not more than two weeks after Pope Francis was chosen, so it was really amazing to see how fast vendors started selling things with his face on them (Easter, at that point, was only a week away, so everyone was gearing up for that too), and it was unreal to visit the Sistine Chapel so soon after the conclave had taken place. Even without our historic timing, Rome would have still been amazing.

One of the most interesting aspects of Rome was the number of street vendors and beggars/performers. You couldn't walk more than 500 feet before you ran into someone dressed as King Tut, a headless man, or, my personal favorite, the guy "holding" up his friend on a pole:

 

I also loved all of the art vendors on the streets: I bought so much artwork while we were in Rome, and I can't wait to get back and put all of it up. The Spanish Steps were amazing, and Piazza Navona was nothing less than gorgeous. It was so interesting to see the artists work while we were there: most of the art is done with a similar style, but if you talk to the artists, they'll show you some of their other works, and they were all pretty forthcoming about whether the pieces I was looking at were prints or originals, which was really nice.

 

In front of the Spanish Steps!

The beautiful fountain at Piazza Navona

 Linguistically, I struggled a bit lot. Our first night there, we searched for an Italian place close to our hostel, which was more difficult than you might think, and when we finally found it, the owners spoke zero English. I was starving, and if you know me, when I'm hungry I'm basically useless to society. However, I tried to communicate with the few phrases that Dr. Blondin had taught us earlier, and ended up unintentionally speaking a lot of French, then trying to compensate by explaining in Spanish (because it's close to Italian) why exactly I was speaking French. Our poor server was possibly more confused than I was, but in the end we ended up with food, so overall it was a victorious night.

I'll also be the first to admit that I got overzealous with the food Instagramming, so I apologize for that (mostly), but if you're interested in seeing basically everything I ate while in Rome, it's all on there. The rumors of Italian food never being bad? True. I was raised on pizza and pasta, so I had high expectations in Rome, and they were all either met or exceeded by the amazing food we had there (except for the tiramisu -- mom, you still win for that). I was especially fond of our frequent gelato breaks: nothing compliments gorgeous weather quite like walking around this incredible city eating a cone (or three) of gelato.

Speaking of the gorgeous city, here are a few of my favorite places that we saw:

Some ruins in the city... I thought it was so cool to see modern buildings among these archaeological dig sites. It was really interesting to see the old and new right next to each other. Plus, some of the ruins were home to a very large cat population, which obviously makes Rome in my top ten cities list by default.

The Pantheon! On the day we went to see it, it was downpouring rain, and seeing the rain come through the open ceiling was so beautiful.

What trip to Rome is complete without visiting the Trevi fountain? I think I made enough wishes and threw enough money in there to ensure a return to Rome, and I definitely felt a bit like Lizzie McGuire when we were there. This is what dreams are made of.

The Bernini-designed baldacchino in St. Peter's Basilica -- absolutely amazing.

The "typewriter" building: one of the more recent Roman constructions, and the building that was my main point of reference whenever we were trying to go somewhere in the city. Apparently most Italians hate it, but I thought it was quite nice.

The St. Theresa of Avila, another Bernini creation. This was the piece of art I was most excited to see -- I'd read a lot about this controversial piece in Spanish literature, and to see it in person was so cool.

During our visit inside the Colosseum, we were lucky enough to catch a once-a-year Easter mass that's held inside.

Inside the Colosseum!

We also stopped by the "Mouth of Truth", a concrete piece that "bites" your hand off if you tell a lie with your hand in the mouth or if you're a generally immoral person. Luckily, I was safe.

Our last day in Rome: our hostel was out of the city and right by the beach, so we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and went to visit the Mediterranean, which was still a bit too cold to swim in, but we dipped our hands in and then went to get gelato :)

Catching Up (Still!): Amsterdam

After Normandy, we headed to Amsterdam -- as much as I love French, it was really nice to be in a country where basically everyone spoke perfect English. Amsterdam is also a really diverse city: everyone seems super active and fit, and there were many occasions during our three days there that I nearly got run over by a bike, bus, or tram -- all common modes of transportation in the city aside from cars. I loved all of the canals throughout the city, and it was so nice to go on a few river cruises too. What I didn't love so much about Amsterdam was that, much like Paris, it was cold and rainy most of the time, and I ended up with an upper respiratory infection while I was there. If you've never been sick in a foreign country, I do not recommend it at all. In a city where marijuana is easily accessible on nearly every street corner in a "coffee shop," I had to argue with a travel doctor for no less than half an hour (including a few dramatic coughs and a lot of medical jargon) to get a prescription for antibiotics -- and believe me, they are not cheap. Other than that minor travel snag, I did get to see a lot in Amsterdam: Anne Frank's house, the Rijks museum (the day before it closed for renovations!), and Rembrandt's house, just to name a few.

The train station in Amsterdam!

The portraits at the Rijksmuseum were so cool - just look at the expressions of everyone in this painting.

This portrait by Frans Hals is another that we focused on in class -- it's different from most of the works we saw in the Louvre. Aside from being a portrait (Protestant art is more portrait-focused, while Catholics painted more religious scenes), it also shows the man and woman as equals: they're painted about the same size, and they look like they might actually enjoy each others presence (somewhat uncommon in Catholic art apparently).

In front of one of the many canals!

I think this is a science center -- it looks like a huge ship, which I thought was really cool.

With my wonderful roommate on a canal cruise!

In this picture, 7 bridges in the canals line up!

Learning how Rembrandt made paint at the Rembrandt house - I didn't realize how labor-intensive a process it was! Not only do you have to carefully select your pigments, mixing the paint itself is actually really difficult to do!

An art installation at the Old Church in the Red Light District of Amsterdam. This was definitely not my favorite church, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Rembrandt's wife, Saskia, is buried at the Old Church -- it was really cool to see her grave!

Amsterdam by night!

Just a few Abbey-ites on our night canal cruise!