Barcelona:
It was a bit of an ordeal even getting here, because as exciting as a 1.25 euro flight may be (for the record, thats about $2.50) it looses some of it's initial draw when you realize you need to buy two 18 euro bus tickets and spend a few hours getting to the airport, which is conveniently located in the middle of nowhere. We got to Barcelona eventually, and were greeted by a day of rain. Woo hoo! I also happened to have a migraine (which didn't go away until 4 days later, lucky me) so I was completely content spending the day in the hostel. It was a pretty nice hostel, with a big common room with TVs and computers and a bar; it even had a fairly nice kitchen, laundry room and gym. The next day it was still a bit wet out,
so we decided to pay for a hop-on-hop-off bus tour, thinking it would be a good way to see the city without getting wet, and if it got nice we could always move to the top of the bus. We rode around the entire city more or less and saw a bunch of buildings by Gaudi, including the Sagrada Familia church, which has been in the process of being built for over 100 years and is nowhere near done. (The next day we went inside and looked around.) We spent a good few hours on the bus, and did eventually get to move to the top. It was really the best decision we could have made. Later we ended up going to a big market with more fresh fruit, meat, egg and fish vendors than you could ever imagine. We got gresh fruit smoothies for 1 euro and they were fantastic. The rest of our meals pretty much just consisted of fruit from this market ... There were some awesome things about Barcelona, but I think the weather ruined it a bit for me. I don't really have any inerest in going back, although I'd like to see other parts of Spain for sure.
Copenhagen:
I spent a few days in Copenhagen with my family, and the weather was uncharacteristically beautiful, warm and sunny. I got to show them around and take them to have lunch with my host family. I also got to take them around to do a lot of things I haven't been able to do yet, like see the Little Mermaid, the crown jewels, the changing of the guards parade/ceremony, and the castle in Helsingor whose name I can never remember. I also got to eat at the nicer restauraunts, which is something I haven't been able to do on my tight student's budget! We had a really nice dinner out with my host family - it was one of those dinners where they explain every course to you (I think there were 6 of them) and give you a spoon of sorbet to cleanse your pallate after the fish. It was really nice to see my family (although I was glad when they went home, and I know they were glad to leave too ...) and also nice to see Copenhagen in the spring time.
Munich:
Munich was pretty, and the weather was beautiful. I can't really remember anything we went
to though, although I have a bunch of pictures. I did have the best meal ever in Munich - weinerschnitzel! It was delicious, and I got to eat it outside, which made it even better. On the way from Munich to Venice we took a train through the Alps, and even though I slept for the first hour or so of the trip, the rest of it was pretty, and the mountains were pretty incredible. I think I've forgotten what mountains (or even hills) look like since being in Denmark.
Venice:
I love Venice. End of story. It helps that I love water in all its forms - ocean, lake, river, fountain ... so a city with rivers
and canals instead of roads was just perfect to me. The weather was again, perfect, so while I fell in love with the city I could easily see how you would get a different impression if it was flooded and you had to walk over those platforms the whole time. I really liked how you had to take boats to get everywhere, and you were always surrounded by water. We had a bit of drama in trying to find an internet cafe when I had to sign up for classes, but it all worked out in the end. I got a cool carnival mask, which I'm pretty much in love with, and ate a lot of fantastic pizza. Overall, I'd say it was an amazing city!
Florence:
I guess I may as well start off by saying that once again, we followed the good weather, and it was warm and sunny the whole time. We did the typical things - saw some churches and the David, got harassed by street vendors ... By this time we were all pretty much museum-ed out (except for dad, of course ...) and were happy to just walk around and shop.
Well, I guess that finally concludes my travel adventures. Admittedly, I'm a bit hazy on the details since I did so much, and it happened about a month ago. I guess I should have updated sooner!
