the land of never ending pastries and vineyards can't posibbly be all that bad (spring break #6)

after falling in love on tenerife, tessa and i moved on (taxi, bus, plane, train, and finally car) to france where we met her dad and sheryl. it was nice to finally not have to make any decisions, or figure out public transportation, and the house they had rented was amazing. the bathrooms even had towel warmers. but, to be honest, i dont really remember what all we saw. the first day we mostly just walked and drove around a few random towns and places.

we stopped in one particularly cute town, but there was literally nobody around. and completely randomly, there was confetti all over. the streets and sidewalks were covered and we had no idea why. i would like to pretend that there was nobody around cause it was a town filled with beautiful people that had spent the night having a townwide fiesta.

then we moved on to carcassone, which is this midevil town where people still live in the crazy castles and stuff. it was pretty cool looking, but i pretty much felt like i was in disney world because the bottom floors of all the buildings were cheesy stores and cafes. i did get some rocking tee shirts there though.

there were a lot of pictures of pigs everywhere. i couldnt figure out exactly why because i don't know french...but it had something to do with this princess that saved the town by throwing a pig over the town walls....haha, yeah, i dont know.

we also got some freakin amazing candy in carcassone. it was hard candy with this intensly amazing gooey middle. i am addicted.

return home, no electricity. what should we do? crepes of course! so we walked about five feet to the crepe place in town, and met peter the crepe man. hard cider and crepes are a pretty good combination. and then tessa's dad got a grand marnier crepe flambe, and that pretty much made my night. a flaming crepe just can't be beat.

rooftop eggs, black sand, and pepsi wine (spring break #5)

our last day in tenerife

part one:
we made the most amazing breakfast of scrambled eggs with tomatos and cheese that we bought at the market. we ate it upstairs, and manfred came and joined us in the sunshine and we talked and bonded over the beauty that is hostal intercambio. you could see both mont teide and the ocean from the roof, and it smelled like freshly cleaned laundry becuase manfred had sheets hanging to dry. pretty great.

part two:
tessa was SUPER sore (ok, and yeah, my butt was pretty sore, but she pretty much couldn't move...watching her walk was pretty great) so we decided that the day was a beach day. so we took a bus down the hill to the closest beach. we got lost, but only for a little...and while lost discovered the amazing amounts of lizards all over, and afterwards i couldn't stop seeing the millions of lizards that were crawling around everything. it wasn't exactly the most natural beach on the island, but it was the easiest to find...and there was black sand! and although i feel like there is so much to say. and would like to write forever about it, there really isnt much to say. it was a beautiful beach, with tropical weather and surfers, where we layed in the sun for hours, while eating melty principe cookies and cheese and tomoto sandwiches.

although, i do have to admit that it took me almost an hour to realize it was a topless beach. and its not like there wasn't really anybody around that was topless. in fact, i would say over half of the women were topless. i just seriously didnt even notice.

once we were both pretty fried (even though i actually put on sunscreen this time...twice!), we walked down the beach a bit, bought some necklaces from a street vendor, and went to find something to drink. it only seemed natural to get some girly tropical drinks at beach side bar, so we did. and they were pretty great.

part 3:
we came home, showered away the black sand stuck to everything, and went to dinner at this little place down the street that manfred suggested called los compadres. it was amazingly local, with paper towl rolls on every table for napkins, boys playing a game of soccer that ranged between the street outside, as well as the area just inside the side door. when we came in the woman gave us three choices...chicken, lamb, or goat. i got chicken and tessa got goat. we also got a salad, potatos, and wine to share. the meat was mostly just a vehicle for sauce, the salad the same old spanish salad i've had all semester, and the potatos the same potatos we've been eating, with mojo sauce. all were pretty great. but, oh the wine. it was in a pepsi bottle, poured straight from the barrel! you can't get much more local than los compadres, and i wanted to stay forever and drink pepsi wine.

instead, we returned to our hostal, to sit in the common room once again, for our last night with manfred and try one more canary island specialty, ron miel (honey rum). it was, as you would expect, pretty sweet. but i liked it enough, and manfred REALLY liked it. even though he claimed that it was too sweet for him, he ended up drinking the majority of the bottle and spouting out manfred wisdom at us all night. it was a good sort of ending, if there is such a thing.

sometimes you say you are in paradise, but you are really just in florida (spring break #4)

our second day on tenerife.

we had talked with manfred and asked for some hiking suggestions. with his amazing accent he informed us of the trail at masca, where you have to take a bus to the other side of the island, to this town called masca on the top of a ravine. from here you continue to hike down the ravine for about four hours until you make it to the ocean, where you take a boat (maybe get to see some dolphins), pass by los gigantes, and end up in another town where you can get a bus back home. it all sounded quite perfect.

so we set the alarm clock to go off the next morning at 6 AM, just in time to catch the bus. snooze. snooze. snooze. claire, its 645!...RUN. we barely made it to the station in time to stuff down some bus station donuts and catch the bus to buena vista. we then had to catch a connecting bus from buena vista to masca. and my definition of bus is loose. really, it was a van stuffed with unsuspecting victims. germans, spaniards, tessa, and me. it may have been the scariest ride of my life. i couldn't even understand how the van could be going up the mountain and around those curves so quickly. at one point you could see where a car had crashed, and was no left on the side of the mountain. that didn't give me too much hope for survival. everyone was scared, it was an international bonding experience.

and so we finally get there alive, and it is the cutest village. and i know i have said this a lot, but i should probably live there someday.


we stopped to buy our boat tickets, for once we got down to the ocean, and then to eat some breakfast/lunch/pre-hike goodness.
white coffee, salt water potatos with mojo, and goat cheese with honey and mojo. (tessa- you are an evil cheese and potato doofus...sorry guys, i would explain, but its really not all that funny to begin with anyway)

exploring the town we
1)made a cactus friend
2)discovered that cactus flippers can be very dangerous when they get old cause they get too heavy and just randomly fall. seriously, i think you could probably die if one big enough happened to fall on you
3)tried to find the museum, but either it was closed, or we are too challenged to be able to find a museum in town about 3 meters across.
4) bought some mystery tropical fruit from a little old lady on the side of the road. one was guava, i am pretty sure, but the other we have no idea what it was other than yellow, round, and with black seeds. but they tasted good, so it didnt really matter.




and we started off on the trail. all i can say was it was amazing. one of those times when you don't believe that you are actually doing it, and you know that it won't feel real once you leave either. highlights:

1)tessa taught me some cool geology stuff. (dykes are vertical stripes in the rocks and sills are horizontal stripes...i think)
2)we stopped at this little wooden bridge for a fruit break and sang loudly (well, it was more like me singing loudly and tessa being embarrased and laughing at me)
3) we made friends with the german hiking tour group. we couldn't get away from them...those german tours are fast!
4)scaled cliffs, climbed rocks, rock jumped, butt slid, and got laughed at when i fell down by a french family. (the kids were badass, but seriously, did they need to laugh at me?)

apparently when manfred said "hike down a ravine", tessa heard "stroll merily along a hill"...so the climbing and scaling took her quite by surprise. she went from excited, to amazed, to crazed, to a bit grumpy. thankfully the grumpy phase was only towards the end (seriously, we LITERALLY can't get any lower now....i think we died yesterday on the plane, and now we are in hell and this ravine is never going to end!)...and all that meant for me was less talking besides the funny tortured comments on her part, so i didnt mind. when we could see the ocean tessa could not have been happier.


basically it was unbelievable.

we then boarded a boat, floated on turquoise bright blue water past huge cliffs (called los gigantes)...didn't see any dolphins, but it was ok...and ended up in the town called los gigantes, which is this super tourist, ugly, same as any other tourist resort, town. but it was good enough for sitting and eating (potatos and mojo once again, and tessa got some calamari).

it was also good enough to rid our feet of evil binding tennis shoes (we had been hiking in some quite innappropriate shoes, so our feet weren't too happy), and buy some flip flops. unfortunately, after stopping at a bar to waste some time (where they had strongbow!-i got one for you rach!), and suddenly realizing we were going to miss the bus..i left my shoes! so i have officially sacrificed my favorite green and blue shoes to the god of masca and strongbow.

and to think that i saw it on mulberry street, or in other words, our first day on tenerife (spring break #3)

day one in tenerife:

we get to tenerife, get to the hostal, meet manfred, and since we basically haven't slept all night other than moments on the plane, we immediately lock ourself in our beautiful yellow room and nap together on the bed we share. fortunately, manfred interrupts our nap to inform us that the entire island closes up on sundays, and that if we want food we should go to the market immediately. so force ourselves out of bed and go for some snacks at the market (prinipe cookes, bread and jam, and munchitos aka the best chips in the world), continue to nap.

waking up in the sunshine of our room, we eat all of our chips and a roll of cookies, and head out for a walk. the town is ridiculously cute and beautifully amazing, i fell in love. here are some highlights:

1) we learned the wide definition of public art with this crazy window that was covered in gum. it was gross and awesome all at the same time.

2) this apartment was for sale and tessa and i decided we should buy it. best possible dream home. we would sleep on the balcony (hammock?) and feed the birds and eat tropical fruits.

3)we went to a cafe for an afternoon dessert, and made some friends...we ate and spent our time discussing how we were in paradise, and eating an amazing dessert in the sunshine. every once in a while we would hear some noises from the other part of the courtyard, but didnt think anything of it. all of a sudden, as we were finished eating, there was a peacock. seriously, a peacock was just walking around the tables randomly. the waiters would walk around him, nobody even seemed to notice the bird. meanwhile, tessa and i were freaking out with excitement. so then we decided to walk around the courtyard and see what else was around. there were birds all over the place, a random statue of a cow (reminded me of home sweet home) and a tinman sitting on a bench!

after some more exploring we come home starving, only to realize that everything was closed, and we had forgotten to get food for dinner. all we had was bread and jam. so we had an extravagant meal of bread and jam, we even had to steal the butter (quite an experience that involved trickery, mathematics and taking turns watching the halls for people coming, haha)

a character introduction (spring break #2)

we spent the first part of spring break in the canary islands, on tenerife. we got there, and had no idea how to work the bus system so it took us almost two hours to get from the airport to our hostel. when we finally get there, there are no signs indicating that the address we have is actually a hostel, and nobody is answering the door. so we go to the corner and sit on some benches to figure out what to do, when suddenly manfred appears! (with an austrian accent: are you looking for the hostel?) it was the beginning of a great relationship.

manfred is amazing, and knows a ridiculous amount of information about everything on the island. he is from austria, but has a traveled and lived in an incredible amount of places. (unfortunately i do not have a picture of manfred, but this guy was on the desk outside our room, so he'll have to do)

the hostel was so wonderful. our room had bright yellow walls and a huge window that led out to the courtyard area. it was in the area of the island called orotava, which is near puerto de la cruz, only way better. it seemed mostly residential. it was quiet and really pretty. all the buildings were painted bright warm colors, which just automatically makes you happier

hummus is the best, and only way to start spring break

so my spring break was awesome, and we did a lot of random things...so it is going to be broken up into a ton of little blogs.

this first one is the first weekend, staying in barcelona.

most people left for spring break as soon or before classes ended on thursday, but tessa and i weren't leaving until the weekend. so i had some time to waste. i spent most of the time wandering around with my camera. so there isn't really much to say. EXCEPT that tessa and i went to this most amazing place called pangea that i am kind of in love with.

i had been there before, and since i can't remember if i already wrote about this i am going to tell the story here. the first time i went i got a chai tea (which basically doesnt exist in spain) and was sitting alone reading. when my phone rang and i started talking in english, this german woman (the only other person there) started talking to me. we had a pretty long discussion, and it was amazing. i mean, i'm pretty much european now. she was hilarious, and even gave me this post card with information about her band and told me to call her if i go to berlin.

ok, so anyway, tessa and i were going to go to juicy jones for lunch, because we are obsessed with it. but it was packed, and it was raining really hard so we didnt want to walk around and wait...so we went to pangea for hummus. it was a good choice.

the rest of the afternoon involved a lot of us walking around corte ingles (super evil empire of a store), buying lipgloss, and eating at the amazing italian place below tessa's apartment.

that night we had to get in a taxi at 3 in the morning, so we just weren't going to sleep. instead, we sat in her room awkwardly staring at eachother and playing with our cameras.

my hair is spanish

ok, so i got my hair cut. it was a scary experience. i did not in any way shape or form want a mullet (no offense my beautiful megan), and don't know any hair vocabularly. i made tessa come with me, and she documented the entire experience. haha.

so, you ask, how did you tell him what you wanted?

basically, i said, i want a simple, boring cut. haha. and then pointed to some pictures.

the guy that cut my hair was really nice and funny, and even stopped in the middle of the cut when he saw tessa was my photographer, and posed for a picture. (i wasn't quite ready for the picture though...)

and then they tried to style it, and didnt understand that my hair doesnt curl. i ended up going home with a half way curled head. but thats ok.

i know its not that different from what i had before. but i have bangs now. and, i mean, i got my hair cut in spain! that should be credit enough.

(i'll get a pic up of the final product soon, i promise)

where cava comes in tanks

so, we went cava tasting. it was this super old winery (when its a cava place do you still say winery?) called codorniu. to get there we had to take the train about an 45 minutes outside of barcelona to the cutest little town (san sadeniu ardeniu?)...but when we got there we had no idea where exactly the winery was and even though it was a saturday nobody was around. everything was so amazingly quiet. after going to a competing winery to ask for directions and then walking around, we ended up going back to the train station and calling a taxi. we SO could have walked, i think, but the girls i was with were being wimpy and nervous.

the good part is that since we had some extra time before we needed to get to the winery, we got to play at a playground!! it, unfortunately, did not have a pyramid of death...but fun nonetheless

ok, so then we get there. and by cava tasting i really mean a crazy tour with a free glass of cava at the end. the place is crazy. our tour started out with this ridiculous brainwashing movie about how cordiniu wines and cava are the best and pretty much taking over the world. and then the guide took us through the gardens, and showed us the "family house" which was nothing close to what i would still consider house. maybe mansion. and then we walked by the museum, but couldn't go in cause they were preparing for some event. mostly, i was distracted by this...in the picture, do you see those blackish boxes on the right? that is all cava!! there were so many of those boxes too, they just kept popping up.

and then the cellars...which the guide kept calling caves, which i guess thats what they are, but it made me laugh a lot. also, keep in mind that in the group with us, were these men who had clearly been to a few other wineries before this one and were so drunk. they were rude in a hilarious way. thankfully, i dont think that the tour guide minded.

ok, so cellar time. and it was amazing, and basically they just showed off their ridiculous amount of cava and wine. they just kept going. we even had to take a little "train" ride to see parts of the cellars there are so many of them. it was just rows and rows of wine bottles stacked up on top of eachother. they also talked about how they make the wine a little, and how it has changed since back in the day. (did you know that to get the yeast particles out of the wine...after it settles in the neck, they freeze the neck and then it just pops out?! i want to see it so bad, but the bottling area was closed for the weekend).

and then came the tasting. basically it was just a free for all, where they placed a plate of crackers in the middle of a table (made from an old wine barrel) and handed everyone a glass. basically, the cava was good, the crackers were good, the day was good. what more would you expect?

fish hooks and nata (random weekend events)

i went on a field trip with my oceanography class. and i just want to say that it was ridiculous. we went to a little fishing town called palamos down the coast and watched fishermen and talked about their equipment, and then watched the fish auction where they sell the fish, and went to a crazy museum (where the gift shop floor was made up of pictures of bins of fish, it was gross

and about spanish fish markets. there is no modest about them, anywhere. heads are left on, and they stare at you from their ice filled buckets. and the shrimp and snails and crabs crawl around on everything. sometimes they arent even in their own bucket. its a big blob of seafood. and when you want some salmon, or some of a very large fish but not all of it, they bring out the hugest knife you have ever seen and slab it up right there in front of you while you listen to the tearing of flesh. (and the sad thing is that i used to actually like seafood) sometimes the fish even still have hooks in their mouths.


ok, and now i am done with my ranting...some more interesting things i learned that weekend

1)whiskey can actually be involved in an amazingly girly
2)you can never have enough goat cheese in your life (i think i already knew that, but i just keep being reminded of it)

vocab lesson: nata= whipped cream, ron=rum, espuma=amazing (well, actually it means foam, but whatever)
speaking of espuma, tessa, emma, and i went to the amazing restaurant down the street that is only open on the weekends and i got mousse de chocolate con espuma de ron (chocolate moose with rum flavoured whipped cream!). it was so amazingly perfect. we also got a pitcher of sangria de cava, and then emma and tessa decided they werent going to drink. since when did i become the big drinker of the group? i mean, i am the one that plays pong and gives my partner all of my beer. it was a bad situation.

the next morning

when i got home from st. patricks night with tessa and emily, i was tired and went straight to my room (aka, bed) as quickly as possible.

it turns out that this was probably the best move i could have made on my part. the next morning i woke up relatively early (it is a rare weekend morning in the apartment when anyone is awake before 11am) and went to the kitchen to get some cereal. and what did i see in the living room? wrinkled in the corner of the couch? and scattered about the room, under the table, in the corner? man clothes!! and juaq clothes!! the "mood setting" light that creates fake fog (yes, juaq is incredibly cheesy) was even left on.

emma was not awake, but i just had to tell her and knew that by the time she would be awake all the evidence would be gone. so i took pictures. i know, kind of creepy and crazy. but i just had to.