You better not wake me up at 2 am cuz I'm not doing that with you

Carnaval.It's this big fun festival before Lent. Yeah, Mardi Gras is just Tuesday, and this is a full weekend. So most of my friends here went to islands and places where it was warm. I ended up going to Marburg, Germany to visit the one and only Stephanie Tesch. I say it was a fair choice. And as any travel story on this blog goes, it's not without travel issues. Ready for this?!

So I leave Friday during the day- as in... I skip classes. Whatever, so I get on my bus. No big deal. Haven't traveled to Madrid before... let alone by myself, but it was fine. I get to the airport, ask someone where to go for Ryanair and I'm on my way. I'm there MUCH too early. My flight isn't even up on the screen, so I buy a Cosmo to kill some time. I got bored of killing time. That really shouldn't come as much of a surprise. My boredom led to wandering around and stumbling across my gate! What luck. I decide to pop a squat and attack Harry Potter y la Cámara de Secretos. I'm there for a long time, and I mean a LONG time. The flight before mine had been boarding for what seemed like hours, so I decided to go check the big screen again, look for my flight and.... it's been moved. Okay, I say to myself, I have plenty of time. I did, too. I walk down there. The screen says Frankfurt, all is well. I get up to get in line to start boarding and the screen changes to Santiago! Not cool, Ryanair, not cool. So I go back to the big screens, and it says that Frankfurt is leaving from the gate where I just was. Determined to find out the truth, I return to ask the employee who has no idea what is going on. Typical. Back to the screen for me, to find out that my flight has been moved back to the gate where I was. Everyone dashes there like crazy and lo and behold, the flight from before is still boarding. Little weird, but we all wait while across the room a sign shows up with Frankfurt on it. There is a mad dash to be first in line. I'm thinking, FINALLY. Then an employee comes up to tell us that our flight isn't leaving from that gate. We're leaving from the original one. Yes, of course we are. Another stampede ensues and then we can finally start boarding. By this time, however, I have made a friend from Madrid... originally from the States. She was studying there, and now living there. Whatever. We were flight buddies up to the airport- we even got some beer together while we waited for our buses to bring us to the train station. Which is another little fiasco in itself.

Inside, the schedule told me that my bus would leave promptly at 6 pm. So my new friend and I are drinking our aforementioned beer whilst waiting until about 5:30. I've already bought my ticket, but I decide to head on outside to wait. There are a smattering of people, and new friend and I part ways. Unfortunately for me, I find out that the bus doesn't leave at 6.... it left at 5:30, a mere few moments before I leave. This is already really crappy because our flight got us there a little after the 4 something bus left, so now I have to wait again.... until 7 to leave. Can you believe it? It was horrible. On the plus side, I made another friend. This one was from Cataluña, a region in Spain. She's learning English and we talked until the next bus came while we got some food. It was a little hectic, but finally we got on our bus and made our way to the train station where my dearest Steph was waiting for me. From that point there was still more transportation to get from Frankfurt to Marburg in which we caught up a little on each others' lives and I recounted my lovely little airport tale.

If you couldn't already guess, we got in a little late, so my first night in Germany was pretty chill. Steph brought me over to one of the many Doner restaurants (which we also have in Spain, but with much fewer selection) to grab some real food to bring back to her apartment. I was pretty wiped since I had to get up before the buttcrack of dawn. (I forgot to mention that, but my bus to get to Madrid left at 6 am.... what crap). We basically ate our food and chatted before turning in a little early, but it was fine. After all that transportation drama I needed a little break.

The next day was our explore Marburg day. We went into town to check out some of the shops. The street looked like Diagon Alley, and I pretty much adored it. Yes, Harry Potter truly is everywhere. Anyway, the little street adventure was fun. There were tons of little shops with just random and cute things. There was also a comic book store with Spiderman in front hanging from a wire. (Fun fact! Spiderman in Spanish is still Spiderman; however it is pronounced Spee-derman.) Oh, and a gummy shop! Seriously, nothing but gummies in it. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't purchase any. What on earth was I thinking? Our wanderings then brought us to the grocery store to get some toilet paper. Exciting stuff, I know. Although, I did buy some very good chocolate. Then it was back to chill at the apartment a little bit before our excursions for the night.


After some viewing of 500 Days of Summer and Cosmo reading, we went back out on the town. This time we were meeting up with two of Steph's friends: Carissa and Christina. We were going to out go to eat with them, but Steph said I needed some Auuflauf (which I can't spell, and that was my poor attempt), and I agreed. They went to a salad place and I got some yummy baked pasta dish with some German beer. SUCCESS! Then once our nice little dinner was done, we went back to the dorms in order to make our masks for Carnaval the next day. It resulted in massive amounts of glitter everywhere. I feel a little bad for Christina. She probably has some in her lungs now. It was a lot of fun, though, and I got to meet a couple more of Steph's German friends before we went out for the night. We didn't stay out too long because unbeknownst to us, the club was Raggae dance hall. Needless to say, we could only watch the potheads dance so long before we decided it best to head on home. After all, we did have to get up kind of early in order to make our way out to Cologne for the Carnaval festivities.

This day is a blur in my memory, plus I didn't take many pictures, so I really have no idea what happened in what order. I remember a long train ride with beautiful German country side and a silly porter man that was really friendly. In Cologne, there were lots of crazies everywhere. People were dressed up as almost anything imaginable, and most of the men were dressed like women, Cologne being the gay capitol of Germany and all. Anyway, we watched the parade for a while before meeting up with Christina's friend who is studying there. He's a real German, and he showed us around all day. It was a big wander-fest that led to some McDonald's and a completely packed metro. Good times over all. We were really only there a few hours before we had to get back on the train to Marburg, but whatever. It happens. I honestly felt like I used the trip to really get down all modes of transportation- especially in Germany. Coming back was also more fun, because this time everyone was drunk. They weren't even that young, either. It was like my parents and their friends after a few too many drinks on Halloween. I loved it.

The next day was me getting up obscenely early to get back to Valladolid. More transportation and some of it on my own- well, most of it. Steph got me to the train station and then I was on my own from there. No difficulties this time. I slept a lot more once I was on the plane, too. I was wiped! Finally got back to home sweet away from home only to find out that my mother had been freaking out for an entire day about my whereabouts. I didn't die, obviously, but she's silly. And that was my Carnaval/German experience.

Don't post that on Facebook; I look like a demon.

This one's short because not much happened between Portugal and Carnaval. We had a weekend in Valladolid. We proceeded to party it up and drink. We also checked out a free photo exhibition from this really famous woman photographer from Germany during WWII. This was the time of some spring break planning and just trying to make it to Carnaval. There was some breaking down and eating of Burger King. Aaaaaaaand..... BREAK!

the crucifiction of ronald mcdonald

Let's play some more catch-up, shall we? I'm also avoiding studying for exams, so lucky for all you story-listeners, I'm a procrastinator. The tale today will be about Portugal. I went to Portugal on Feb 19. I'm very sorry that I continue to suck royally at this blogging thing.

Anyway, our Portugal trip. We decided that we would take an overnight train to Portugal. We went through Renfe, which gave us much grief throughout the process, but whatever. We wanted to take a train, so we did, but only after our master plan. Most of us having difficulties sleeping on transportation decided to hit up the chups bar before our excursion so the alcohol could make us sleepy. Pretty sure it worked. Almost all of us slept- then again it was 3 am when we finally got on the train. I slept. Sorry that there isn't much more to tell of that ordeal.

We got there the next morning, grab the metro to where our hostel should be, go to check in. We can't, so we decide to drop off our bags and check out the ocean/river. It's right where they meet, so I say it's the ocean. We got distracted by a market with a bunch of cool handmade stuff. It was good times. It also became a frequented location for us during that week. This market was also very close to the water. By that time, it was pretty much downpouring and very, very windy. It was still very pretty.

 

first view of portugal

plaza and the view of the ocean

the plaza

the ocean!

So after our rainy adventure, we decided to head on back to the hostel to check in. The man working just laughed at us. We were still an hour early, because our watches were still on Spanish time. So yes, in case you were wondering, Portugal and Spain are NOT in the same time zone. So we had to go back out into the Portuguese streets to find something to do. Somehow we decided it would be a good idea to stay OUT in the rain (although there was an amazing market where I bought the coolest scarf ever) and basically turned into drowned rats before ducking into a restaurant for some much needed gofres (or waffles). It was also at this time when we did some tourist shopping before deciding that the weather was too disgusting and thought it best to go to the aquarium. We had to hop back on the metro (this thing became our best friend, I swear) to get there, and then we still had a ways to walk. It was fun, though. We got to see these cool fountains and just wander until we finally get to the aquarium, which really looks more like some floating science lab. It was built for the world fair when it was there however many years ago. I don't actually need to know this stuff.

Anyway, the aquarium. I really enjoyed it. Not only were there awesome mosaics outside, the inside was pretty amazing. The center was a huge open aquarium filled with a bunch of different kind of fish- like sharks! We kept coming back to this as we moved our way through the different oceans of the world. They had penguins and sea otters! They were absolutely adorable and probably my favorites. I got some videos of them playing in the water. As far as wildlife went, nothing was that out of the ordinary, but it was still a nice break from the gross weather. Also, never saw somewhere themed like that. You go from a room with giant fake glaciers to one filled with a humid mist.


We actually killed a LOT of time in the aquarium, but then after we wanted to go in these gondola/basket things that brought us along the coast. Let me clear this up first, I HATE BEING ENCASED OVER WATER! Yeah, that's like my biggest fear. Some of you may understand my hatred of bridges. It's really not bridges that I'm afraid of; it's being stuck in a car going over a bridge because that car can fall off into the water, I'll be trapped and I will drown and die! Okay, that's a little dramatic, but that was also my sentiment towards these stupid gondolas, and everyone thought it was hilarious to push this fear to the end. I mean, yes, the view was spectacular, but when fear is creeping in the corner like the most magnificent creep of all times, it kinda kills the full WOW factor. I survived it, though.

Once we were done with these shenanigans (including some ice cream buying and puppy playing), we finally got to check into our hostel. About damn time, right? Well, it didn't matter much because we wanted to go out and explore more. There was a castle in Portugal that we wanted to see during the day, and by this time it was night. Lemme explain something about old castles. They are on top of hills. I was sick of hills, so I was kinda not in the mood for going to see a castle at night when we couldn't even get inside. That being said, we split up and Emily Kurmis, Andrea, and I went down to the beach again and had a nice little chill time talking and walking through the (freezing ass cold) water. We waited forever for the adventurous crew to return before meandering our way back into the hostel to get organized for dinner making- YUM!

Steven was our trusty cook once again. I was the shopper helper along with someone else... like I can remember now. I guess that means I should be better with this? Probably. Anyway, we went to the grocery store. Wow... couldn't find like anything we really wanted. Also, in Portugal, not only is the time zone not the same as Spain, neither is the language! It was hard finding the food we needed, but eventually we got it down (and some personal little wine boxes) before we headed back to the hostel, but not without being offered pot like 5 bazillion times (okay... like three times). It was dinner time, then- naturally. The hostel was pretty bustling at that time because there was a dinner that they were putting on. That meant we had to wait for the kitchen, but it also meant we got to mingle and social drink a bit before Steven made our huge feast that we were unable to eat. We ended up pawning it off on some large group of drunkards that were from everywhere and silly. In general, the night was full of drunkards and silliness. We made friends from Brazil who tried to read our fortunes and teach us sassy things in Portuguese that I can't remember, but that's life. It was just a really fun night in general, though. The lounge felt more like a big international party, and it was really a shame that we were only there the one night.

The next morning was our Monastery/market day. We had breakfast in the hostel, which was nothing spectacular, before we made our way to the bus area. We stopped at the market again. There were just so many cool handmade things, plus some homeless man with the most adorable puppies on the face of the earth. We played with them; it couldn't be stopped. Then we got on our train/bus/whatever mode of transportation to the Monastery. We luckily got in for free (unlike the bus which was rather expensive). I really only liked the Monastery because it reminded me of Harry Potter, but do you really expect anything else from me at this point? Good. So when we were done wandering around the Monastery, we wanted to check out this market that we saw on the way over. It was like a giant farmers market. There were some cool things and dumb things as any market goes, but it was fun. I ended up lusting after this leather purse and splurged on it. Shoot me. Then it was time to leave, and Steven thinks he can run down to the coast really quickly. WRONG! We ended up waiting for him FOREVER and then it was pretty much rush central to get back to our hostel to get our stuff and back on the metro to get to the train station, and this is where the fun ensues.

So we get there, and we're looking for our train... we don't see it anywhere. We think... hmm, that's odd. It was. So we ask. We are then told that it leaves from Platform 1. Awesome. We go to Platform 1. Our nerves are high because Steven stopped to buy postcards and we're getting pretty close to the leaving time. We want to ask someone to calm said nerves. There is this nice older gentleman that takes a look at our ticket. He tells us it's not right. The train coming in isn't international. Commence major freakout session. We go tearing off down to ask someone. We say don't split up. What do we do? Split up. We are literally running everywhere, only to find out we WERE in the right spot. Our train was moved back a few minutes, and it was right all along. Life was fine and dandy, besides the fact we were convinced we almost missed our train. Something must always go wrong, though, right? Right. At least when we travel. So I decided to relax by reading pretty much the whole way home. It was perfect.

it's totally the well from army of darkness

shit guys, i really suck at this. it's been a really long time, and i honestly have no excuse besides i just get really bored.. like bored beyond the want of doing anything. I'll try to be better I promise. So I have about 3 weeks to catch you guys up on. And by 3 weeks, I mean 3 weekends, because let's face it, the weekdays are a little on the dry side. I go to class, sometimes a lot and sometimes a little, I do homework, teach, go to intercambio and every once in a while a fun thing (like the Beatles tribute last Thursday). Maybe if I stop failing so much, I'll be able to tell you all about the nuances of Spanish life, but it really isn't all excursions and travelling.

Starting with excursions. Three weekends ago we went to the province of Valladolid. Yep, you heard me; we went on an excursion to our own province. Valladolid is the center of it, or capital of sorts, so we went around to some historic sites- three exactly. This seems to be a little bit of a pattern. Anyway, our first stop was La Villa Romana, or Roman village. In case you guys weren't aware, Spain used to be controlled by Romans around the 1st century. This is why Spanish is a ROMANtic language, also why I said some things about a Roman aqueduct in Segovia. Anyway, they found this old village buried underneath a farm type area and began to excavate it. It's in incredible condition still. Really unbelievable.

Fake excavators on site

some of the original mosaic tiling

more of it

these guys actually had running water back then. crap!

 

 

 

So after we hit up the historical aspect, we went to this reenactment place just on the other side of the field. There were some fake drunk and in love Romans walking around. Can't say I understood everything, but it was very interesting to say the least. We were also brought out to help sing a love song? Which basically meant we read a love poem with a lot of character. Naturally, the girls did a better job with this. Then after we were given wine with roses which somehow ended up tasting more like meat. Don't ask me how they did it, but they did. So we sipped on that while lounging around the rooms getting  a feel for what it was like to be Roman. I've learned that they had shitty beds, but everything else wasn't all that horrible. Unfortunately, we couldn't take any pictures.

So once we were done with that business, we made our way over to some other city. I was sleeping and don't pay much attention to where we are going, so I don't know the name of it. All I know is that we were going to see a castle in ruins, which was pretty awesome. We got to see some dungeons, climb way too many stairs, and get a great view of the city. I was a big fan.

these would be the creep stairs leading to the dungeon in which prisoners would be chained to the wall to drown when it rained.

This is the well at the bottom of the stairs. The light at the top is the sun shining outside.

View from the top.

Countryside

This was this pedestal at the top of a windy tower, so we do we all do? Stand on it of course.

Our last stop of the day was Tordesillas. This place is really most famous for being the home of Juana la Loca, one of Ferdinand and Isabella's daughter. She basically went nuts after her husband died and was kept in a prison of sorts here. It really wasn't anything too exciting. We wandered around a bit, heard the extended version of what I just told you, and looked at miniature buildings in a museum. Definitely my least favorite part of that excursion. And that pretty much concludes what happened on our Valladolid excursion. Stay tuned for the previous missing two weeks!