France

I took my first final last Tuesday, May 24, and the following morning I was off to France to meet up with Lauren and her sister, Sam.  Sam is living in Tarbes (southwest, near Spain, right outside of Lourdes) for the year teaching English and graciously hosted us until the 31st!  It was so much fun and such a good excursion from Cardiff!

Because of my final on the 24th, I couldn't get the direct and cheap flight right into Lourdes with Lauren so I flew out of Bristol the morning of the 25th.  After a longgg day of traveling (1 hour bus to Bristol, 1/2 hour shuttle to the airport, 2 hour flight to Toulouse, shuttle to the Toulouse train station, and a 2 hour train to Tarbes) I made it to Tarbes around 8 pm.

An hour to kill in Toulouse.

I immediately met up with Lauren, Sam, Regis (Sam's boyfriend), and Regis' friend at Sam's apartment for dinner.  Regis and his friend cooked us some savory Breton crèpes for dinner (a crèpe made with a special kind of flour, filled with ham, cheese, and egg) and they were so delicious!

Thursday was pretty relaxed.  Lauren and I explored the Tarbes market in the morning and got some take-away filter coffee (very rare in France!) while Sam taught in the morning.

Tarbes market--so French!

After a great 3 course lunch out with Sam and Regis, we accompanied Sam to her afternoon class, which was 10 year olds.  We got to introduce ourselves to the class with simple English vocabulary and then got beat in a game of "Simon Says".  That night we made dinner for Regis and his 8 housemates (very simple baguette paninis and soup) and then got to meet a bunch of their other friends who came over later.

Friday was another lazy morning, while Sam worked and Regis was in class.  That afternoon, the four of us went to Lourdes (only 20 minutes away).  I have always learned about Lourdes in religious ed, since St. Bernadette is the patron saint of our church (Mary appeared to St. Bernadette at Lourdes), so I was very intrigued to see.  I was totally not expecting what Lourdes was like.  The town, itself, looked like a religious Las Vegas--neon signs illuminating streets and streets of religious souvenir shops, jugs of Holy Water everywhere, and light-up Virgin Mary figurines.  I was also surprised to learn that Lourdes is the second most visited destination in France after Paris.  It was so crowded with people from all over the world, which was just so unexpected in middle-of-nowhere, France.  The pilgrimage site, itself, is centered around the grotto in which Mary appeared to St. Bernadette and a basillica is now built on top of the grotto.

Me and the basillica.

Grotto.

But there were 2 things that really struck me about Lourdes.  First, the amount of Holy Water.  Next to the grotto there are countless faucets of Holy Water where people were filling up jugs upon jugs to bring home.

Holy Water fountains.

Second, the amount of sick people.  Lourdes is a very popular pilgrimage site for people seeking miracles so there were so many people there in wheelchairs and stretchers, clearly in very bad conditions.  We were there at 5 pm, which is when there is a daily service of some sort so we saw a procession of people in wheelchairs and stretchers being wheeled around the square in front of the basillica and into the service...a very weird sight.

The procession of sick people.

That night we had another amazing French meal at Regis': raclette, which I had never heard of before.  But its a traditional French meal where you melt raclette cheese on a special heater and pour it over potatoes and cured meats.  Yummy.

Raclette.

Saturday was the first nice day, weather-wise, of our stay and we definitely took advantage of the weather by going wine-tasting.  Lauren, Sam, Regis, his friend, and I drove out to the Madiran vineyard region and visited 2 vineyards.  But first we stopped for a delicious multi-course lunch of salad, duck confit, espresso, and crème brulée, at the cutest restaurant ever in a tiny village.

Lunch

 The first vineyard, Chateau Laffitte-Teston, was really fancy and straight out of a painting.

Me, Lauren, Sam.

"Comme un tableau" (like a painting) --the vineyard owner

Cheers.

The second vineyard was totally family run and we did the tasting in their garage, but the vineyards, themselves, were equally beautiful.

Vineyard 2.

We had a delicious end to our day when Regis cooked us some incredible Filipino food, chicken adobo (he is half Filipino).  One of my all-time favorite dishes.  Lauren and I made an apple crumble to top off the perfect meal.

Sunday was also a gorgeous day so we (me, Sam, Lauren, Regis, and 2 of his friends) went hiking in the Pyrenees.  We drove out to the village of Gavarnie (only 13 km from Spain) and hiked up to the cirque de Gavarnie.  I'm not going to try to explain other than saying it was the most gorgeous place ever.  So here are some pictures.

Start of the hike.

French-style picnic on the cirque.

Cirque de Gavarnie.

After the hike, we took the most gorgeous drive up and down the mountains, on a road they ride on in the Tour de France (we saw many "Lance"s written in chalk all over the roads).

Such a pretty drive.

We stopped in Giborre at a thermal spa called Aquensis where we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the huge thermal pools, hot tubs, and Turkish bath.

Thermal bath time!

This awesome day was capped with homemade pizza with the best homemade whole grain dough ever.

Unfortunately Sam had to work and Regis had class all day on Monday but Lauren and I still had a great day exploring Tarbes.  We had a super French cafe breakfast of chocolatines and cafe cremes, met Sam for her lunch break, and then met up with her for coffee after work.

Last day in Tarbes.

But dinner is what I really want to talk about.  Definitely one of the best meals I've ever eaten.  Regis' housemate was home for the weekend and brought back duck (he killed it on the farm himself) and made us duck confit.  It's a really, really long and involved process to cook duck confit so I was really impressed with this college boy's culinary skills.  He served it with diced potatoes and green beans, both also cooked in the duck fat, and homemade bread.  But it was SO good and SO fresh yummm.  In all, a perfect last night.

The trek back to Cardiff was soo long (1/2 hour to Lourdes airport, 2 hour flight to London-Stansted, 1.5 hour bus to London center, 3.5 hour bus to Cardiff center).  But all in all, I LOVED my French experience and I'm so happy we were hosted by people who know the area so well!  I also learned I like a lot more cheeses and meats than I ever thought I did (although I still HATE goat and bleu cheese).

Au revoir, France!

Tomorrow marks the start of my last week in Cardiff!  Time to cross off everything on my Cardiff bucket list and squeeze in a bit of studying for my last 2 finals!

Back in Cardiff

Oops, I've neglected my blog for a few weeks.  I returned back to my flat the afternoon of May 6 so here is a rundown of what I've been up to in good ol' Wales.

• Coasteering (May 11-12):  On May 11, my Colgate study group took a trip out to western Wales (Pembrokeshire) for an overnight coasteering.  Most people haven't heard of coasteering before so here's a link explaining what it is from the company that we went through: http://www.preseliventure.co.uk/outdoor-activities/coasteering/.  After an early morning 3+ hour bus ride, we arrived at our hostel/the Preseli home base.  This hostel deserves a shout out--probably the nicest one I'll ever stay in.  It had free wifi, a bar, a bonfire pit, a pool table, was eco-engineered, was recently renovated, had a STUNNING view of the Welsh coastline, awesome staff, homecooked meals, and had the coolest bedrooms ever.  We had a classic British lunch of baked potatoes and then we were off to our 4 hours of coasteering!  This was my first time wearing a wetsuit and I did not realize how ridiculously tight they are--such a struggle to get into!  Although it was only in the mid 50s, we were in the water in a matter of minutes of getting to the coast.  Scrambling along the coastal cliffs was tougher than I thought.  We basically just followed our guides scrambling out of the water, up rocks, jumping off the rocks (higher than the ones I've jumped off in Vermont!), swimming to the next set of rocks, and repeating.  And there was some swimming in caves involved also.  It was SO much fun.  We bought disposable waterproof cameras and are still waiting to get those developed--I'll update with pics when I get a hold of those.  After a homecooked dinner, we spent the night hanging out at the bonfire.  Great trip!

The loft in the hostel room.

View from the hostel.

3 levels of bunk beds--I was on the top eek

Hostel.

• Suzanne visited again (May 18-20): After she finished her finals last week, Suzanne made a final trip out to Cardiff to see me and Lauren.  On Thursday we made a trip to Penarth, a really pretty coastal town only 15 minutes away, did some shopping in the city center, and went out for some great Indian food.  It was so fun being together again and I'm so happy we got to see Suzanne so much this semester! (5 separate occasions and 5 countries is pretty impressive considering we aren't studying in the same country)

The 3 of us!

Pretty Penarth.

• More castles (May 22):  Lauren and I made it out to Castle Coch, a fairytale-like castle right outside Cardiff.  We've never gone before because it's about 5 miles from our flats but we decided to make it into a longer run today because it is just a straight shot down the Taff Trail (biking/running trail that is just outside our flats).  The castle was pretty cool and was very similar to Cardiff Castle (same family owned and restored it).  We stopped for lunch at Gelynis Farm, a berry-picking/vineyard/B&B/vineyard/farm right off the Taff Trail.  The farm cafe was so cute, delicious, and run by a woman from New Hampshire (!) and her two adorable daughters.  So hanging out at the farm cafe, playing with the little girls, and chatting with the American woman was definitely worth the long trek on foot.

Welsh school field trip at the castle at the same time as us--madness.

• A bit of studying: I have my first final Tuesday (May 24) so unfortunately I've had to study a bit for that.  But I have a ridiculous amount of time to study for it (I haven't had any class since April 16) so this is 12308129 times less stressful than Colgate finals even though its worth 60% of my grade.  And it gives me an excuse to go to Starbucks, which is also conveniently located a minute from some great frozen yogurt. 

• Some delicious cooking:  Like I said, I have a lot of free time here since I finished class on April 16 and only have finals May 24, June 7, and June 10.  So thanks to stumbleupon.com (favorite boredom buster), Lauren and I have accumulated tons of great recipes that we have started to try out.  Some personal favorites are the spinach burgers and coconut rice.  We still haven't neglected our favorite McFlurries though.

• Some random pictures:

Karaoke with the Colgate group--that's my professor.

Finally filled my Cafe Nero rewards card--free drink!

Cool flowers in the park.

 Up next:

• Spectroscopy final May 24
• FRANCE May 25-31.  Going with Lauren to visit her sister in Tarbes (outside Lourdes)!
• Physics final June 7
• Kinetics final June 10
• Fly home June 10, arrive June 11!

SPRING BREAK Part 4: Germany and UK with my parents

Munich
 
That night I took and overnight train to Munich.  One plus side of arriving at 6 am was walking through Marienplatz at sunrise. 

I loved the overnight train!

 That morning I met up with my parents who had just flown in from Boston!!!  We stayed at an awesome Marriott that we shared with tons of pro tennis players who were competing in the BMW open.  We had a relaxed first day, taking advantage of the hotel pool/hot tub, and then had a traditional German beer-filled dinner at Hofbrauhaus. 

Cheers from Hofbrauhaus!

 I can’t even explain how great it was to sleep in a queen-sized hotel bed with huge, fluffy pillows and a down comforter after 10 nights of hostel living.  And having a TV.  And the best breakfast I’ve ever seen.  And a pool, hot tub, and sauna.  I could keep going…We spent the next day touring around Munich.  We visited Munich but it was so fun to see new places and revisit our favorites.  We went running in the English gardens, and then spent the day exploring Odeonplatz, the Residence, the 1972 Olympic grounds, and the BMW museum.

Great day in Munich.

Ran into some Colgate friends in Odeonplatz!

Salzburg
 
The next day, Saturday, we rented a car and took a day trip to Salzburg, Austria!  In Salzburg we did the Sound of Music Tour, seeing the Mirabell Gardens (‘Do-Re-Me’), Leopoldskron Castle (the front of the Trapp family home), Hellbrunn Castle (where they had the ’16 going on 17’ gazebo), Nonnberg Abbey (Maria’s convent), St.Gilgen and Lake Wolfgang (the region showed in the shots of beautiful Austrian scenery at the beginning of the movie), and Mondsee (the beautiful lakeside village in the Alps that has the church where Maria was married). 

"16 going on 17"

Sooo pretty.

 It was a great way to see more of the Austrian countryside, even if it was my mom’s fourth time on the tour!  Salzburg is a beautiful little city and it was fun to explore it more that evening before heading back to Munich.

The UK

The next day we flew into London and then caught a bus to Cardiff!  It was fun showing my parents around the city I have lived in for the past few months.  I must say, I love the city a lot more staying in a nice hotel in a central location!!  (see pictures of my dorm room in one of my first posts…)  Being with my parents in our hotel let me see Cardiff in a new, awesome-er way…if only I could live downtown in the Hilton with their credit card always :-)  We spent our first day in Cardiff seeing the most important sights: exploring the Cardiff castle, walking around the downtown, seeing my dorm room, running in Bute park, and eating in the bay.  The next day, we started our sightseeing through the Welsh countryside that I had planned for us.  I showed them Rhossili, one of the favorite places I’ve been, and then we went to Tenby, an extremely picturesque beach town in the Pembrokeshire region.  We then returned to Cardiff for our last night there.

Tenby

Pretty Welsh coast (Tenby).

Thursday morning we headed into London.  Since we have all already been to London a few times, we spent most of the day taking a relaxed walk from Victoria Station to Covent Garden, stopping outside Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey—we had to simulate the route they drove in the royal wedding that had taken place just days before!  We had a great dinner with Lauren and Suzanne and their families, who were also visiting them.  It was really cool to all be together, with our families, not at Colgate, especially in a foreign country!

Friends in London!

I said good-bye to my parents on Friday and then took a train back to Cardiff that afternoon.  It was so great having them visit and I had the best 3 week spring break imaginable!


The End

Everyone keeps asking me what my favorite place I visited was so I’ll try to answer that…I genuinely loved everywhere I went and do not regret going anywhere but I think that Budapest was probably my favorite.  I think eastern Europe is really cool and Budapest was definitely the most eastern-European of anywhere.  Plus, Budapest was really cheap ($11/night hostel and awesome exchange rate!) so we got to do lots of cool things that we wouldn’t be able to afford elsewhere, like eating at nicer restaurants and spending an entire afternoon in an incredible thermal spa!  Ahhh I want to go back.

I have a bit more than a month more in Cardiff.  Tomorrow I am going coasteering (google it! It’s really hard to explain but really awesome!!), next week Suzanne visits, the week after I am going to Tarbes, France with Lauren to see her sister, and the week after I start exams.  I am done with classes and don’t have a final for 3 more weeks so hopefully the next few weeks will be very fun and stress-free!  Congrats if you are still reading.  This was ridiculously long.

SPRING BREAK Part 3: Eastern Europe

Prague

Saturday night we said bye to Kate and Lauren, Suzanne, and I caught our flight to Prague.  We were a little nervous going into this flight because we were flying “Wizz Air”, an eastern European discount airline whose colors are pink and purple and was flagged for fraud by our credit cards…luckily the journey went perfectly smooth.  We had an incredible first day in Prague!  Prague is known for its Easter markets so we went to the Old Town Square to the main market (it was Easter Sunday!).  We loved all of the cool foods, painted eggs, and jewelry the markets had.   We each bought a food we wanted to try and had a Czech feast for lunch. 

Happy Easter from the Prague Easter markets!

I hope my painted egg makes it back to MA...

That afternoon, we saw the Lennon wall, the famous graffiti wall that Czech students started to express their grievances against the communist regime in the ‘80s. 

Lennon wall.

 Lauren and I then went on a long walk through the Prague Castle area and the surrounding gardens.  The gardens were spectacular and gave us some great views of the city. 

Beautiful Prague.

 After, Lauren, Suzanne, and I rented a rowboat on the river and we quickly found out we are not good rowers…and had a near collision with a huge boat. 

Close call..

 That night we enjoyed a traditional Czech dinner of goulash and dumplings at U Fleku.  The next day was a bit rainy so we didn’t do as much outside.  After walking around the castle, Petrin Hill, and Mala Strana, we got lunch at the famous student hangout, Bohemia Bagel.  We spent the afternoon in this great tea house were we sat on cushions on the flood and rang a bell for a tea monk to bring us our order.  That night we met up with Mandi and Carolyn and went to Karlovy Lazne, the 5-story biggest club in Eastern Europe!

Budapest

Wednesday we got up super early to catch our 6 am bus to Budapest.  Although we were not at all expecting it, this was all our favorite leg of transportation (and the cheapest!).  Our bus felt more like an airplane and it played great movies the entire way, brought us through some really cities and countrysides in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, and we even had a “flight” attendant offering us hot beverages throughout the trip.  We even got to get out and use the bathrooms in Slovakia (adding that to my country list now).  We were lucky that our Budapest hostel was not busy so the three of us got out own room!  Our first stop in Budapest were the Szechyni Baths, a huge and elaborate thermal bath.  We spent hours in all the different baths—this was probably my favorite part of the whole trip! 

Our spa palace for the afternoon :)

 We strolled back to our hostel along Andrassy and then had a perfect last dinner together, capped with gelato while walking along the Danube. 

Last night together :(

 Our last day in Budapest was filled with lots of sightseeing: St. Stephen’s Basillica, the Great Synagogue (the biggest synogogue in Europe), the central market (where we got a delicious Hungarian lunch of stuffed paprika, stuffed cabbage, and various pastries), castle hill and the castle, the fisherman’s bastion, and the Chain Bridge. 

Budapest Parliament.

Fisherman's bastion.

 Late in the afternoon, Lauren and Suzanne caught flights to London, giving me a few hours in Budapest to explore.  I went for a run on Margaret Island, a park on an island in the middle of the Danube, and it was a great way to see more of the city!

SPRING BREAK Part 2: Spain

Granada

Lauren and I were lucky enough to find a cheap flight out of Cardiff to get to Spain (a rarity!) so this made our travels a lot easier, although it was still quite a long day of traveling. But after a train, shuttle bus, plane, subway, bus, and a taxi, we arrived at Kate’s apartment in Granada! Our first day in Granada started early. We got up around 8 to get tickets to the Alhambra, Granada’s famous Moorish castle/fortress. Unfortunately we were not the only ones that got up early…we waited 2 hours but finally came away with tickets to the gardens for later that afternoon. We spent the rest of the morning exploring Granada: the Arabic Quarter, the Mirador (incredible view of the Alhambra), and the quaint city center. Granada is really beautiful and really interesting because of the strong Arabic influence.

Us at the Mirador.

 For lunch we got our first tapas! Granada is also awesome because they are the only city in Spain that does free tapas. This means that when you buy any drink, it comes with a tapas! So for 2 euro, we got a sangria with a ham sandwich and some fries.

Tapas numero uno.

We spent the afternoon exploring the Alhambra, mostly the summer palace gardens. It was so beautiful—I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

A taste of the Alhambra gardens.

 That night we “tapas-crawled” at all of Kate’s favorite restaurants. It was really yummy and a great way to try lots of really cool and different foods for pretty cheap! We had coconut chicken and polenta, some cheesy potatoes at a French restaurant, and tortilla Espanola at a Spanish restaurant. The only downside is that it’s not acceptable to eat dinner until 9 pm. I don’t get how the Spanish do it—we were starved.

Wednesday, we met up with Suzanne’s friend from home, also studying in Granada, and made a day trip to Nerja, a beach town about 2 hours south of Granada. Unforunately, Nerja was uncharacteristically really cold that day. But we still had a fun day and I was happy I got to see a beautiful southern Spain beach.

Nerja looks deceivingly warm here.  It was beautiful nonetheless.

 That night, we did another tapas crawl—this time we had some Moroccan schwarma, Italian pasta, Chinese lo mein, and some really fancy vegetable sandwich at a trendy restaurant. Yum!

Barcelona

Thursday we were off to Barcelona in the morning! We didn’t waste any time—after checking into our hostel, we headed straight to Barcelona’s famous food market, the boqueria, and got some fresh fruit, bread, and cheese for lunch. We spent the afternoon exploring Mont Juic, where we saw the 1992 summer Olympics stadium and some great views of the city, and Parc Guell, Gaudi’s famously designed park that looks like it came out of a Dr. Suess book.

Parc Guell.

 Friday was a very low-key day. It was pouring rain and Good Friday so most stores were closed, so our options were pretty limited. We had both breakfast and lunch, and chatted for hours upon hours, at a great café called Buenas Migas. Between meals we made an outing to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s famous unfinished basilica. The church was huge but there was still so much still under construction! Constuction started in the 1800s but after Gaudi’s death, progress has become painfully slow—many Spaniards believe it’s bad luck to finish Gaudi’s design after his death. They say it’ll be completed by 2030 but I highly doubt that. It was still very impressive, nonetheless.

Sagrada Familia.

 That night we went to a famous shot bar called Chupitos. They had something like 500 shot options, all curiously named. I had the “boy scout”, which involved lighting the bar on fire and roasting a marshmallow. We were really happy that the weather on Saturday was beautiful! We walked down las Ramblas (insane amount of crowds because it was Easter weekend!) to the beach where we rented bikes for a few hours to explore the coast. This was definitely my favorite part of Barcelona!

Bikes on the beach.

Playground bike stop.