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.

SPRING BREAK Part 1: Corris

I just got back to Cardiff on Friday night after an incredible 3 week spring break.  So this post will probably be very long—these past 3 weeks have just been packed with so many great experiences of a lifetime!!!

 

I had my last class of the semester on April 15, marking the start of my spring break.  The first destination of my break was to Corris, Wales with my entire Colgate study group.  This is a really rural part of northern Wales, right on the edge of Snowdonia National Park.  We left early Sunday morning, taking a beautiful 3 hour bus ride through Brecon Beacons National Park, one of the most picturesque places in Wales, to get to our primary destination of the trip, the Center for Alternative Technology (CAT).  CAT describes itself as “Europe’s leading Eco center” and has over 7 acres of hands on displays and gardens, all of which are dedicated to teaching the public about sustainability.  It was founded in the ‘70s during the oil crisis and now is a thriving educational center.  We took a really cool, completely water and gravity-powered funicular car up to the site and then got a tour from one of the CAT engineers. 

Gravity water-powered funicular tram.

Everyone there was such a hippy but they are doing some really cool things in green development.  The CAT sight is carbon-emission free, they have an extensive toilet composting system, a solar heating system, and design their buildings in a very eco-friendly way (sheep wool insulation, temperature-equilibrating mud walls, etc.).  They have this really far-fetched plan to make Great Britain 0 carbon emission by 2030.  This would require European flights to be reduced to 30% of their current usage, everyone would have to use wind turbines/solar panels, and you would basically have to bike everywhere and live on a farm…but they think its possible…After this tour, we got lunch in a nearby town and then headed to Corris, where we were staying for the night.  Corris is the tiniest village you can imagine—our bus couldn’t even fit on the roads.  It was extremely suprising this village had a hostel!  We had a very relaxed remainder of the trip: we explored some local craft shops, admired some sheep, had a great homecooked meal by the couple who owned the hostel, and played a lot of games and drank tea by the fire. 

Scenic Corris.

With the sheep in our front yard.

Our hostel is the one with the green fence.

We returned to Cardiff the next morning.  I had a few hours to finish packing up and then it was off to mainland Europe!

T-minus 6 days

...until 3 weeks of backpacking across Europe!

Crazy 3 weeks!

Part 1: Travel with study group

1) Corris, Wales (group trip to the Welsh Center for Alternative Technology)

Part 2: Travel with Colgate friends 

2) Granada, Spain
3) Barcelona, Spain
4) Prague, Czech Republic
5) Budapest, Hungary

Part 3: Travel with parents

6) Munich, Germany
7) Cardiff, Wales
8) Pembrokeshire, Wales
9) London, England

Cardiff update and trip to English coast!

Things have been great in Wales since my last update!  2 Wednesdays ago we went to Cardiff University's big annual Varsity rugby game at Millenium Stadium.  Every year, Cardiff Uni plays Swansea Uni in every sport, culminating in the rugby game at night.  Cardiff hosted this year and it was a big deal here--tons of Swansea students were here for the day, there was a lot of school spirit, and a crazy atmosphere.

That Saturday, my friend from high school, Katelyn, who is studying in Seville for the semester, arrived--it was great to see her!  She visited until Tuesday and we had a great time just exploring Cardiff.

This past weekend, I went to Salcombe, England with Lauren, Mandi, and Carolyn.  There is a big network of youth hostels throughout the UK (YHA) and when we saw a picture of this hostel, we decided we needed to go.

The picture of the hostel on the website that convinced us to book a trip here.

Salcombe is a beach town in Devon, England.  It is a really really cute town with extremely narrow streets, steep hills, and the quaintest shops.  It was also very very preppy, which we were not expecting--it has the reputation of being where rich Londoners have their second homes.  But the water was bright blue, stunning cliffs topped with farmland surrounded the ocean, and the foliage was unexpectedly tropical (palm trees!!).

Welcome to Salcombe.

We took the train from Cardiff late Saturday morning and made it to Salcombe by that night.  We shopped around the downtown Salcombe, got some delicious pizza for dinner, some famous Salcombe Dairy ice cream for dessert, and went back to our hostel.  We were amazed by this hostel!  It is about 2 miles from the center of town, nestled at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean.  We went for a short hike that night and were in awe of where we were.

Lauren, Mandi, Carolyn, and I.

Entering the hostel, Overbecks.

View out the front door of the hostel.

Sunday morning, we were fed an incredible breakfast at the hostel inside this great dining room that overlooked some beautiful gardens.

View from breakfast 1.

View from breakfast 2.

After a long breakfast, we meandered back to town.  It was such a great walk, offering a lot of beautiful views of the coast.

I want one of those houses.

Lauren and I on South Sands beach.

So tropical looking.

We caught the bus back to Totnes, where our train was departing from to bring us back to Cardiff.  Totnes was a really great town also!  We had a few hours to kill so we enjoyed a relaxed and delicious lunch before heading back.

View from lunch.

This week=lots of preparation for my 3 WEEK SPRING BREAK, which starts this Friday!!!!!

In school news...last week was my last week of physics lab, I turned in my final Welsh assignment, and this is my last week of classes!  1 math paper, 1 physics lab, and 3 final exams are all that I have left for school--and I don't even have to think about those for another month :-)   When we get back from spring break, as if 3 weeks wasn't long enough, we have a "reading week".  So essentially spring break is 4 weeks long.  Then exam period starts...I get my schedule by the end of this week but I will have infinitely longer to study for any of these exams than I ever do at Colgate so I am not worried.  Extremely rigorous Colgate academics are going to be such an unwanted change in the fall...

I love spring

Have to go to class now but in short, I have just been enjoying the beautiful weather here since my last post.  More detailed post to come soon.

Love it

Sun, Spring, and St. Davids

Last week it really felt like spring!  The daffodils are all in bloom and we had sun every day and temperatures in the 60s :) ..filled with lots of laying in the parks and enjoying the weather!

Flowers in bloom!

Sarah in Bute Park.

Wednesday we had a trip to the Welsh National Assembly (in Cardiff Bay) for our "Wales and the Welsh Language" class.  We got to meet Wales' minister of heritage, minister of education, and first minister!  This was a very cool experience and we learned about the upcoming Welsh elections, university subsidies for Welsh students, and the struggle to foster the Welsh language.

The Cardiff Bay from the National Assembly.

The highlight of Friday was definitely McDonald's new Cadbury Cream Egg McFlurry (a UK only specialty!).  A lack of good ice cream around here has made me resort to McDonalds...

YUM

This past weekend we had a Colgate trip to Swansea and St. David's as part of our Welsh Literature class.  The theme of this trip was the famous Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas.  We hadn't learned about Dylan Thomas at all before we went on the bus so that, combined with the fact that this was a trip for a group of science majors, made the Dylan Thomas theme a little unideal.  But it was still a great weekend!

Saturday we left Cardiff at 8:45 and picked up our guide for the weekend, Jim Jones.  He is a part time lecturer at Cardiff and a very accomplished Welsh poet, as he is the archdruid at the very prestigious Eisteddfod, the Welsh poetry competition.  But he's also just a cute old man and a great tour guide.  Our first stop was Swansea, where we went to the Dylan Thomas museum, the National Waterfront Museum, and Dylan Thomas' boyhood home.  These were all fairly boring...but we did have an incredible lunch in Swansea!  Using our 10 pound lunch budget, me and a few other girls found this great buffet with all of the cuisine that we've been craving since being here, plus much, much, more.  Sickly full from lunch, we made our way to St. Davids, making a quick stop at Fern Hill, Dylan Thomas' summer home.

We were really happy to make it to St. David's!  It's such a cute little town on the west coast of Wales.  Plus, we got to stay in adorable bed and breakfasts, have an incredible Italian dinner, and homemade ice cream--twice!

Tea time in the B&B

Sunset over St. David's.

St. David's cross in the village center.

Finally some great ice cream! ("Celtic crunch" flavor, so good!)

On Sunday, after a great breakfast at the B&B, we had a few hours to explore St. David's, which was so fun.  St. David's has a beautiful cathedral and castle and also boasts some of the best walks along the coastal cliffs.

St. David's Cathedral

Coastal cliff walk

Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy so the views of the cliffs aren't that great, but on a good day you can see all the way to Ireland!

After another round of ice cream, we made our way back to Cardiff (with stops at Dylan Thomas' boat house and grave site), where we enjoyed one last meal as a group at a local pub.

A very Welsh week...with some Irish on Thursday

I can't believe it's been a week since we were in Dublin!  This week really felt like spring with blue skies and temperatures in the 50s every day.  So many fun things this week...

On Wednesday, we went to St. Fagan's with our Welsh folklore professor.  This place is located on the outskirts of Cardiff and is recreated village of Welsh history (think Welsh Sturbridge Village).  It was really cute with the quaint old churches, general store, cottages, mill, farm, etc. from a bunch of different time periods throughout Wales' history.  But my favorite part was definitely the gardens/estate.  I don't know the history of why this was built, but there is a BEAUTIFUL mansion surrounded by so many lush gardens and it was so beautiful to walk around.  We ended our day with a cup of tea a proper Welsh tea house in a recreated 19th century-esque cafe above the general store.

Old Welsh church.

Gardens

Thursday was St. Patrick's day.  A bunch of us did a pub crawl thing called "Paddy Parade" where our t-shirts got us into 4 of the pubs/clubs downtown. Tons of gold chocolate coins + a green chocolate fountain + a foam machine = so much fun.

Mmmm free green chocolate fondue.

Today (Saturday), Lauren, Sarah, and I took an incredible day trip to the nearby village of Cowbridge.  The day started with a short 1/2 hour bus ride where we were the only people without white hair on our bus. 

Out of place at 20 years old...

We immediately loved the village as soon as we got off the bus.  When we were in the public bathrooms shortly after we arrived, we met a nice woman who told us that there was a nearby daffodil farm where you could pick your own daffodils today so we decided to add that to our itinerary! (Daffodils are the national flower of Wales and are EVERYWHERE here).

Such a quaint town!!!

We checked out the small Cowbridge farmers market where we got some delicious samples of homemade cupcakes, wine, lamb burger, and beet root hummus and chatted with each vendor for a while.  After some shopping around town, we stopped for a long, leisurely lunch at this great French restaurant called Oscar's.  We were there for over 2 hours and thoroughly enjoyed our food and basking in the warm sun at our outside table in this great village. 

Yummmy lunch

Our adventure was just beginning.  We wanted to get to the daffodil farm so we caught the bus in that direction but the bus driver told us to get off way earlier than we should have.  After wandering down a main road for a while, we decided to ask an old couple who were working outside in their yard for directions.  They were the nicest people ever!  We chatted for a while, heard their life stories (they have lived in this great cottage for 40 years!), they drew us a map, and the woman then decided to accompany us part of the way so we wouldn't get lost!  So the three of us, plus the woman and her dog, walked through some paths through the beautiful countryside for a while and then she headed back as we approached the farm (with instructions to tell the farm owners the Daniels family says hi!).  They told us to come back to their house if we couldn't find our way back to the bus later!

On our walk with Mrs. Daniels.

As we walk into the daffodil farm parking lot, who do we see but the older woman from the bathroom in the morning!  She was so happy to see us and greeted us all with big hugs!  She showed us to the field, where we all picked 20 flowers for 60 pence.  After chatting for a while, she and her husband gave us a ride back to Cardiff.  They were the cutest couple and had been out all day searching for the best daffodils and decided that the place we went was the best.  She went on and on about her love of Welsh history, the importance of friendship, and how she loves meeting young people like us enjoying Wales. 

Loving the daffodils!