Initiate European Spring Break

Welp I am headed on Semana Santa (Holy Week aka Spring Break) tomorrow morning at 4:00am I will be leaving my residencia and heading to the airport for my 6 am flight to Milan. I will be gone for 10 days, until April 2. I am going to Milan and then taking a train to Venice. From Venice we take a train to Vienna, spend the day there, take a night bus to Praha (Prague), and then fly to Copenhagen, from Copenhagen we fly back to Madrid. Phew. I am so excited, I can't wait. I'm going with about 8 others that live with me in the residencia.

Oh and get this. I'm missing two days of school because Semana Santa actually starts Friday and umm am missing some midterms. I get to make them all up except for my midterm in my Spanish conversation class. Hello minus 17 percent of my final grade. Haha I know right, I can't believe I'm missing it either, but whatever I'll learn more on this trip than I will the whole year in that class.

Today was a good day. I got two letters from my dad and Sanders and a package from my Aunt Kathy with....GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!!!!!! And they are my favorite kind and I was so excited to get it and wasn't expecting it and it was great. So a big thank you for anyone who has sent a package or letter, I appreciate them more than you know. Thank you. I also had futbol practice today which was awesome because I finally got to wear shorts and a tshirt outside. It felt so good, I'm glad the weather is finally starting to straighten out. And my soccer coach let me borrow his hiking backpack so it's all packed up and ready to go.

Yesterday was also a nice day and some friends and I headed to the park. It was such a perfect day, we sprawled out on the grass and read, did homework, played poker, and futbol. I'm liking Madrid more and more with the nice weather. :)

Well I'm about to head downstairs for dinner and make sure I have everything I need packed. I will hopefully be able to write about my trip by April 5 or so.

Until then,

Morgan

la dolce vita

Rome is gorgeous. There is literally art everywhere you look. We are talking about the most beautiful cathedrals and basilicas in the world...and there are hundreds of them just in Rome.

We got off to a little bit of a rocky start. We arrived to the airport around 5 or 6 pm on Friday (I don't know why we didn't take a morning flight, but that's beside the point). Then after we got our bags and searched 20 minutes for the bus driver, we found out that our tour guide for our bus tour was no where to be found. Our program directors weren't too happy and then we ended up just picking up the tour guide from wherever he was haha. A little strange and then our bus tour ended up being a night bus tour which was okay, but at this point everyone seemed to be tired from travelling....So after the bus tour we got to our hotel which was amazing by the way. API really hooked us up. They even had doorbells for each room and there were motion lights above the doors...excellent choice. I went with a group of friends on a wild chase for a restaurant that was recommended to us, but when we finally found it we discovered we needed a reservation, which we didn't have so we continued on to find this little hole in the wall Italian place for dinner. Del.icious. I had bruschettaand gnocchi pasta with red wine The wine in Italy is definitely a good choice, I'm not that big of a wine fan and I love it. After dinner, even though we were stuffed, we had to get gelato. I think I had nutella, hazelnut, and strawberry or something like that and I would swim across the sea for another scrumptious gelato cone. :)

The next morning my roommate for the trip Lauren and I decided to wake up early and go for a little walk before the walking tour, since we were only going to be there until Sunday. (We are looking at basically one full day, a night, and a 1/2 day in Rome, I would not recommend this short amount of time). Props to the hotel for their breakfast. Breakfast isn't too hot in Spain so I thoroughly enjoyed the granola and dried fruit cereal I had.

So our hotel was pretty close to the Vatican and we started off our walking tour and just walked around the area by us and to the Vatican, just kind of taking in the scenery and the people. It was really nice to be out at 7 in the morning because the air was so fresh and there weren't a ton of people out...very relaxing. Our walking tour with API started at 9:35 so we headed back to the hotel, just in time for another stab at breakfast haha! The our tour guide took us to Piazza del Popolo (Plaza of the People) and from here 3 streets branch off from the Piazza, which is known as The Trident and these streets are known for their expensive shopping. We passed Louis Vuitton, Dolce and Gabbana, Prada etc, etc. We passed other plazas on our walk as well as several churches. She took us to the Trevi Fountain which I LOVED and didn't realize how big it actually was. Interesting story: she took us to the fountain from a side street and told us to stop in this certain place where we were standing right next to the fountain but couldn't see it because of this structure.

It was built by the creator of the fountain because a barber lived right next to the fountain and every day he would come outside and criticize the artist work. To stop his complaining this Ace of Cups was built right in his line of vision. I thought that was pretty funny.

The fountain is pretty incredible and we threw in 2 coins into the fountain, the first meaning we will one day return to Rome and the second meaning we will meet an Italian boyfriend or girlfriend.

After the Trevi Fountain we went to the Spanish step and drank from one of the public water fountains and by water fountain I literally mean huge fountain. haha all of the fountains have really clean water that you can drink out of anytime.

Then we walked to the Pantheon and saw Raphael's tomb inside. Saw more and more ancient ruins. They are just all over the city in fenced off areas. It's really cool to see. There was also a spot near the Pantheon where you could look down about 12 meters and see an ancient street of Rome. It is strange to think how much of ancient Rome is buried under the city of Rome today.

Our walking tour ended at Campo de Fiori, where they have a market each Saturday I believe. So I bought some trinkets while I was there, we grabbed a quick slice of pizza each and headed towards the Vatican so we could make it in before it closed for the day. We heard horror stories about the line for the Vatican Museum so we were worried that we might not get in, but we must have picked a perfect time because I think we were in line for only 10 minutes or less. The Vatican was honestly overflowing with art. There was so much there and we didn't even come close to seeing half of it I'm sure. We saw famous paintings by Raphael like The School of Athens

The best part, of course, was the Sistine Chapel and the painting The Last Judgement. We did not have time to go inside St. Peter's Basilica, but we did get to see the outside of it.

After walking around for a solid 10 hours I felt like my feet were bleeding and covered in blisters. haha. So we walked to the hotel to rest our feet for about an hour and then we were off again in search for dinner. We found a nice side street with nice restaurants where we got to sit outside, eat lasagna, listen to music, enjoy some red wine, and eat tiramisu. Can't get much better than that. After dinner we decided to walk to the Spanish steps because it is tradition for travellers to go there and meet other travellers. We did that and saw the Trevi Fountain at night. Two stunning views. After that we were completely wiped out and trekked backed to the hotel. I think I feel asleep in 2.2 seconds and woke up again around 6:30 because we had to be back at the hotel at 4pm.

We wanted to see the Colosseum and took the long way to get there passing through some older areas of Rome that were so so pretty and we even ended up catching the end of mass at San Maria in Trastevere. Some of our friends did end up going to the Vatican on Sunday to see the Pope at noon. Here's a picture...

I would have really liked to do that as well, but the Vatican Museums are closed on Sunday, so we had to do the museums on Saturday, which left us with Sunday for the Colosseum. The Colosseum was great! Our tour guide gave us all sorts of cool information and I took lots of pictures. It was pretty cool getting to see one of the 7 Wonders of the World. It's hard to imagine what it looked like in Ancient Roman times, because all that is left now is the bare skeleton and part of it was damaged from earthquakes. But it used to be covered in tapestries and there was actually a canopy top and marble seats. Pretty incredible structure for that time.

Now here comes my favorite story from the trip. My friend Marissa and I are the last people in our group to visit the Colosseum and then our ticket actually got us into Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum so we checked that out quickly before we had to leave...and then we decided to walk back to the hotel and find somewhere along the way to stop and eat. Well we found this cute little pizzaria and when we walked in the door this was this fairly large man anywhere from 50-60 years old standing there as well, waiting to be seated. Well the little Italian man waiter walks up to us and is like 3? And Marissa and I are trying to say 2, but he keeps going back and forth between 2 and 3 and he's speaking Italian and we are speaking English and Spanish and then it ends up Marissa and I asking this man to sit with us for lunch. Ok here goes...His name was Gerry from Louisville, KY. He has a wife with whom he is about to celebrate his 35 wedding anniversary and fingers crossed will get their vows renewed at the Vatican. He also has two full grown daughters, one who is expecting their first grandchild. Gerry talked alot. He told us he is an aeronautical consultant Boeing airlines and has lived in places like Russia, Panama, Kenya, numerous states...etc etc. He even ended up supporting this Russian artist who has painted the Queen of England twice, along with self-portraits of the women in his family. He also has a landscape painting from this artist estimated around 100,000 dollars. He asked us some questions about school and gave us some insightful advice. We had carbonara for lunch and strawberries and ice cream for dessert. Then it came time to pay for the meal and Marissa and I started to pull out our wallets and he told us he would pay for our lunches. When we tried to offer to pay again he said, and I quote, "You guys wouldn't even believe me if I told you how much money I made."

This story is no tall tale, but actually fact. Almost immediately after he paid Gerry tells us he has to run and catch a bus or he's going to miss it. He shakes our hands and tells us it was a pleasure meeting us and was gone just as quick as he'd come. I think Marissa and I stared at each other for approximately one full minute before either one of us could say anything.

The story only gets better when Marissa got up to go to the bathroom and the little old Italian man comes over and holds my hand while Marissa is gone. I don't really know why it didn't bother me haha, he was just a cute little man who wanted to hold my hand I thought. Then when we go to leave our waiter man is sitting outside smoking and he sees us and springs up from his chair dropping his cigarette. He starts to say goodbye to us and opens his arms like he wants to give each one of us a hug. Well in my joy of wanting to hug this little man goodbye, I totally forget that people don't hug in Europe, they kiss you on each side of the cheek. Well by the time I remember this I am WAAAYYYY to close to this old man, like too close for him to kiss my cheek and he ends up kissing my neck and I don't know why but all I can do is laugh. Then he called me bella and kissed both sides of my cheeks and at this point Marissa is dying laughing and I have tears running down my face. He tells us to come back next year when we are in Rome and we laughed the whole way back to the hotel. It was a perfect way to end our marvelous Rome viaje.

Phew. That took a long time to write. We are finally getting some nice weather here in Madrid and this is actually my only weekend in Spain this month. So I think I'm going to check out some museums and parks this weekend. Do some Madrid stuff :) Yesterday was St. Patrick's day and you know what it was pretty dang fun. No green beer and no South Side Irish Parade, but we did end up meeting the CEO of Tuenti (which is basically Facebook in Spain) and a bunch of his friends and they bought us drinks all night. So thanks Madrid for a good night!

-Morgan

I Don't Speak Freaky Deaky Dutch.

I officially filled up my first journal while I was in Amsterdam and I just bought a really cool new one from a little bookstore up the street from where I live that is handmade...fancy. Anyway, Amsterdam was awesome. We actually flew into Eindhoven and then took a train to Amsterdam where we accidentally sat in first class with a bunch of older woman and when the ticket collector came around he kicked a bunch of teenage boys out of first class and I was about to get up and leave before he kicked us out when I realized the 7 Dutch women sitting next to me were cracking up. They had 2nd class tickets as well and somehow or another they convinced the ticket guy to let us stay in first class. It was a really relaxing ride with beautiful scenery. Lots and lots of canals. A little saying I learned on my trip...God made the world in 6 days and on the 7th the Dutch created Holland. Which makes sense because the would country is below sea level. The Dutch basically dug out their land to live on and they have so many canals because that is where the water drains and then into bigger and bigger canals and then into rivers and blah blah.

Ok enough about that...We got to Amsterdam around noon on Friday, March 5. I went with my friend Gina and after we checked into our hostel (which was located very near to the Heineken Factory, who knew it was in Amsterdam? Not me.) went to the Anne Frank Huis (House). The Diary of Anne Frank was a book I read and reread many times when I was younger so actually being in the house where she wrote her diary was surreal for me. I actually stood in Anne Frank's room where there were still some posters she had pasted to the wall. I looked out the same windows she had to peak through because no one could know they were living upstairs. It actually gives me the chills to think about it. After that Gina and I walked around a bit in the rain and then I headed to the Van Gogh Museum to check out some arte. We were pretty exhausted from such a long day of traveling so we grabbed some dinner and drinks and then headed to bed.

The next day we got up around 8 am and though it was about 35 degrees it was sunny! YAY!! So we walked around and got a good look at the city, I can only imagine how gorgeous it must look when all the flowers are in bloom. Now for my favorite part of the journey...we went on a bike tour. Now I absolutely love riding bikes, but in Amsterdam, in my opinion, it is the only way to travel around the city. On the streets there are lanes and street lights for cars, the outside of the sidewalks are for people walking and then for bikes they get their very own lane and stop lights..it is so cool. If someone gets in your way, you just ring your bell and they scatter. Which makes me wonder how many times these people have been hit by a high-speed bicycle. Anyway, the country side tour took us to a cheese/clog making factory, where I did purchase a pair of real wooden clogs that I plan on hanging on my wall. It was really interesting to watch them make shoes and I tried on a pair and they are surprisingly very comfortable...could be the next fashion trend, though the guy wearing them did look a bit like a clown in them.

We also biked passed a windmill, farms, more canals, HUGE mansions, and through Vondelpark where I saw one of the three statues in the world by Picasso that you can see for free.(Interesting fact about Vondelpark at one time you were allowed to be naked in the park and today after lots of changing rules in the park, I believe today's law is you can have sex in the park, but you must have clothes on.) The Dutch are very interesting people with very very open minds about everything. After the 4 hour country side tour, Gina and I headed to a restaurant to devour the most delicious pancakes I have ever had. They were actually mini pancakes with cherries, whip cream, and powdered sugar. Mhmmmm. After that I decided I hadn't had enough of bike riding for the day yet, so I went back to Mike's Bike Tours and rented a bike for 2 hours. I just rode around the city, which is pretty small to be honest so a bike is the perfect means for transportation. There are literally bikes everywhere in the city. They are chained to trees, posts, or just laying on the ground. Everywhere.

So yes marijuana is legal in Amsterdam along with prostitution. The Red Light District was rather interesting. I didn't really know what to expect before I got to Amsterdam, but it wasn't too sketchy or anything, our tour guide told us it is actually one of the safest parts of the city because there are usually lots of police officers around. Anyway, you are definitely not allowed to take pictures and if you are spotted taking one, someone usually throws your very expensive digital camera right into the canal. I feel like it is basically window shopping for women. Again our tour guide was telling us that the government sees it as prostitution was happening in the Netherlands and instead of some guy taking a woman to a sketchy hotel or some other place, they have a safe room with a panic button that the women can hit if anything goes wrong. So yeah, just another way to look at the scenario.

As for smoking, you can just walk into a coffee shop and buy whatever kind of weed you want. It seems to be a very big tourist attraction though. It's not like all Dutch people are walking around high all the time...The tour guide said because its legal there, there's not really the thrill of doing something that is illegal and he said that there are plenty of people who live in the Netherlands their whole lives and never even tried smoking. So again another way to look at something. I think this is what I like most about travelling. There are so many ways to see things, but if you take yourself outside of your comfort zone, away from people who think like you, it is nice to see the other side and you might even realize that the way you have perceived a topic your whole life is not the only way. :)

As for more recent news I am leaving for Roma tomorrow with API. I think there are around 32 of us going so it should be really fun. I'm excited. We are only there Friday to Sunday so I have a lot to see in a little time.

As for life in Madrid, it is still cold here. Everyone here keeps saying how it hasn't been this cold for this long in like 50 years...perfect timing on my part. haha. I actually kind of feel like a freshman in college again. Going out on random week nights and then having to get up at 7 for class the next morning. This week I ended up going out on a Monday night and Wednesday night until about 4am. Monday night was one of my friends 21st birthdays so we celebrated it at an Irish Pub called Dubliner's. Last night I went to this chic Spanish discoteca called Pacha. It was free for some reason to get in, but its usually pretty pricey and I think famous people go there...well atleast that's what I heaarrdddd. 16 euro to get in and I think 8 euro for a drink. I had a lot of fun and even managed to drag myself to school this morning for my 10:00 class.

Welp, I think I'm going to pack for Roma, I'll be in touch when I get back.

-Morgan

Destination Amsterdam.

I think my favorite part about being here is that my weekend starts at approximately 1:00pm every Thursday. haha now I know what other college students feel like with a 3 day weekend its awesome. I leave for Eindhoven in about 9 hours. I have a 6 am flight tomorrow morning which isn't too fun since the metro stops running at 1:30 am so it means we have to take a taxi or we sleep at the airport tonight. I'm just going to go with a cab for this trip. We get in Eindhoven at about 8:30 and then we have to take a train to Amsterdam, which is only about an hour..so not bad. I looked up the weather and its suppose to rain on Friday, but luckily not Saturday..hopefully. I really really want to see the Anne Frank house and Van Gogh Musuem so it looks like I'll be doing that on Friday. Check on the Red Light district...I'm sure that will be quite the eye opening experience. Then Saturday there is this really cool bike tour that goes to the country side that we are thinking about doing. It takes us past some old windmills and to a clog and cheese making factory! I'm excited! This will be the second country outside of Spain that I have visited.

Anyway, school this week was just dandy. I actually had a test on El Greco.. what?!? A test abroad..its true I do have to do some work while I'm over here. I've started walking to and from school. Its about 2.5 miles each way. I like it minus this giant hill I have to walk up at one point on my trip. I have to find a way around that eventually...I bought another journal today, because I have about 5 pages left of the one my friend Alyssa bought for me. I went to a Spanish bar on Tuesday night for some reason...and it ended up being really fun. There were tons of Spanish students, I think we were the only Americans there...and they played all types of Spanish music and then played "I Will Survive" but it was in Spanish..so we all just sang the words in English. haha. We left around 3 on a Tuesday and let me tell you this place was still packed. I'm still not sure if the Spanish population ever sleeps. I seriously have no idea how they do that.

Ok here is something interesting about Spanish comida (food). For breakfast everyone here loves to eat toast with olive oil and salt on it and then sometimes a tomato sauce on top of it. Different right? They also serve small, very plain cookies for breakfast. Oh and I don't know if I ever mentioned but the milk is warm...and yes I am used to that now and it doesn't even bother me. The first time I had warm milk with my cereal I had to throw it away because I couldn't stomach it.

Here are some random pictures of Madrid from some of the exploring I have done. I figured I could share a few.

I like to call the first picture "Ping Pong in the Park". I thought it was a cool photo op and I like the idea. Next is a picture of Palacio Real, where Spanish Royalty used to live. The place is huge. I went on a tour there and there are hundreds of room decorated very extravagantly. Then the third picture is a picture taken by my friend Luna of our Metro stop one snowy evening.

This building was my desktop on my computer before I came to Spain. Then I got to see it in real life so I took a picture. Its about a 15 minute walk from my resi.

I will write all about my trip when I return Sunday!

-Morgan

Primero de Marzo

Hollllaaa. Today is the first of March. I cannot believe I've been here for 2 months already. Sometimes it feels like I've been here forever, but other times I don't know where the time has gone. Let's see where did I leave off Feb. 15th. Lent started and I gave up french fries. Its not that I eat them at home all the time, but they are served at my residencia almost daily and that can't be healthy for me to eat a million french fries while I'm here so thank you Lent. I have received two packages since I've been here and they are the best things ever! So a big thank you...especially for the peanut butter! If anyone would like to send me a letter because that would be fun for me to read AND I tape them to my wall :) My address is ...

Morgan Bucciferro
63 Calle San Bernardo
28015 Madrid Spain

Also, big news we won our first soccer game of the season! It was a huge deal, we won 4-0 and the next day our coach brought us beer and gummy bears for winning...life doesn't get much better than cerveza and gummy bears. So that was fun and I actually scored a goal, which was exciting.

Feb 19-21 we went to Salamanca. It is a small town about 3 hours west of Madrid where the oldest university of Spain is located. It was actually really cool and had a nice college town feel because I think there are 55,000 students in a 175,000 person town..something like that. While we were there we saw the university, library, and two cathedrals which were absolutely beautiful, I took lots of pictures to share once I get back. The town was very Spanish, much prettier than Madrid in my opinion. At night we ended up going to a bar called Jacko's. It was a Micheal Jackson bar. The bar had his pictures everywhere and dolls of him and they only played songs by him and his music videos where being shown. It was hilarious. I don't know what it was doing in a small Spanish town. Anywho I took lots of pictures for you Rachel, because this place would have been heaven for you.

We also went to an Italian restaurant two nights in a row because it was so good calle

d Paladinis and I tried gnocchi (or something like that) its like a potato pasta and might be my new favorite food. Then on the way back we stopped at a vineyard and did some wine tasting...well more like trying one type of wine and then getting 10 different types of tapas...okay by me! Haha we also got a tour of the winery and it was really neat to see the whole place.

I just figured out how to put pictures on this dang blog...so here are two of Salamanca.

This weekend was great. I stayed in Madrid and did alot of different activities. Thursday night I went to a Jazz bar and it was great. It was a bit more upbeat with a stellar harmonica player..that was really enjoyable. Then we ran to another bar for some delicious sangria. After that my friend Lauren and I decided to meet up with some other friends at a discoteca called JOY. If you read about Madrid it is like a must do, but I don't think I will be going back. Not my cup of tea. Too many Americans and American music. Not what I'm here for...Anyway the next day I woke up and went for a walk again. I ended up going to Sol and just hopping on a bus that took me to the outskirts of Madrid to the Atletico Madrid stadium...then it took me back to Plaza Mayor where I read my book for a bit and then headed back to the resi. That night I ended up going out with my Spanish neighbor and she took me to this underground club called Independence and it was basically like a concert downstairs. Loud music and cram packed with people. It was really fun and something different, so that made me like it even more.

I also woke up early on Sunday and decided to go for a stroll because it was so nice outside and I was walking past Palacio Real and the cathedral, when I decided to see what time mass started. I only had a 15 minute wait, so I decided to drop in and it was really cool. The choir was behind me and in a loft. There were probably 35 people in the choir and there was a HUGE organ. It was so pretty. The mass was a little hard for me to understand, not only because it was in Spanish, but it was echoing which made it even harder for me to understand haha. After that I found a fish market called San Miguel Mercado and it was PACKED first of all and had all types of fish and octopus and lobster and all other types of sea creatures. Not just like the meat though, their whole bodies where intact and for sale. After that I went back for lunch and then right after that went to the Parque de Retiro with some friends. Had a cana (small beer) in the park, watched street performers and just relaxed. Overall great day.

My March is really busy. I leave for Amsterdam this Friday. Super excited about this trip. Anne Franks house (huge fan) really can't wait to go there. Van Gogh Museum and I can't wait to rent a bike and ride it around all day. Then next weekend I go to Rome with my API group, which should be amazing and I can't wait to go! The next weekend will be the only weekend in March Ill be in Madrid and then the last weekend Ill be on spring break so Italy, Vienna, Prague, and Copenhagen.

Should be interesting. I changed the color of my blog to a more springy color. Black and March just don't mix.

Ciao!
Morgan