Barcelona

So my mom bought a lot of Rick Steves books for our trip and Rick Steves is pretty gung ho about "acting like a local" and "not taking guided tours."  My mom and I disagree.  Barcelona was our first European experience off the ship and let me tell you, we sure did miss that ship.

After our last breakfast on our home away from home, it was finally time to depart.  We requested the latest departure time and the place was like a ghost town by the time we left it.  Clearly, we were not quite ready to say goodbye.  Walking off the cruise, there was a luggage lady who was offering to take people's luggage and deliver it to them later in the day.  We double (more like quadruple) checked with her that there was a luggage check at the train station that we'd be leaving from later that day.  Of course there wasn't; everyone had been telling us about the other train station in Barcelona.  Before we knew it, we were handing our luggage (4 months worth of clothes for my semester in Copenhagen) to a complete stranger with the hopes that we would one day see it again.  Look out Europe, we were officially on our own!

Once free of all our baggage constraints, we decided to walk into the city.  The baggage lady told us to walk about 100 meters then go up the bridge.  About 800 meters later, a cab driver came up to us screaming that the exit was the other way.  He quickly realized that we were clueless tourists and tried to capitalize on this by trying to get us to pay for a personalized two hour tour of Barcelona from his cab.  His selling point was that doing it on our own would take at least seven hours.  Unfortunately for him, we had a solid nine hours to kill before our train left.  After finally getting rid of him, we did a 180, walked back 700 meters and finally found the bridge to the city.  Look out Europe, we were officially on our own!

Thanks to that eventful morning, we decided that we wanted nothing more than to do something that would probably make Rick Steves cry: ride a double decker tour bus around the city like the complete tourists that we were.  We rode that bus like it was our job.

Sorry, Rick.

We spent the entire day on the top of that bus with our little headphones on, getting off only once at the Sagrada Familia church.  The line was incredibly long, but we had nothing else planned for the day so we decided to wait it out.  And waiting for us at the end of that line was the most beautiful church that I have ever seen.

Antoni Gaudi began designing the church in 1883 and they are hoping to finish construction for the 100th anniversary of his death in 2026.  My mom and I are already making plans to go back to see the finished product.

Too big to even fit in a picture.

Beautiful stained glass and incredibly tall columns filled the inside of this church.  Gaudi found his inspiration in nature and it's definitely noticeable in this building.

Not bad for a work in progress.

Before we knew it, our first stressful day alone in Europe was coming to an end.  It was time to find our way to the train station and cross our fingers that our baggage would find its way back to us.  Luckily, after about ten minutes of my mom pacing and re-reading her luggage receipt, it did and we were safely reunited with all of our bags with 1.5 hours until our train left.

Don't get me started on the train.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here goes...

Within a span of 12 hours we went from this...

...to this.  Yes, we slept in that room together.

Then we went to get our dinner that was included with our train ticket.  We were incredibly thirsty from being outside all day so we asked our little Spanish waiter if he would please bring us some water as soon as he could.  A solid twenty minutes later, after everyone else had been served, we got our water.  Wine was also included.  That conversation went something like this:
Mom: I'll have a glass of white wine please.
Waiter: Red wine?
Mom: No, white please.
Waiter: Red wine.
Then he actually poured her a little taste of the red wine so she could taste it before he poured out a glass.  Because clearly this train, with its collapsable bunk beds and expired-fruit-for-dessert, had wine good enough to warrant a taste test.  But these are the stories that we remember and will laugh about one day.  Clearly, for me that day is already here.

Week One: Cruisin'

Welcome to week one of my mom and my Eurotrip.  After getting about zero hours of sleep post-Lollapalooza Momma Graf and I headed off to the Chicago airport (after a near fiasco of thinking we lost the rental car keys which somehow ended up packed in one of the suitcases).  Fast forward about 12 hours, one layover and a whole lot of coffee later and we finally arrived in Nice Airport where we decided to take a bus to our cruise ship in Monte Carlo.  *Note to anyone traveling to Europe for the first time: if you give someone euros and get back less coins than you would in the US, don't panic!  It's perfectly normal and apparently French airport employees aren't too keen on naive Americans questioning their currency.

Day 1: Monte Carlo
The first day on the cruise consisted of napping, a mandatory security drill and scenic picture taking...from the safety of the ship; there was no way we were going back on land after our exhausting day(s) of traveling.

Port of Monte Carlo

Day 2: Florence

Day two marked the start of our love affair (sarcasm) with the excursion crew.  The excursion that we were supposed to go on to Florence and Pisa left without us this morning, so being the flexible travelers we are we did the "Ultimate Florence" trip instead.  Which actually might have ended up being better anyway because we got to see Michelangelo's Statue of David which was unbelievable.  "The most beautiful boy in the world" was larger than life and unbelievably accurate anatomically.  You could truly feel the emotion coming from this piece of marble which I never would've believed possible if I hadn't seen it for myself.

Couldn't take pictures of Michelangelo's version so I got the next best thing.

We had a great guide who took us all around Florence until lunchtime at which point we ate at an adorable restaurant and I had some delicious genuine Italian pizza.  Italy definitely is not the place to go if you're trying to lose weight.  Or on a cruise for that matter.

Yum.

All in all Florence was pretty easy on the eyes to say the least.

Day 3: Rome

When in Rome...see all that you can.  Rome was definitely one of the highlights of this trip for me.  I know it sounds corny but I felt like I was walking through one of my old history textbooks and / or had traveled back in time thousands of years.  Everything was massive.  The US is such a relatively new country, so standing next to these giant monuments built by people thousands of years ago was unreal for me.

A typical US fountain

A Roman fountain. Casual.

We had an extremely busy day in Rome.  That's right - just one day to see as much of Rome as we could.  We wandered by ourselves for awhile, stumbled upon the Pantheon and didn't even have time for a lunch break before it was time to move on to our guided tour of Saint Peter's and the Coliseum.  Saint Peter's was undoubtedly the most gorgeous church I have ever seen.  Michelangelo's famous sculpture of The Pieta along with beautiful green and pink marble everywhere are just a couple aspects of this church that made it so impressive.

St. Peter's

After running through Saint Peter's we headed to the Coliseum.  It was hard for me to grasp the fact that a couple thousand years ago Romans were standing where I was standing watching multiple murders for sport.  I obviously disagree with all that the Coliseum stood for, but when it comes to architecture there's no denying that Romans really knew what they were doing.

Day 4: Pompeii

We initially weren't even planning on seeing Pompeii but thank goodness we changed our minds.  This was another highlight of the trip for me.  It was creepy in the best and most interesting way to be walking through this extremely well preserved town.  For instance, our guide told us that every day around 1 pm everyone would close the doors to their shops for the day.  We walked past a few houses with closed doors and our guide explained that Mount Vesuvius erupted shortly after 1 pm so of course everyone had closed up shop for the day.  It was eerie. 

If you look closely on the ground you can see the tracks that their carriages ran on.

Pompeii wasn't the most upstanding of cities and we also saw the gladiator training grounds (to which rich women would go to have affairs) and the town's brothel.

In the brothel men would choose their room based on the depiction above the door of the specialty of the woman inside. Classic Pompeii.

The city square and its volcano in the distance.

After the tour we had some free samples of limoncello, the area's specialty drink.  Then it was back to the ship...where we had more limoncellos.

Days 5 & 6: Villages and Wine
Day 5 we went to the tiny town of La Maddelena in Sardinia.  It sounds terrible to say it, but this little port town was probably the least favorite spot for us just because of how much it reminded us of Fort Lauderdale, FL (my hometown).  Clearly, this cruise spoiled us.  The town was still beautiful though with extremely clear, blue water everywhere you looked.

The dynamic duo.

Day 6 we decided to change our excursion at the last minute to a hilltop village and wine tasting tour in the Provencal region of France.  I think the two of us would've been happy just sitting all day (or forever...) at one of the little village cafes that overlooked everything beneath it.  Everything was just so quaint and serene up there, we really could've spent a lifetime wandering around.

Table for two for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. Please.

After our guide dragged us back to the bus, we headed out to our wine tasting.  We got a tour of the facilities by the owner and then it was time for the tasting.  Their rose wines were almost as light as our white wines and we learned that if they're any darker people in the area will send them back and refuse to drink them.  We ended up buying a bottle of their white wine which was made from two varieties of local grapes.

Our token souvenir.

Later that night when we were eating dinner on the ship, we befriended our wine waiter who gave us another lesson in wines.  At one point we had five different glasses of wine on our table.  So yes, it would probably be accurate to refer to us as wine connoisseurs now.

Day 7: The Pope's Palace

Our last full day on the ship!  We made the most of it by choosing one of the only full day excursions.  We went to the Pope's Palace in Avignon as well as Les Beaux, another hilltop village.  I'd try to explain more about the history of the Pope's Palace but honestly at this point of the trip my brain was so overloaded with history that I don't think it could've physically handled any more information.  The key take-aways that I got were that a few of the popes used to live here way back when and it was HUGE.  

The perks of being a pope.

We were given a tour of the palace then we had a few hours to walk around Avignon by ourselves.  

Being artsy in Avignon.

After Avignon we stopped by another hilltop village called Les Beaux then it was back to the ship for our last night of the cruise.  

Les Beaux

Emotions were definitely bittersweet as we packed up our clothes for the next adventure.  Might have shifted more to the bitter side of bittersweet over the next couple days once we realized that we quickly went from desserts of gluten free chocolate souffles to desserts of sour pineapple and seeded grapes.  And from a cozy room with a little couch and TV to an even cozier room with two chairs that collapsed into our beds and left us zero room to walk next to each other.  But that's another story for another post...  

Cheers to what will undoubtedly forever be one of the best weeks of my life.

So I'm Blogging Now

I never thought I'd be writing a blog.  I always thought blogs were meant for those same people who are always calling in to radio stations just to hear themselves talk.  Then again, I've never had anything noteworthy enough going on in my life to warrant publicly posting about.  But now I'm in Europe and it's kind of amazing.  So for all my fans back home (hi Mom) I've decided to try out this whole blogging thing while abroad.

Momma Graf and I left the States August 5.  Yes, that's almost 3 weeks ago now.  I have some catching up to do, I know.  But honestly it feels like it's been so much more than 3 weeks.  In the past 20 days I've been to more countries than ever before in my life, I've tried the universe's best gelato (the man who sold it to us was insistent that it was not only the world's but the universe's best), I've gotten stuck in a metro turnstile in Paris, I've spent the night in a room on a train that was smaller than my bathroom at home and I've settled into a new country that I get to call home for the next four months.

Oh and we laughed. A lot.

It's been a blast so far and I can't wait to see what the next four months will bring.  For now, I have free time for the first time in forever so I'll try to make a couple more posts about the trip in more detail and do our trip as much justice as I can.