So my summer vacation has begun. My plans (and I use the word 'plans' loosely since it implies actual planning and not just intent), are to go to Spain with Christina, one of the girls from my program, and then after she goes home on the 9th to continue ambling around Spain on my own, probably going to Madrid, Granada and San Sebastian until the 23rd when I will fly to Munich to meet my mom and sister. After Munich my mom and I will go on to Greece for awhile, then home.
Huh. That seems like a lot of stuff when I read it over again.
And the best thing about my vacation plans is that they are not completely planned. Like a homeowner moving into a half completed ranch house, I have started my vacation without having a place to sleep every night or a way to get there. Mostly everything is planned, but there are some gaps. I'm kind of filling them in as I go, which I must say doesn't make for the most restful vacation.
I was back in Rome for about 2 hours on Friday. I forgot how much I liked Rome. My stop there included the train station, the bookstore across from the cat sanctuary at the Torre di Argentina and the airport. After a brief fight with our cab driver (which we won), Christina and I were off to Barcelona.
Things we snuck through security at the Fiumicino airport:
1 bottle of water
2 opened packages of gummy bears
Shampoo, toothpaste and a nail file
Luckily we are not terrorists and our flight arrived in Barcelona in one piece.
Our first day in Barcelona we went to the aquarium. It's supposed to be the biggest aquarium in Europe. It was pretty cool, I guess, but after having seen Sea World, if an aquarium doesn't have preforming seals its just not worth going. They did have lots of sharks, most of which I was able to identify on sight thanks to a childhood spent watching the discovery channel. That was pretty sweet. After the aquarium we went to the Picasso museum where I learned all about Picasso. Did you know Picasso drew erotic cartoons? Neither did I, but there they were. Some were very abstract and Picasso-y. Interesting place.
Our second day in Barcelona was a beach day. For lots of people next to us on the beach, it was a naked beach day. It is a very awkward thing, people watching, when the people aren't wearing clothes. Luckily I had my iPod and a book.
Our third day was an architecture day. We walked a crazy amount and saw many interesting things and then we drank fish-bowls of sangria. The sangria didn't have enough fruit, though, so we asked for a knife and cut up our leftover lunch apples and cherries. You could tell everyone else was super jealous of our awesome idea.
It was a pretty cool trip. Some things could have gone more smoothly. For example:
Christina has very bad food-luck. Our first night there she had a terrible salad and didn't want to eat our little fishes with the heads attached appetizer. The next day she ordered a mojito and it was way too strong. That night she accidently ordered a non-alcoholic beer. The next day she asked for soy sauce with her thai food and they brought out a thimble full and charged her .75 cents. Then her sangria didn't have enough fruit. Luckily her bad food karma didn't rub off on me. My food was fine.
And now I'm off to Madrid, hopefully to drink more sangria and to eat tapas. I might also go see some museums or something, if I get around to it.
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