We flew from London to Tampere on Tuesday night and spent the night in the London airport. On Wednesday morning we got up at 6am and went into London for the day. The weather was crappy and I overall wasn’t too impressed with the city, I think because it wasn’t really what I expected. But, we walked to the London Bridge, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and Platform 9 ¾ from the Harry Potter movies. We were only there for around 8 hours but I was surprised at how much ground we covered in such little time. Our flight from London to Madrid was at 7pm that night. This is the second time that I had flown through London and I noticed their security is pretty intense. I, for some reason, always get tagged in security and I am very well used to the security pat down searches I have done every time I fly. BUT, this time the pat down was more like a 2-3 minute rub down from the security lady. I was really freaked out after and felt extremely violated, I even called my dad. Jackie was watching and a few other people stopped to watch, as well…Jackie said it was disgusting to watch and looked like she was giving me a bath with my clothes on and no water.
We landed in Madrid around 10:30pm and went straight to the hostel. I was a little nervous because the hostel was run by a bunch of young Spanish guys. It was fine though…I think I pin young Spanish/Mexican looking guys as shady just from stereotype, but they were really nice. We had people from all over the world in our hostel, Argentina, Australia, Austria, etc and seven of the eight beds in our room were filled. The next morning, I found 2 maps of Madrid and found the places we wanted to go. We went to a monument called Plaza de Espana, the Palacio Real where the King lives, the Catedral de la Viaducto, Puerto del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Banco de Espana, Puerto de Alcala and the Parque del Retrio. The Parque del Retrio was really nice, that was my favorite part of the trip and we stayed there for a while that day. In the mix of seeing all of those things, I got a 1E heart shaped croissant covered in chocolate that was almost the size of my face….amazing :) On the way back to the hostel we walked down Gran Via, the main street for shopping in Madrid. That night we stayed in the hostel and talked with the new people that got there. Turns out there were 3 other girls from Michigan and only 2 of them came together; one girl lives with 2 girls who graduated from my high school at MSU, small world. I talked with them for a while. Talking with them was actually like something that was “really familiar yet really different” because it has been so long since I’ve talked with someone face to face that has the same accent, uses the same slang, talks just as fast and has the same kind of “broken English” as I do. It was cool to notice that it was strange to hear someone talk they way I do.
The next morning, we met Walter, an extremely flamboyant guy from LA. He came to get coffee with Jackie and I (by the way, the coffee in Spain is better than any other coffee that I’ve had) We wandered around Madrid for a while with Walter then the 3 of us went to Parque del Retrio and rented a paddle boat. On the way to the park, Jackie noticed a 50E bill missing from her wallet; I checked mine and noticed that I had 50E missing as well. We sat down on a bench to figure out what happened and as we were panicking 3 Asian women come up to us saying “massage? massage?” we told them no over and over, but they did anyways. We were too worried about the money to deal with the Asian women. So now, we are panicking in the middle of a market with Asian women rubbing our backs and digging their elbows into us...and Walter too. After a few minutes we realized it had to have been a girl in the hostel who took the money because no one else was there (she took our toothpaste, too). Then, as we were walking we saw a bunch of African American guys selling knock off designer purses and sunglass on the street. The police drove up and they all ran, probably 20-30 of them. But, one police officer walks up to Walter, he is African American too. Walter says to the office “nu uhh, I’m from L.A” while waving his finger like a teenage girl with an attitude. Needless to say, this was not what the officer expected. After the park, we met with Steven, our French friend who was in Finland with us and also responsible for my concussion haha, and his friend Damian who is also French and studying in Madrid. The five of us went to eat; Jackie and I got paella, a Spanish dish with rice, vegetables and some kind of meat. We ordered ours with chicken but instead they brought us some kind of dead sea creature. I really had a hard time eating it because I’m not a fan of creepy crawlies in my food! Then, we went to an old Egyptian prison, the guys loved it, I didn’t find it all too exciting but the view of Madrid was really nice! We wandered around a little more and Walter left to find his friend. We went into a Ham Museum…a shop where everything is pork…sandwiches, dinners, full pigs, etc (and not a real museum). The place was huge and all of the walls were lined with dead pigs. Good thing you can’t get swine flu from being around dead pigs or Spain would have a problem. I found it disgusting, especially since I don’t like pork. We later realized that there are shops like this all over Spain, but Spanish ham is really popular, although it looks raw. We went to the hostel to grab our bags and went to the bar for a beer with Steven and Damian; just like the coffee, the beer was probably the best beer I’ve had…not that I’ve had a lot ;-) At around 1am, Jackie and I headed back to the airport. We tried to sleep but it was too cold.
We flew into Barcelona the next morning. Our hostel was hard to find and I found a little old man on the street corner to help us. I noticed he would stomp his foot after every English word he said correctly. After he showed us where to go, he kept pinching my cheek and I was getting laughed at by everyone sitting at a red light at the intersection but I thought he was really funny. That day we went to the Gothic part of the city and down to the beach. We stopped for churros, which they dip in melted warm chocolate. Then we walked to the board walk and back to the hostel. That night we went for a walk with Emilia and Maxim (Emilia is from South Carolina and Maxim is German) they were also in our hostel. I was warned by the owner of this hostel that I stick out like a sore thumb with my blonde hair and pale skin. He also told me that the Spanish guys will be looking at us because they never see blonde hair. After a few days, I learned that if I speak Finnish to them then they leave automatically because they assume I can’t speak English or Spanish. After a while we would just count in Finnish and see how long it took them to leave and they had no idea we were even counting.
The next day we walked to the Sagrada Familia, a church designed by Gaudi. Then we walked by a monument that is on every postcard but it just looked like a huge bullet in the ground. On our way back we walked through a really nice park and got some dinner.
The next morning, I had really had enough of Jackie. We planned to go to the beach that day but she decided she wanted to go to Starbucks and shopping (both of which I don’t like). So, she went on her own and I planned to meet Mark, an Australian guy in our hostel, at the beach. I got to the beach and was slightly concerned with the weirdos walking around. So, I found the part of the beach that had a ton of old people. I layed down between 2 old naked women; I figured they would be the last people to bother me and no one else would come over if I was between 2 old women who had nothing on. And, I was right. After and hour or so, I went back to shower. I tried to stay in doors for the rest of the day because the sun was so intense down there. That night, we went for beers with some people from our hostel…a Swiss girl, a German girl, an Italian guy who are all studying in Portugal and a Canadian girl who is working in Ireland.
We checked out of our hostel the next morning and tried to walk to the Olympic Stadium where they Olympics here in 1992, I believe. I made the mistake of giving Jackie the map and we got lost. So, we had just enough time to find our way back to the hostel for our bags and to get to the bus station to go to the airport and never made it to the stadium. We flew from Barcelona to Bremen, Germany that night. The flight was rough, we hit 2 air pockets which drops the plane a bit and it feels like the plane could crash. I hate flying, although I’ve gotten better with all the flying I’ve done since I’ve been here, but after that I was ready to get off. We met Greg in the airport because he and Jackie are going to Amsterdam and Paris and Marjukka (my tutor) her 2 friends and her mom, they were visiting her brother in southern Spain. We all stayed in the airport that night. One of Marjukka’s friends had a blow up chair for the water that we blew up and 2 people slept on. Marjukka’s mom was so lost in the airport because she only speaks Finnish and that was the first time she had ever left Finland. We flew from Bremen to Finland at 6:30am then took a train and a bus back to Jyvaskyla. Marjukka’s dad picked her, her mom and I up from the train station and he drove me to my apartment.
Overall, the trip was really nice. The weather was around 80-85 degrees and sunny the whole time!
Only 9 days left in Finland!
When I peaked in my mail box today I saw a stack of colored envelopes, which were all birthday cards! Thanks to everyone who sent one :)
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