Safe & sound

I'm so glad we all arrived home safe and sound!  I hope everyone had a great time, I know I did.  We still have most of out summer ahead of us so I know I am heading back to Madrid tonight for the rest of my summer and I know you guys have amazing plans as well.

Thank you for helping this trip be an enjoyable one with no issues whatsoever.  Later in the summer I will try to post some pictures of the trip, but I'll let you know when they're ready.

Have a great summer!

(My favorite picture from when we met with Paula and Natalia in Madrid, Global citizens... International connections... Bilingualism... Building bridges & Breaking borders   España   USA)

~Señorita Beheler

Figueras and Tossa del mar

Today was an amazing day to get outside Barcelona and see what real Cataluña looks like. 

We left at 8am and went straight to Figueras to go to the Dalí museum that he created for himself.  Let's just say that I for one was completely blown away.  Even though some of his better paintings weren't there, it was overwhelmed with so much talent in one space.

We then spent the afternoon at Tossa del mar, a smaller beach with rocky sand and perfect blue green water.  Salima and Taira had an amazing lunch from what they told me.  This beach was mch more appealing than Barcelona beach because 1) there weren't any pickpockets that we saw 2)not so many tourists 3) way less crowded.  Alberto was right when he told us we should wait to go to the beach until today.

We then had out last dinner as a big group and while we had originally planned to see the Magic Fountains, we decided against it because we have to wake at 3am tomorrow to go to the airport. That will be our perfect excuse to come back to Barcelona :)

Tomorrow will, therefore, be a busy one.  We have to change planes in Charles de Gaulle in Paris and from what I just checked out on weather.com, there shouldn't be any thunderstorms out to get us when we arrive.  We plan on smooth flying to Dulles arriving at 1:35 as planned.  Just follow the "arrivals" signs and park accordingly and meet us by the doors where we'll come out after customs.

See you soon! 

~Señorita Beheler

Exploring Barcelona a little more...

I am so glad that we decided to do the 2-day extension in Barcelona.  This morning, some of our group left to go home, after only having been in Barcelona just one day!  I am grateful that we got to spend an entire free day today in Barcelona and tomorrow we get to go to Figueras.

Sometimes when we have such extensive amounts of free time, it's easy to run out of things to do and to get bored, but not for us!  The same night we arrived to Barcelona all 3 of us sat down and decided exactly what activities we would possibly like to do during our free time in Barcelona.  That's how we were able to have such a rewarding and busy day today.

We started off the morning by waking up at 7:30pm, like normal, and planning to leave at 9am for our day.  We decided to go by La Boquería market on La Rambla street.  There were so many foods for us to see and lots of strange fish and candies for sale!  I decided to have a glass of Horchata, a famous milk-based drink from Valencia, and Salima got some fruit.

Afterwards, we went about walking about La Rambla and went to Carrefour, a French grocery store, to buy some lunch items to later make a picnic with.  After that, we went down to the Christopher Columbus statue and saw the sea.  We then took the metro to the Palace of María Cristina and went walking around taking pictures of Montjüic until we eventually walked around to Poble Espanyol, a small replic of a Spanish village that contains several different types of architecture styles in Spain.  It was interesting to see all together like that as one village.

After we finished that, we went down to the Plaza de toros that has been transformed into an indoor mall since Bullfighting has been banned in Cataluña.  It was so weird to think that the same mall floors that we were walking one were once used by bulls and toreros and matadores!

Finally, we came back to the hotel for dinner and after dinner we went to see the Sagrada Familia by night, and what a sight it was!

Looking forward to tomorrow and the Dalí museum and beach in Figueras!!

~Señorita Beheler

Barcelona!

How great it is to be in Barcelona!

We walked about 8-9 miles today and it was well worth it.  We started off with seeing some major attractions in Barcelona; Montjüic, La Sagrada familia, la Casa de Antoni Gaudí and la Rambla.  We also had a nice tour by Alberto through the Gothic neighborhood part of Barcelona.  We were able to have a real "Menú del día" as well in a restaurant I knew from before.

During free time, we helped Salima find a store to get a jersey and then entered La Casa Batlló, another amazing piece by Gaudí.  While the entrance was expensive, it was well worth it to see this house on the inside.  I wish I could live there!

We continued walking down El paseo de Gracia, famous for it's expensive shops, and we tried to see La Pedrera, or La Casa Milá, another work by Gaudí but it's covered in scaffolding.  We then stopped in La Casa del Libro where I bought a recipe book that Alberto calls "the Bible of the Spanish kitchen".  I'm looking forward to trying some new recipes!

Lastly we had dinner at Fresco, a buffet.  We giggled and laughed about the amount of ways the recipe book had to cook and egg and then we headed back to the hotel where we watched the USA Belgium game with the others in our group.

Looking forward to tomorrow, our last real day in Barcelona since the day after we will go to Figueras.

Until next time!

 

See our whole group below...

~Señorita Beheler

San Sebastián, Pamplona and an extra surprise!

Sorry about not being able to post yesterday!  It seems the internet was being a bit shady.

To talk a little bit about what we did yesterday, we had the amazing chance to go to the beautiful summer beach city, San Sebastián.  This town is so beautiful that it was considered the official vacation spot for the Royal family during the summer when it was too hot for them in Madrid.  We took a lovely tour of the city and while it was definitely a bit windy, we were still able to enjoy the sand and the beach.  The water was an amazing combination of blues and greens and purples it's hard to find pictures that really replicate it well.

We've been having a great time so far just hanging out us 3.  We get along with the other groups, but it's difficult to maneuver a group of 30-40 people much more so at least than 3.  Yesterday we had a fun moment when we were sitting in the plaza park of Sam Sebastián and eating frozen yogurt and just talking about things that make us laugh and silly puns.  I feel so grateful that I've had a chance to connect with these girls this way.

So a little bit about today.  Today was an insane day in the sense that we spent many hours on the bus and Salima and I both suffer from a bit of motion sickness. To help break the all together 7-8 hour trip up we made a couple stops along the way.

First we stopped in Pamplona!  Yes the famous city that we hear about every summer for the running of the bulls!  Don't worry though- the parties don't start until the 7th of July, so really we came at a perfect time to see them setting up, yet not have to deal with insane crowds.  It was very fun!

Before I continue talking about the day, first I have to backtrack a bit to two nights ago, when I talked to Alberto, our Tour Guide, about our big bus trip day (today).  We noticed that Zaragoza, a beautiful Spanish city, would be en route to Barcelona.  Now since it wasn't officially mentioned in the tour, Alberto couldn't guarantee me anything, but I'm the end we were able to work it out with Antonio, the bus driver, to stop for lunch in Zaragoza!  What a treat!  Although rushed, we were able to get a glimpse of the beautiful an historical Basilica of the Pilar for lunch! (See below)

Now, we have finally arrived in Barcelona and have a few busy days ahead of us.  It's nice to think we have 4 straight days in 1 hotel now too!  Tomorrow we get to see why this city is so popular!

~Señorita Beheler

Segovia, Burgos and Bilbao

We have had a few busy and exciting days here as we move up north along our path.  In Burgos we didn't have any internet access, so I was unable to post anything, but to summarize ill mention some of the main things we did:

We started out by waking up early and leaving lovely Madrid to head for Burgos. Halfway to Burgos, we stopped in Segovia, which is famous for its Roman aqueduct and alcázar that inspired Cinderella's (cenicienta) castle by Disney! We spent a good amount of time here and I absolutely love returning to Seovia every time I go.

We then proceeded to Burgos where we visited la Catedral de Burgos, a very unique cathedral that has many centuries of architecture incorporated into it.  Additionally, it just so happened that we had arrived on a special day for Burgos as they were celebrating their "Sampedros".  We were able to go back out after dinner to see giant paper mâché heads on stilts and even hear a great band, Anaconda, play near the plaza mayor.  They even played about 25 minutes worth of fireworks!

Then, this morning we headed to Bilbao. Bilbao was once a very industrial city that made most of it's money from producing steel.  When Spain entered the European Union, the Basque Country greatly suffered as it couldn't compete with the steel machinery in Germany, France and England.  Rapidly, Bilbao changed to a trendy city with lots of different types of buildings where they would let architects design whatever they felt was est.  We saw this evidently with the Guggenheim museum.

After a busy day at the museum, we had a tour show us the city from a mountain, but as we started to walk through the city, it started raining a lot!  We headed back to the hotel to wait out the rain. 

 In the meantime, we visited the local mall and walked around eating Spanish candy.  We then returned to the hotel for dinner where we watched the Brasil vs Chile game.  After dinner, we went to the movies to watch "Ocho apellidos vascos" a Spanish film that talks a lot about the differences between modern cultures in te south of Spain, Andalucía, and Basque Country, where we are now.  It was a romantic comedy and even though they spoke really fast, we were able to get the main idea.

Tomorrow we will head to the precious San Sebastián, that everyone, including myself, has been raving about!

Here's a picture of Salima and Taira playing in the arcade at the mall in Bilbao!

 

~Señorita Beheler

Free day in Madrid

So today is unfortunately our last day in Madrid :(!  We wanted to make sure we really were able to do everything we wanted to.

We started off the day by taking a 30 minute walk to Parque del retiro, a famous park here in Madrid.  We rented a boat and went out to the center of the lake and were able to see such fun views of the park.  We then continued down until we found El Palacio de cristal, a beautiful glass building that was showcasing an author.  Afterwards, we walked around and saw some statues and eventually were able to visit the indoor forest at Atocha train station.  After we saw what time it was, we decided to go back to Sol to meet up with Paula and Natalia, former English students of mine from last year when I was teaching English in Spain.

Paula and Natalia are from Alcalá de Henares, a suburb of Madrid, and birthplace of famous author Miguel de Cervantes.  We met them and went to eat Tostas for lunch where we tried tostas of jamón y queso, queso de cabra, foie and solomillo.  While we were eating, some people were recording for a Spanish TV show about restaurants in Madrid and told us we would be in the background of one of their episodes!

Afterwards we got some souvenir shopping done, and Salima got an authentic Real Madrid jersey for Bale for this upcoming season!! Looks great, but we questioned why Real Madrid would have hot pink has their team away colors...? Haha

Later, it started to rain so we came inside the hotel and talked about school, music, differences between the states and Spain, family and customs with Paula and Natalia.

As soon as it starts raining we will head out again to watch the USA vs Germany game and possibly get to see the Royal Palace.  Then we will meet up with our Tour director for dinner!

Here's a picture of all of us. It was really great being able to see my students that I missed so much from Spain and having them meet my new students from the states!

 

~Señorita Beheler