I'm Alive!

Um, so I may have disappeared for the month of March, but here I am again.

I've been traveling quite a bit recently... in fact, I realized that I had been on six airplanes in the past three weeks. I just returned to Barcelona a few hours ago from visiting Eva and Katherine in Madrid. Eva let me stay in her family's beauuutiful home and showed me around the city... quite nice. Katherine and I ran through the Prado during its free entrance hours, but I missed out on the Reina Sofia because it was closed. I guess I'll have to try again some other time. Madrid is polleny.

Last weekend, I went to Paris and had my first CouchSurfing experience. Xavier, a famous CSer, hosted me in his new apartment. He was super nice and I'm definitely looking forward to more (for some reason I just typed "mour") CouchSurfing this summer. In fact, I'm hoping to CouchSurf the whole two months I'll be hopping around Europe. If you didn't know, I plan on purchasing the 2 month unlimited Eurail Global Pass. It goes to 20 different countries... so I'll be able to visit a bunch of the UVM 2006 International Students... yay! Especially exciting because I had to miss the Reunion last month due to classes....

I spent seven hours in the Louvre. SO exhausting, but definitely worth it. I also visited the Musee d'Orsay and had supposedly "the best falafel in Paris". I'll admit it was quite good, as was the double chocolate eclair that followed it. Hung out with Rachel a bit too, which was fun.

Andddd, let's see. The week before that was Semana Santa (spring break). I went to Italy with Katherine and Kerry... we definitely had some adventures. We stated in Sicily (2 nights in Trapani and one in Taormina), then moved on to Naples and then Rome. We met friendly Sicilians in Trapani about our age who showed us around and taught us Italian, and new friends in Taormina (also travelers... same hostel): Fernanada from Mexico, Bruce from Ottawa, and Martin from Switzerland. Our Taormina hostel was a little crazy since it was the downstairs of a woman's house and she had a loud two year old boy, but it was fun anyway. I ate two oranges in Sicily, the first of which was the first whole orange I've ever eaten in my life, and the second of which was the second whole orange I've ever eaten in my life. Believe that? It's true.

The hostel in Naples (Hostel of the Sun) was fannnntastic. More new friends from all over (Romania, Austria, Portugal, and the US, including four guys from Brown University who know of Sylvanus)... I saw two of the guys from Brown in Paris last weekend... which was totally crazy and coincidental. While staying in Naples, we took day trips to Amalfi, Positano, Sorrento, and Pompeii. Really pretty coastal towns and some super-intact ruins (impressive) inhabited by stray dogs (kind of depressing). A great time had by all, despite Kerry's lost digital camera. She made due with disposables until we got back to Barcelona though.

Rome was a little less exciting. I was only there for a day and a half and it was totally rainy and cold. I'll go back in the summer to see things though (Vatican, here I come!). On my way back to Barcelona, I spent about five hours in a freezing room waiting for the Departures Zone to reopen at 4:30am. Not so fun.

Hmm, what else has happened? I'm taking a break from big trips until May 31st when I head off to Fez, Morocco. Until then, I'll be super-occupied with visitors from the US who are also studying in Europe.

I don't know what to say since I haven't updated in so long. Random things? Sure:

I met an English boy named Dean and we have plans to travel Latin America for a year after graduation (a completely unlikely plan, but it's nice to pretend). I made friends with four people from Switzerland last week (two of which I will maybe visit this summer... hooray!). Oh, here's something! I swam in the Mediterranean last week at the beach... at like 6:30pm = cold. It was only for a few minutes, but I'm definitely glad I did it. Peaches is coming to Barcelona at the end of the month and is playing at Razzmatazz. I want to run a marathon at some point in my life (ha). I really like learning languages. I think I learned a good amount of Italian while in Sicily and I want to keep it up. The Catalan class is moving slowly, which is lame, so maybe I'll do some self-teaching. I still am totally in love with the Art History class, which we have an exam in this Friday. I'll have to do a bunch of studying, but I'm actually kind of excited to take it which sounds totally absurd. I didn't think I'd ever want to take an art history class again, but now I know I'll be checking them out for Spring 09. Speaking of UVM, registration is this week and I don't know what to register for because I don't know how my classes will transfer. Also, I can't take Frank's painting class because it overlaps with an anthro class that I want. Kerry and I met some "Funky Cyclists" near the beach. They're those guys who ride the bikes with the little chariots or whatever on the fronts. The company is called Funky Cycle and its employees are from all over... we met people from Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Brazil, and Argentina. They're all (I think) in their 20s. Umm, that was a long and disorganized paragraph, so I'm going to stop here.

over&out
LAURA