Monday, December 29, 2008

My lovely little Florence

So the whole time in Spain I thought Blogspot was pretty lame for taking so long to upload the pictures. I would literally wait an hour! but now that i'm home, wow, it's a miracle! I can actually post pictures and post the blog in a matter of minutes. I love America.

Some of my favorite things in Florence, Italy!
1. Seeing how they "bury" their dead. Cement them into a wall? Didn't really know what to think about this.

2. Okay so kind of creepy/stalkerish but we saw 5 brides in Italy and all of them were Asian. Go figure!3. This place is BEAUTIFUL!!!! Pictures don't do it justice (like they never do, especially without photoshop)
4. The most amazing view of the city. There are at least 10 church steeples with bells at the top that we could see from here. And we were there when it turned 12 o'clock.
5. Of course our lovely statue of David. I tried to be appropriate and at least give the more silhouetted picture
6. The Orno river that runs through the town. Unfortunately it's brown and not blue but there's nothing that photoshop can't fix right?
7. Their tiny little cars!!! They are as long as normal cars are wide. Everything is midget size here. Their busses, cars, houses! I loved it!!
8. The Ponte Vecchio bridge was so cute and fun! It was my favorite bridge I saw and I found the perfect earings to buy for Rebbie in one of the jewelery shops on the bridge until I found out they were 300 Euros! Sorry girl!
9. A real candy apple!!!!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Oh Milan....

So Brittney and I started off our last adventure before coming home with the wonderful city of Milan, Italy. Sadly to say it was my least favorite city of all that I went to. That owes partly to the fact that I was never dry or warm the entire time I was there. But of course how can one complain when in Italy right? So going through 3 pairs of boots in one day trying to stay dry wasn't the happiest time but Britt and I still ventured out and had a lot of fun.

The Duomo is beautiful at all hours of the day but especially at night during Christmas!

The most memorable and exciting thing for me in Milan was seeing The Last Supper painted by Leonardo da Vinci. This is the building it is in and they keep it under very strict regulations. All sorts of timed doors you have to walk through and only 25 people are allowed in at once. Call me stupid but I never realized that the masterpiece was created on the wall. It was huge and simply beautiful!

Britt and I in front of the castle! (That is umbrella number 4, stupid wind!)


The Duomo by day!My First train ride experience! Part of dream of becoming Harry Potter felt like it was coming true.

There is a bull in the middle of this huge/expensive shopping corridor. They say it's good luck if you spin on your heel on his testacles. So we found the bull and tried our best to spin. The poor bull was all worn down!
I have a video of us spinning but it was taking way too long to upload so i'll try it again another day.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Paris again!

I am a spoiled little girl and was able to go to France again! This time with my parents and Treg. And again we had SO much fun and I didn't want to leave. It was quite freezing with lots of rain and wind but Paris is still beautiful no matter the weather! We definitely know how to make memories. Getting to our hotel from the airport with 5 over 50lbs bags by metro and train. Me and mom not making it on the train before the doors closed and just hoping that they knew where to get off. Tregan getting shut in the doors of the metro. Flying out of my seat from the conductor slamming on the brakes of the metro. Having a blackout on a metro. Breaking um...3 umbrella's I think it was. All in all, we'll definitely remember this trip!

That tree is real! It was huge and so beautiful in front of Notre Dame.
A view of Paris by night from the Eiffel Tower.
Just posing in front of the Ferris Wheel that's at the end of Champs-Elysees

So cute!!! Love them so much! I am so grateful for such amazing parents. We really had such a fun time and I owe it all to them!
Should she be a model? I sure think so. You could mistake her for a French girl in her cute little beret
Don't judge! We love the movie and of course had to see it in real life. It's much prettier in the movie of course but hey, it was still fun to see. And Treg was actually recruited for the show but she decided she better finish high school instead and then maybe think about it after. (pretend to not see the ugly trucks in the way of the beautiful picture)

Wish we could have seen the Hunchback but Notre Dame is still pretty sweet without him. My dad fell in love with his hat and said it kept him so warm. So then I decided to take it back to Madrid with me and i'm going to take it to Italy with me so don't be surprised if you see it in more pictures! hahaWe went to the Eiffel tower at least once everyday we were there! Treg and I love it so much! Well of course we all did! I don't think I could ever see it too much and not be in love with it!
So of course I probably have 100 pictures or so of this beautiful monument!
My lovely parents in front of the Arc de Triomphe!

I love my Fambam!!

I looked forward to my parents and lil' sis coming to visit me pretty much ever since I got here and the wait was definitely worth it because we had SO much fun! I seriously loved every minute of it. I felt pretty cool being able to show tourists around (because i'm definitely not one..haha) and to actually know what I was talking about for once! Here are tons of pictures to make you jealous of how much fun we had!

My parents trying to survive the jetlag. I couldn't help but take a picture of them sleeping on the bus.

Thanksgiving night we went to a Flamenco show! It was a lot of fun to see typical Spanish dances. And we had little slices of tortilla espanola, bread, and cheese for our "Thanksgiving Feast."
Can you read it? It's not very easy but it's love with Britt being the heart at the end! hahaHere is Palacio Real (Royal Palace.)

Our cute little fam bam in Toledo!
Treg stuck out like a sore thumb here being tall with blond hair and blue eyes which is very rare. But they love it and everybody stared at her without shame!
My spanish parents and my American parents! I love them both tons! We had so much fun with the Molina's. They don't speak much English and my parents don't speak much Spanish but they communicated tons somehow...go figure! We would sit at dinner and just laugh for hours!
This was SO beautiful! This picture doesn't do it justice!
Just before our night out in the city! We wanted to show Treg what Madrid was really about! ;)
There are a million more pictures but it is uploading SO slow so if I have patience then you'll get to see more!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

The Romance Capital!

There's definitely a reason why Paris is the Romance capital of the world and why it's the romance language....the French definitely know how to do it right! I had the funnest 4 days and really didn't want to go back to Spain this time. haha Okay I love Spain but I think I love France a bit more. We hit all the major sights and had tons of fun hanging out with French boys. My friend Amaury, from France, is the most generous person I have met and his friends were just as awesome, well almost! ;) They took us all around and seriously made our trip the best it could be. I definitely felt like I was in a movie when we were cruising around Paris passing the Arc du Triumphe, Champs-Elysees, Notre Dame, and other amazing things while listening to American rap songs at night with the windows rolled down and everybody singing at the top of their lungs. Oh and then hanging out at the Eiffel Tower eating Nutella chocolate crepes and teaching the boys how to pop, lock, and drop it. haha I'm definitely living a dream!

Chateau de Versaille. Huge. Gorgeous. Loved it.
Amaury! Love this French boy so much! The best tour guide!
Le Louvre. Felt like I was back in the Da Vinci Code
Le Louvre again!
DISNEYLAND PARIS!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm serious when I say the trip couldn't have been better!!
The Eiffel Tower (in case you couldn't tell.) My dream came true!

Arc du Triumphe. Huge. Beautiful.
Notre Dame. Huge. Beautiful. Loved hearing part of the Mass going on inside.
As you can tell I loved it all, thought it was all beautiful, and everything was huge. I can't wait to go back!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

A little adventure

Todays post isn´t that exciting but I loved today and took tons of pictures and wanted to post about it. Sorry if it´s not very interesting but enjoy what you may! :)

So Britt and I decided to go to Palacio Real (royal palace) to start off our day. It was amazingly decorated. Spanish design is incredible! It has a gaudy feel to it with tons of detail. They wouldn´t let us take pictures inside (lamo´s) so I don´t have any but every single room inside was picture worthy. All the ceilings were painted by various famous artists with tapestries or velvet or fabric covering the walls and matching tapestries everywhere. It was so intense and so fun to see.
We found a little restaurant to eat lunch and the sweet servers gave Britt and I a shot on the house. Oh I´ve never been in such a situation that I didn´t know what to do. Not in deciding whether or not to drink it, of course not, but we didn´t want to offend them and they were watching us! haha so we waited for him to walk away, hurry and emptied one of our water bottles, and poured the shots of junk into the bottle. haha we were laughing, and then he asked if we wanted another.¨Thank goodness I know how to say, ¨No más por favor!!After lunch we decided to discover Parque de Retiro a little more. Well we thought there was only a little more to see, having been there a couple times previously, but little did we know that we had only seen about 20% of it. It was so fun to walk through the park and get a little feel of fall. We found a few amazing buildings like this glass palace. There was a black swan in the water. Perfectly appropriate for Spain, it just fits right.
We found cute little bridges all over. This one was worthy of another famous Britt and Brie photo shoot. We also found a gorgeous rose garden. I think it would be the perfect place for a wedding reception (just stating a fact is all.) We found the famous statue of the fallen angel. Britt and I thought it was only appropriate for us to have a picture with it. Lame picture I know but this part of the park was called the exercise park. These people are sitting on the benches and there are bike pedals in front of them. Why not get a bit of exercise while chatting eh? haha it was the coolest thing i´ve seen!Does this look like Spain to you? Definitely doesn´t to me. I got a little itch for Costa Rica when I took this picture. It was beautiful!
The saddest thing happened on Saturday. The Molina´s house was broken into and they were robbed. Their alarm went off and the police were there 3 minutes later but the robbers were quick and they got away. They thrashed the parents room and stole all of Maria´s jewelry. I have never seen her sad before and I hope I never have to see it again. I felt horrible, they´re the sweetest people with the biggest hearts. They probably would have given it to the lame robber if he would have just asked because they´re that sweet!

I couldn´t resist to send a couple more pictures of these pants. What do you all think, should I bring this style home to the states?
I would have to confess that my favorite thing about Spain is their green grapes. I am literally addicted! The Molina´s are always sure to have them for me at their house every weekend. I could eat them all day and I would be in heaven. They taste so much different here and they´re SO much better than at home! I will definitely have withdrawals when I get home. Ever seen a bigger, more beautiful bundle of grapes? I certainly haven´t.
At 4:30 a.m.(that´s why I look so cute) on our way home we stopped at the ¨candy shop¨ aka pastry shop and knocked on the door to the back kitchen where the cooks were cooking away for the next days fresh pastrys and we bought a yummy little chocolate delight that came straight out of the oven. I like their style here.