Spring Break stop number 1 LISBON

Stop Number 1.. Lisbon!

Before we came to Lisbon, I had no idea what to expect and what was ahead of us, all I knew was that there was going to be a beach, and we were going to be wearing shorts and or speedos ;)
To start the trip off we land in Lisbon and make our way to our hostel called "Yes" this place was hands down the nicest hostel we stayed in so far this semester!  As soon as we unloaded all of our bags Ron and I made our way out into the city to explore Lisbon.  Think back from when you jump off anything really high... what are some of the few things you might hear... "canyon ball" or possible "Jeronimo", Well this is the actual Jeronimo Church and museum is there in Lisbon!  This is also where the saying came from!

Inside we learned about Alexandre Herculano, this guy was responsible for a lot of the history of Lisbon, and thanks to him this building was existing and the city was stable.  He was a poster child for Lisbon and did so many great things for them.  They actually have his tomb inside. 

As you walk into the Jeronimo you walk through two massive doors into this huge massive court yard, within all the walls and door ways there different rooms explaining the history of the queen and kings rooms and the history of Lisbon. 

 Ron and I had to do this quickly rush through Jeronimo because there was another part to this adventure, we had to spring accross the city pretty much to try and make it to the last standing castle Lisbon.  They were closing in 15 minuets and they said it was close to a 30 minuets away.   The whole run there I figured that this was going to be a huge tower, but come to my surprise, it was everything but haha.

Ron and I started to make our way back to the hostel when we came across this...

Not knowing what this huge statue looking thing was, actually I still don't know what it is... But we ran up to it.  I'm so glad we did because on both sides are massive carvings of what looks like to be a mixture of soldiers and men working on a boat, reason I liked these so much was because they were MASSIVE! The detail done to each individual one was amazing! 

Shortly after that Ron and I were starving and sat down at a little burger place, there Ron ordered a huge burger and I ordered desert for myself, I have a weakness for crepes and this is why!

  That night us six (Aaron, Spencer, Erik, Mike, Ron and I) did a pub crwal with everyone that was staying in the hostel, we ventured around with the group for a few hours and then decide to ditch the pub crawl and do our own thing, we wondered the streets for awhile and then made our way back to the hostel.  It was around 3-4 AM when we got home that fist night, and Ron and I both were waking up extra early the next morning to go on a free city tour of Lisbon.


The next morning, Ron and I both got up and headed down stairs to the main lobby and meet our tour guide.  For the first time she was not short!!  From there we ventured through Lisbon for almost...4-5 hours?  I wish I could put everything we saw in this blog but there is no way I have the attention-span or really the room the put it all in.  So here are some of my favorite things I saw on our walking tour.

(this is the back of a hotel after the terrible earthquake so many years ago, they re-build the front for show but this is what remains of the rooms)

(This is the only place I've seen that you are allowed to piss on the building in public, again look at the little guy from Brussels.) 

(If you aren't familiar with Banksy , he's an artist that goes around the world and finds funny situtations and makes art out of them, like this one!  He also does a lot when there is an empty beer bottle or alcoholic bottle on the ground he will draw up someone drunk next to it, making it look like they were there the whole time.)

After the tour was done, Ron and I headed to the second biggest oceanarium in the world.  But before we got there, we stopped at a casino, see Ron is only 20 and has never gambled before, so we went up to roulette table and placed a few bets.  We hung out at the Casino for about an hour and then decided to cash out, Dad you will love this.  I came out 25 euro richer which now with the new stupid euro jump is around... close to 50 american?  As we left the casino all chirpy and pockets full of cash we arrived to the oceanarium.

Inside I feel in love with my new favorite animal, the otter! to me these guys are Monkeys in the water.  And everyone knows that Monkeys are the coolest animal in the world!

on the 3rd and final night in Lisbon all six of us went to the beach, but before we made our way there we went to what now is my favorite monument and or museum if you want to call it that.  Portugal was discovered before Brazil, but the founders of Brazil were Portuguese, this RIO look alike called the Sanctuary of Christ the King.  This monument is massive, it looks over all of Lisbon and was what they said a key to protecting them through WW II.

 

Then... it was off to the BEACH!!

 Here we are heading to the airport... Next stop BARCHA!

Sensation!

I thought that this needed it's own post, even though we went to Sensation in Belgium, this was the most epic night of my life!

The roommates and I arrive at Hassle around 10:00 pm, the concert starts at 11:30 and goes until 7:00 am.  I have been to parties that go that long, and I've thrown parties that go that long.. But, NOTHING! Compares to this night!

For those of you who don't know what Sensation White is... here's it is in a nutshell... Everyone has to wear white, you want to look goofy and out of the loop.  It's an event to celebrate life, they had a few famous DJ's playing throughout the night that everyone in the building knew expect me.  I'm not into "house music" at all, it's OK here and there, but personally I don't really like it, and being played for 9 hours I wanted to shoot myself in the head!

This is what it looked like from the inside, I had to pull a few of these off the internet but they were all from the Sensation that we went to.

(Ron before we left for Sensation) 

Needles to say, that night was insane and fun as hell, the train ride back though... Not so much.  It's an hour and half train ride back to Brussels, we had to get back to Hotel, pack, if there was time nap, and then check-out all within a few hours.  We managed to swizz through it without a problem, headed back to the train station and went to the airport.  From there once again we headed to Roma tired as hell, but exited to go back to Rome.

Belgium!

It's been awhile since my last post, and since then a lot has happened!

Once we landed in Belgium, 6 very tired roommates were told that there was a train that would take them from the airport, to the city center (where our hotel was) as these boys walked off the plane, into the lobby, and out the front doors... They soon found out there was no such thing, and that you could either take a charter bus for 10 euro that takes over an hour to get to the city center, or pay a taxi an absurd amount of money to arrive at the same place.  Of course these tired roommates took the hour + long bus ride to Brussels, Belgium....

Before we all landed in Belgium we were told by our teachers and friends that there wasn't anything to do in Brussels or Hassle.  They were all completely wrong!  I mean come on when your city has a random HUGE horn in the middle of the streets... It's got to be legit!

After some funny pictures taken here, we head to our hotel to drop our bags off and take a quick nap.  Brussels is a very long and confusing neighborhood when you don't know your way around, it took us about an hour?  To find our hotel tucked back behind an enormous building, as we approached the building all of us thought the same thing, "We are so screwed!"  The front of this hotel looked like it was  was from the ancient Rome area, it was covered in black...gunk, the windows had bars on them as if this place use to be a prison, and there were homeless people just sleeping outside on benches near our place.  We were all soon shocked as we walked into the hotel to see the room open up like a show was about to begin.  The building was newly painted and smelt great inside.  Still a little confused we walked up to the front desk to check in.  We were greeted nicely and then headed to our rooms.  Spencer, Aaron and I were sharing one room while Ron, Erik, and Mike were in the other room directly one floor above us.  To our surprise the room was enormous, the room had three huge beds, a massive TV (which came in useful so we could hear what was going on in Japan during the earthquake) and we all had a ton of room to throw our cloths around.  

We napped for a few hours to catch up, around three or four o'clock we head to the main square of Brussels.  One thing that Belgium is famous for is their Belgium Waffles.  Well another thing you might not know is that Brussels holds the statue of the little kid holding his... yah and peeing?? If you've seen this is other peoples front yards or what not, it came from here and this is the original one!  The only weird thing about it, is that it's a tiny statue, you'd think that it would be massive but it's not at all!

Right after we were finished taking more pictures, I ran straight to the nearest waffle stand and ordered myself this!

Trust me when I say that, this was the greatest desert EVER!  I also had a selection from these...

Shortly after that, Ron and I ran across the other side of the street one again to stuff our faces with some fresh home-made Belgium Chocolate.

See Mom and Dad, I told you I was putting my money to good use, HEHE!

For the next few days we spent our time in Brussels, we were still waiting for Saturday to come so we could make our way to Hassles to go to Sensation.  But before we left for Hassle we spend the first two nights bar hopping in Brussels.  The night life was great there, lots of Irish Pubs, regular bars, etc.  They all loved americans (which was a huge relief) and we all had a great time!  One of my favorite things about Brussels is on a nice day you could get a good book, bottle of wine and prop yourself down in the square and enjoy the amazing church and buildings. (No I didn't do this or had the desire to, it's just what everyone was doing there)

Day trip to Naples

The day started off at 7:30 AM, when Ben and I headed towards our campus to catch the bus.  By the time we reached the streets from our apartment, we thought that we would have enough time to go ahead and try a new route.  This lead to us getting lost in our own neighborhood and close to being late to catch the bus.  But, we show up around five minuets late and surprisingly we are the first ones on the bus for once.  After about a thirty minuet wait for everyone is on the bus and we head about two hours south to Naples, the third largest city in Rome.  

Before we arrived to Naples I knew little about it, all I heard were stories about how amazing the pizza is.  For those of you who don't know Naples is known for the best pizza in the world.... I would have to agree on this one!

Once we arrive to Naples, we meet up with our, once again SHORT tour guide.  From there we are taken all over Naples, I wish we were able to take pictures of the places we went into, but I'm slowly finding out that Rome is one of the only places in Europe you can take pictures almost anywhere.  From there we were taken to a few museums and walk around for close to an hour.

Later in the afternoon our tour guide says goodbye to all of us, the CEA guides took us to what was suppose to be one of the most famous pizza places in Napoli.  

The place was amazing, but the only problem was that we were ordering for 30 people.  Meaning that the quality of the pizza wasn't the best, but still amazing!

We all were given our own personal margarita pizza and a choice of a drink, I worked at an Italian Pizza place for a second, there is nothing like a true Italian pizza!

After pizza we received a gift from CEA and headed back to the bus.  From there we went back to Rome to enjoy the rest of our weekend!

There was a lot I like about Naples, but at the same time the town was really small and pretty sketchy.  There were stories floating around on how easy it was to pick-pocket you.  All of us were on our toes and at one point there was a time we thought a guy on a scooter was going to attempt it.  Naples all together is really dirty, there was graffiti all over ancient statues and churches.  Something that Rome does not have at all.  There was almost zero respect for the city all together. 

Now that I can cross Naples off my list, I never plan on going back there! 

Bloody Hell It's London Babbby YaHH!!

 Just before I start everyone should re-watch the Austin Powers movies... Just saying
ALSO MY PICTURES FOR SOME REASON WILL NOT DRAG WHERE I WANT THEM TO, I'LL FIX IT A BIT LATER...

London,

I hate waking up early more than anything in the world; I really hate waking up early and hearing your roommate say, “I need to shower and pack still”.  Those were Ron’s exact words at 7:30 AM the day we were suppose to leave for London.  Knowing he was going to do this would have been great to know the night before.  Right off the bat I was grumpy and off to a semi bad start.  Our plan was to be out of the apartment by 7:45 to catch the Metro that would take us to the train station… Well we left our apartment around 8:15 AM and rushed to the Metro.  When we arrived to the waiting dock it looked China town, it was so crowded and busy, everyone was trying to rush to work at the same time we are trying to rush to the airport.  As the train arrives Ron and I notice two things, 1) The train is already packed full of people in every single cart, 2) no one is getting off and there are probably close to another 50-70 people trying to get on.  Ron managed to squeeze his way on to the train, I didn't have the same luck, while trying to force myself on, some huge Italian with a PaulyD haircut freak, with braces shoved me off the train as the doors were shutting.  Great this day is really starting off bad, now I had to wait around five minuets for the other train, and Ron had no idea I was shoved off.  There is no reception to call Ron underground, so the hell with it time to roll with the punches.  Once I arrived at Termini, Ron was waiting for me at the exit, I didn't even try and explain how PaulyD shoved me off the train, and we sprinted up stairs to the trains, but on our way up there we thought it would be a good idea just to pay to take a taxi.  In Rome, most cabs will have a fixed rate when you are going to the two airports in Rome.  We pay the cab driver 30 euro to take us to the first airport, Ciampino.
We get to the airport with no bordering passes printed out, and about… 45 minuets to spare before we have to board our plane.  We stand in line for about 10 minuets before I walked around the corner and saw a bright orange sign that read “Easy Jet help desk”.  I walk over and ask the lady a few questions.  She spits Italian at me so fast I just gave her a blank stare like I just might have crapped my pants.  I run back to line and grab Ron to talk to her.  After they start conversing I catch a phrase from her saying “you’re the wrong airport” and my heart drops, along with all the color in Ron’s face.  This day is really starting off well.  We spring outside to the taxi corner and tell the driver we need to make it to the other airport within 30 minuets and we will tip him extra if he does (in Italy you don’t tip cab drivers, waiters, etc. I love it) he says he will try and off we go.
About two miles into the trip I see him turn off the meter, I mention it to Ron, without a minuet hesitation Ron snaps on the guy asking him why he turned it off.  Long story short the driver said “Because you asked me to hurry you have to pay 70 Euros” At that point I told him to pull the damn cab over and I’ll pay him 5 Euros for the trouble.  But we stayed in the cab, we didn't really have a back up plan if we really got out of the cab.  While I was threatening the cab driver if we didn’t make it there in time I wasn’t paying him a cent, he casually laughed at me and never looked back at me... Oh not to mention that Ron has zero cash on him and he was planning on paying me back when we got to London… Thank god I had enough on me because when we go to the airport we had 10 minuets before the plane left, the driver did his job.  In two cab rides I’ve dropped 100 euro and we haven’t even made it to London yet!
We sprint towards the check in desk and notice that there is no line to check in, but the security line is huge, right away I gave up, I knew there was no way we were going to get in.  Ron insisted we try so I let him have a go out at it.  The lady behind the desk laughed at us and told us we missed the flight and there was nothing else we could do besides by another ticket.  Ron and I with our heads held low and tails between our legs make our way to the customer help desk and asked how much a one way to London was and when the next flight was.  The lady was a total sweet heart, and thank god for Ron’s sake, I’ve never missed a flight before, I just spent a ton of money, and I was grumpy from this morning… Not a good start to the day.  Everything though worked it’s way out, the one way ticket was 70 euro, Ron paid for mine while taking all the responsibility of going to the wrong airport so this too helped me calm down quite a bit.
Finally at 3:00 PM we are on our flight heading to London.  We arrived in the Gatwick airport in London around 5:40 PM and headed straight to the “London Eye”.

I didn’t know a lot about the history of London, I only really knew about Shakespeare, a little bit about the Parliament, and the London Bridge off of the top of my head.  Speaking of that the famous “London Bridge” it is no longer in London… Dang thing is in Arizona, so that song growing up now makes so much more sense… that was dumb, but anyways….
The London Eye was amazing, you walk up to this ferry wheel type of machine and when it’s your turn, you walk from this plat form into this huge… bubble? And surrounding you is a pexy glass shield, there are little note cards stands placed throughout the bubble that explain different buildings as you go higher and higher.

  My favorite thing I saw when we were at the peak was Parliament.  The Big Ben and Parliament stood out more than anything else did in London without a doubt, I placed myself in the corner where the Parliament was wasn't ready to move any time soon.

After the London eye Ron and I made our way to his friends apartment where we jumped on the “tube”, going off track here for a second, I only wish that all metro or trains were called the tube!  It was really funny saying I’m riding the tube, or meet you at the tube…. Just a little fun fact.
That night we were told we were going to one of the nicer clubs in London, so Ron and I threw on our party pants and hit the town, not going to lie we were looking good!  The club was similar to most clubs in Europe, but you weren’t aloud to take pictures inside which I found kind of stange?  That very night they had a few special guests hanging out in the back…. American Porn stars, it was really funny actually watching them pose for pictures and do little lame photo shoots (none of them were naked) but!! The club was fun we were all dancing for awhile and getting a good laugh out of the photo shoot going on behind us.  After a few hours of that though Ron and I were spent from a long stress full day so we made our way back to the apartment with everyone around 3:30 AM and crashed square on the floor.
The next morning we woke up around 9:00 AM and were out the door with Kelsey, Alex, Ron and I around 10:30 AM.  First that day we went to the Victoria and Albert museum (Albert is the main character in the Kings Speech) we spent around 2 1/2 hours there, We skipped more than half of it and explored in the modern art more than anything. There we saw Raphael’s art work.  I was shocked at these paintings and art work, I've only seen pictures of this place and here it was the real deal right in front of me.  I wasn’t suppose to take this picture but guess what… I did it!

  
After the museum we went to a well-known pub that serves the best fish n’ chips in London.  It was the first time I’ve ever had fish n’ chips, and I won’t lie… I really liked it!  It’s been a long time coming but I’m really coming around to liking fish, so this summer I’m busting my butt to start liking fish so I can work off this pasta gut that is slowly developing day by day.  After we finished our Guinness and fish n’ chips we walked through a park and made our way to my girlfriend’s house.  Buckingham Palace!

 
  As we walked up to the golden gates we noticed that the flag was raised as high as it could go up the pole, meaning that the queen was inside, waiting for me to come pay her a visit!  We took a few pictures and spent about 20-30 minuets walking around the gates and looking at the huge sculpture in front of the palace.  The Buckingham Palace is awesome, hands down one of the coolest thing I saw in all of London.

  
  We headed back to apartment to shower and get ready for dinner. Kelsey and Josh took Ron I to a sketchy ally where we were suppose to find some of the best Indian food in London.  Josh started bargaining with some random dude at the corner to get a deal on dinner.  We walked into an Indian restaurant and for 7 pounds each we had a great filling meal and two drinks of your choice!  There’s a way to do that here in Rome, but we are at a disadvantage when you can't speak the language fluently; it's not even fun to try and and attempt it.  but Josh nailed this dude to a deal like no other!  Instead of going out that night we all decided to take it easy and head to one of the local pubs that was close by their apartment.  Ron and I each had two beers and were about to fall head first onto the table we were so tired.
Next day around the same time from the morning before we head for Parliament, there we met up with Josh again for a grand tour.  Josh works next door to the Parliament, and from their Josh took us on a “FREE” tour of the Parliament.  Josh you did one hell of a job, not only did he take us on a tour of it all for free, he told us what really goes on in the court rooms, for his job he prepares speeches, writes arguments, etc for his boss.  When it all comes down, his boss all argue in the Parliament office and do all their work in there.  It’s to bad that they don’t let you take pictures inside the Parliament because the place was amazing!!  It made me want to watch V for Vendetta one more time because of that!

 
After the Parliament we made our way to St. Paul's church.  Again you weren't aloud to take pictures inside the building.  It really is to bad because as you walk into the church you are blown away from all aspect in the room.  You are surrounded by gold, sculptures, tombs, and thousands of people.  We pay for a audio guide of the church and begin our journey.  There are 5 main things you have to do when you go to St. Paul's 1) you walk around the main lobby area, here you see amazing paintings on the walls, paintings of all the saints that protect the church are painted in order to surround you, it makes you feel like you're always being watched.  2) You climb a flight of stairs and go to the "whispering hall" where you sit against a wall and you whisper anything you want into this tiny hole, and from more than 100 yards away if the other person is leaning against the wall they can hear what you are saying. 3) you climb more stairs and come outside, here you see a great deal of London and the buildings surrounding it. 4) you climb more stairs, and remember you have to come down still too, it was one hell of a work out.  But you go to the top of St. Pauls' and from here you see double from what you just saw moments ago.  5) you return to the main lobby and head to the basement where Prince Albert himself is buried and his tomb rests high on a solid marble base.  Before we left, I was able to catch the tail end of mass.  I was the only catholic out of the group of friends I was with and asked them if we could just stay for a few more moments... Made me feel like a good Catholic!
    

After St. Pauls we head to a little sushi joint across the street to relax and get our legs back before we headed to the Globe Theater.  At the Globe Theater you get to see the stage where Shakespeare himself once acted and directed his plays.  We were lucky enough to watch the rehearsals of Hamlet; we were only able to watch I think five minutes of it.  As we stood up to leave the Globe, I really didn’t want to leave, we were all ready to tell everyone to “piss off” so we could watch the rest of rehearsals but there was no way around it.  Shortly after we left the theater, the guided showed us the way out.  Sadly we were rushed out of the Globe.

After the Globe we jumped onto the TUBE (hehe) and make our way into the heart of the city once again.  We walked down the street and through a few alleys before we came across a sign that read

That's right we went on a tour through Benjamin Franklin's house!  We were so stoked thinking that this house was going to be massive or have all sorts of gadgets laying about... We were very mistaken.  As you walk into the house they seat you in a tiny room to watch a 5 minuet video about Ben.  From there you are escorted by a lady that is dressed up like they did in the days of Ben.  This lady played a roll of Ben's best friend growing up and possibly his mistress, she took us room to room explain what happened in each room.  But after I think it was third room, we all noticed how bad she hated her job and how miserable she was.  Showing people empty rooms and watching short little clips a day had to get old after awhile.  This tour took around 45 minuets and we were all starving once again!  Ron and I asked Kelsey what the plans were for dinner and with a big smile she yelled "China Town".  Finally!  Food that isn't pasta or pizza, not to mention I miss Chinese food a lot!

After dinner, we made our way to a theater where we had bought tickets before dinner to see Million Dollar Quartet…. I won’t lie; this was still hand down one of the coolest plays/shows/anything I’ve witnessed on a stage!  I remember growing up being a huge fan of Elvis, Jonny Cash, Jerry Lewis and Carl Perkins, this show was one of a million.  You will have to go look it up to see more about it cause I could write for days about this show.  I loved every minuet of it.  I suggest everyone see it, great music, great dancing, and great entertainment!

After the show we once again went back to the apartment, being tired as hell, I bought Kelsey and their roommates a few bottles of wine for being amazing hosts to us and taking such care of us.  That night we cracked a bottle open and before I even took a sip of the 8 pound bottle of wine, I was head nodding in a small awkward half circle red chair.  After my chin smacked my chest I shot straight up, after realizing what I had done still half asleep, I realized how awkward the situation I just caused came about, I looked at everyone and then thanked everyone once again for everything and headed to bed.

The next morning Kelsey walked Ron and I to the Easy Bus stop, from there we said our final good-byes and sat on a tiny bus that took us for an hour bus ride to the airport.  Ron and I made it on time, went through security like a glove and made it to our gate about 15 minuets early.  This worked out perfect because on easy jet you get to pick your seats as you walk on to the plane.  Ron and I placed ourselves on the back of the plane; I dove into my new book (run away jury by John Grisham, this being my 3rd book I’ve read by him since this fall).

As we landed in Rome there was a massive thunderstorm brewing and rain was slowly starting to trickle down.  There was part of me that wanted to go back to London right away, I definitely could settle with a good job and live there for the rest of my life.

Next trip… Not sure yet!