Also, I just typed up the LONGEST journal entry ever from Barcelona which you can find a few posts down… I still have to type up my journals from Paris and Dublin. (I sadly never wrote about my time in London…)

It rained in Dublin the entire time we were there. It was kind of disappointing, but we still had fun. We went out to Irish Pubs and drank Irish beer… ordered big juicy hamburgers, and we spent a day touring the Guinness Factory. We met some nice guys from the USA who went out with one night. It was fun.

I LOVED London. It was much colder than Barcelona and Paris, but we did get a couple partly sunny days so it was bearable. We took a double decker bus tour all over the city, walked through Kensington Gardens, rode the London Eye, and I went to a Jason Mraz concert! The only bad thing about London was the pound because the exchange rate was sooo horrible for us. Everything was twice as much when converted back to US dollars. I could definately live there someday though… or in England. The people are so friendly and easy going, and I adore the accent.

But anyways, the two weeks of traveling was absolutely amazing. I had such a great time and I will always remember it.

Now I’m just really excited to get back home and see everyone… tomorrow!!! I can’t wait!

Paris is lovely. I really like it. Its very big though and we’ve had to take the subway everywhere. Yesterday it was beautiful outside and we took a nap under the Eiffel Tower. We also visited Notre Dame and all the other famous sites here. Last night we climbed the Eiffel Tower and overlooked Paris at night… breaktaking! Once we were back down there was a light show which made the Eiffel Tower all glittery and sparkley. I can’t describe to you how pretty that was!

We are hitting up the Louvre tonight, and heading to Dublin tomorrow afternoon. I’ll update again soon when I have more time!

Love to everyone, Jess

As we were walking down La Rambla, we found a Starbucks and went crazy. In the past 5 months I’ve only had one coffee that took me more than 4 gulps to finish and that was at the Starbucks in Frankfurt. So we got our grande cappuccinos, latttes, and mocchiatos and sat down to plan our day. We saw quite a bit, too. We walked through Royal Court, saw the famous column at the end of La Rambla, walked through markets, went to the marina, and did a little shopping all before lunch. In the mall by the Aquarium (where I bought a couple pairs of pants) I was waiting in line for the ATM when I saw three cute surfer looking boys walk by. One with dark curly hair especially caught my eye and I went over to Nikki and Emily to point them out… but they had already disappeared somewhere. We got lunch at a fast food sandwich place called Pans. We were going to go to the Aquarium after, but we read the sign wrong and thought that the admission was 35 euro each. Instead we went to the city park, which turned out to be absolutely incredible. I actually liked it better than Villa Borghese. There was a lake with row boats just like Villa Borghese, but there was also the most beautiful fountain complex that I have ever seen. I was kind of obsessed with it. We sat in the sun for quite awhile after wandering the park and talked about boys… and watched a few cute Spainard boys play soccer nearby. Once we left the park we saw the Arch of Triumph, which was bigger than all of the aches in Rome.

We were supposed to meet up with Jaci for dinner, but we couldn’t get a hold of her so we assumed she had ditched us for a boy and went back to our hostel to get ready. We talked for awhile with a girl staying in our room named Polly. She was from England but had been traveling around for the past 6 months. We invited her along to dinner with us and we went to La Rambla to find a restaurant. We were going to order a bunch of tapaps, but the restaurant that we settled on didn’t have very many. Instead, I shared a pinapple and shrimp pizza with Emily. We also ordered a pitcher of sangria. Polly was an interesting girl… she told us about her attraction to girls even though she apparently had a boyfriend back home.

After dinner we went back to the hostel to use our free drink coupons at the bar and check our email… and in the lounge/bar was the three guys I had seen at the mall. The four of us were sitting at a table drinking our beers and all I could do was stare at the dark curly haired boy across the room. When I started feeling a buzz, I plotted our how I was going to meet him and followed through with my plan. The plan consisted of going up to the room to get my deck of cards, and then ask the boys if they’d like to play cards with us because we didn’t have enough people. (Lie.) So, I did it and they came over to our table as I had hoped. The dark curly haird boy, who introduced himself as Ben, sat right next to me. So we all talked, played drinking games, and got quite drunk. I bought 3 pitchers of beer for the table and spent all the money I had in my wallet doing so. The group got larger and larger as girls from France joined us, a guy from Australia came over, and then other people that I never ended up meeting joined the party as well. This is where my memory starts to get a little blurry because somehow I became engaged into quite a long conversation with Ben, went outside with him to smoke, and then we started making-out.

All of our friends had disappeared or gone to bed so we decided to take a walk all over Barcelona. After going through the fountains in Catalunya, walking down La Rambla, and toying with the idea of sneaking into the marina, we finally ended up at the beach. We sat there kissing and talking until the sun came up. I taught him how to sign his name in sign language, we talked about what we wanted to name our kids someday, and he did the most hilarious Forest Gump impressions. We also discussed our mutual love for Hugh Grand and the moving Knotting Hill. It seemed that we had just about everything in common. After it was completely light out, we got up to leave when I realized my purse was gone. At some point during the four hours we were there, someone stole my purse which was right next to me and neither of us noticed. It was quite a disappointment to say the very least. My whole life was in there–my wallet (w/ money, credit cards, drivers license, international ID, and train ticket), my piccell phone which they are now trying to charge me $170 for “losing,” my Italian sunglasses that I loved, and worst of all, my digital camera and all the pictures I had taken in the past week. I was crushed… and pissed. But when Ben started to blame himself for it being stolen, I had to be a good sport and prove to him that it wasn’t the end of the world. And it really isn’t… it’s very unfortunate, annoying, expensive (to replace everything), and inconvenient, but certainly no the end of the world. In fact, I was very determined not to let it ruin my trip, or my time in Barcelona. He held my hand the entire way back to the hostel, stopping every few minutes to kiss me. If I hadn’t been in total shock about having my purse stolen it would have been a fairytale. And it kinda was anyway.

We got back to Centric Point where they made me a new key and cut the lock off my locker for me, and Ben kissed me goodbye and we went to our rooms. Except, I forgot to tell him that I was changing hostels for the night and had to be checked out by 10 am. I got to my room and fell asleep for about an hour before Nikki woke me up for breakfast and I had to tell her and Em the dreadful news. They actually both overslept because Nikki got quite sick the night before and we didn’t have time to eat before checking out. I really wanted to tell Ben where I was going to be before I left, but he was passed out and didn’t answer the door when I knocked. So instead I left him a message at the front desk hoping he would see the list of messages and ask for it. We were all tired, grumpy, and hungry as we left for the Sea Point Hostel by the beach. We didn’t have good directions and ended up walking at least 20 minutes out of our way before we figured out how to get there. It was miserable to walk so much when I hadn’t slept, hadn’t ate, and was carring a very heavy pack on a hot morning.

We finally found the place, but had to wait nearly half an hour to check0in. Once we were in our room, I immediately changed into my suit and went to the beach. We spent several hours there and I did my best to get a little bit of sleep in the mean time. I eventually got too antsy and went in to shower. To be honest, I wasn’t really in the best shape for most of the day. I was delirious from not sleeping and barely eating, and I was pretty upset about my purse being stolen… and I was worried I wouldn’t see Ben again because I had lost all my picatures of him as well as his contact information which was all in my purse. I just wasn’t very happy and for the first time in 5 months of being in Europe, I felt completely helpless. I spent a lot of time on the internet trying to get all my cards canceled, my phone turned off, and checking to see if Ben had got my message and emailed me… but I wasn’t having much luck with anthing. Em went outside with me to get some air at one point and within a minute of two we were interrupted by a couple Spanish boys who didn’t know any English. Using as much Italian and Spanish as I knew, as well as hand gestures, I told them my sob story and why I was only feeling “asi-asi.”

Since Jaci was staying at this hostel, we met up with her and the boys (plural) that she met the night before. (The reason why she ditched us at dinner.) But they were actually really nice guys and we went out to a big dinner of tapas with them… which was great, but it seemed as if nothing could lift my spirits. After dinner I was desperate to go back to Centric Point to talk to Ben, and I sort of suckered the others into stopping there on the way to the Magical Fountains, even though it really wasn’t on the way at all. Luckily Ben and Malcolm were sitting right outside the hostel when we got there and I was able to take pictures and get there info. They said they were going to a bar on La Rambla called Black Sheep of something and invited me along, but I didn’t really want to leave the others and I wasn’t really in the mood for a crazy bar night. So we invited them to our beach bonfire before we left, and they said they would come later, althought I really didn’t think they would. We left to go to the Magical Fountains, which was closed, and instead took a cab back to the hostel to have our bonfire. However, I made the mistake of laying down on my bed and didn’t get up for the rest of the night. But to be honest, a good night’s sleep was what I really needed.

The next morning I woke up feeling refreshed and quite a bit better than the day before. We got breakfast, checked out, and went back to the metro to go back to the Centric Point for our last night. I was really happy that almost as soon as we got there I saw Ben at the reception desk–finally getting my message–and checking out. But their flight home wasn’t until late so he told me hed meet me in the lounge. I went up there to check my email and about 10 minutes later he joined me. We sat on the couch talking and looking at a map of Barcelona until NIkki and Em came in. We had plans to go to the “melting cathedral” and the Gaudi Park that day, so I invited Ben and the others along. Malcolm was too hungover and Alex was fighting with his girlfriend on the phone so only Ben came. He was wonderful company and I loved listening to his adorable British accent all morning. (Oh yea, I forgot to say that he’s from England, as are Malcolm and Alex.) We went to the cathedral, and then to the park. The cathedral wasn’t very exciting to be honest, but the park designed by Gaudi was pretty cool. There was a beautiful view of the city from up top. We were there for quite awhile walking around, and it was extremely hot. Afterwards we were going to try to find the Gaudi Museum/House place but it took us a long time to find a metro. When we did, we got off at the stop by our hostel to figure out where we had to go. But I didn’t really care that much about going so when Ben said that he would pass, I did too. Ben had his heart set on buying these linen tie around trousers that he saw the day before, so we set out to find them. However, he absolutely could not remember where the shop was that sold them… so we spent quite awhile looking. I really enjoyed spending the one-on-one tome with him because he’s such a fun guy and he was constantly making me laugh from his stories and cute British lingo.

We came across a pub called the Travel Bar, which Ben had heard a lot of good things about and when he saw the sign for “full English Breakfast served all day” he nearly melted into a puddle of himself and we went straight in. He loved the place and bought us 2 pints of beer so we could stay awhile. Ben was interested in everything I had to say and told me so. He said I was different and special because I had a story, and that was more than he could say for most people. If its not already obvious, I adore this boy. I haven’t liked someone so much since Scott, and that says a lot. I’m really frustrated about the fact that I may never see him again. Not only is he from England, but he’s moving to France to be a chef at a resort. Then he wants to go to school. He’s wonderful thought, and he made my time in Barcelona one of the most memorable times I’ve ever had… in a good way. Being with him made the whole purse situation not as bad. After we finished our drinks we tried for a little longer to find the shop, but had to call it quits when it was nearly 6 pm. He had to get back to the hostel to meet up with Alex and Malcolm, and then go to the airport. We walked back and he told me that he was so happy to have met me and that if he wasn’t moving to France in two days he’d probably miss his flight and stay longer. They had to leave pretty soon after we got back, and after a huge and a kiss on the cheek he was gone just like that. But he left me smiling as big of a smile as I’ve had in awhile.

Just a few minutes later Em and Nikki got back from the Gaudi Museum. We all checked our email quickly and then went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. All I could talk about was Ben. Haha. I had wanted to go on the Pub Crawl that night but we were at dinner for too long and missed the meeting time. So instead we bought some cheap Sangria and went back to our room and talked. We did go down to the bar eventually but left after a few minutes because we decided not to drink anymore. We talked a little longer and then went to bed. The next morning we got up in plenty of time to get ready, pack, and eat breakfast before we had to check-out. We left our luggage in the luggage room and then went ot hte Picasso Museum. It was really cool. I’m not always that interested in art museums but I enjoyed myself. Especially in the room with the works from Picasso’s horny period. Quite funny. Afterwards we bought bread and cheese from the huge market on La Rambla to have lunch. It was quite rowdy in there because everyone was getting pumped up for the championship game that night. (Barcelona was in it against a team from England.) We had our lunch in the grass in Catalunya before heading back to the hostel to get our things. I check my email really quick before we left and I had one from Ben. It said that he had a lovely afternoon with me that day and he thought about me most of the way home. That boy sure knows how to make me melt… but I think he does it without trying.

But anyways, we left for the bus station with our packs and said goodbye to Barcelona. THere was not a bus going until 5:00 so I tried to get a police report before we left but had a hell of a time finding the station and gave up. So that’s about it… Barcelona was amazing. Having my purse stolen was annoying, but it definately didn’t ruin my time there. ANd meeting and spending time with Ben was nicer than I could ever say. I hope the next three cities are able to live up to Barcelona, although, I’m not sure if that is even possible. <3

My purse got stolen on the beach this morning. It had my wallet and my digital camera. It really really sucks, but I’m thankful that my passport wasn’t in there… I was just sitting or laying on the beach with my purse right next to me and someone just walked by and picked it up when I wasn’t looking. It’s crazy how easy it is to lose your most important posessions. There one minute, gone the next. Nikki’s helping me out with money until my parents can send me some. And I’ll just take pitures on Nikki’s camera… (we had the same one, anyway.) I’m really bummed out, but I’m not letting this incident ruin my trip.

Besides the theft problem, Barcelona is wonderful. I love it here. It’s HOT and we spent the day at the beach which is really nice. Yesterday we did a lot of sightseeing and I loved everythign that I saw… the park is soooo beautiful! I like it even better than Villa Borghese, which was my favorite place in Rome! There’s a lot more we haven’t seen yet, but we still have two more days here.

I met an adorable English boy yesterday. His name is Ben. I spent most of the evening with him. He’s moving to France next week to be a chef. His accent is so cute, and he has perfect teeth contrary to the stereotype of English people. And, he’s one of the most gorgeous male specimans I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty pleased that I met him. It makes this whole stolen purse thing not seem as bad…

We’re all having a really good time. It worked out really well that we decided to skip Nice… we would have been too rushed here. Spain is so clean and organized, and stunningly beautiful. And things are much cheaper here than in Rome!! Maybe I studied in the wrong city! Lol. No, I’m just kidding, but I’m definately impressed. I hope I like all the other cities just as much.

Hasta Luego!
-Jess

On the bright side, Emily gets here today. (Nikki’s friend from GVSU) She’s the one who’s traveling around with Nik and I for the next two weeks. So we have two days to show her around Rome, and the weather is suppose to be hot and sunny! Then we leave for Barcelona on Saturday evening. I’m really excited for our trip! I’m actually nearly packed now. I did all my laundry for the trip yesterday and the storage company is coming to pick up my luggage tomorrow morning. One my stuff is gone, it’s really going to feel like the end. I can’t believe this.

But I still have two weeks left… so pray for us to have a safe trip without too many complications! I’ll try to keep you guys updated from internet cafes as much as I can. I don’t know yet if I’ll be able to post pictures… we’ll see.

Oh, by the way… I finally made it to Tivoli! Which, for those of you who don’t know, is a town about 20 miles from Rome known as The Beverly Hills of Rome. There are two huge palaces (villas) there from like 500+ years ago with huge garden complexes. We went to Villa d’Este, which is supposively the prettier one. I posted a few pictures from there.

I love you all, and see you in TWO WEEKS!!!

P.S. HAPPY GRADUATION ALLISON!!! AND HAPPY MOTHERS DAY MOM!!! XOXO

Second… we are no longer going to Nice and Monaco in the south of France. Train tickets were too expensive and we would have to spend nearly two days just on trains to and from Nice. It wasn’t worth it to us. So now we are spending two extra days in Barcelona, and an extra day in Paris. I’m kinda bummed, but I’m sure this will work out for the best since we won’t be so rushed now. Plus we’ll have a little extra cash as well.

Our end of the semester photography exhibit was tonight. It went well.

All of the girls are gonna go out tonight and celebrate the end of classes.

Hopefully I’ll get to Tivoli this weekend…

As long as I don’t fail my finals, I will have managed to pass all my classes. (Not that I expected not to or anything.. but passing is always a small sort of accomplishment for me.) But I’m going to have to do a lot of studying for Italian and my Roman Monuments exams. The others will be a piece of cake. (Oh, that’s another thing I miss… cake.)

Okay, well I have nothing else interesting to say right now. Hope you are all enjoying nice springtime weather.
xoxo,
Jess

I have to keep myself busy here because I’m starting to get kind of antsy in Rome… I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I’m homesick… just ready to be done. I’m very excited to travel around for the last two weeks with Nikki and Emily. We have so much great stuff planned and it’s going to be the trip of a lifetime. However, Rome is getting so jam packed with tourists now that everything is starting to get on my nerves. I’m going to miss my roommates so much once we leave, though. They have become some of my closest friends.

But anyways, the beach was pretty cool. We didn’t get the sunniest day for it… but it was really warm so it was still nice to lay in the sand. We had to pay 5 euro to get into this beach complex thing, but it was worth it because it had beach volleyball courts, a pool, food, bathrooms, etc. Kind of like a resort except without a hotel.

Also, this weekend a watermane broke on our block. We had no water for more than a day and it was pretty inconvienent. We couldn’t flush our toilets, take showers, brush our teeth without bottled water, cook, was dishes, etc. We were all pretty patient about it though. I think we have gotten used to Italy being inconvenient so things like that don’t phase as much anymore. Luckily it was fixed before Tuesday, though, because they wouldn’t have worked on a holiday!

Ok, well I have class in a few minutes so I’m going to run. We’re hopefully going to go to Tivoli Gardens tomorrow and if we do, I’ll have new pictures to post.

Love to all,

jess

On Friday afternoon I felt to Hannover (nearly missing my flight because of all the traffic in Rome) and arrived there around 6:00 pm. Verena and her dad were at the airport to meet me. We went straight back to their house where dinner was waiting for us. It was so nice to eat German food after 3 months of nothing but pizza and pasta. And Verena’s mom is an amazing cook. After dinner I went out with Verena to a little music bar along with Mira and her boyfriend, Mira’s brother Toby, and Felix—Verena’s boyfriend. They all spoke pretty good English, which I was thankful for. We were there for a couple of hours before we left and went to Felix’s house to play a couple video games. The game was completely in German, but it was like a gameshow of recognizing music so I could play too… (most of the songs were American anyway.) Funny times.

The next morning the whole family at e breakfast together and then Verena had to leave for work. The rest of us went into Brenswick to go shopping. I didn’t have much money or space in my backpack, so I didn’t buy anything. But it was nice to walk around the city and the mall because it was such a different atmosphere compared to the cities in Italy. I don’t know why, but I was pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the house so I took a nap before dinner. When I woke up, Verena was back from work and we sat down at the table for some cake and tea. Not to much later, we had a huge salmon dinner which was one of the best meals I’ve had in months. I was still tired and really didn’t feel like going out anywhere, but Verena wanted to go play pool with some of her friends for a little while so I went. None of the people we met up with spoke any English so I just kind of sat there most of the time. We didn’t stay long though, and I got to go to bed early.

Easter morning was fun because I woke up to the table set for breakfast and Verena’s mom had put little chocolate bunnies and candies on everyone’s plates. Then everyone gave gifts to each other for Easter. I was given socks, lipgloss, a purse, a travel guide of Italy, and a few other little random things. It was very sweet and unexpected. After breakfast we got ready and then went into Wolfsburg to see the newest exhibit at the city museum. It was about architecture and sculpture. It was very interesting to see because there were models of different buildings from all over the world. Some of them I have seen in the past couple of months, and others I will get to see during my two weeks of backpacking in May. After that, we all went to the Wolfsburg Castle to have coffee and cake. (Which, apparently is a daily thing in Germany.) I felt like the entire weekend revolved around eating. We ate like every 2 hours or so. Shortly after getting home from the castle, we had tea and truffles… and a big Easter dinner came soon after that. All the food was so good though, so I ended up stuffing myself at every meal. I took a nap after dinner because I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep that night before my flight. There was a big Easter bon fire that the entire village went to. We were there until about 2:30 am talking to all of Verena’s friends, family, neighbors, etc. I had a really good time. Unfortunately for me, though, I had a 7 am flight. We had to leave the house at 5:00 am to get there on time… so I was pretty exhausted all day on Monday. I slept a little bit on the planes, but each flight was so short that it didn’t help very much.

It was a really fun weekend though. It was so nice to spend a few days with a family and not have to see thousands of tourists like I do everyday in Rome. It was really refreshing… although it made me miss home a little bit more.

I just can’t believe that we are down to the last 3 or so weeks here. It’s going to be so weird to finish school and then move out of my apartment and not see my roommates anymore. They’ve grown to be some of my closest friends. Then I have two weeks of traveling which I know will fly by too. I’ll be home before I know it. But I’m happy about that because I miss everyone a lot.

I love you all,

Jess