Josh Ritter and the Swell Season!

(EDIT: Morocco post here! Pictures on mobileme.)

Shortly after my return to France, I went with Angela to see Josh Ritter and the Swell Season (from the film Once) in concert in Paris. Random Thursday night trip! In fact, I had told Angela I would go a long time ago and forgotten about it until she reminded me on Wednesday night. Whoo! Surprise Paris adventure! Thankfully TGV tickets were not TOO expensive, so we skipped our French class and headed over to Paris. We left kind of early to save a bit on our train, so we grabbed some dinner in a café near the venue. We're sitting there chatting, eating our pizza, when in walks Glen Hansard from the Swell Season with some of his crew. Umm...what?!? That was my brush with fame for the day. After dinner, we headed over to the Bataclan for the concert. The venue was actually really nice and we managed to get pretty good seats. Josh Ritter opened, although I have to admit I wish he had been the headliner. He is such an amazing performer! Highlights included him playing Girl in the War completely unplugged (lights out even!) and To The Dogs or Whoever a whole minute faster than normal...fantastic.

Josh got cut a couple minutes short because some rando girl came up on stage to play a really bad song...bummer. But after her, The Swell Season came on, and although I'm not super familiar with their music, it is right up my alley and I really enjoyed the show. Glen Hansard is intense and Markéta Irglová is adorable. Plus, they played the only song that I know (When Your Mind's Made Up), which was exciting. We left right before the encore, so that was a little sad, but it was fine. We were actually lucky because the women who was at the merchandise stand told us normally Josh joins them for the encore but that night he happened to be out with his wife instead, so we didn't miss it! I would have cried if I had missed a single moment of Josh Ritter because he is seriously that good.

L'affaire d'OFII

So, I realize I've been slacking more than a bit on the blog, so I've decided to back date everything and skip over some of the vacation stuff for a bit because it takes FOREVER to write! Don't worry--I'll get to it soon enough now that my midterms are over, but I want to provide you with a few tidbits from the last month in the meantime. I'll provide a link when I post anything about my February vacation.

(EDIT: Lisbon and Madrid post now available here!)

Upon my arrival back in Lille, I was greeted by an envelope in my room from the French government. This can only mean good things. It was a letter informing me about my mandatory medical exam for OFII (don't ask me what that stands for...) to insure that I hadn't infected the entire population of France with tuberculosis and provide me with certification of my legality in France. Thankfully, a few of the other international kids had their appointments at the same time as me so I didn't have to trek it out to the office alone.

Fun situation number 1: When we got to the office for our 12:30 appointments (which I had to miss an exam for, by the way), we found out just how French this office is--it doesn't even open until 1!! Surprise! So, we waited outside until they finally opened and went in with a bunch of other people. They ladies at the desk took our names and we waited until we were called.

Fun situation number 2: After a bit, they called Sadie and I back for our chest x-rays. They took us each to little changing-esque rooms and told us to take our shirts off. Sadie went into the x-ray room before me and I could hear the woman talking to her and telling her to go back a few times. After a few minutes of awkwardly standing in a two doored room in my jeans and my bra, the woman came to get me and not so politely told me that I also needed to take my bra off...HELLO! Bienvenue à la France, I guess... That was more than a little strange for me. After that...experience...there was a lot of waiting around until the doctor strutted in a few hours later to ask me if I was healthy, smoke, or take any medications. After that, they took my 55 euro stamp (which I'm still not sure the purpose of) and pasted something in my passport claiming my legality in France.

Fun situation number 3: You thought this would end after the visit, right? Wrong. We finally all finished and headed out back towards the tram to go back to Lille for class. I needed a ticket, so I put my money in the machine...it thought for a while...then told me there was a problem with the payment and ended the transaction! I sat there for about a minute sputtering about what I should do and a nice guy came up and asked me what had happened. I explained to him how the machine ate my money and he told me that I could go to the office down the road to get a ticket, but they wouldn't give me my money back. A tram showed up on the other side and he said he would be right back and jumped over to talk to the conductor. It was at this point that I realized he was from Transpole, the transportation company in Lille. When he got back he told me that there would be someone coming to help me out. The next tram showed up and I thanked him for his help and a bunch of other Transpole guys got off. They came up to me and started asking me what was going on and I explained everything...kind of intimidating when about five French men are all talking over each other and asking you questions at the same time, but eventually one of them wrote me my own personal ticket (I still have it!). They were actually super nice and pretty funny. One of the guys asked us where we were from and we told them we were Americans studying at La Catho and they wanted to know where in America we were from. When I told one of them I was from Wisconsin, he got all excited about Little House on the Prairie. Pretty funny...apparently that's a popular show here? I didn't even know it WAS a show. Then there was the one who asked Sadie if she was planning on marrying a French guy or an American guy when we were on the tram. Okay?? I finally made it back just in time for Version class, but definitely not without some excitement.

Maroc (Tanger, Meknes, Casablanca, et Marrakech)

Finally...the last installment of my February travels! On Valentine's Day, we left Madrid for our six day Moroccan adventure. We flew in to Tangier, where it was really comforting to hear some French again after a few days of not knowing which end was up. We arrived in Tangier, and I have to admit it was one of the oddest sensations I've ever had. I have never been anywhere where I was very clearly a minority and I felt really vulnerable. After going through passport check, we changed our money to Moroccan Dihrams (1 Dihram is about 11 Euros), and grabbed a taxi to our hotel. Our taxi driver was really nice and basically talked our ears off. I got the impression that Moroccans are extremely friendly. As we got into the city, I realized that the driving situation in Morocco is CRAZY. There are no lanes, and few stop signs. Driving is more like a game of chicken than an organized set of rules and traffic laws. And I thought European drivers were crazy! There also aren't seat belts in cabs, which was weird for me. I feel naked in a car without a seat belt, so I grabbed for it every time I crawled into a petit-taxi, with no seat belt to be found. Somewhere between our first taxi ride and hotel check-in, we realized that the currency was going to be a problem. What was good was that everything in Morocco is really cheap, but the bills are really big, so we were in a constant cycle of Mandi-owes-Lauren-who-owes-Sadie-who-owes-Mandi. It was slightly terrifying going from the airport to the hotel with 2,000 Moroccan Dihrams in my wallet. Yikes! By the time we checked in, we realized we were really hungry, so we went across the street to a small restaurant that the Lonely Planet book had recommended called Number 1. We were the only customers in the restaurant, so we had excellent service. They took our orders and gave us some olives to munch on while we waited for our food. I'm not a huge olive person, but I really tried to like them while we were in Morocco. I warmed up to them a little...but I can't say that I really enjoy them very much. Our food came after a bit, and it was possibly the most heavenly thing I have ever eaten. I ordered Tagine d'Agneau with plum sauce. The lamb was perfectly cooked in its own juices and plums...delicious. We all had excellent lunches there. We went exploring for a bit after lunch. We walked down to the coast, where we could see Gibraltar across the straits. Very cool! The only downside of the coast was that we were constantly harassed by guys who were shouting at us in Spanish, English, French, Arabic, and various other languages. Little did we know this would be a theme throughout our trip. I kind of knew this would be a problem because we were three girls traveling alone, but it was still annoying. We caught a petit-taxi to the Medina (city center), where we literally got lost. We ended up past the shops near the Kasbah wandering around through narrow walkways to peoples' houses. Being lost in the Tangier Medina was slightly invigorating, but also kind of terrifying. I had some weird emotions going on because I've never been put in a culture that is so different from my own before. I really was experiencing quite a bit of shock and, as I said, vulnerability. I really can't describe how I felt besides uncomfortable. I kept saying that I felt like I was intruding on someone else's life--that I was in a private place, where I really wasn't supposed to be. It began to rain as we made it back towards the shops, so we caught a taxi home. We we really excited to find the Olympics in English on the TV in our hotel, so we watched them for a while. It's really not that safe/acceptable for women to be out alone after dark, so we got dinner in the hotel restaurant and watched some more Olympics before going to bed.

In the morning, we were supposed to take a train from Tangier to Meknes, but apparently the trains were not running from Tangier. I have yet to figure out why. So, we ended up taking a bus to Kenitra and then getting on a train from Kenitra to Meknes. A really nice grand-taxi guy took us from the train station in Meknes to our hostel. This was my first experience in a Hosteling International hostel...it was a little bootleg, but we made light of the situation. More on that later. We were starving by the time we got there, so we went out to El-Hdim Square to find some food. When we walked into the square, I was floored. Not only was it beautiful, but it was filled with people watching musicians, listening to storytellers, and vendors trying to sell magical cures. This is the Morocco that I was talking about. We sat down to eat a restaurant overlooking the square and were thrilled to see food. I ordered my first mint tea of the trip, and it was everything I could have hoped for it to be! Unfortunately, there were stray cats lurking. I have never seen such aggressive cats in my life. They could clearly smell our food and were just about jumping up onto the table to get at it. I love cats, but we were shooing these ones away every 30 seconds to keep them from jumping up onto our legs and begging for food. We moved inside the restaurant, hoping it would get better, but no luck there either. The cats followed us. Then, the heavens opened up and it started hurricaning. Okay, perhaps hurricaning is an exaggeration, but it was pouring rain and the winds were knocking umbrellas over like crazy. About this time, we decided to get out of there. We went back to our hostel and stayed in for the rest of the night. Speaking of our hostel...it was interesting. Kind of like glorified camping. Our door opened up to the outside, there was one window in the room and one light. Our beds were configured in a tight U-shape, and we were freezing. They charged for the showers, and the bathrooms were a short walk away. This would have been fine...if they had provided toilet paper (which we had to buy at the market), and if the water hadn't been completely shut off after 11 PM. Woot. But, we made the best of it by spending our evening trading stories and playing cards. Just so you know how big of French nerds we are, we played BS in French...making it MT (merde de taurau), which amused us for hours. We had a good time just being goofy, and eventually went to bed.

The next morning, we went to Volubilis, just outside of Meknes, which is a UNESCO site of well preserved Ancient Roman ruins. We called our taxi driver from the day before and asked him if he could take us out there. He said he could, but he ended up switching with another driver who shares his car because it was his day to work. To switch, we ended up going right into the slums of Meknes. That was really eye opening. That was the first moment when I realized that I really was in Africa. Morocco is very well developed, but the slums look just like any other African country. That was one of the first moments in my life that I felt truly grateful for everything I have and the opportunities I've been given. We drove out of the slums and into the countryside. It was so beautiful green and lush. After about 40 minutes, we finally made it to Volubilis. Despite the mud and rain, this was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It's literally like a Roman city in the middle of North Africa. Amazing. We hired a guide to show us around the grounds, and he kindly took our pictures throughout the site while he explained the history of the ruins. The mosaics were incredible, and the hammams (baths) were recognizable. The giant arch near the forum was probably my favorite part. I stood in the middle of the forum and smiled as I thought about how thousands of years ago, ancient romans stood on that same spot discussing politics and who knows what else. One of the more amazing moments in my life. After our tour, we went back to the train station and were on our way to Casablanca. After we got there, we had "linner" at a nice place called La Taverne du Dauphin, where I had a delicious piece of St. Pierre fish. The staff was extremely nice and complimented us on our French. That was a common theme throughout Morocco which was really nice. Definitely doesn't happen in France! After our meal, we wanted to walk around a little bit, but it started to rain again, so we went back to the hostel to hanging out. Sadie read to Mandi and me about the history of Morocco. Easier to follow when you're reading it yourself, but still interesting.

On our one full day in Casablanca, the first thing we did was tour the Mosque Hassan II. This mosque was so incredibly beautiful! I've never seen anything like it. The prayer room was absolutely stunning! Almost everything in the mosque came from Morocco except for some marble and glass from Italy. The mosque can fit 25,000 people indoors, plus a bunch on the grounds outside. Our guide was really nice and took a liking to us because we spoke French (even though we were on an English tour). We also saw the hammam downstairs (it's not operating yet, but it is expected to be in a couple years), and another room where people can wash their hands before they pray. The entire grounds were incredible, and I think it was one of the best sights we saw in Morocco. After the mosque, we went on an adventure to retrace Sadie's grandmother's footsteps. We had some problems getting a petit-taxi because they wanted to rip us off because we are tourists, but we knew better. We eventually got one and headed over to the old stade (stadium) where Sadie's grandmother used to go running. After that we headed over to find her old house. It was pretty cool seeing someone reconnect with their family's past like that. By this point, we were getting pretty hungry, so we stopped at the nearby Café Rif for lunch. Of course, I had tagine and mint tea--it wouldn't be Morocco without either of them. After lunch, we did a walking tour of Casablanca, as laid out by Lonely Planet. It was really cool to walk around and learn a little bit about the history of Casablanca with Sadie as our guide. At one point, we were in a square full of pigeons--literally--and all of the little kids were running around chasing them, laughing their brains out. It's moments like those that make you realize that people aren't always as different as they seem, and the same things make all of us tick. Those children were so adorable to watch! After our walk, we went back to our hostel to rest for a little bit, then headed out to dinner at Squala--a restaurant in a old castle near our hostel. Our food was really delicious and the highlight may have been dessert when Sadie ordered chocolate fondue and they brought her trough full of fruit and chocolate. We returned to our hostel with full bellies and had a very restful night of sleep.

The next morning we caught our Harry Potter style train to Marrakech--compartments and everything! Unfortunately no Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, though. The scenery from the train was incredible--from the slums, to the greenery, to the desert. I'd never seen anything like it. When we arrived in Marrakech it was pouring...surprise, surprise. Our hostel was in the middle of the Medina, so finding it was quite a challenge. The directions we had were something to the effect of "walk straight into the souqs, turn left at the jewelry stand, go under and arch, turn right, go under another arch, walk past a goat, walk down three stairs, duck under a beam, walk straight, and you'll see our door!" Right. Not at all simple. After a long time, we finally made it there. We settled in, but went out right away to go find some lunch. We went back out towards the Djemaa El Fna Square, where we basically just sat down at the first random place that looked cheap and appetizing enough. It was hilarious though, because the longer we sat there, the more we got to hear of the guy working the front: "Hello tourist! Shish-kabob! Hola tourist! Couscous! Thank you tourist!" Too funny. We were feeling pretty ambitious after we were fed, so we set out to see some sights. Trying to go through the Medina to get to said sights was apparently not the greatest idea, because we got super lost in the pouring rain. Eventually we made it back towards the hostel and just chilled until the rain calmed down a bit and got some dinner before going to bed.

The next day--our last in Morocco--we finally got to do some sight-seeing, and the weather was beautiful! We went to the Marrakech museum, which was beautiful. It was an old palace and housed collections of Moroccan artisanal products. Then we went over to the Madrasa Ben Yussef, which used to be an Islamic college. If only Marquette looked like that college...wow! I have to admit that our dormitories are significantly larger, though. The tile work all over Morocco is really impressive, and this college made no exception. We also got admission to some old hammams, which were fun to walk around. After touring, we went back to the souqs to do some shopping. We wandered around haggling with shopkeepers for the wares, and stopped to get lunch at a really delicious café for pita sandwiches. We walked around a bit more after lunch, then headed back to the hostel to get our bags and go to the airport. And so ended my exhausting and wonderful February vacation! Actually, when we got back to Paris, we saw on the news that a mosque in Meknes had collapsed, killing and injuring countless people, because of the unseasonable rains just three days after we had been there. It's amazing how much more connected you feel with the world when you're traveling. If I had been in the United States, I would never have known of the event even occurring or where in the world Meknes is located. I feel a lot more connected to parts of the world I wouldn't have thought twice about before, and I think that's the reason why seeing the world is so important. As cheesy as it may sound, we are all in this thing together, so we need to learn to look outside ourselves and see what life is like for someone else. Compassion makes the world go around.

A lot more pictures on mobile me. Check them out!

Lisboa y Madrid

How cool is it that "y" means "and" in both Portuguese and Spanish?? Well, I think so at least.

We last left off at my journey to the airport for my flight to Lisbon. I had no problems and actually had the most pleasant flight of any on Air Lingus. I guess it pays to fly a legit airline? The nice Irish woman next to me offered me candy after we got on the plane, too...further proof that the Irish are some of the nicest people around. I was also really grateful for my Aussie friend, James that I met while getting off the plane. Neither of us spoke any Portuguese and we both needed to get to the city from the airport, so we tackled the bus together and chatted a bit. Always nice to have someone else with you. James got off a couple stops off before me, so then I was on my own until I could find Sadie. I made it to the general vicinity of the hostel, but then got very confused due to my poor navigation skills and couldn't figure out where the hostel was. I was texting Sadie to see if she was in the city yet and where she was so I could find her....and all of a sudden there I was...lost in Lisbon...in the rain...with a dead phone. Great. Fortunately, I walked back towards where I thought the hostel might be and found Sadie waiting outside the hostel! We walked inside and I was floored! The hostel (Living Lounge Hostel) was probably nicer than most of the hostels I have ever stayed in. The staff was incredibly nice/helpful and the location (in Chiado) was perfect. There's my ten second ad for them--they were great! By the way, our room was music themed and therefore had a working disco ball...cool, right? Sadie and I were both starving by the time we got there, so we ventured out to find a quick bite to eat. We ended up in a café a couple doors down where we had our first-time-in-this-country-don't-speak-the-language experience that was OH so familiar to me from Italy. One of the waiters spoke English, though, so we made it through. After lunch, we took the historic Tram 28 up through the windy hills and narrow streets of Lisbon towards the town.  After we got off, we spent the entire rest of the day wandering back down towards our area of town taking pictures and stopping at various view points along the way. Lisbon is a beautiful city--one of the most beautiful I have ever seen--and I was awed by it. I was completely taken with the tiles that cover the facades of the majority of the buildings and couldn't stop commenting about how pretty they were. We stopped at the Sé, which is a cathedral from the middle ages. The cathedral itself was beautiful, but what was even more beautiful was the old cloister. After the Lisbon Earthquake in 1755, they were excavating to rebuild the cathedral and found a huge pit of roman ruins, so they rebuilt the cathedral right in front of the old cloister and you can go back to see the remains of it and the roman ruins. Sadie and I were not at all expecting to see roman ruins in this random cathedral, so we were really pleasantly surprised! Interesting note: while we were at the Sé, we saw both James and the German couple Sadie was sitting with on her train...random?? When we finally made it back to our hostel, we were both exhausted and hungry. Luckily, our hostel provided meals each night from their chef for 8 euros: soup, salad, main course, dessert, and wine! Doesn't get much cheaper. We made a reservation and then relaxed a bit. In Portugal, dinner is pretty late, so the hostel served it around 8 PM...not exactly the dinner time we were used to. When we finally got to dinner, we were starving and in a stupor from a) exhaustion and b) the amazing smells wafting up to our room from the kitchen. Our dinner was excellent and the company was even better. We ate with one of the hostel owners and this guy from Goa who works as a massage therapist at the hostel. We had a good chat about traveling, but by the end I was literally falling asleep at the table. Sadie and I had both been up since about 4 AM that morning and it was going on 11 or 12 PM...long day. We went back upstairs and I slept like a baby until the next morning.

The next day, Sadie and I took a day trip to Sintra, which is a small town near Lisbon. We started our morning with breakfast at the hostel, then we were off to the train station. I was pretty excited because I handled our entire ticket transaction in Portuguese. Small battles mean a lot when it comes to languages. When we got to Sintra, we took a bus up the mountain to the area where the Castelo dos Mouros and the Palácio de Pena are. The bus ride reminded me a bit of Kentucky with the hills, winding roads, and vegetation. Once we got there, Sadie and I spent forever just wandering around exploring the castle. There were incredible views of Sintra and surrounding cities, and the castle itself was built around the 10th century, so there was plenty of exploring to do at the castle itself. It was rebuilt a little in the 19th century by King Ferdinand II because he enjoyed painting there. It was obvious why! Ferdinand II actually spent his time in more luxury digs at the nearby Palácio de Pena. Completely gorgeous! I can't even describe how beautiful this palace was. Not only was the outside with all of the colors and arches amazing, but the inside was full of period furniture and so incredibly opulent. Pretty amazing. It was really interesting because Sadie and I encountered a lot of French tourists in Portugal...popular vacation destination I guess?? When we were through exploring the Palácio de Pena, we headed back down towards town to visit the Palácio Nacional de Sintra. We accidentally went to the gardens first, which weren't much of anything, but then we wandered over towards the correct entrance. Thankfully our European Student ID Cards get us in to a lot of monuments all over Europe for free or nearly so. It's a seriously valuable little card! After we wandered through the palace, we headed back home and had a bit of a rest. We were pretty exhausted from walking around all day. We had a late dinner at a sushi restaurant called Nood that was really good. It was around this point in my trip that I discovered the beauty of Lonely Planet guidebooks. They give great recommendations all around--from places to stay, places to eat, and things to see. They rarely led us astray! Sadie and I ended up sitting in the restaurant chatting for a good three hours. We wanted to go find a little wine bar somewhere to hang out for a bit before heading back to the hostel, but the one we tried was closed. Darn! We were fairly exhausted though, so it wasn't a big deal.

Our last day was even more packed with sightseeing. We made a quick tour of the Convento do Carmo, which is the home of two extremely well-intact Peruvian mummies. Sadie really want to see them after her Anthropology of Latin America last semester, and I have to admit they were really interesting, even kind of creepy. It would be weird if it weren't a little eerie, because Sadie was explaining to me about how the Peruvian Incas were tortured. After our quick stop there, we headed out towards Belém, which is on the far west side of Lisbon. The first thing we wanted to see was the Mosterio dos Jerónimos. The monastery was amazingly beautiful with huge gothic arches along the ceiling. There was quite a bit of gold plating, too, which is always pretty. It was very ornate. As Sadie and I were walking around, we spotted a couple tombs on either side of the church. We walked over towards one that a lot of people were huddled around. We looked at the sign next to it and read that it was Vasco de Gama's tomb. Woah. How often do you just walk up to Vasco de Gama's tomb?? Never! That was really cool. After the monastery, we stopped at a modern art museum that we thought had some Warhols. We spent a good hour there and no Warhols, but a lot of really interesting and downright weird exhibitions. There was a really prominent use of electronic media in most of them...sometimes cool...sometimes bizarre. After leaving, we walked down the Tejo River towards the Torre de Belém. Not only is it really sweet looking, but apparently it used to be a political prison for the Portuguese when Portugal was under the control of Spain. Historical value bonus! I loved walking around inside it because of the beautiful views of the Tejo and the Ponte de 25 Avril--a bridge that looks just like the Golden Gate. In fact, Lisbon is basically San Francisco. They are both hilly, colorful, have Golden Gate bridges, etc. I was constantly amazed by their similarities. After we finished our explore, we walked back along the river towards town to get lunch and Pastis de Belém. I'm not even sure how to begin describing the amazingness that is a Pastis de Belém. They are little pastry puff shells filled with a kind of warm ricey custard with powdered sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top. Heaven! We caught out tram back towards Lisbon so we could get to the Castelo São Jorge. Well, getting to the castle was much less simple than it seemed. When our bus dropped us off in Rossio Square, I thought, "no problem...I can see the castle from here, so we just go up to the hill to get to it!" Wrong. We wandered up and down winding streets, marching up never-ending staircases and getting trapped by dead-ends. After pulling out Sadie's iPhone for GPS (those things really are handy!), we finally made it. The castle was really cool to wander around. We went up almost every single turret just to check everything out. How many times do you get to hang out in the place where Vasco de Gama was welcomed back to Portugal after his explorations?? The gods must have heard us when we said we were going to leave, because the skies opened up and it started pouring. Just our luck. Not only were we not really appropriately attired for the rain, but we were exhausted and semi-lost...long walk home. We decided to eat dinner again at the hostel to avoid the rain. We ended up sitting with some girls who happened to be American--and teaching in France...more specifically Lille! What a small world. We had an interesting conversation about Portuguese where I learned that to say "thank you" you say "obrigado"(m) or "obrigada"(f) depending upon your OWN gender...not the gender of whomever you are saying it to. That was one of the weirder language rules I have encountered. After dinner, Sadie and I were going to rest for a bit before going out for a drink, but we never actually made it out. We spent the evening going through our phrase books (Spanish and Portuguese) quizzing each other on the most random phrases we could come up with. Really entertaining game for language nerds like us. We crashed with visions of verbs conjugations dancing in our heads.

In the morning we got ready to go to Madrid. We made a quick stop at the famous café O Brasillio for an espresso, then we were off to the airport and on our way to Spain. Once we arrived, we checked in to our hostel (a major downgrade from Lisbon, although actually pretty nice) and met up with Mandi and Nikki. We got a quick lunch and then headed towards Retiro Park. Really beautiful! I would have liked to spend a little more time walking around, but we didn't have a whole lot of time. On our way back towards the area where our hostel was, we walked down into what we thought was a metro station, but it was actually a shanty town full of box houses and homeless people. That was pretty eye-opening. Seeing stuff like that really opens my eyes to how lucky I am to have such a high standard of living as well as the kind of opportunities I have right now to study in another country and travel. We came back out and got on the metro at an actual stop. We got churros and chocolate at a popular place for them...delicious. On our way back towards the hostel, we ran into the Carnival parade...what luck! We stuck around for a bit and took some pictures. The floats were absolutely incredible! Sadie and I were lucky that when we got back to our hostel, we realized we could see it all from our balcony and a bunch of the parade was about to go by again. If I got to see one thing in Madrid, I'm glad I saw that parade...how cool! We went to Puerto del Sol (the center of Spain) to meet up again with Mandi and Nikki to go for wine and tapas. Being me, in the middle of Spain, I face planted and rolled as I was walking through the Plaza. That's not at all embarrassing... It especially wasn't embarrassing when a nice Spanish man came rushing to help me up and asked me if I was okay and I couldn't come up with a coherent sentence to let him know I was fine. Love my life. I got over it...but the bruises lasted for a couple weeks. We headed towards Plaza Mayor where we saw a really interesting street performer play piano in the air while parallel to the ground. Funny thing: he jumared up to the piano, which everyone thought was really amazing...except for me...because he was using climbing gear. After the performance we wandered to a few places for wine and tapas. I was definitely the most adventurous eater. When faced with a plate of deep fried anchovies for the table, I ate up. I'll try almost anything once. I also had my first taste of sangria, which is delicious! Made with love. Eventually we also stopped by some bar where Sadie's friend from home was hanging out. It was called Del Diego, and is apparently one of the top 100 bars in the world. Cool?? By this time, I was thoroughly exhausted and ready to catch some z's before my plane to Tangier in the morning!

Don't forget to check out the rest of my pictures on my mobileme!

Ireland (Galway and Dublin) WARNING: Long Post!

Friday morning began my Feb. break adventure with my flight to Dublin. Before I left I was feeling surprisingly anxious and nervous as you could tell from my prior blog post. Not really sure why...but I settled down after getting on my train to Charleroi. Meghan and I didn't have any problems getting to the airport and were running pretty early because we had to take an early-ish train, so we were able to relax a little in the airport and get a bite to eat. We were in the cafe through security waiting for them to post something about our flight, when we suddenly heard an announcement telling us that our flight was in final boarding and we needed to get to the gate immediately, so we panicked and ran as fast as we could to the gate, but we had to go through a passport check first. Only annoying thing--the guy at the passport control desk almost wasn't going to let us through because he didn't understand that "autorise travail" means we have permission to work and do not have working visas...even though he speaks French...that was fun. Finally we got to the gate and on the plane and took off for Ireland! My first Ryanair experience was...interesting. I found out the whole flight is basically one big commercial and the flight attendants only wear half of a wing pin. Right. Brings a whole new light to the term "budget airline." I cracked up upon landing because they play this little thing that tells you that you were part of another on-time flight like it's monumental or something. Trust me...it was ridiculous. After arriving in Dublin, I really weirded out to hear English and understand everything everyone around me was saying when they gave me directions to our bus to Galway. Unfortunately for us, we had some bus problems because ours wouldn't start. Yikes. They brought another bus over and jumped ours (the battery was dead) and then we were on our way only about 20 minutes late. It was really cool driving through Dublin along the river at night, but once we got outside of the city I passed out. We got to Galway, found Meghan's friend Kelsey and dropped our stuff off at her apartment. The apartment she is in with three other girls is HUGE! I couldn't even believe it! Her living room alone was nearly three times the size of my dorm. Despite my fatigue, the three of us went out to meet some other people at this bar called Hole in the Wall...not my kind of place. Dirty...bad music...and Budweiser. I really felt like I was in Ireland as I walked down the street with rickshaws full of drunk people swerving around me. Kinda crazy. Thankfully, we went back home soon and I slept like a baby even though I was crunched on a small couch with my jackets for pillows and only my sleeping bag liner and a blanket. I can't complain about free lodging though!

In the morning, we looked outside and it was eerily foggy, which seemed especially Irish to me. We got ready and set out on our day of exploring Galway. First, we went to Galway Cathedral which was super pretty and seemed especially Irish to me. Next, we were off on a search for St. Nicholas' Collegiate Cathedral--easier said than done because apparently nobody really seems to feel that they should put up street signs in Ireland...right. This Cathedral is famous for all of the graves in the church and around it, which was pretty cool. There is one outside called the Lynch Memorial which has an interesting story. Lynch was a huge political power in Galway who had some family issue and he hanged his son...creepy. After the cathedral we walked through the market a little, which was the cutest market ever. Tons of little artisan stands--kind of like the famer's market in Madison, but with the ambiance of a small Irish city. We walked along the river down to the bay and the Spanish Arch, which was beautiful. I was so happy to finally see water, but that didn't cure my desire to see more. I wish I could have gone to the Cliffs of Moor, but that just means I have to go back. :-) We also stopped by the Galway Museum, which was pretty cool. They had a statue of...Paddy O'Connor??...which is the same as the guy in the Milwaukee Public Museum who tells you stories if you put money in. Love the MKE connections. We were pretty tired from a lot of walking around at this point, so we got coffee and relaxed for a bit before going for burritos. Delicious. We miss mexican food so much!! We went to a couple pubs after dinner, which was okay. At Hole in The Wall there was this HUGE group of crazy sorority girls dressed in neon 80s clothes. Galway definitely lived up the Irish stereotype of lots of drinking!

On Sunday morning, Meghan and I got up early to catch our train to Dublin. It was the nicest train I have ever been on hands down and it was an amazingly organized system--which reminded me of the US. I kind of decided Ireland is the US in Europe, so if you really like the US and want to go to Europe, go to Ireland. Minimal culture shock. The train ride was really pretty and we finally got to see the countryside, so that was cool. When we got to Dublin, we checked in to our hostel (The Times), which was so nice! It was rated number one hostel in Dublin, so we were a little spoiled. :-) We relaxed for a bit after our long train ride, then went out to walk around Temple Bar a bit. After visiting the book market, we were getting a little hungry, so we ventured to find somewhere to eat. We ended up going to Davy Byrne's Pub without knowing it, which was featured later in the evening at our Literary Pub Crawl--our next stop. It began at Duke's Pub where the actors performed a bit from Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett went to school at Trinity College) and talked about James Joyce who frequented the area and talked about Davy Byrne's Pub in his book Ulysses. Also where I had my first Guinness! Yum. On the way to our next pub, we stopped at Trinity to talk about Beckett and Oscar Wilde. We also learned that supposedly the bell tower only rings when a virgin stands underneath...crickets. Apparently though, it hasn't rung in something like 100+ years. Our next stop was O'Neill's where we talked about James Plunkett, and I tried Irish red beer, which was quite good, then to The Old Stand and finally back to Davy Byrne's. Can't say I learned too much on this tour though...I found it to be a little stale and too rehearsed, but it was fun none the less. If you have done the math, you may have figured out this was Superbowl Sunday, so Meghan and I tried to find somewhere to watch it after the pub crawl...but we had a major fail. We were recommended to go to one place that did NOT look like they were playing it, and then tried to go to one place that looked like it was...but I'm pretty sure it was in a strip club. We almost went because we thought it was in the pub part, but then we were led downstairs to something called "Rain". With all the drunk guys and the half naked cheerleader on the back of my coupon card from the doorman, I put two and two together and got out of there and went home.

Our next day in Dublin was really full...so prepare yourself for a lot of information. First adventure of the day: Dublin Free Walking Tour. Honestly, this was one of the best things I did on my ENTIRE vacation. The guides work solely on commission, so the tours they give are informative and entertaining. Our guide, Seamus (pronounced Shay-mus), took us to Dublin Castle for our first stop and talked about the two statues of the entrance. He explained why he hates them: the first one, Fortitude, is completely unproportional between the guy and the lion next to him. The lion honestly looks like a large house cat, but Seamus called Fortitude the "Venus de fucking Milo" (there's some Irish english for you) compared to Justice. Justice has no blindfold, so she is a partial judge, her scale is unbalanced because the rain falls more on one side than the other, and she has her back turned to the city--which apparently made a lot of people angry. After that, we went to the oldest part of the castle still standing which was the tower from 1204 where Seamus told us the story of Rebel Hugh O'Donnell. Apparently, this guy ended a huge centuries long family feud, so clearly Elizabeth I needed to capture him...and she did. He was locked up there behind the 4.6 meter thick walls and was the only prisoner there to ever escape successfully--by digging a hole down to the sewage pipe. Gross, right? But...kind of cool? We continued around the back of the castle where we could see all the different types of architecture. Some parts of it are medieval, some georgian, some victorian, gothic, and modern, so you have a really wide mixture, which is interesting. We went out by the garden which has these tiny pathways all around it that are in a celtic design. The garden also serves as a helicopter landing pad, which makes it the most interesting one to look at in the world! Pretty cool. From the castle we stopped by Jonathan Swift's birthplace...which isn't that exciting...but still cool. It brought me back to reading A Modest Proposal in Brit Lit. Next stop was Trinity College--again--where we learned that it is still legal to shoot a Catholic on campus with a bow and arrow. We also went by the library where The Book of Kells lives, which is this biblical book that I still don't totally understand the significance of and then to the "cricket pitch" to chat about the Easter Rising which was the start of the Irish revolution against Britain. Meghan and I grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then decided to do the tour of Dublin Castle. The first thing I learned was Ireland has had a female president for the past 21 years...go Ireland! In one of the first rooms they had a bunch of chairs that came from Versailles that depict scenes from the fables of Jean LaFontaine (the Aesop's Fables of France), so those were really cool to see. The conference room was interesting too, because some of the chairs were lower backed and wider seated than the others, which apparently were for the ladies to provide ample room for their skirts. There were a few interesting notes about the other rooms, but I'll spare you the details. After the tour inside the castle, we went down to see the remains of the old Powder Tower, the fire in which was the whole reason the whole medieval castle needed to be rebuilt. We also saw the River Poddle, which runs underneath Dublin and is how the city got its name. When the Vikings came to Dublin, they named the river Dubh Linn (meaning black pool because the water was so dark), which eventually became modern day Dublin. After the Dublin Castle tour, Meghan and I hiked over to the Guinness Factory for the Guinness Storehouse Tour. It's not really a tour so much as a Guinness museum where you learn about how they make Guinness, but it's super well done. At the end of the tour, you go up to the Gravity Bar for 360 views of Dublin and a free pint of Guinness--great way to end the day. Just as we got up there, the sun was starting to set, so the views were absolutely amazing! We went home after the tour to make dinner and hang out. We actually ended up playing games with some of the guys staying at our hostel, which was really fun.

On our last day in Ireland, we spent most of the morning recovering Meghan's pictures because her stupid camera deleted them all!! What a bummer...but I got a chance to get a few more pictures that were better than my originals. We also walked by the Leinster House (parliament) where it looked like something official was going on, and stopped by the site of the first performance of Handel's Messiah! It's a hotel now, which kind of sucks, but cool none the less. I'll never understand why they don't leave original structures of important things like that. We also went through the famous St. Stephan's Green, which was so pretty! One of the best parks I have ever seen. After walking around for a bit, we went back toward the Leinster House to go to the Archeological National Museum of Ireland. It was interesting looking at all the artifacts, but the really interesting part was one room where they had all these small circular rooms you could walk in to. We didn't know what they were at first so Meghan just started walking around the corner when she saw a dead person! Lovely way to start the day. Apparently, back in the day when people died, their bodies were really well preserved by the bogs in Ireland, so the museum had about 5 extremely well preserved bodies. Gross, but interesting. After the museum, we started on our walk to Kilmainham Gaol, which was crazy long. And it was hailing. Needless to say, we were really happy when we finally got there. Kilmainham Gaol is a 17th century jail where they held political rebels during the Irish Revolution and Civil War. It was really creepy inside, but the tour was really interesting. When the jail was first created, they held public executions right in front of the jail, but public execution was outlawed and they moved them inside the jail grounds, but the last execution there was sometime around 1920, so the history of it is pretty fresh. After the jail tour, Meghan and I went over to the Irish Museum of Modern Art for lunch and a visit. The weirdest thing was when we went out in the gardens by this fountain because as soon as we walked within about 10 feet of it, it turned off, then we walked away and it turned on again, then back towards it, and it turned on. Coincidence?? We hadn't seen it turn off any other time. We headed back towards the center of the city to relax and eat something before our last Dublin hurrah--the Ghost Bus Tour. Most of the tour was pretty mild...just going around Dublin on the bus with our guide telling stories about the darker sides of city's past, but getting off the bus was actually terrifying. The first place was SERIOUSLY creepy. We went to St. Kevin's Park, which used to be a graveyard, but then someone decided it should be a park and asked people to claim their dead--which not many did--and then just moved the gravestones--all of which are still lined up around the periphery of the park. Right. Well, there's this chapel in the middle of it that has a really dark past. There was a Catholic priest who was determined to give a Catholic mass before he died even though it was illegal, so he gave it in that chapel, but he was caught and was executed right outside the chapel. This was a much more gruesome execution than you're thinking though--he was put over a fire with metal boots filled with oil on, so the oil literally melted his body--over the course of three days. What a way to go. Then, we went inside the chapel...great! The chapel has caught on fire mysteriously on numerous occasions, so the last time it did, they stopped rebuilding it. There were numerous creepy details about ley lines, spontaneous combustion, and the ghost of a little boy who died in one of the fires. We drove by St. Patrick's Cathedral where our guide told us the story about The Lady in White, who was buried alive the morning after her wedding, which apparently was pretty common. That's actually where "dead ringer" comes from--they would bury you with a string attaching your finger to a bell, so the expression came from seeing people who you thought had died walking around because they were actually buried alive. Our next stop actually getting off the bus was at "The Haunted Stairs" which were a set of stairs that led from the rich area of Dublin straight down to an underground city where the shadier types lived. Pickpockets used the stairs to escape after they robbed the rich people. The underground area came to be known as Hell, so the door is actually known as "the Gateway to Hell." There were a few stories about the stairs, but none nearly as creepy as the chapel. So ended my trip to Ireland! Good thing we did the haunted tour last. Next morning I caught an early flight to Lisbon... Check my mobileme for more pictures from my Ireland trip!

 

Les vacances!!

Wow...I haven't written in quite a while...this has been a crazy week as far as homework goes. Here are some highlights from LAST week:

Tues: I saw Up In The Air with Mandi and the canadians from my dorm. It made me feel so nostalgic! Some of the movie takes place in Wisconsin and it made me realize how much I miss Milwaukee. Overall, I really liked the movie, but kind of an interesting message. I actually kind of understand how he feels because I'm about to take off on a two week journey where all I have is my backpack and it IS kind of liberating...and terrifying...but more on that later.

Thurs: It was Alberto's (one of the Canadians) birthday! A bunch of us went out for Indian food, and then to O'Scotland for a bit. It was fun hanging out with everyone and then Indian food was delicious! It's comforting to know I can still get ethnic food in Lille. :-)

Weekend: This weekend was very lazy. I wanted to take it easy because I had a midterm this week and I had a lot of trip planning to do. I spent the majority of the weekend reading and lazing around. Saturday night was a little intense. Mandi, Sadie and I needed to book all of our hostels for Morocco, which took a lot more work than expected. When you need to coordinate good places to stay that are cheap, train schedules, check-out times, check-in times, and cities that you want to visit, it gets a little tough! It took about three hours, but we FINALLY figured it out. I've been really stressed out all week though because of these trips--definitely the most intense yet unplanned trip of my life. I got a break from all the stress on Sunday when we went to Wazemmes. I bought some food and another poulet rôti...mmmmm. :-)

This week was busy with homework and planning. My first mid-term (on La Princesse de Clèves) was...not bad. M. Godo definitely babied the international kids--the French kids had to do five short answers and three long answers in two hours, but the internationals only had to do two short and one long answer with the aid of a dictionary and our books. I felt like I didn't really write enough...but we'll see. I also had to do a short writing assignment for French this week, but that class is a bit of a joke, so I'm not concerned. Midterm stress is fast approaching after the break...but before then:

TODAY to Feb. 10 = Galway and Dublin, Ireland
Feb. 10 to Feb. 13 = Lisbon, Portugal
Feb. 13 to Feb. 14 = Madrid, Spain (less than 24 hours)
Feb. 14 to Feb. 19 = Tangier, Meknes, Casablanca, and Marrakech, Morocco
Feb. 19 to Feb. 20 = Paris, France
Feb. 20 = home to Lille!!

This trip is going to be a whirlwind! I am SO anxious and stress out right now it's not even funny. I'm leaving here in an hour and 45 minutes and my nerves are just going crazy! I'm super excited for this trip, but I feel extremely unprepared...I'll just figure it out when I get there! At least I have hotels and hostels all booked...phew. Unfortunately, this also means I'll be out of communication for the next couple of weeks. Expect a LOT of posts and a LOT of pictures when I get back though! I'll probably do a few posts divided by countries, but maybe a couple installments for Ireland and Morocco. We'll see. I'm also going to be really busy when I get back with midterms, so I'll try to be as timely as possible, but I can't make any promises! I'll be writing down things I want to blog about every night, so I won't forget anything important. :-) On that note, talk to you all in a couple of weeks and...

Bye! Tchau! Adiós! وداعاً، إلى اللقاء! (beats me how you say that...) Salut!