More Italy

Italy

After a boring week of finals I was pleased to find myself on my fall break.  We had Thursday - Tuesday off of school and had made plans to travel to Italy.  

We landed in Rome on Thursday night, late, and made our way to our mediocre hostel.  We were only in Rome for two nights so we were gonna make due with the hostel, but the next morning some friends of ours in the same hostel but a different building, woke up with bed bugs... sketch.

  After we switched to our new hotel, Rome was ridiculous; having only one day there we had to cover some serious ground.  We covered all the basic tourist stops (coliseum, trevi fountain, pantheon, vatican, etc) and made our way through a pub crawl that evening that started at the spanish steps.  The next morning we caught a train to Florence to see all of our friends studying there and stayed for another two nights.  

The food in Florence was incredible, I ate at the best Italian Restaurant I've ever been to and there's pizza, paninis, gelato and tons of other food available everywhere.  Needless to say, I ate my way through Florence, and Italy in general for that matter.  After partying with all our friends in Florence we took off on Sunday for Venice.  

I couldn't help but feel reminded of Balboa as I walked around the streets over bridges and by canals.  I would love to have a place there with a boat and be able to get around by boat all the time.  

I really had no expectations coming into this trip and was pleasantly surprised by how sick Italy was. It has everything from the historic sites and the night life to the food and its amazing climate and countryside.  good times for sure.

Finally

After all this time, I finally succeeded in finding a restaurant that actually serves BURRITOS. O yes, i could hardly contain myself, and these were no European imitation burritos, this was the real deal. Complete with amazing guacamole and salsas, it was a trip I had to make twice during my time in Barcelona...

Barcelona is Buckwild

So last week my school took us to Barcelona, paid for our transportation on the bullet train and put us up in a 4 star hotel in the center of the city.  They call it a "traveling class", but I call it an excuse for me to take a one week free vacation to party with my friends in Barcelona, o yeah and they paid for 2 meals a day, breakfast and a lunch or dinner, drinks included. 

The class lasted Tue.-Fri., but they gave us the option to return on sunday, which everyone chose, and scheduled our return tickets accordingly.  Barcelona has ridiculous night life, from Shoko and Catwalk at the beach, to Chupitos and Piano Bar in the city, we went out hard every night and woke up early to a groggy tour of some really cool places. 

As much as it was a rough wake up it was worth it to really get around and see the sights the city had to offer, instead of waking up at 3 pm to get lunch and hangng out till the party started again, as I would have done otherwise. We saw the Port of Barcelona, Gaudy's famous Cathedral La Sangrada Familia, and took a tour and wine tasting at Cordiniu Winery. 

 Barcelona is to Madrid as LA is to NY, and I love it there. I will definitely be back.

Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest pretty much tops them all as of this point.  Friday night I arrived and met up with all of the Dena homies.  From the moment we left the train stop by our Hostel in Downtown Munich, it was easy to see that Oktoberfest was already in full force. 

The streets were littered with the wreckage of hundreds of drunken people wandering the streets chanting, stumbling and puking. Actually, at first I had a bit of an aversion to the spectacle, but after we found a bar my first few steins settled any inhibitions that I may have had. 

You join the level of the mob around you, and no longer are you surrounded by a madhouse, you're an inmate. The next two days we dedicated to the beer tents, and as for that I think the photos can describe better than me. Our hostel was a loud, smelly, mess, which seemed find in the midst of all the action. I was lost after the tents day one by myself, wandering aimlessly through the streets of Munich. Somehow people in my group found me.  

The weekend as a whole can only be described as an experience that it will take a year for me to recover from.. well there's always 2009.

Porto: Graff Installment

In addition to the wine, the food, the booze and the debauchery, Porto seems to have a number of good artists coming up in full force around the city. Here are some of the cooler pictures I got while I was there.

Porto, Portugal

This past weekend I travelled to Porto, Portugal; the birthplace and home to Port Wine.  Its a beautiful city divided by a river and Filled with Wineries.  There are legitimately street signs that point you in the direction of different wineries, all of which offer free tours and tastings, which we capitalized on promptly. 

 Our Hostel was amazing (Hostel Andarilho), we had a 10 person bedroom to ourselves (we fortunately had a group of ten so no worries about random roomates) and the whole place was decorated with a very cool, modern decor. It also had a courtyard attached to it, which provided the perfect setting for beer pong before we went out at night. 

Everything in Portugal is much cheaper than in Madrid, for example we bought a 24 pack of beer, a fifth of smirnoff, and some food and water and our total was 18 euro. I think Europe as a whole wants me to be drunk all the time, because its easier and cheaper to find a bar or somewhere to buy drinks than it is to find food and water.  From beer pong with foreigners to booze cruises on the river and from moroccan restaurants to thai food, Porto was a blur well worth remembering.

Valle de los Caídos

This place is sick. After a tour of this palace in El Escorial and a leisurely lunch with at least a couple pitchers of sangria, we got back on the bus where I promptly passed out.  However, some period of time later I awoke to the amazing sight and views of El Valle de los Caídos.  That cross is massive and perched on the top of the mountain, with four of the largest sculptures of people I've ever seen on the corners of its base. Those arches in the back lead into an unbelievably large vaulted cathedral built inside the mountain with a enormous Dome in the middle right under the cross.  Its called Valle De Los Caídos because it was built by the people who were conquered and the prisoners after the Spanish Civil war.