Our Maltese Adventures

Touchdown in Malta at 11:38 p.m. on Thursday night. We felt like celebrities as we de-boarded the plane onto the runway. From there we took a cab to our hostel.  Cab drivers and bus drivers are younger people like us. You can count on them blasting techno house/american music. Our mini bus driver that we took everywhere resembled Mike, or "the Situation", from the Jersey Shore. We got to our hostel and they had messed up our reservation. Turns out they were overbooked even though it didn't say so online. So they put us up in a nice hostel across the street.  We passed out almost immediately.  On Friday we got up early to get to our other hostel and on our way passed the "Black and Gold Lounge". Even more ironic was that the song "Black and Yellow" was playing when we arrived at our first hostel.  Anyway, after checking into our second hostel where we would stay for the next two nights, we walked outside to find crystal clear blue waters and natural/man-made pools from the rock.  From there we took the bus to Valetta, the capital city, where we caught another bus to the famous Blue Grotto. We ended up taking the wrong bus but it turned out more fun anyway because we befriended a local Maltese woman who showed us our house and showed us the way to Blue Grotto. It was about a 20 minute walk through beautiful countryside. When we got there we ate lunch on a rooftop terrace overlooking the water. After lunch we each paid for a boat tour of the caves and the Blue Grotto.  We were able to get out and swim in one of the caves - it was amazing. I think everyone would agree that it was one of their favorite parts of the trip.  The water was crystal clear and we could see purple and orange coral everywhere.
After the grotto we laid out and climbed on the rocks for a little.  From there we went back to the hostel to shower and get ready for dinner.  Around sunset we headed down the Promenade towards St. Julians, a popular tourist area with a lot of neat restaurants, bars, and clubs.  We ate at an italian place called Paparazzi. The food had mixed reviews from the group, but the atmosphere was perfect.  Next, we walked up the street towards the bars. We went to an Irish pub - Cork pub? - where we had a drink and watched old people sing "Party Rock Anthem" by LFMAO. Paige got up and sang I feel like a woman to break the ice before we left and walked up the street. We discovered that the next area we went to was a teenybopper area - the girl in front of us was carded because she looked 11.  It was quite the scene. After about an hour of people watching we left to go home.

Saturday we woke up early to get a ride from Kevin to the Gozo ferry. Gozo is an island north of Malta. When we got there we each paid 12 euro to cram into a mercedes taxi. Our driver, Jerry, was the man. He told us all this interesting stuff about Gozo and Malta in addition to taking us all over the island to the capital city, The Blue Window (our favorite), Fungus rock, and Rabla beach (a beach with red sand). Which we stole a bottle of sand and got it confiscated at the airport.  At the capital we saw an old prison and some churches. On our drive we saw amazing villages and saw their decorations for their feasts. Every sunday a different village decorates and has a feast that celebrates their churches' saint. After all of this he took us back to the ferry. From the ferry we took two buses to get to Golden Bay, a famous sandy beach there. Most of the beaches are rock in Malta. There we rode horses at sunset through the countryside and saw popeye's village which we learned costed 22 million dollars to build. The village was built just for the movie and now serves as a tourist attraction. The reason it costed this much was because they imported a certain kind of wood to make the houses.  When we were there, people were setting up lights and stuff because they were hosting a beach club disco party there.  The horseback ride was amazing as the rest of the seis amigas would agree. As for me, I didn't have the best experience because my horse and placement for the entire ride was not desirable.  Once my back and butt heal I'm sure I'll be more appreciative that we took the journey.  After the ride we ate at Golden Bay and called Kevin to drive us home.  Chels, Paige, and I stayed in that night and Kel, Liv, and Gaby went out to a club that was supposedly where Brad Pitt has been recently. It was confirmed that he is filming a movie in Malta.  They didn't see him.

One of the other amigas will talk about Sunday. Estoy muy cansada.

Adios.

Kacie

Made it safely

No pirates yet. Everyone is so nice and they really do speak english! We all keep answering them with "Si" and "Gracias" when really they have no idea how to speak spanish. Our hostel is really nice and even cheaper than the ones that we stayed at in Italy.  No pickpocketers, cabs are safe, nightlife is safe. The bus can take us all over the island for about 47 cents.  We'll keep you updated on our adventures. Riding horses on a beach at sunset tomorrow is what it's looking like. Cross yo fingers that they have room for us.

Kac

Malta?

We're going to Malta in a couple hours for the weekend.  Where the eff is Malta you ask? It's an island in between Sicily and Africa. We believe its a honeymoon spot.  It was the cheapest thing we could find on our trusty european airline, vueling.com. They speak Maltese and English.  90% Roman Catholic. The size of the island is 31 km wide?  It takes about 30 minutes to get anywhere. They filmed Popeye the sailor man featuring Robin williams in the town there called Popeye's village.

swimming/snorkeling through caves, ocean kayaking, and maybe skydiving are on our list of things to do there.

We'll try and let you know that we got there safe. Hopefully the pirates that mom is worried about won't snag us up.

Kacie

FELIZ DIA DE LOS PADRES!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Life is good :)

For the past three days since we have been back in Barcelona we have had absolutely AMAZING weather! I think there has been about 3 clouds in the sky today, and I'm finally getting to put all the sundresses I packed to good use :) There was also a lunar eclipse last night here!! We went down to the beach to watch it with some of our friends and it was amazing. On our walk home we also walked through an area on the beach that we had not seen yet, and we are so excited to return to it soon! We found the Ice bar we have been looking for, and what looked like a really good tapas place - maybe one night we will take a break from our homemade dinners and experience real Spanish food?!

Classes are going well for Olivia, Paige, Gaby, and Kelly. Olivia says she is having a fabulous experience, and Paige says she is learning A LOT. After everything Paige's teacher explains, she makes sure to turn to her and asks, "Comprende Paige?" They have also been able to frequently squeeze in some beach time in between their classes too, which makes school way more fun.

Kacie and I are super busy this week with our 4 hour spanish classes on top of our internships, but I think it is really helping us with our Spanish. The cool thing is that in these classes Spanish is the common language among the students, so you actually have to speak Spanish the entire time. There are people from all over the world in our classes - there are 2 brazilians, 2 Americans, 2 French, 1 German, and 1 Swiss students in my class.

I am really enjoying my internship as well. I'm working for a company call EduRed, which helps Latin American immigrants adjust to the culture in Spain. They also provide English classes, which is where I come in! I'm teaching a beginner English class in Terassa, about an hour outside of the city. They are from all over Latin America and range from ages 13 to 45. I'm technically not suppose to be speaking any Spanish in the class, but they really don't know much English at all so I've been doing a lot of Spanglish. I had about 2 hours of training and very vague lesson plans to work off of, but I'm actually enjoying the challenge of figuring out how to explain English grammar and making activities and worksheets to use.

We are off to go see the Magic Fountain at Montjuic tonight! I think it's kind of going to be like the fountain show in front of the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Also more details and pictures from our Italia trip will be up soon!

Hasta Luego!

Chelsea

Mi Dia

Today was my first real day of work. The woman who I am working for started her own marketing consultant company. She gives advice to start up companies about how they can market their business and in addition creates websites for them. She works half the time in Barcelona and half the time in Alella, a smaller town 30 minutes outside the city.  Today I took a bus out to her house.  It was a nice change to get out of the city. Its peaceful to actually hear some noises of nature and see some greenery.  The town isn't far from the beach and is situated on the bottom/side of a mountain. Her house is about a ten minute walk up a tiring incline and through a vineyard.  I learned some good things and am currently helping set up a website for a client.  My boss' cat kicks it with me (and sheds all over me) and the dog periodically comes over to say to hey. He got stuck sniffing around me for a while because about 15 minutes after I got there I realized that I had stepped in dog poop on my way.  It was only a little bit, not enough for me to track it around, so as awkward as I am I didn't say anything. I think the husband smelled it when I met him but whatever. Oh, and when I was talking to my boss about some things right before I was about to leave, her dog threw up and ate it right back up.  She was so awkward and I couldn't stop dying laughing.

When I got back into Barcelona I had to go to a 4 hour spanish class. woof. The professor spoke all in spanish and I gave it what I got.  Mi espanol es perfecto.

Adios,

Kacie

Home at Last

Back in Barcelona! We had an amazing adventure! I don't think any of us have powered through so many attractions in a short amount of time! We probably walked about 20 miles total this weekend and talk to Chels or Kacie if you want an estimate of the number of stairs we climbed! Wee rocked Italy! We loved every single meal we devoured! We are all exhausted and ready to pass out. But we are also very happy to be back in Barcelona. Although Italy is absolutely amazing we are all very happy that we chose to study abroad here in Barcelona!

Back to the crazy swing of things!

More to come soon,
Paige

"When Romeing"

So we only gave you a brief blog to let you know we were here and safe.  Let's elaborate.

Getting from the airport to the train station was a little bit of a nightmare. Olivia speaks elementary to intermediate italian, but the signs and the directions people gave us were too confusing - even for Chels and Kacie who have mastered mapping.  Finally we got in a cab to the central train station of Rome - Termini.  When we went here first because we were looking to buy our train tickets to Florence so that we would not have to worry about getting them the next day when we wanted to sightsee.  We tried getting the 2 for 1 deal but ended up waiting an hour in the wrong line. We were informed of the "right" line by a fellow Italian and decided that we would just come back tomorrow since we found out our hostel - Susannah Guest House (a whopping 26euro/night with a free breakfast around the corner) -  was only a 5 minute walk away. Got to our hostel and as the description below explains, its no 5 star hotel.  Nevertheless, we have made it our home and have built some trust with it seeing as though all of our stuff was intact when we got back from sightseeing today.  This place will do us some good as evidence by our incredibly sore quads and calves from the 67 steps that we have to walk up to get here. That might not seem like a lot but try it.. When we got here we went up the wrong stairwell and went probably even 6 more floors up just to realize we had to walk all the way down and try the next building over.  After getting settled we walked around the corner for some vino and pasta.  Any pounds that we lost from the ehh food in Espanya were gained right back.  We all came home and just went to bed.

Day 2:

Ate the free breakfast around the corner around 9:45. Then we went to the train station and waited in that "right" line for 20 minutes.  Turns out it was another wrong line in which we were directed to another one.  The actual right one would have taken 3 hours to wait in so we decided to pay the full amount for each ticket instead of getting the deal - sorry mom and dad. But hey.. the prices our nomadic humble abodes should make up for it.

We then took the metro to the Colosseum Where Kel, Gaby, Chels, and Kacie accepted and expedited tour.  They toured both the Colosseum and the Paletino (?) Ruins.  Afterwards they met up with Liv and Paige to see the Roman Ruins, the Wedding Cake (amazing building/place we're unsure of), the trevi fountain where we made our wishes, and the Spanish Steps.  Just what we needed, more steps.  Along our adventures we stopped twice for gelato and also got a round of paninis.  Kac and Kel are diggin' the prosciutto and mozzarella.

We're back at the infamous Susannah and resting/changing now. About to head out for some dinner and a pubcrawl.  

Leaving for Florence early tomorrow. Talk to you then.

Hasto Luego!

Kacie

We're heree

Made it to our hostel. We're safe. kinda. it smells like pee, paige and gaby are comfortable under their cheetah print fleece blanket, olivia and Kelly are sleeping soundly under the stars of their saturn and jupiter sheets on their cots. And Kacie and Chels are going to sweat to death because they had to shut the window to the outside pee/trash air. In addition they will break their backs on the concrete mattress while they try to dream of clean sheets without the hairs and mysterious stains they found on their bed. Other than that VIVA LA ROMA

Vamos a la Italia

We're leaving for the airport now - off to Roma!

Just booked a hostel. Should have internet there. Will update you soon!

Adios!

Laundry in Europe

Learned some things about laundry since I've been here (more like I googled it out of frustration)

-In 1799 a Frenchman by the name of Pochon invented the first hand cranked dryer.
-In 1892 George T. Sampson received a patent on an automatic dryer. It was nothing more than a modified rack that held wet clothing near a heat source. It used heat from the stove to dry clothes in an attached barrel.
-In 1915 the electric tumbler clothes dryer was introduced. It is not clear who exactly holds the patent to the first electric dryer.

Regardless of the different types of dryers the electric tumbler dryer has been around for 96 years yet there are none to be seen in Barcelona. Although the hanging clothes off of balconies leads to a very artistic look on the unique and beautiful design of these buildings it has presented a problem for all of us. On top of that we can't seem to quite figure out the washing machine because it takes 4 hours for one cycle but doesn't clean any of the clothes...

Back to the dryer dilemma we have learned to look ahead at the weather before doing a cycle because there is no point because there is no where to hang them to dry! If anyone has any suggestions we are all ears!!!

On a more positive note...we are becoming quite domestic in the cooking department. I just made my first breakfast burrito consisting of eggs, cheese, ham, and a soft tortilla. We are planning on exploring more inventions within the kitchen! All recipes are welcome!!!

Paige

School???

So it finally hit us yesterday (Monday) that the "Study" part of Study Abroad is real life. We had our first day of school on Monday. We all woke up early and made it to school early! However the doors to the University were locked. Apparently they don’t let us into the building until a little bit before 9:30 which is ironic since they are so strict about their late policy. Gaby and I had our International Marketing Strategies class first. Our teacher is funny, quirky, and doesn't speak very clear English but it is a very cool class. Olivia and Kelly had their first period class together as well which they blogged about below. What are the chances that the professor at orientation was their professor! Kelly had her second class 30 mins after the first and Olivia, Gaby, and I had a 3 hour break. Naturally we practically sprinted to the beach. We got so much sun it was amazing! (Until later when I discovered I looked like a Lobster and was burnt to a crisp). We made it back to the school with plenty of time to spare. We all have Spanish in the afternoon. Now we all know Olivia is crazy good at Spanish and Gaby is just crazy good at languages in general! So obviously both of these baller Spanish speaking girls were going to be in advanced classes. Now I on the other hand can't speak a different language to save my life. My last year of French in high school my teacher felt so bad for me that she told me if I kept working as hard as I was that she would give me a B as long as I promised to never take a language course again... true story. I naturally signed up for the first level entry class but somehow ended up in Olivia's class...aka the most advanced class. Well it took about 5 seconds of talking to her professor for him to realize this was a big mistake. I've never seen a professor fill out paperwork so fast in my life...let's just say he was happy to pass me along to a different professor. Anyways it all worked out and we all love our three different Spanish teachers! So we made it through the first day of classes.

Last night only Olivia, Kelly, and I made it out. Even though we were three short and they were greatly missed we still had a blast. We ended up at this "secret" bar that was really at the top room of a hotel that seemed to be placed in the mall. Regardless we had the funniest bartenders we have had since we have been here. The one that was serving us was from Italy and he loved wearing Kelly's glasses. We hung out there for a while and then headed to Club Boulevard. On the walk there we got about a hundred flyers for Boulevard, they didn't understand that we were already going and they didn't need to give us more. Once there we met up with a friend who got us past the line and into the bar for free. We had such a fun, low key, night dancing like crazy! On the way back home Olivia had a full conversation with the taxi driver. (and she says she's not fluent...psshh). All i understood was SHAKIRA. He told her that it wouldn't be too hard to find her so we are on a mission!

Tuesday: This morning we woke up a little tired but still made it to class early. Kelly got into her business class and loves it! Olivia was very tired and claimed that her body was not functioning. Just in case her professor didn't already love her...she explained that her participation in class today consisted of several head bobs and somehow her gum fell out of her mouth without her consent. Oh and by the way she sits in the first row. When we walked out of school we were greeted by a torrential downpour. Of course none of us brought our rain gear so we attempted to sprint to the metro. We failed miserably as we got drenched by the rain, puddles, and our flip flops continued to fall off the entire time we ran. The other thing about rain that really stinks in Barelona is there are no dryers. Olivia's clothes were freshly hung when we left for class this morning. As I'm writing this blog right now my clothes are waiting to be hung in the washer...I don't think that will be happening anytime soon.

All in all I think we will survive the "Study" aspect of this trip! Gaby and I have our Case Study on The Real Madrid football team on Thursday! Wish us luck!

All for now
Paige

Turns out the woman who gave the orientation speeches that we showed up late for and were more off than on from the night before, or the two hours before, was Olivia and I's teacher 9:30 am this morning... we sat in the front row. Luckily the class is optional, so if worst comes to worst we don't have to show up again in our PJ's. Overall, classes were fine. Liv Paige and Gabby went to the beach in between there two classes, and I went after both of mine. I made other friends, and hopefully got on Barcelona news playing soccer. Kacie and Chels finally got oriented and are on their way home from a long day of introductions...

Notes: Naked old guys on the beach are not the highlight of our day...

Meeting up with our friends later tonight, this whole no tv, cold showers, no lights thing can only keep us cooped up for so long. OLIVIA'S MAKING PIZZA.

Checking off our bucket list goals

At the beginning of the trip we created a bucket list for the sights, restaurants, and bars that we wanted to visit during our time here. Throughout this week we have checked off a bunch of our goals :)

Today we checked off the Picasso museum downtown. The setup of the museum was pretty cool because it was essentially a timeline that guides you through his life and experiences that influenced his art. I think most of us know Picasso for his modern (and kind of child-like) art, but today I learned that this is only a small portion of his work. Earlier on in his career he focused on portraits and more impressionist style paintings, and also dabbled in ceramics as well! I think my favorite part of the exhibit was the "Las Meninas" interpretations. Picasso took a famous Velazquez painting called las Meninas and interpreted it in over 40 different ways - below is an example of one of his paintings (left one is the original)

We also had some Vanderbilt visitors come in this weekend which was so much fun! There are 10 girls doing a program in Aix en Provence in Southern France, so needless to say we had a lot of fun touring them around last night and today through Barcelona.

I had planned to write more about our bucket list on this blog post, but I am literally falling asleep after I type a sentence... cant wait to get a good long sleep tonight! The 4 girls start their classes tomorrow and Kacie and I (chels) have our first day of orientation, stay tuned!!

Beautiful Barcelona Beach

We woke up today to the best weather that we have seen all week. It was sunny, hot and beautiful so we got our bathing suits on as quickly as possible and headed down to the beach. It was quickly apparent that some of us (Liv) get tanned much quicker than others (the rest of us). In a couple hours Olivia got as tanned as I would get tanning for a couple hours a day for 6 months straight. The water was so refreshing that Chels, Kacie and Kelly even swam out to a rock sandbar out in the ocean. Since we could not tear ourselves away from the beach we stayed there as long as possible. Our day of sunbathing, racketball and volleyball on the beach was concluded with some good ol American nachos, fries and pizza. We then returned home to a functioning internet which means good news for our thousands of blog followers…

There is a slight possibility that we will run into Paris Hilton tonight so stay tuned
Headed for my daily siesta,
Gabs

Mom and Dad, we got a job

So we've never heard so many whistles in our lives.  Men, women, children, dogs, ferrets on leashes, bunnies (yerp we saw it all) - all of them whistle at us. We must be some good lookin' American amigas. Anywho, we plan on wearing some crazy make up, putting on an outfit, and freeze pose in the metro.  We'll lay out Olivia's suitcase and gather moolah.  If there's a euro for every whistle, we'll make billions.

notes: We found out that pigeons here don't mind people. One hit me in the head today, one showered poop right next to me two days ago, and three times today we've had to duck from them. I've come to think they've taken a liking to me. Very much like the asian women roaming the beaches asking people if they want massages. It seems that they specifically like me. They swarmed me even when I pretended I was asleep. Also - the beaches are topless. You don't see that every day. Lastly, dogs here don't have leashes and Spain doesn't have pretzels. 

After the beach two days ago, the studiers had another tour for orientation.  Chels and I, as we do every day, walked five miles. We walked through this beautiful Park, Parc Ciutadella, where we met a Guatemalan kid named Doniello.  He told us he was just at Camp Nou (FC Barcelona's home stadium) for the celebration of their Championship win that happened the day before we got here.  Afterwards he was in a crowd when Messi drove by and happened to stop for him to give him his autograph. We saw that picture. It was pretty cool.  We invited him on our walk to the Sagrada Familia.  We saw the Placa de Toros where the bullfights used to take place.  Now bullfighting does not happen anywhere in Catalunya.  We walked by the Sagrada Familia, got gelato, and meandered home.  

Later that night we met up with some friends and went to a bar called SHOKO. Was a long night/morning to say the least.

More to come on actually touring the Sagrada yesterday. Excuse our lateness on these blogs. We're still alive and kickin.

"Hot N Cold" Wednesday June 1st 2011

“We are living the lyrics to Katy Perry’s Hot n Cold” –Olivia Goodman

This statement was dead on for the morning that Olivia, Kelly, Gaby, and I (paige) experienced. We woke up for our orientation and went to the stop which we thought we were suppose to meet. We realized shortly after arriving that we had made a mistake…whelp it was actually kind of my fault…shocking. They had told us at orientation that we were meeting at a different metro stop and we had all written that information down, however we did not cross out the original information. So we called and they gave use wrong directions…twice. And then we ended up on the other side of town. We were running around Barcelona like crazy going in and out of the metro and across different metro lines, asking people for directions! Most of the people who we asked had never heard of the university, which wasn’t very comforting…we were convinced at that point that it was a scam. We finally called when we were by the Arena (not sure which arena) and they told us we were on the opposite side of town and not to bother going! We then almost sprinted home and got our bathing suits on and headed to the beach.

The reason that we were living the lyrics of Hot n Cold is because we were…
-Hot and Cold…it was cold outside and hot in the metro
-Yes and No…Yes we thought we were going the right way but no no no we really weren’t
-In and Out… We were in and out of the metro
-Up and Down…we were going up and down the stairs (A LOT of stairs)
-Wrong and Right…We thought we were right sometimes but we were always wrong
The perfect analogy for the morning!


The day got a lot better once we got to the beach! It is absolutely breath taking. The water is LIGHT BLUE! I don’t think I’ve ever seen water this color before. Chelsea and Kacie met us at the beach. We met some friends from Vancouver. We also had lunch at this local restaurant and it was the first time we’ve had an actual meal since we have been here! We have been trying to save money by eating food that we buy from the grocery store. So it was really nice to finally have a real meal!

After the beach Kelly, Olivia, Gaby and I met up with our CIS group and we took a tour around Gracia which is actually the town we are in! We had no idea how close it was to our house. It is the coolest place I’ve seen in Barcelona and we are so lucky to live so close! It use to be a village/town type place that was separate from Barcelona so it's got this unique feel to it that's different from any other place in Barcelona. And while it’s old it also has a very hip and high fashion. Our guide was telling us that young designers open up stores and that they sell their stuff for really cheap. It was crazy because we were walking and looking in the shops and the clothes were OUT of this world! The town is amazing though, the little details in the architecture are so breath taking. It is funny because in Barcelona you won't find any houses...all apartments. But there was one private house in this town that was designed by Goudi! The house looked a little bit like Candy Land. It was so cool! But the rest of the apartments in the town all had beautiful balconies with tiny little details.

At night we met up with some of our friends from our CIS group and went to club Shoko. We had a crazyyyy night! We danced the night…and morning away!

We are a day behind on our blog but promise to catch up tomorrow!

That's all for now!
Paige