When yall say Narnia, do you mean Barcelona?

Barcelona was the first stop on my little Eurotrip. It was filled with a smoggy beach, bright colors, great friends and a nice bike ride through the city. I stayed in an apartment with 12 other students, so the living situation was extremely interesting. There was never a dull moment. We arrived in Barcelona late at night and had quite the time getting to the apartment. Everything was in Spanish and we had no map. After an hour or so, we finally arrived at the apartment. The next day, we went to the beach and socialized with one another. The beach was cold and smoggy, but it was a beach nonetheless. We spent the rest of the day roaming around Las Rambla street. The street is filled with bustling markets and several random street performers. The next day we rented bikes and did our own little bike tour. We rode around and saw all the main attractions, such as La Sagrada Familia and the Barcelona bull fighting arena. I would recommend a trip to Barcelona. It is a wonderful place with a great vibe. Everyone was extremely friendly!

This would be me biking around. Photo cred: Stephanie Parker

Pat reading my Glamour mag on the train
Delicious dinner! The gross looking green stuff is the delicious pesto sauce i made haha
There were soo many neat alleys in Barcelona filled with shops and restaurants.
Graffiti outside of our apartment
more.
weird statue guy. he hit me in the face with an arrow!
Arc de Triomf
Sagrada Familia
statue on Las Rambla
Steph!
sail boats on the bay
flagsss
public bikes

Where do i start?

Spring Break was honestly crazy. I traveled to Barcelona, Nice, Marseilles, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Patmos, Rome Venice AND even a random place in Turkey. Now that is intense. I traveled Europe with three of my best friends and it was a blast. Obviously i can't discuss all at once, so i will show my pictures and describe my experiences one at a time. Trust me, it is worth it.

London is crazyyy

Song of the Week: Tower bridge

Tower of London

Tourist pic!

Houses of Parliament

Southwark Cathedral. amazing architecture!

We all know him...BIG BEN

you were robbed..

Prime Minister's, Tony Blair, house. They had to put a fence around it because people started throwing eggs, tomatoes, etc. at it when they were unhappy with government decisions.

Where the volleyball portion of the Olympics will be held haha

Trafalagar Square

History museum. It was free!

Changing of the guards outside of Prince Charles' house.

Buckingham Palace. Sadly, the Queen was not in.

Gate outside of the Palace

Memorial to soldiers lost from other countries

Duke Wellington statue (he's the one wellies were named after)

Famous doubledecker red buses

Haley and I on the tube

The Nasty hostel ^^

Fast paced. thousands of people swamp the streets. Almost getting knocked over. Hardly ever hear english. THIS is London. Completely different than what i expected. I wanted to come here to school actually. Glad i changed my mind. I am from the south...we like our days slow and easy. London likes life to move a million miles a minute on a few different trams to nowhere in particular. I did have a great time, even though we had some interesting experiences. Me and my friend Haley got conned into staying in an insanely sketchy hostel the first night. It was something to write home about, for sure. The name of the hostel was spray painted on the side of the building. We did not even know it was the right one until getting close enough to read the graffiti! After the women at the front desk finally understood that we DID book the hostel and already paid a deposit, we finally were given a key. After walking into the room, we realized we were in a very unsafe co-ed room. We quickly went downstairs to complain--only to find out we had to pay an additional 3 pounds to stay in a female room. The female room was fine. it consisted of two violin playing romanians who had been living in the hostel for three months (!!). And im pretty sure we both had bed bugs...ew. Why hasn't this place been shut down?! Some countries need a better business bureau (AHEM! all of Europe...)

The 2nd day we went on a free tour and really got to explore london. We saw all the top sites, such as Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. The pictures really explain it all! The hostel we stayed at this night was much better. It had a spacious common room and really friendly people. Also, it was in a much better neighborhood. A New Orleans Jazz band played in the bar downstairs, which was seriously the highlight. Two of the band members were British, but obviously the three Americans showed them what NOLA was all about. It reminded me of sitting at a cafe on Canal Street while street bands playing percussion strolled by slowly. Loved it!

Amsterdam

Song of the day:

After a 16 hour bus ride, we were all pretty exhausted. We didn't do much sleeping on the bus, so the first thing everyone wanted to do was sleep! We had a quick lunch and then went to the Van Gogh museum. All of the paintings and sketches were incredible. It was definitely on my list of places to visit. My favorite painting is Sunflowers, so it was surreal to actually be that close to it. Alas, I don't know if it was worth 12 pounds. I'm on a budget here! After Van Gogh, we all crashed for a few hours and recharged for the evening. It was LeAnn's birthday so we went to a nice dinner and then hit up some of the clubs and pubs.

On Saturday, we went to the Anne Frank Museum and then the Heinken Museum. Both were very interesting, but in completely opposite ways. The Anne Frank house is an amazing piece of history. It is sad to believe that two families had to hide from the world simply because of their religion. The world has come a long way since then. It was crazy to stand in a place that represented so much history. Heinken experience was quite different. We found out exactly how they made the beer and the history behind the brewery...pretty fun. Anyways, here is Amsterdam in photos:

View from the ferry

It snowed a bunch.

Fire breathing gypsy in the market, accompanied by a little music.

Billy and I

Canal

Pretty red shutters

Mel and I

Sooo many bikes

outside the Van Gogh museum. I amsterdam

Cutest skating rink ever!