Spring Break European Style: Spain

I just got back (and am still recovering) from my 3 week trip around Europe. I managed to hit up Spain, The Netherlands, Scotland, and Greece on My trip (as well as 18 hours in Italy. doesn't really count though does it?) It was a fantastic trip and I am so glad I got to do it! A series of recaps to follow starting now with...SPAIN!
 I did the first week of the trip with my friend Michelle in Spain. We left for Milan on Friday night and after pulling an all nighter outside the train station of Milan we caught our flight to Madrid. We spent the day taking a walking tour with a company called New Europe. I highly recommend it if you have the chance as it is a tour of the city for free and at the end you pay the tour guide whatever you thought the tour was worth. I have managed to do it in Berlin, Madrid, and Amsterdam and every time has been great as I get an overview of the history and the major sights. We made it to Tapas (where we overestimated the amount of tapas by a long shot!) and some walking around before we took the night bus to Malaga to see a friend of Michelle's and the beach!

This is how you sleep when there is nowhere to sleep. airport.

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enjoying our first Spanish lunch. Cervecas and little snadwiches. Delish!

hanging out in Plaza Mayor (Sp?) 

This is what happens with no sleep the night before. Sitting down wherever you can in Madrid.

Sangria and Tapas. Can't get much better than this!

Malaga was wonderful. Our first full day we spent at the beach taking in the rays (maybe too many. My sunburn lasted for days) and recuperating (sleeping). Monday was spent walking around the city of Malaga and meeting up with some Kalamazoo friends for lunch and bit of catching up which was so nice! It was also Semana Santa a religious holiday week celebrated with lots of parades and people dressed up. We got caught in a few of the parades and watched for a little while before it got to be too many people.

Malaga harbor.

Michelle's friend that we stayed with.

The streets of Malaga

Malaguerta sign.

I was able to meet up with my friends KAte and Sarah from K. So great to see them!!!

The outfits from Semana Santa

Tuesday morning we left for Seville for the day. It was raining which made walking around a bit harder to do but we still managed. We saw the outside of the large church (not inside because of Semana Santa). But mostly we roamed the city just taking in the sights and people. Definitely a place I would like to go back and explore more but still really cool to at least see a little of! We then hopped on another bus back to Madrid to continue our sight seeing there.

totally random picture from Seville. Mostly I just liked the graffiti.

Spain wouldn't be complete without some paella!

locked out and being rained on. No GOOD.

Getting ready for yet another bus ride.

Wednesday we managed to pack in quite a few things. We headed to the Palace, the Retiro Park, and the Prado. It was still raining off and on quite a bit so we spent a lot of time hopping in and out of places as we attempted to dodge the rain.  Thursday was the same thing only it rained a lot harder. We managed to get to the Bull Ring, a very interesting tour about the history of bull riding, the Reina Sofia, and the old Post Office building, a ginormous building renovated to be a museum. We also managed some good Mexican food for dinner and trying the chocolate Churros. DELICIOUS.

Bull Ring. A very interesting tour.

Trying to climb the tree in the park.

Friends episode: Joey. 

I think this is in Toledo. 

Friday was our last day in Spain and we decided on a day trip to Toledo outside of Madrid. We walked the city and including a history museum on the entire history of Spain. THE. ENTIRE. HISTORY. very specific and a little too informative but good nonetheless. We headed back into Madrid where we tried a strawberry lacquer recommended by our tour guide. pretty decent!

I'm On FIRE!!

One of the lovely things about living in Switzerland is that any regard for safety is mostly pushed to the side. Because of this I have been able to enjoy many things that would be violating many safety codes had we been in the US. One of the best has been Basel's Fasnacht. A celebration in which they "scare" winter away. This is a 72 hour celebration starting with...wait for it...a FIRE PARADE!!!! In a neighboring town, Liestal, they put on a fire parade to help scare away winter. There is fire EVERYWHERE. I mean EVERYWHERE. There are large wagons of fire coming down the street and people holding large torches of fire. There are children carrying mini torches and practically running down the hill while the men try and stop the large wagons from going out of control. We managed to get a front row seat to all of this and almost burned alive from the heat alone. and now some pictures:

confetti was EVERYWHERE. ps the girl on the right? totally photobombed.

those are the torches that were lit

unsure about the confederate flag

whit, zoe, me and Michelle hanging at the fire parade.

MAckenzie and I look at the fire!

the torches

never been so hot in my life.

the torches on FYAHH

 After the fire parade there was some waiting around, in whihc afew of us went to Olin and Nikki's house in order to get at least a few hours of sleep before the 4am parade of lights in Basel. Not as cool as basel but still pretty fun. Unfortunately no pictures of those. It was basically colored lanterns and people in masks playing either the drums or the piccolo. (SO. MANY. PICCOLOS.) loud and high pitched. Just what you want at 4am on monday morning!

The Rhein Falls Let down and the highest bar in Europe.

a few weekends ago I decided that in my effort to live in Europe I hadn't done nearly enough exploring of my own country. That Saturday, I ventured out to the largest Falls in Europe. The Rhein Falls. Now it being the largest place in Europe I expected great things. I had seen Niagara Falls, and Victoria Falls and thought that as the largest Falls in Europe it was going to be just as amazing. I then was told by Zuzana (a friend from Czech Republic) that it wasn't as great as Niagara, and that while still beautiful it would pale in comparison to Niagara. Ok. I lowered my expectations a little. Not as big as Niagara, but they still must be pretty big, right? I mean BIGGEST FALLS IN EUROPE. this has to mean something! I got there all excited about what I would see. this is what I saw:

Rhein Falls

WHAT?! Hopes and dreams ruined I stared in disbelief. This was practically the size of the falls behind my house at home! (I kid, I kid. But still pretty small.) Let's compare:

Niagara: 

http://www.congresstour.cl/int/destinos.php?hl=de&id_destino=658&nom_continente=&nom_pais=estados-unidos&nom_destino=-circuito-arco-iris-

I mean there was no comparison. After my shock I decided to take a few more fun pictures. It might be small but there were photo opportunities that needed to happen!

The Sunday we (Michelle, Mackenzie, and I) headed to Mount Titlus to see the mountain, the glacier and some snow. We managed a train, bus, gondola, and lift to get to the top. It was gorgeous and inside the glacier was awesome. I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking! (I didn't get a picture of the highest bar in Europe. But I PROMISE we were there!

As you can see we got a little creative with our posing in the glacier.

At the top of the mountain!!

Londontown

Back in February, My mother and sister and I took a trip to London for 5 days. It was a total whirlwind trip  but totally worth it!
I arrived on Saturday morning after a long night. I had just celebrated my birthday with friends hosting a dinner party and my early morning flight out of Basel was at 7am. I had to leave Zurich at around 445 in order to get there on time. I was exhausted! I was arriving a few hours before mom and Megan and so went to our hotel. Checked in (Well first I took a long 1.5 hour nap in the lobby while they got the rooms ready) and then slept until they arrived. Feeling a little more refreshed, Megan, Mom and I ventured out to the London Eye (my birthday treat!) followed by an amazing dinner at an Indian place (with the lack of spice I get in Zurich this was a welcome change. My mouth may have been on FYAHHH but it was totally worth it!) We called it an early night preparing to venture out the next day for some full on tourism.

waiting for the London Eye

Mom and Megs on the Eye

We took turns for the Classic picture in the phonebooth. Mom was REALLY EXCITED about it.

Sunday morning after our "English breakfast" we headed out to a quick stop at the British museum to see some Cleopatra stuff for Mom and the Rosetta stone. We then headed to the Charles Dickens House. Which I do not recommend. Some of the parts unfortunately looked like they had been put there by a high school group. (think matted pieces of paper on the posterboard a la history day?). The coolest museum there that we saw was the Foundling Museum. This museum is all about the Foundling Hospital where children were abandoned by their parents when they could no longer care for them. Each child was tagged with something so that if the parents came back they would be able to recognize them.   If you ever get the chance it's definitely one of the cooler museums I've seen.  We followed this with High Tea! Mom had booked us High tea at the Cadogan Hotel. Super fancy when we showed up in our jeans!   We finished out the touring with a trip to King's Cross station to take pictures of us "going through the barrier" like HARRY POTTER!!!

Classic Pharoah picture....is there such a thing?

Charles Dickens House

My Alma Mater....

Pinkies up!

Platform 9 3/4.

Monday was filled with walking around the city. We hit up the Millennium Bridge (another Harry Potter place!) We managed to get a look into Westminster's evensong (i think that's what it's called?) very cool to hear the monks singing. St. Lucian President was being honored that day with us. Very appropriate! That night we saw Children's Hour with Keira Knightley, and Elizabeth Moss (Mad Men). I had high hopes for the show and was a little disappointed but it was overall still pretty good!!!

Tuesday was the last full day in London. Megan left that afternoon and so Mom and I headed out to Hampton Court to take a look at the Castle out there. It was an interesting display of the time of Henry VIII during different times in his life. The whole set up was really child friendly and an interesting place to run around in! (oh my goodness, clearly I have been with Children too long!!) We ended the day with a quick dinner and then were off to see Billy Elliott. I had been wanting to see this show basically since it came out. and it did not fail me! The 12 year old boy (Billy Elliott) was an absolutely fantastic dancer! (as he hopefully would be after 3 years of training for this role) All the children were phenomenal as were the adults!

A few randoms from the trip.

Cheers!

epitome of London all in one!

Mom left Wednesday morning leaving me to my own devices. I took a walk around Buckingham palace and soaked up the last of the English before heading back to Zurich. A really fantastic trip!!

Hiking

the weather in Switzerland recently has been wonderful! One of the things I have been wanting to do for awhile is go hiking in different parts of Switzerland.  After a bit of a hard time getting to where we want to go (note: train conductors are ALWAYS right!) we managed to arrive in Brunnen and hiked around the area.  It was absolutely beautiful weather and a sort of unplanned hike as we chose routes based on what looked more interesting. Always fun! The views were absolutely stunning and I was so glad we were able to get away from the cities!

Check out that view!

taking a break

more views

they were walking backwards I swear!

LOOK OVER THERE!

adorable little house on a cart...well not exactly adorable i guess...

driving the tractor.

That one time when I went skiing!

I recently got a new computer and can now add pictures to my blog posts! I uploaded 200 pictures to my computer and im the process of editing for viewing pleasure!
WAYYYYY back in January my brother hosted a ski weekend with him and 30 of their closest friends. I being the awesome sister that I am got to invite a few friends up with me. One friend who had never skied in her life (michelle), one friend who had been skiing a few times (Nicole) and one friend who was basically professional (Anna), and then me on a snowboard (read: BEGINNER). We were definitely the youngest by about 6 years. We arrived on Friday night by way of train bus and TBAR. Nicole and Michelle and I started up as the last ones on the TBar. I was going to go last as the most experienced of the 3 but after being yelled at in Swiss German to get on the TBar ended up first, a bad idea...., Michelle managed to get up to the top fine without any problems (Amazing for a first time on skis ever!) This left Nicole who managed to get only halfway up the mountain before falling off the TBar and having to ski back down. First lesson. Always sit on the tbar, holding it with your arms will not get you up the mountain and instead leave enormous bruises.
After arriving and a pretty good night of fun, we woke early the next morning (hangovers be damned)  and began our first attempt at Michelle learning to ski. First off, I am in no way a ski instructor. I don't even remember learning how to ski and so to teach someone else was basically disaster. After telling Michelle just to turn and just go, i gave up and let michelle take the reins of teaching herself. She was successful at walking down. I was more just impressed she got down the mountain. I, didn't quite make it. I was over confident in my snowboarding skills and on the last day after not taking the TBar on saturday or sunday (do you know how difficult it is to TBar up a mountain on a snowboard? SO HARD.) I ended up snowboarding part of the way and then sliding down on my butt the rest of the way figuring I could get down quicker on my butt than on my board. Clearly, I am cut out for the professional leagues here.
Overall, we all had a lot of fun talking to real live adults (!!!) and "skiing" we managed to laugh most of our terrible skiing and snowboarding off and really have a great time!
Now for some pictures:

Michelle's first attempt at skiing

Our House for 30+ people

view from the house

skiing makes look super attractive

another view from the house. It was pretty incredible skiing in the Alps!s