Morella

Nuestra ultima viaje de la programa fue a un pueblito que se llama Morella. Está encima de una colina 2 horas afuera de Valencia. No hay mucho en la ciudad otro que un castillo, pues fue un fin de semana tranquila donde pudimos relajarnos.

Our last trip with the program was to a small town called Morella. It is located on top of a hill 2 hours outside of Valencia. There is not a lot to do in the city, other than go see a castle, so it was a time to just relax.

Wrapping it all up

Festival de Vino (Wine Festival)

Aquí en Valencia hay un rio viejo abandonado de aqua, pero llena de fuentes, árboles, campos, y mucho mucho más. Es mi lugar favorito de Valencia y casi cada día paso tiempo allí. La fin de semana pasada había un festival de vino. Rio+vio=una Lauren muy feliz! Fue muy divertido para ir a todos de los lugares diferentes para probar sus vinos y tapas.

Here in Valencia there is an old riverbed that has been turned into a park with all sorts of fountains, trees, sports fields and so much more. Without question it is my favorite spot and I am there for at least a little bit almost every day. Last weekend there was a wine festival there which I just had to go to. The Rio+wine= a very happy Lauren. It was really fun to go around and try all the different wines and appetizers.

Cristina y yo!

EL RIO-(the river)

Aquí son los edificios famosos de los artes y ciencias.

Here are the infamous sciene and art buildings in Valencia.

El Saler

Porque casi ningunas de las personas en nuestro grupo quieren hacer cosas, decidí que querría hacer cosas en Valencia, si otras personas quieren hacerlos o no. Pues, la fin de semana pasado decidió alquilar una bicicleta para ir a una playa al sur de Valencia que se llama "El Saler" Es en un parque natural que se llama La Albufera" y es por eso que es una playa más natural con menos personas. Me encanta la playa, me encanta montar la bici y hacer exercisio, pues este fue un día perfecta para mí. Empezó con un poca lluvia, pero después fue mejor. Me disfruté mucho en mí viaje sola.

Because hardly any of the people in the group want to do things, I decided that I wanted to do things in Valencia and that I was going to do them whether other people wanted to go or not. Last weekend I decided to rent a bicycle and travel down to a beach to the south of Valencia called "El Saler." It is located within a natural park called the albufera, therefore it tends to have less people and is a more natural beach. I love the beach, I love riding bikes, and I love exercise, therefore it was the perfect day for me, even if I was all alone.

La playa de El Saler con mi bici.

Because it was raining on and off that day, it seemed as though all the snails in Valencia were headed for the bike path to avoid the puddles. This was one of that many that I found that day!

This is an edited version of a picture of a flower I took while at the beach. I really love the rain drops on it!

This is also a remake of a photo I took while there. I was inspired to do this after an art lecture on "Pop Art."

Andalucía and all that it brings

A great part of the program here in Spain is the built-in excursions. Though traveling is great, it can be quite stressful when you have to plan everything. That is why I really enjoyed having certain excursions to major cities in Spain that were already planned out for us. Our last big trip of this semester was to Andalucía and included several towns such as: Cordoba, Sevilla, and Granada. We were really lucky because throughout the whole trip we were blessed with great weather, and though I really enjoyed the opportunity to see such amazing cites, I must confess that the trip was somewhat ruined by the group. It just seemed to be that time in the trip where everyone was sick of each other and all respect for anybody or anything just went out the window. That's why I am going to keep the text short here and just give a little picture preview of the trip.

It was quite a long bus ride to our first destination of Cordoba so needless to say I got a little bored. The drive wasn't too bad though because I got to see some of the spanish countryside. These were some really cool windmills that I saw on our drive.

When we were in Cordoba I was able to see the sunset and the sunrise--such a wonderful thing. This is a shot of the sun setting over the big cathedral.

This is a snapshot of the inside of the very large cathedral in the center of Cordoba. Not your typical cathedral, but that is because it was initially a mosque. When the catholics took it over, they decided to build the cathedral inside of the mosque instead of destroying it. It made for quite an interesting contrast and every corner you turned it changed from looking like a mosque to then looking like a cathedral again. I should know this cathedral from front to back now because I didn't know that we had a group trip planned to enter, so the day before a friend and I bought tickets and entered and then got to go back the next day with the group!

Me feeding some pigeons in the courtyard of the cathedral.

The day after Cordoba, we packed up and headed to Sevilla--a rather large city in southern Spain. This is a picture from the mezquite that is connected to the cathedral in Sevilla.

Us girls had quite the time playing with the typical Spanish fans!

Though this is not a great picture, I wanted to try to give an idea of how large the cathedral in Sevilla was. I am not sure on what number it is, but I know it is in the top five in the world in terms of size.

One of the places I was looking forward to going to all semester was the Alhambra in Granada. Here is a shot of some of the detail in the main palace.

A shot of some of the flowers inside the city of the Alhambra.

This gives another idea of how detailed the main palace was. Literally the entire building was covered in decorations like this.

"No football in the carpark"

(So this is going to be in English because I went to an English speaking country)

We were given a seven day break from school to take a break an enjoy Easter. I was pondering around about making a trip to Ibiza or maybe the Canary Islands, but then I though of the great idea of visiting a good friend in Northern Ireland who is doing a program similar to mine. After much planning and giggling and screaming, I headed off April 1st on my journey to Northern Ireland. Because I am a cheap college student, I had to take a somewhat crazy route to get there the cheapest way possible. I left 7 am that morning from Valencia and arrived in Madrid where I had to wait almost 8 hours in the airport before hopping on my next flight to Dublin. When I got to Dublin it was late enough that I wouldn't be able to take a bus to Derry, so I spent the night in a hostel and hopped on a bus for 4 hours the following day to see my long lost friend. This was my first trip really traveling alone and I have to say that everything when pretty smoothly and I didn't seem to freaked out by any of it. I have also learned the trick of packing as much stuff into a backpack as possible and still having it comply with the strict size regulations of RyanAir. I arrived at the bus station and was warmly greeted by Rachel. Though Spain has been great and I have met some really cool people, it was so wonderful to just see and hang out with an old friend. We spent the first day in Derry where we had an amazing lunch complete with chocolate fondue.

The Bog Side of the city of Derry

The next day we headed of for a little town called Balintoy that was about 2 hours northeast of Derry. Now I thought I was from a small town, but Balintoy brings a new meaning to the phrase "small town." It is a city located right on the northern coast and has a population of about 200. THere is no grocery store or gas station, but there are two restaurants and a small convenience store called the "Wee Shop". Since Rachel and I hadn't rented a car we had to rely on the public bus system, which proved to be rather difficult considering it was Easter weekend and many of the routes were not running, but we still managed to have an amazing time! The place was so beautiful it was hard not to. The countryside was filled with rolling green hills speckled with sheep and rocky cliffs that just suddenly dropped off into the ocean. It was a little drizzly most of the time, but if anything that added to the beauty of the place.

The small famous white church in Balintoy

A shot of the rocky coast.

Rachel and I taking a little jaunt shortly after we arrived in Balintoy.

The entire time in Balintoy was just so peaceful and relaxing. We spent most of our time wondering around the coastline and playing with sheep. We even attempted to hitchhike back from a nearby town one day (which the hostel lady recommended) and were horribly unsuccessful. So we spent about 4 miles walking along the coast and trespassing on numerous peoples property and jumping many fences and stone walls before we finally caught a taxi.

A field of sheep that we had a lot of fun playing with. And these sheep were no ordinary sheep, they knew how to talk! Every time that I would call out to them I would be greeted by a chorus of "BAAAAAAHHHHHH'S".

Another shot of the coastline, but this time from the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge.

Rachel, my friend who I went to visit.

My last night in Derry was one to be remembered. We were planning on spending the evening just being lazy and watching a movie, but when Rachel's host family called and invited us up to a town to the north called Donneygal to watch a jam session we took up the offer. The session was great and almost everyone in the pub was related to Rachel's host family-who happens to be insanely musically talented. Her host mom is in a group with two of her sisters called "The Henry Girls" and they do a lot of traditional Irish music. Her host dad is also in a couple of bands and plays the saxaphone. After thoroughly enjoying the evening, her host family was nice enough to let us stay in their aunt's beautiful Bed & Breakfast. And let me tell you this was no ordinary bed and breakfast, but this one was accompanied by two of the nicest ladies I have ever met and was absolutely gorgeous.

FAVORITE MOMENTS

1. Rachel and I attempting to hitchhike and being turned down by about 40 different cars.

2. Trespassing our way back to Balintoy for about 2 miles

3. Playing with sheep!

4. Hearing the word "wee" in place of "little"

5. The entire night in Donneygal.