An account of my adventures abroad!
First of all, if you are extremely interested, I uploaded a billion photos to my Flickr. If you are moderately interested, I'm including highlight photos in this entry. If you are not at all interested, I'm putting this all behind a cut and you can just scroll on by.
So! We flew out on Christmas morning. Wait or was it Christmas eve? Uh, we arrived in Madrid on Christmas morning, but, time zones? On the plane I watched the Glee concert movie. I was optimistic about it because I like the musical numbers on the show much more than the show itself, but they kept inserting interviewers with teenagers to talk about how Glee changed their lives. I don't care, teens. Get a YouTube show like normal misfit teens, don't make strangers on a plane listen about your inability to make friends without help from Kurt. I guess this is not a critical part of the journey but it irritated me so strongly that it really sticks out in my memory.
Anyway! We arrived in Madrid and I figured out how to get to our hotel from the airport by Metro. Then when we got to the right Metro station we could not figure out how to leave. Like we kept following Exit signs around in a circle. Finally I asked someone and apparently you can only leave the station via elevator. Okay then! We at our first meal in Spain at Starbucks because it was the only open thing we could find. It was pretty good.
Then we took one of those tourist double-decker buses around town. I fell asleep on the bus, so, IDK. Old buildings. Stuff. Whatever. Most of that day is a jet lag haze.
The next morning we got up and took an early train to Barcelona. European trains are so awesome, guys. Just fast and classy and all around superior to Amtrak. In Barcelona we went to the Chocolate Museum (Museu de Xocoloto). By the way, if you did not know, they speak Catalan in Barcelona and the surrounding area? It's different from Spanish? My parents could NOT keep that in their head and they kept asking me to translate, and I kept saying, "It's in Catalan, and I know Spanish." This became kind of a meme for the rest of the trip for my bro & I where he'd like point to stuff in French and say "What's this say? You know Catalan, right?"
ANYWAY in Catalan the word for chocolate starts with an X, which is awesome. And the Chocolate Museum was awesome. There was a little bit of info about the history of chocolate and stuff, but mostly it was just given over to huge, elaborate chocolate sculptures.
Like this chocolate mosaic lizard, for example.
After that we went to the Picasso museum, which was pretty cool. I like going to art museums with my bro cuz he's an art student and he says smart things and I nod appreciatively. It had a lot of early work and sketches, and fewer of his more ~famous~ paintings or whatever. (No photography allowed but surely you all know what Picasso's art looks like.)
Also can I just interject here that none of us were that excited about tapas? IDK, the Spanish food we got tended to be very salty and oily. And the vegetarian options were generally: olives (delicious olives), oily cheese plate, fried potatoes, and Spanish tortilla (a potato omelet). And bread. Over it.
Spanish sangria is awesome though.
The next day we rented a car to drive to Figueres to see the Dali museum. Figueres was Dali's hometown and he arranged to have this whole weird museum of himself built there. Getting there was hard because Spanish road signs are extremely confusing (even when they're in Spanish, not Catalan) and we had a shitty map and Spanish people tend to give poor directions. Or no directions. So we were very frustratedly driving around this small town and then suddenly turned down a road and came across a giant pink building covered with golden loaves of bread and giant eggs on top of it.
"Uh, I think we found it," I said.
The museum was very weird and cool. Lots of sculptures in addition to paintings. I think my favorite was the Mae West room.
The next day we got horribly lost driving around Barcelona and very nearly collided with a tram. There were no signs or barriers blocking the tram from traffic. I don't even want to talk about it.
But we eventually made our way to Park Guell and the Gaudi Museum. I hadn't heard of Antoni Gaudi before this trip but he was a Catalonian architect who made some awesome stuff, basically, including the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. The park has a ton of sculptures and mosaics he designed, most famously this lizard (which you may recall seeing recreated in chocolate earlier this entry):
The whole park was very cool and beautiful, one of my favorite things on the trip. That afternoon, we split up. My mom & bro went to another art museum and my dad & I went to see the Sagrada Familia cathedral. It's a really weird, unique, beautiful cathedral, and it's not done yet. They've been working on it for over 100 years and its estimated date of completion is 2026.
Afterward my dad & I split up again and he went to the Motorcycle Museum and I wandered around the La Rambla shopping district. I accidentally went to some kind of protest:
And I bought nothing, except for a delicious waffle. (I photographed the waffle but it did not accurately capture its deliciousness.)
Then we took an overnight train to Granada.
It was very cold in Granada, because mountains. Also I got sick on the train. Le sigh. Still, the Alhambra was beautiful.
Then we moved on to Seville and its cathedral, where Christopher Columbus is maybe buried. (He's also maybe buried in the Dominican Republic, so I have been to two of his alleged burial grounds.) To be honest by this point I was a little churched out (we also went to the Granada cathedral the day before but no photography was allowed). But the view from the top of the bell tower was beautiful:
I also want to give a shout out to Spain's best meal, breakfast:
Everywhere had fresh-squeezed orange juice made from fucking amazing oranges. Also, delicious coffee and world-changing hot chocolate. Ay dios miooo.
From there, we drove to Algeciras and then took the ferry from Tarifa to Tangier, Morocco. We managed to get our passport stamps screwed up on the ferry and it was all very dramatic for a hot minute, but eventually we were allowed into the country, only to find out that the guide my mom had arranged for us had bailed. We found somebody else, whose speech patterns we all began to imitate. He had a habit of pointing out things he wanted us to see several times. "That tree? Olive. You know olive? Olive." I don't want to mock someone who spoke like four languages, but something about it was just hilarious. Also he would keep saying it until someone said "Yes, I know olive."
You know olive??
In Morocco we made hasty stops in Chefchouen, famous for being painted blue; and Fez, famous for hats. But we spent most of our time in Marrakech. And specifically, most of our time in Marrakech's huge market.
Snakes? Why did it have to be snakes?
The market was very loud and if you made eye contact with anyone they would ask you for money and possibly try to touch you with a snake.
Also, my mom rode a camel.
For me, the most memorable part of Morocco was getting a horrifying case of food poisoning.
Let's move on.
Back in Spain, we made a brief detour to Gibraltar, which--I was not aware--is a tiny British colony hanging out there with Spain and Morocco. It is ADORABLE and I want to live there. It's like a tiny little piece of England with pubs and fish & chip shops and red phone booths.
And a big rock.
Then we went back to Madrid, where we visited the Prado and saw ALL THE ART.
The next day, we split up again, and I spent a peaceful morning walking around the Parque del Buen Retiro. This is a huge park that used to be only for royalty, but after the 19th century commoners were allowed in. It was very lovely and a nice warm day to be walking around.
This is from the Bosque del Recuerdo--the forest of remembrance--where there is one tree planted for every victim of the bombings in 2004.
After the park, my dad and I went to the National Library!
My favorite part of the National Library was this:
The uniform worn by the original librarians at the National Library. Today's librarian uniform is a cardigan sweater.
The actual Library Museum itself was kind of weird. It was just like, "Here are some things! Cassette tapes! Cash registers! Music boxes! Books! Google! Things sure have changed over the years, am I right?"
But admission was free, so whatever.
Then the next morning we went to the airport and travelled for a million hours and (barely) landed in a blizzard! Hooray, America!
So! We flew out on Christmas morning. Wait or was it Christmas eve? Uh, we arrived in Madrid on Christmas morning, but, time zones? On the plane I watched the Glee concert movie. I was optimistic about it because I like the musical numbers on the show much more than the show itself, but they kept inserting interviewers with teenagers to talk about how Glee changed their lives. I don't care, teens. Get a YouTube show like normal misfit teens, don't make strangers on a plane listen about your inability to make friends without help from Kurt. I guess this is not a critical part of the journey but it irritated me so strongly that it really sticks out in my memory.
Anyway! We arrived in Madrid and I figured out how to get to our hotel from the airport by Metro. Then when we got to the right Metro station we could not figure out how to leave. Like we kept following Exit signs around in a circle. Finally I asked someone and apparently you can only leave the station via elevator. Okay then! We at our first meal in Spain at Starbucks because it was the only open thing we could find. It was pretty good.
Then we took one of those tourist double-decker buses around town. I fell asleep on the bus, so, IDK. Old buildings. Stuff. Whatever. Most of that day is a jet lag haze.
The next morning we got up and took an early train to Barcelona. European trains are so awesome, guys. Just fast and classy and all around superior to Amtrak. In Barcelona we went to the Chocolate Museum (Museu de Xocoloto). By the way, if you did not know, they speak Catalan in Barcelona and the surrounding area? It's different from Spanish? My parents could NOT keep that in their head and they kept asking me to translate, and I kept saying, "It's in Catalan, and I know Spanish." This became kind of a meme for the rest of the trip for my bro & I where he'd like point to stuff in French and say "What's this say? You know Catalan, right?"
ANYWAY in Catalan the word for chocolate starts with an X, which is awesome. And the Chocolate Museum was awesome. There was a little bit of info about the history of chocolate and stuff, but mostly it was just given over to huge, elaborate chocolate sculptures.
Like this chocolate mosaic lizard, for example.
After that we went to the Picasso museum, which was pretty cool. I like going to art museums with my bro cuz he's an art student and he says smart things and I nod appreciatively. It had a lot of early work and sketches, and fewer of his more ~famous~ paintings or whatever. (No photography allowed but surely you all know what Picasso's art looks like.)
Also can I just interject here that none of us were that excited about tapas? IDK, the Spanish food we got tended to be very salty and oily. And the vegetarian options were generally: olives (delicious olives), oily cheese plate, fried potatoes, and Spanish tortilla (a potato omelet). And bread. Over it.
Spanish sangria is awesome though.
The next day we rented a car to drive to Figueres to see the Dali museum. Figueres was Dali's hometown and he arranged to have this whole weird museum of himself built there. Getting there was hard because Spanish road signs are extremely confusing (even when they're in Spanish, not Catalan) and we had a shitty map and Spanish people tend to give poor directions. Or no directions. So we were very frustratedly driving around this small town and then suddenly turned down a road and came across a giant pink building covered with golden loaves of bread and giant eggs on top of it.
"Uh, I think we found it," I said.
The museum was very weird and cool. Lots of sculptures in addition to paintings. I think my favorite was the Mae West room.
The next day we got horribly lost driving around Barcelona and very nearly collided with a tram. There were no signs or barriers blocking the tram from traffic. I don't even want to talk about it.
But we eventually made our way to Park Guell and the Gaudi Museum. I hadn't heard of Antoni Gaudi before this trip but he was a Catalonian architect who made some awesome stuff, basically, including the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. The park has a ton of sculptures and mosaics he designed, most famously this lizard (which you may recall seeing recreated in chocolate earlier this entry):
The whole park was very cool and beautiful, one of my favorite things on the trip. That afternoon, we split up. My mom & bro went to another art museum and my dad & I went to see the Sagrada Familia cathedral. It's a really weird, unique, beautiful cathedral, and it's not done yet. They've been working on it for over 100 years and its estimated date of completion is 2026.
Afterward my dad & I split up again and he went to the Motorcycle Museum and I wandered around the La Rambla shopping district. I accidentally went to some kind of protest:
And I bought nothing, except for a delicious waffle. (I photographed the waffle but it did not accurately capture its deliciousness.)
Then we took an overnight train to Granada.
It was very cold in Granada, because mountains. Also I got sick on the train. Le sigh. Still, the Alhambra was beautiful.
Then we moved on to Seville and its cathedral, where Christopher Columbus is maybe buried. (He's also maybe buried in the Dominican Republic, so I have been to two of his alleged burial grounds.) To be honest by this point I was a little churched out (we also went to the Granada cathedral the day before but no photography was allowed). But the view from the top of the bell tower was beautiful:
I also want to give a shout out to Spain's best meal, breakfast:
Everywhere had fresh-squeezed orange juice made from fucking amazing oranges. Also, delicious coffee and world-changing hot chocolate. Ay dios miooo.
From there, we drove to Algeciras and then took the ferry from Tarifa to Tangier, Morocco. We managed to get our passport stamps screwed up on the ferry and it was all very dramatic for a hot minute, but eventually we were allowed into the country, only to find out that the guide my mom had arranged for us had bailed. We found somebody else, whose speech patterns we all began to imitate. He had a habit of pointing out things he wanted us to see several times. "That tree? Olive. You know olive? Olive." I don't want to mock someone who spoke like four languages, but something about it was just hilarious. Also he would keep saying it until someone said "Yes, I know olive."
You know olive??
In Morocco we made hasty stops in Chefchouen, famous for being painted blue; and Fez, famous for hats. But we spent most of our time in Marrakech. And specifically, most of our time in Marrakech's huge market.
Snakes? Why did it have to be snakes?
The market was very loud and if you made eye contact with anyone they would ask you for money and possibly try to touch you with a snake.
Also, my mom rode a camel.
For me, the most memorable part of Morocco was getting a horrifying case of food poisoning.
Let's move on.
Back in Spain, we made a brief detour to Gibraltar, which--I was not aware--is a tiny British colony hanging out there with Spain and Morocco. It is ADORABLE and I want to live there. It's like a tiny little piece of England with pubs and fish & chip shops and red phone booths.
And a big rock.
Then we went back to Madrid, where we visited the Prado and saw ALL THE ART.
The next day, we split up again, and I spent a peaceful morning walking around the Parque del Buen Retiro. This is a huge park that used to be only for royalty, but after the 19th century commoners were allowed in. It was very lovely and a nice warm day to be walking around.
This is from the Bosque del Recuerdo--the forest of remembrance--where there is one tree planted for every victim of the bombings in 2004.
After the park, my dad and I went to the National Library!
My favorite part of the National Library was this:
The uniform worn by the original librarians at the National Library. Today's librarian uniform is a cardigan sweater.
The actual Library Museum itself was kind of weird. It was just like, "Here are some things! Cassette tapes! Cash registers! Music boxes! Books! Google! Things sure have changed over the years, am I right?"
But admission was free, so whatever.
Then the next morning we went to the airport and travelled for a million hours and (barely) landed in a blizzard! Hooray, America!