April 27

Wow, it's been a while. After some prodding from a certain aunt and uncle (cough*Stein & Barb*cough), and from the many urgings from other family members and friends, I've decided it's time to finally update the ol Blog again.

I'll start where I left off last time:

On Saturday, March 28 I traveled to Aguilas, which is a beach city about 1 hour away from Murcia, with Brittany and Lydia. We thought it would be cool to check out the beach and the town. The beach was really beautiful. We walked around the coast and hiked up to a castle in the mountain. And when I say hiked, I mean we climbed innumerable flights of stairs. I don't think I've ever walked up so many stairs in my life. We were a little out of breath at the top to say the least. But the castle was really cool. They'd turned it into this museum-type-thing with exhibits about what happened in each of the different parts of the castle. And of course there was an amazing view of the Med Sea. After laying on the beach and checking out the castle, we headed back to Murcia. It was a fun little day trip.

The next week was our last week before Spring Break. School was school, so not much to say about that. However, on Thursday, April 2nd we left for Barcelona for the weekend! It was such a good trip! All 5 of us went, but Brittany had to leave on Friday because her dad and aunt were flying into Murcia on Sunday (more on that later). Since Brittany had to leave early, she and I headed to Barcelona at 630am in order for her to spend as much time there as possible. However, what was supposed to be a 5 hour train ride turned into a 9 hour ride because apparently our driver HIT A PERSON! Are you kidding me?! First, a suicide on the way to Paris. Second, we almost get out EuRails taken away in Sevilla. Now our train hits a guy and kills him? What? Since our driver hit this guy, we had to sit and wait for 4 hours, out in the middle of nowhere, for the judge and the cops to get there to question our driver to make sure he was in the right state of mind to have been driving. When I say middle of nowhere, I mean the absolute middle of nowhere. When we looked out the window all we say were weeds and cattails. Luckily, Brit and I both slept the majority of the time, so it wasn't too big of a deal that we were so late. Oh, did I mention that we were in the lead car? Yes, that means we were less that 30 feet away from a dead body. Talk about a sobering thought...

Anyway, back to Barcelona. We saw all the sights: La Sagrada Familia, Parque Guell, La Perdera, Casa Batlo, el mercado, and Las Ramblas. All the buildings we saw were built by Antonio Gaudi, who is a famous Spanish architect that I absolutely LOVE! His stuff is amazing, if you can't tell by the pictures. They're very proud of his stuff here in Spain. La Sagrada Familia is the huge cathedral in the pictures. He devoted the last 40 years of his life to this church, but it's still not finished. They expected date of completion isn't until 2026 or so. I will be back to see it, I'm determined. It's absolutely beautiful, and the pictures don't do it justice. Anyway, in Barcelona we stayed in a real hostel, which was new for us. Usually we find cheap hotels because it's easier for us since we're 5 girls. But we decided to try something new, and I'm so glad we did! Hostels really aren't that bad. Sometimes the accommodations can be a little questionable, but they're livable and pretty inexpensive. We actually met a really cool guy at our hostel. His name is Alastair and he's from Canada. He's been traveling around Europe with a backpack for a month, and he's going back to Canada at the end of May so he still has quite a while to travel around. He hung out with us pretty much the whole time we were there from Thursday until Sunday, when he actually rode the train with us to Murcia. Now, I know what you're thinking.. "What is Kelsey thinking taking some strange boy home with her?!" Well, I assure you, we wouldn't have done it if we all didn't trust him and think he was legit. I promise we weren't bring stupid. Alastair stayed from Sunday until Saturday, and since I have an extra bed in my living room, he stayed at my place. Again, I promise he was completely legit. He just hung out with us all week, and it was actually kind of sad to see him leave on Saturday. He was a part of our gang, and we actually miss him a little! Oh, I also forgot to tell you about Brittany's dad and aunt. They arrived in Murcia on Sunday, April 5, and stayed until Saturday April 11. It was fun having them here. We took them to all our typical hangouts and showed them around town. That week was full of visitors, what with Alastair our Canadian friend, Brittany's dad, and Brittany's aunt. It was definitely a fun week!

Now, on to the most exciting part of the blog: my CRUISE!!!!
Ok, so if you ever get the chance to go on a cruise, TAKE IT! It was absolutely amazing! Four of us went, and we absolutely had a BALL! We got to Barcelona (again) at 1 or 2ish Sunday afternoon, and we immediately boarded our ship. Mind you, this was a Spanish cruise line, so absolutely everything was in Spanish. But it wasn't bad at all, because obviously we can understand most of what was going on, and a lot of the crew spoke a little English, so we had no problems communicating. I'll take you through a day-to-day synopsis of our journey!

Day 1: Sunday, Barcelona
Like I said, we boarded the ship at about 2. We found our room, which turned out to be pretty nice. We were expecting to have to fit 4 people in a 2 person room, so we weren't really looking forward to that. However, we discovered that there were two extra fold out beds, so we all got our own. The room was fairly small, but it worked out just fine for us. We explored the ship for a while before finding the food. And when I say food, I mean TONS of food. The food was at our disposal. They had a breakfast buffet, 2 different lunch buffets, and an all day long snack buffet, as well as breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the different restaurants on the ship. The food was like our enemy that week. We ate as much as we wanted, which was probably not the best idea. Oh well, you only live once, right? haha. Anyway, after exploring some more we just kinda goofed around until dinner at 10:15. We got all dressed up and headed to the restaurant where we discovered that we would be having 5 course meals every night. Wow. Talk about amazing. And the food... absolutely delicious! The first night I had STEAK! That was the first real meat I'd had since being in Spain. It was amazing. Out waiter's name was Cemen (pronounce it like it's spelled... :-/ haha), and he was out waiter every night. Pretty cool guy. After stuffing ourselves, we all headed back to the room because we were all very seasick. The boat was rocking very badly, so we all took some meds and went right to sleep.

Day 2: Monday, Villefranche (French Riviera)
We got up kinda late and had lunch before heading off the ship. We threw anchor in the middle of the water, so a little boat had to take everyone to shore. It was sweet. There weren't really too many things to see in Villefranche, but the view was absolutely breath-taking. We tried to go kayaking, but seeing as how we were in France and they couldn't understand us, we never found anywhere to do it. But that's ok because it gave us time to go to a town about 30 minutes away and see the Monte Carlo Casino. For those of you who don't know, that's where they filmed Ocean's 11! It was really beautiful. There were tons of expensive cars parked outside... Rolls Royce, Lamborghini (sp), Corvettes, and any other expensive car you can think of. There was even one with a Missouri license plate! How weird is that! It was like a little slice of home... except I hate Mizzou because KU is 23097 times better! Anyway... after the casino we headed back to the town where our cruise ship was and boarded the boat. We had some time to lay out and relax so we soaked up some sun before dinner. Monday was the night of the Gala, where everyone gets all dressed up and meets the captian and such. We weren't exactly aware that we were supposed to meet the captain, so we missed that because we were still getting ready for dinner. Oh well. Dinner that night was also good. I honestly don't remember what I had that night, but I guarantee you I loved it! After dinner we walked around in our pretty dresses and took pictures, including the Jack and Rose pose from Titanic. We're such girls. Later that night we got hungry and went looking for the "midnight snack," but we couldn't find it. Our assistant waiter, Mario (huge creepster), called our room so we asked him to bring us food. So he brought us some food, we nibbled on some, talked to him for a bit (in Spanish), and went to bed.

Day 3: Tuesday, Livorno (Pisa)
Evelyn and Lydia went on an excursion sponsored by the cruise company, but it was 83 euros so Brit and I decided to explore by ourselves. Ev and Lydz got to go to Florence and Pisa, but since Brit and I were on our own, we only made it to Pisa. Of course it was really cool to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa! I never thought I'd see that in my lifetime, but I guess now I can check that off my list! I won't lie to you, it's not really what I expected. But then again, I don't really know what I was expecting... maybe I just thought it'd be bigger and more extravagant. Anyway, it was still really cool to see it in person. After that, we headed back to the ship and worked out in the gym, soaked up some rays, took a nap, and got ready for dinner. That night, Mario (our creepy asst. waiter) brought us extra dessert, and that is when the food engourgement began. Yikes. Thanks Mario, for bringing us one extra dessert, thus creating our dessert problem for the rest of the cruise. Oh well. Mario called our room again, but since we decided he was creepy and weird, we didn't answer.

Day 4: Wednesday, Civitavecchia (aka ROME)
ROME! What a great day! We had lots to do and see, so we started our day off very early, and were off the ship almost as soon as we docked! We headed to Vatican City, where we saw the POPE in St. Peter's Square! We walked in and saw tons and tons of people, and we couldn't figure out why it was so crowded until we looked towards the front, and there he was, good ol Pope Benedict! Rumor has it that it was his birthday, but we're still not sure on that one. He was speaking to the people, so we stood and listened to him for a while. He was speaking in Italian I think, so of course we had no idea what he was saying, but it was still really awesome to see the Pope in person! What an experience! After listening to the Pope for a while, we headed to the Sistine Chapel! We stood in line for a while to get into the museum, and from the museum you had to practically go through a maze to get the the Sistine Chapel. But when we finally got there it was worth it. Again, I can't believe I actually saw the Sistine Chapel in person. I actually got to see the paintings that Michaelangelo is famous for. It was pretty humbling. Of course, it was beautiful and amazing. After we marveled at its beauty for a while, we headed to the Trevi Fountain! That was really cool, because I've seen that in movies and have always wanted to go there and make a wish. It was crazy crowded, but it was also really pretty. We stayed there long enough to make a wish and take a few pics, then we were off the to Roman Coliseum! The Coliseum was really cool. We didn't have enough time to go inside because the wait was about an hour, but it was really cool to see it from the outside and actually see the ruins of it. Very cool. While we were at the metro station heading back to Livorno we met a guy from the States who is living in Rome. We talked to him for a while and he showed us how to get to the train station. It was nice to see an American for once! Anyway, we made it on the train and were on our way back to Livorno, on what we thought was going to be an uneventful train ride. No, there were no suicides or deaths this time, but I was forced to sit on a tiny little fold-out tray that was about 8 inches wide. There weren't any open seats in our car, and I had to move from my nice, big, comfy seat onto this stupid little tray table so that an older man and his wife could sit in our extra chair and in my seat. It was an uncomfortable ride to say the least. But, I made it back to Livorno in one piece, no matter how sore my butt was! haha
Dinner that night was my absolute favorite... LASAGNA! It was amazing. I also believe that was the night that Mario brought the 4 of us a combined TWELVE desserts. Yeah, I know, sick. But oh so delicious. That night Mario showed up at our door with 2 of his waiter friends. They could not take a hint and stayed until like 3 in the morning! Once we finally got rid of them we all hit the hay!

Day 5: Thursday, Naples (Pompeii)
This day wasn't too exciting. Brit stayed on the ship all day, so Ev, Lydz, and I headed out to Naples. We had to navigate ourselves around Naples to find the train station to take to Pompeii to see the volcano and the ancient ruins. Let's just say we got a little lost and missed the first train, and almsot missed the second train to Pompeii. Eventually, we made it onboard and were safely on our way there. Once we got there we headed to the ruins, snapped some pictures without going inside, got a quick glimpse of the volcano, did some barterting with the merchants, and had to find our way back to the train station. We thought we had plenty of time and were just lolly-gagging along when we realized that we had no idea where we were and could possibly miss our train! Yikes. If we missed this train, we probably wouldn't make it back to the cruise ship before it embarked for Africa. Uh oh. We ran. Turns out we were actually going in the right directionf for once, and made it to the train station about 3 minutes before our train was due to arrive. But, we almost got on the wrong train, and realized at the last minute that we were at the wrong one, so we rushed to the other tracks just in time for our actual train to pull up. Phew. We made it. The 3 of us made it safely back to the cruise ship with plenty of time to spare. Dinner, again, was amazing. Raul, who was the head restaurant guy on the cruise, warned us to be careful in Africa. He said they would offer you camels in payment for us girls. So he said that he would double any offer they gave us. He shouldn't have said that... haha you'll hear about that later!

Day 6: Friday, Tunisia, AFRICA
This was by far my favorite day of the entire cruise! We docked at around 2ish, and we were the first off the ship because we wanted to make the most of the 6 hours we were allowed before the ship left. First step off the ship and what do we see... CAMELS! Of course we rode them! I even played drums with the natives while the other girls rode the camels. It was awesome! Riding camels in Africa... Check off the list! haha. After riding camels, we had to go through customs and get out passports stamped! That was pretty exciting. However, after stepping out of customs and into Africa, we were immediately bombarded by taxi drivers that wanted to take us places. We were bewildered because they were yelling at each other, and each of them was trying to get us to go with them. It was actually kinda scary. After about 20 minutes of debating what to do, the coast guard/border police came up to us and talked to us. He brought us a taxi driver that he said he's trust with his own kids, and said that if anything went wrong, he'd kill him for us (figure of speech, of course)! So, we headed off with our taxi driver tour guide. The first place he took us was the capital of Tunisia, but I can't actually remember the name of it. He showed us a few sights, and took us up to the top of a building to see the view of the city. We went into a bunch of little shops and took lots of pictures. We tried some typical African green tea which was very sweet and pretty good. After that we went shopping for souveniers! We had a blast! At one of the stores we went into the lady that owned it spoke pretty good English and thought it was her duty to show us a good time. She dressed us all up in their typical belly dancing outfits and taught us how to dance! So much fun! Then we got to barter with the workers for our souveniers. They wanted 85 euro for all my stuff, but I worked them down to 25. I probably still overpaid, but that's ok because they showed us a good time! Meanwhile, our taxi driver stood by us and made sure no creepsters messed with us. It was kinda like our own personal bodyguard. After shopping for about an hour, we decided it was time to head to the next city. Ben, our driver, drove us to Sidi Bou Said, where they are famous for their market and their view of the sea. So, we snapped some pics of the sea and explored the market. Again, we bartered them down to about nothing, and were practically stealing our souveniers from them. :) After Sidi Bou Said we were worn out, and wanted to be sure we made it to the cruise in time, so we called it a day! I think the reason Africa was my favorite was because we didn't spend all our time doing the typical tourist attractions and actually got to experience the culture hands on. It was cool to see the little villages and all that jazz. Oh, I almost forgot. Ok, so when you think of Africans, what do you picture? Do you picture a black person? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. But it turns out that in Northern Africa most of the people are Arabian. I definitely wasn't expecting that. Still, it was cool to actually be in Africa. 3 continents down!
Once we made it back to the ship we ran into the police guy, and he made sure we made it safely! He said he was glad he didn't have to shoot one of his friends.... :-/
Anyway, now to the story about Raul and the camels.... While we were in Africa, one of the storeowners jokingly offered us 7000 camels for the four of us, so that meant Raul owed us 14,000 camels, right? So, we told Raul about this, but said we'd make him a deal. If he brought us one of those birthday cakes they'd been handing out all week, we'd say the deal was settled. haha. So, they brought us a birthday cake and decided it was my birthday, so everyone sang to me, I blew out the candles, and we enjoyed our wonderful dessert! Raul, however, didn't think that was enough. He decided that he needed to bring us 3 bottles of red wine from his personal collection. He brought them to our room, and we hung out with him for a while, and he offered to bring us breakfast in our room the next morning. We thought he was joking... he wasn't.

Day 6: Saturday, on the Sea all day, heading back to Barcelona
We wake up at 10am to a phone call, saying that breakfast is heading our way! Heck yes! We opened the door to find 3 waiters with 2 huuuuuuge trays full of food, and another one full of drinks! We're talking pancakes, french toast, cereal, yogurt, fried eggs, toast, pineapple, watermelon, milk, juice, butter and jam... the whole works! It was aaaaamazing! I'd never had room service before, but I could sure get used to it! After we gorged ourselves, we all went back to sleep for a while, and woke up in time for lunch at 2! I told you, the food on this cruise was bad news for us! Saturday we didn't do a whole lot. Seeing as how we couldn't leave the ship, we just watched the water and wandered around the ship all day. That night at dinner we were all a little sad because we knew it was our last dinner of the deliciously amazing food. Of course, we enjoyed it to the max! Raul also thought it was necessary to bring us wine at dinner, as well as another 2 bottles later. All in all, he gave us a grand total of 6 bottles of wine from his "personal collection" in less than 24 hours. It pays to get in good with the head honcho! It also didn't hurt that he had a little crush on Evelyn... haha! Anyway, Saturday night was spent packing and cleaning up our room because we had to be out of there by 8am on Sunday.

Day 7: Sunday, Barcelona
We got up, ate breakfast, and waited to unboard the ship. We actually had to wait around until noon for the bus to take us all to Valencia, where we caught another bus back to Murcia. It was a long day of traveling, and we made it back to Murcia at about 1030-11pm. Lucky for us we don't have school on Mondays, so we were able to sleep in and relax from our long journey. All in all, the cruise was spectacular, and I couldn't have asked for a better spring break in Spain!


Just to keep you up to date on the past week, nothing exciting has happened. Went to school, did homework, hung out. That's pretty much it. Oh, I did drop one of my classes because I just found out that I only need 3 classes to be considered a full time student, and this particular class was a lot more difficult than I had expected. Since I had 4, I decided that I didn't need to take this class and be extra stressed, especially come finals time. Since I'm done with that, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders because I was really worried about that class. Thank goodness.

Oh, I almost forgot! Today (Monday), Brittany and I went to Cartagena to help teach kids English. One of the professors here in Murcia studied at WVU for a while and found out that Brittany went there, so she asked if Brittany would be interested in talking to her children in English to help them learn. Of course, she drug me along for the ride. Maria (the teacher) drove us to her home in Cartagena, and we hung out with her daughter, Barbara, who is 14, and her friend, Ana, who is the same age. She also has a son Jamie who is 11 who will be joining us next week. She is paying us 30 euro a week, and paying for our bus tickets back to Murcia. Brit and I are splitting the 30 euro, so we're each making an extra 15 euro a week. It's not much but it'll be nice to have a little extra cash. It was actually a lot of fun today, and I'm looking forward to the next time we get to meet with them! Who knew that I would be helping kids learn English? Pretty cool, huh?

Other than that, nothing exciting. I'm hunkering down when it comes to school. I'm getting down to business with my homework, and I got a lot done this weekend. We have a project in Translation in a couple weeks, and we're basically done. And I also have a 15 page paper due June 16, and I've started researching for that. We're starting to get all our work done early so we aren't stressed about it when it gets closer to finals. I did take today off and haven't done any homework, which is why I actually had time to write my blog, finally!

Well, nothing more to report on except that Friday we are leaving for Dublin, Ireland to celebrate Lydz's 21st birthday! We'll be there Friday-Monday. I can't wait! I'll post soon so you can hear all about it! Miss you all. Love you to the moon and back.

Oh, I have a quote that has helped me through all this:
"Side by side or miles apart, friends and family are always close to the heart." You're all close to mine! Can't wait to see you!

P.S.- I put all my new pictures up of Barcelona and the Cruise. They're on my Picasa page! Hope you enjoy them!