Probably my last update!

Ok folks, this is probably going to be my last update in Spain! Can you believe that 6 months is nearing an end? ahhh

Alright, we'll just start right where we left off last time.

June 4-8 me and 4 girls went to Palma Mallorca. It was about a 35 minute plane ride from Alicante. We basically spent everyday laying on the beach and swimming in the Med Sea. It was absolutely wonderful. Turns out Palma is kind-of like a little German colony because that's where a lot of German people vacation. Everyone called it "Little Germany." So we met a lot of German people, and almost everybody spoke English so we got a little break from Spanish :) We had so much fun that weekend! And of course, we celebrated my birthday in style! Watch out folks, I'm 21 now! haha
Oh! While we were out on my birthday night, we met some famous people apparently. This huuuuuuuge (and when I say huge, I mean pretty dang big) black guy and this woman that reminded me of Tina Turner showed up at this bar and started talking to us. And when they found out it was my birthday, they basically wanted to be best friends. Everyone kept coming up to us and saying that we were hanging out with famous people. I didn't think anything of it and just kept having a good time. But apparently they're part of a show that does impersonations of famous acts. The woman, Lori, that looked like Tina Turner, actually performed Tina Turner. Who knew? haha. And the big guy performs Barry White. Apparently they're a pretty big deal in Europe, and they're actually going to Switzerland or somewhere else in the fall. I can't remember where. But they were really nice and wanted us to come to their show the next night, but we left in the morning. Barry White (I called him Big Daddy because of his size! haha) told us we'd be VIP and everything, but we were leaving so we were pretty upset! They gave us a flyer, and tickets were 55euro and it was sold out, so I guess they're actually pretty good. So, there you have it, I now know famous people... kind-of! haha

Alright, we got back from Palma on Monday the 8th, and that's when we all really had to crack down on our schoolwork! I finished another 15-page paper for my Lit class and started studying for my finals. Good news- I have successfully passed 3 classes!! I took my Translation final before we even left for Palma and I passed that class, I passed my linguistics class without having to take a final, and I got a passing grade on my Lit paper so I passed that class, too! Yay!

On Friday, June 12th, I had to say my first goodbye :( Brittany headed back to WV. It was a very sad day, and people were staring at us like we were crazy people when we were saying goodbye at the airport. Goodbye #1 :(

Anyway, after my last final on Tuesday the 16th, I had to start packing for my last trip throughout Europe with my pals. On Wednesday we left for London, Amsterdam, and Dublin! It was an 8-day journey and it sure wore me out, but I had a blast!

First we'll start with London. Kara and I arrived 5 hours before Lydia and Maria because they took a later flight. So Kara and I grabbed some dinner, walked around, checked into our hostel, and basically passed out around midnight. Lydia and Maria got to the hostel at around 2am because the metro we took wasn't running anymore, and they had to find another way to get from the airport to the hostel. Needless to say, they got lost. But they finally made it! So Thursday we got up and began sight-seeing! We saw the houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace. We missed Changing of the Guards on Thursday so we decided to head back there on Friday. When we got back to our hostel Thursday afternoon for a little nap, there were 2 new people in our hostel room. Two boys from the states, one from Idaho and one from South Carolina. They were pretty cool. They just graduated college and were traveling around Europe for the summer. We exchanged stories of all the places we've been, so that was fun. Friday we had to be checked out by 10am, so we had to get up early, and they probably didn't like us too much for that, haha! So we checked out and decided to do some more sightseeing. We went to Changing of the Guards, but missed the very beginning. It was basically impossible to see anything because there were SOOO many people there. But it was still cool. I was actually really disappointed with Buckingham Palace because I really really really wanted to try and make the guards laugh, but the Queen wasn't there so the guards weren't outside! How depressing! Oh well. Later we went to the London Bridge, which was really pretty. We saw Shakespeare's Globe Theater and hung out by the river for the afternoon. Lydia and I headed to Kensington Park which has a statue of Peter Pan, so of COURSE I had to go see it! Really, I went for Scott, because I knew he would love it! The park was absolutely beautiful! That was my favorite of London, by far. I took lots of pictures!

Then Friday night we boarded our overnight bus to Amsterdam. We left at 10pm London time and arrived in Amsterdam around 11am Amsterdam time. This was the craziest bus ride I've ever been on in my life. Let me just tell you about it... it all started fine and dandy, until about 5 minutes into the journey. There was a man sitting across the aisle from me, we'll call him "Angry Russian." And yes, he was a very angry Russian! He started yelling people. He was saying things like, "SLEEP. SHUT THE F*** UP! MOTHER F***ERS! SHHHHHH! SLEEP!!!" He was terrifying. I was scared to sleep because I thought he might try to kill me if I closed my eyes! Then, there was a realllllllllly drunk middle-aged man on our bus. About 45minutes into the ride he stumbled out of his seat looking for the bathroom. He came towards the back of the bus, and Angry Russian pushed him over and he hit his head on the arm of one of the chairs. He was so drunk that he didn't even realize what was going on. Anyway, he eventually found the bathroom and made it back to his seat, but only after falling about 5 times. After that, the trip was pretty uneventful until we reached the ferry. We had to be on a ferry for about 2 hours, and we had to get off the bus. When we all returned to the bus, the drunk guy was nowhere to be found! The bus driver couldn't wait for him or we would have been late, so we just left him somewhere on the ferry! Poor guy! He probably woke up the next morning and had noooooooo idea where he was! haha! After the ferry the angry Russian was a little tipsy I think, because he had a few beers on the ferry. And alcohol only made him angrier. There was a group of 15-year-old English kids in the back of the bus, and they were being kind-of rowdy, and angry Russian started yelling at them and actually flew to the back of the bus! I thought he was going to hit one of them. He grabbed one's shirt and told him to "SHUT THE F*** UP! SLEEP!" So, that was scary. Then he laid down in the aisle right by my feet and fell asleep. I couldn't sleep because I didn't like the fact that he was laying right beside me. Now, this is where the story gets good! One of the English kids went to the bathroom, and was apparently smoking in there. And he wasn't smoking cigs, he was smoking marijuana! The bus driver must have smelled it or something, because he pulled the bus over at 3 or 4 in the morning, turned on the lights, and headed towards the restroom. Then he came storming out of there yelling, "Who smoked in my coach?! Who did it?! Who was the last one in the bathroom!? Smoking WEED in MY coach! Mother F***ers! Who did it?!" Well, nobody spoke up. He saw the angry Russian laying on the ground and told him to get up and sit in his seat. Angry Russian didn't like being told what to do, and he got in the driver's face and started yelling at him! The driver asked if he was the one smoking in the bathroom, but angry Russian didn't speak English very well so he didn't know what the driver was saying and just started yelling curse words (I think those are the only English words he knew). He told the driver to "F*** off," and the driver just said, "Ok," and went back to driving. I was really scared. I thought angry Russian was going to start throwing punches. So afterwards angry Russian just went right back to sleep on the floor by my feet. We thought that was the end of it until about an hour later. The bus driver pulled over, and 2 police officers got on board and took the angry Russian with them! They searched all his stuff, probably looking for weed, and took him off the bus. We couldn't see much, but we do know that they arrested him. I don't know if he had drugs, or if they just arrested him because he was a jack@$$, but either way, he got arrested while we were in Belgium. Then we continued on our way, sans angry Russian, so I finally got a little sleep. We made it to Amsterdam around 11am on Saturday, and headed straight for out hostel where we all took a loooooooong nap!

After waking up we headed to a grocery store to buy food because we had a micro and a fridge in our little apartment. We walked around the city and just kind-of explored everything that night. Amsterdam is really beautiful. There are canals everywhere you turn, and everything is so green and pretty! I really really liked it there.

Monday we checked out of our hostel and headed to the Anne Frank House. Absolutely incredible. I really can't express in words what it was like. It was just so humbling and surreal to be in the same place that Anne Frank hid in for 2 years. I was in her bedroom, their living room, everywhere. It wasn't furnished because Otto Frank (the father and only survivor) decided that he didn't want it to be furnished like it used to be because it was too hard for him. However, they did have a virtual video of what it looked like. Some of the wall clippings and decorations were still up on the wall in Anne's room. It was so moving. I could have spent all day there, just reading everything and staring at the rooms. I just can't express how awesome it was. That was absolutely my favorite part of Amsterdam, and the entire trip. I've fulfilled one of my life goals of visiting the Anne Frank House.

Moving on... Monday night we boarded our overnight bus back to London at 8pm. No worries, there weren't any drunk men or crazy Russians, so the trip was smooth sailing. I actually slept almost the entire time. Even on the ferry. It was very uneventful compared to the one that took us to Amsterdam, and I was thankful for that! We arrived in London at 630ish am on Tuesday, and headed to the bus station where we had to take an hour and a half long bus to the airport. Again, we all slept on the bus. We got to the airport around 9 and had a couple hours to kill before we could check in for our flights. After we got checked in and through security, the 4 of us parted ways. Lydia and I headed to Dublin, and Kara and Maria headed to Rome.

Dublin was great, of course! Lydia and I got there around 130pm, and headed to the hostel and proceeded to take another 3-hour nap! Then we headed out, grabbed some Subway, and ate it at a park. We went and saw some live music that night at one of the bars, so that was really cool.

Then on Wednesday we went to the park at St. Patrick's Cathedral and laid there and slept all day. It was great. We spent about 5 hours there. Then we headed to the Jameson Distillery. It was really cool. We had a guided tour that was very interesting, and ended the tour with a whiskey tasting. I don't like whiskey, but it was still fun to compare the different kinds. Jameson was definitely the best. Dad, you would have loved it! :)
Later that evening we went out to dinner with a girl we met at our hostel. She was from Washington, and was just traveling around Ireland for 2 months. She was pretty cool. Again, we checked out some live music at a local bar, then Lydia and I headed to another bar with music. There we met 2 guys from Texas, and get this, one of them is OBSESSED with KU! He went to school there his freshman year, but for some reason transferred to A&M. Don't worry, I gave him crap for going from KU to A&M, haha!

Thursday Lydia and I had to be up by 530 am so we could leave the hostel by 6am. We had to catch our plane at 805am back to London. We made it with no problems. Then in London we had a little time to kill before going through security. Well, my bag got searched. Apparently they thought my hair-straightener had a bomb inside it. Geeze. Then Lydia's bag was too big for our RyanAir flight, so she had to throw some of her stuff away. After all this, we barely made it to our gate in time. But actually, we had plenty of time because our flight departed about 20 minutes late. We made it to Alicante and caught the bus back to Murcia. We were all very exhausted.

Friday we had our last get-together with all us girls before people started leaving. We had our traditional Mexican dinner, and went out one last time in Murcia. It was very bittersweet. Karina left yesterday :( But she didn't go back to the states. She is actually going to be a nanny for a family in a town about an hour away until the first week of August. That was Goodbye #2 :(

Kara and Maria both leave Murcia tomorrow night at midnight, so that'll be Goodbye #3 & 4 :( And on July 1, I'll be leaving Murcia, so I'll have to say goodbye to Evelyn and Lydia, #5 & 6, and to Ana (my Spanish friend), #7. I'm not looking forward to those...

But, I AM looking forward to tomorrow because......... MY PARENTS GET HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness I'm so excited! They're actually on a plane right now! I pick them up at the airport in Alicante tomorrow at noon, then they're coming back to Murcia for 2 nights! Monday night they're going to meet all my friends here at dinner! Ah I'm so pumped! Then we're traveling, and before you know it, I'll be on my flight home!

I get home in 12 DAYS! Can you believe that? I remember when the number was 176 days, and then when it was 100, then 50, then just 6 weeks. Now it's just 12 days! That's not even 2 weeks! Wow! I'm ready to be home. I've had my fill of Spain and Europe for awhile, and I'm just ready to be back in the States with my friends and family. It'll be sad to leave, but I can't wait to be home!

So, that's why this is probably my last update while I'm in Spain. Once my parents get here I probably won't have much time because of all the traveling! So, I hope you've enjoyed my ramblings for 6 months! Now you'll have to relive it all when I tell you guys all about it in person, haha! ;)

See you SOON! Loooooooooooooves