alicante--no pasa nada

so it's been a little less than a week (have you noticed how everytime i start a new paragraph it's with the word 'so'? i'll stop that now) since i left, most unwillingly, alicante. after spring break i had about a week and a half in florence to chill and get back into the groove of speaking italian again before i launched myself into another country to get by in a new language. luckily i went to visit a very good very old (as in ive known her forever, not that she is 90 years old) friend of mine who speaks spanish pretty much fluently so it was no biggie getting around or doing anything (dude, TMI, but even finding lactaid). to get to alicante i took the fast train to bologna, couldn't figure out the bus system, so nabbed a taxi to take me to the airport (which was AWESOME. he had a tv on his console and we watched an italian game show. so stupid and so funny), was felt up by the lady in the security line who also guffawed at my mismatched socks (at least they were CLEAN, jeez), finally landed in spain after my ipod died halfway throught Easy on Joanna's new album (yes, we are on a first name basis) and the pilot made the sketchiest landing EVER.
anyway. jordan picked me up from the airport and we did one of those romantic movie scenes when you run at the person waiting for you and get the biggest hug ever...it was like that.
jordan is living with a host family that includes her madre Mabel and her little sister Paula. both are some of the biggest characters iv'e met. especially Paula, she has the whole 12 year old attitude, but she looks like she is 19. one evening we took paula, her cousin, and a friend out to go bowling. the bowling place ended up being kind of like chuck-e-cheeses, but in spanish. there were little kids everywhere! one thing we noticed while just chillin and watching the kids was how well they all dress. Like, they are put together little children, thier hair is all done and they wear boots over their jeans and jeez. i was into tiger t-shirts and jynco's when i was that age. boots? psh.

one of my favorite things there was eating dinner with her family and just listening to the conversation. i could understand what was going on most of the time which was soo cool and jordan would translate what i said or details/topics that i couldn't catch. she was our translator, english-spanish-english-spanish. when we weren't eating amazing mabel food, or pigging out on chocolate con churros, we climbed up to the high point that looks over alicante. the high point also happens to be a huge old castle with never ending switchbacks and stairs to the top. it was well worth the climb to see the view of the ocean and the colorful city below.
did you say "so what was the nightlife like?" yeah, i though you did. well before i went i thought i was kind of a badass going out at 10 and staying out until like 2:30in the morning. turns out this is nothing, and if i had a spanish madre she would ask me if i was sick and be thoroughly dissapointed if i came home anytime before 5 in the morning. soooo. my last night we stayed out until the sun came up at 8, hanging out at the beach, falafel in hand, friends by my side. we stumbled into bed and crashed until 2 when it was time to eat lunch (dinner is at 9, you talk for a couple hours, digest, call your friends, and go out again at 11:30). going out with jordan and her friends was so fun and comfortable and i felt completely able to relax and have the time of my life. we danced and met tons of people and jordan (as always) knew eveyone so were able to get in everywhere (ok, except one club that we had to sneak into when the guy was looking the other way) and talk to the bartenders and the djs and jeez. i did not want to leave.
some little highlights: 6 euro boots. yes! falafel falafel falafel. eating lunch while watching people play volleyball on the beach. meeting jordan's friends. wandering the city...street art. not having to wear my big jacket. seeing the sun. mabel's pizza. trying to explain that i didn't eat meat. not even chicken. teaching the kids about the slow clap. being jealous of paula's cousins hair. oh man. and so much more.

my next adventure? family! my mom, dad, chelsea, and my gma bonnie are flying in saturday morning. i am beyond excited to see them, and i wish mat was coming too (stupid work!). all my friends want to meet chelsea and are so curious to see my twin. "there are TWO of you?!" yes, but we aren't identical. "but TWO?!"
i know there aren't any pictures on this post, cause im on the school computer, but i

OH! last night was St. Patrick's Day. Holy cow the entire city was up all night, the beer was green, and if you weren't wearing a tall floppy hat that said "stPATRICKS DAY 2010" you just weren't getting into it. i have no green things. not one. the weirdest part (and probably the best)? i didn't get pinched!

BERLIN

thanks to the bahn, we got to Berlin in about 6 hours safe and sound. it was probably the most difficult thing ever trying to find my seat and I asked countless people "scusa, wo ist" and then i'd point to my seat assignment on the ticket. Everyone was really helpful, but didn't seem to know either, so I just picked a seat and sat down. No sweat. I mostly pretended to be Italian on the train and in the public places cause it was more fun. The countryside from Amsterdam to Berlin is amazing. There are windmills and green for miles. Joanna Newsom accompanied me and James Joyce until I really just couldn't read anymore Dubliners. on arrival to berlin we had to figure out the u-bahn, s-bahn train system. it really isn't that difficult once you see how it works, but we had been traveling all day and our heads weren't quite screwed on all the way. thankfully there are maps everywhere and if you ask an older person where to go they are more likely to tell you in a slow, aww, you're lost, kind of way. we ended up staying in an amazing appartment in Mitte, the old east part of Berlin. the tub was really cool, cause to use the shower you just sat in the tub and held the sprayer thing at your face. it was so fun.
anyway. we unpacked, and headed out in search of food. we found a corner store that resembled a 7-11, but that sold alcohol and pre-mixed cocktails. so we got some wine, spaghetti, and spaghetti sauce that was in a packet. seriously, it was "just add water!" spaghetti sauce. we found this hilarious and bought it. it was dece.
the next morning we headed out early to do the real Berlin thing. megan and her mom went to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen near Berlin, but katie and I wanted to see the city, so we parted ways. First! The East Side Gallery. an absolute must if you are going anywhere near berlin, it is a piece of the inner wall (not the real border because of the river). it is totally tricked out in new art, which i was confused about, but learned that it had been restored in 2009. dozens of international artists came to paint their impression of the November 9, 1989 event.

we kept walking past the gallery and crossed the Glienicke Bridge - the 'Bridge of Spies' - sweetest name ever, and happened upon 3 public pieces by the artist Blu (this is Blu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4) which blew my mind. they are huge!
if you are interested in public art, street art, or graffiti, Berlin is the city for you. It is everywhere. and some of it is really impressive and thoughtful.
the center district was next because i just had to see the Reichstag. it had been built up in my head for so long. i wrote a paper about cristo and jean-claude wrapping it, and we learned about it in german visual culture, so i was beyond ready to see the thing. it still blew my mind when we came up the u-bahn. it is MASSIVE. and the square outside it sprawling and empty and i can only imagine what kind of events have taken place in that momentarily deserted area. i can't imagine wrapping something that huge. from there on we wandered the city, no destination in mind, so we saw a large number of impressive buildings that i have no idea what they were.

we stopped in every thrift store we could find, and in a couple kaffee shops and a soup place where guessed what we were ordering. i've never experienced not being able to read anything on the entire menu before. except coffee. that was it. thankfully everyone speaks english, although we tried our hardest not to. my 5 or 6 words in german are thoroughly ingrained in my head and even now i think to say Dankeschön to italian people.
later that night we went on a pub crawl and met up with our 4 other crawlers. i guess tuesday nights aren't big night-on-the-town nights. it was pretty freakin' cold, too. there was a guy named Yal from Norway, a German girl named Simone, and an Israeli guy named Daniel, plus katie, megan, and I. since it was such a small group we got to do whatever we wanted really, and they just showed us the cool spots to go. My favorite was Club Zapata where they had a fire shooter and sweeeeeeet music. finally some good ol' europop. the upstairs of this club was an abandoned artists gallery type-thing, that also had a couple very cool bars. During the day it is a squatters haven, and it still houses squatters more or less legally, or tolerated at least. Simone, as we are climbing the stairs, says "ok, if anyone asks you if you want to buy drugs, let me deal with them" we all nodded our agreements. it was very chill though, and we sat down and talked for a long time in the cozy dimly-lit red bar.
after a long night of dancing and meeting people and getting plum tuckered out, we discovered that the s-bahn was closed. it was time to figure out the metro at 4:30 in the morning, which was quite the experience, but we did it! home safe, we ate leftover spaghetti and watched music videos on German MTV. there are the craziest videos on there. some new, some really really not new. they definitely love Kesha's Tic-Tok though. wow, like every 5th song.
we woke up the next morning and I WANTED TO MUSEUM. so we went to the Berlin Gugg and saw the coolest exhibition called Utopia Matters (http://www.deutsche-guggenheim-berlin.de/e/ausstellungen-utopiamatters01.php) which was such a great thing to see because it summed up the german visual culture class I took in the fall. it put all of the Nazarines work up to the De Stijl and further into perspective. paintings are sooo different in person. it was so cool to see what i had studied. i kept regaling katie with little facts, im sure i was pretty annoying but i just couldn't contain my mouth. after the gugg, we headed off to the Neue Museum only to find that the permanent collection was closed until the 12th of march, NOO! but it was cool to see the museum and the area surrounding. we decided to walk back to Potsdamer Platz because it wasn't that far and we wanted to see more of the city, but we walked in the opposite direction and ended up who knows where, surrounded by little falafel\kabab places. so naturally we stopped, got some AMAZING falafel, baklava, and asked where the nearest u-bahn to Alexanderplatz was.

I absolutely love public transportation. the bahn's were just too cool. the people watching on trains is just about as amazing as the ride itself as well. german little kids are adorable, and i loved just listening to conversations. no idea at all what was being said, but it was beautiful none the less. german is definitely my next language. i could keep talking about this trip forever. there are so many little things about Berlin that make it more than just any other big city. some of my favorite things were the little smiles you get when you say gutentag instead of hallo, the guys selling currywurst on the street in their laps, CHOCOLATE, the pace and flow of the people getting on and off the trains, ordering a different pastry every morning from the bakery around the corner (the lady was so nice, i was trying so hard to pronounce the words and she was very patient with me, and even helped when i was wayyyyy of base), and the sky. stormy skies are beautiful and i have never seen them quite like they were in Berlin. im going back at some point. 3 days was not enough. i will be back.

Amsterdam and Berlin

SO. This is so hard to write about. You know when you have an experience and it was just so jam packed and full of EVERYTHING. Like a massive burrito. Well my spring break was like that, and it's hard to translate all the flavors into words. I will, however, do my best to dole the highlights.

Or maybe pictures would best describe? Ill do both. First, coming out of Florence was crazy because we were delayed TWO AND A HALF hours, but, as is Italy. We just wanted to GO! Anyway, we got there and (the Amsterdam airport is seriously clean) hopped on the train over to Centraal. Our hostel was called Vita Nova, and if you ever go to Amsterdam you MUST stay on this hostelboat because it is amazing and you are on a boat in the harbor right next to the NEMO museum. Whoa. And a pirate ship. No joke. The manager is named Roy and he is by far the coolest hostel manager I've met. Not that I've met LOADS OF HOSTEL MANAGERS but I bet by far he is the coolest. He took us to one of his favorite bars in town and we met all his friends and played music on the jukebox and danced with this couple from around amsterdam. Plus there was a tree of hats that you could just pick your favorite one and dance in it. We also did some educational things believe it or not (Im gonna keep saying 'we' because my housemate was with me during everything, so I must give her credit too). We went to The Rejksmuseum and saw countless Holland masterpieces, including The Night Watch by the one and only Rembrant (check this out: http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/attachments/QTVR/rijksmuseum_rembrandt_leerlingen.mov). What impressed me even more were the doll houses though. There are two humongous doll houses that are complete with furniture, dishes, wallpaper, drapes, inhabitants, and candlesticks. They were fascinating and reminded me of that movie Babe. The same day we headed on over to The Van Gogh Museum, which was having an exhibition of Gauguin at the same time, so there ya go! Did you know they were housemates? And totally didn't get along. There is a theory that it was Gauguin that cut off Gogh's ear after a scuffle...hmm.
I loved Amsterdam. It was such a friendly city. And I didn't ever feel in danger or nervous about anything. Totally safe. Plus, they love bikers there, they have lanes and traffic lights just for people on their bikes. There are bikes EVERYWHERE! Piled everywhere. Some of them are really old and funky and a lot of them have been painted and have fun additions. For example, there was a mom pushing a wagon filled with her three, 5-ish year old sons in it, in front of her bike! It was so cool. I want to have one of those that I can push around my dog in. Or my millions of books that I just have to have with me at all times. I'm sure I'll have those eventually.

Jeez, I can't write about Berlin right now, it is time to leave the computer and jam. I'll add berlin on tomorrow. BUT! Here are some pics from 'dam: