London

Oops, I completely forgot that I forgot to write about the beautiful and WONDERFUL London.  If I had the chance, I would go live in London in a heart beat. I couldn't say the same about Paris, though...

Anywhoo, I took the Eurostar (a little gift to myself) from Paris to London on Thursday and was there until that Sunday.  Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad I had the chance to visit Paris, but I wouldn't have minded one bit if I had to spend the entire week there.

Barcelona part 1

(Sorry for the late post!!!!)

Barcelona was one of the cities in Spain I really wanted to visit while I was studying abroad.  But for different reasons, I never had a chance to go to Barcelona with my friends, and I started to think Barcelona would never happen.

Soon or later, the friends I used to travel with went back to the States, and I found myself itching to go to one more place before I had to return to the States.  After pondering this issue a little bit, I thought it would be really awesome to have the experience of traveling alone, and Barcelona would be easy enough of a place to be traveling by myself for the first time.

So I booked myself a flight on Vueling (probably the smallest amount of leg room EVER) and hopped on over to Barcelona. And boy, was I glad I did.

Something to look forward to

Heads up! Here are a couple of posts I'm thinking about writing.

Madrid Favorites: Some of my favorite places in Madrid I think you should go and see if you're in Madrid.
Barcelona Parts 1 and 2: Overview of my final trip of the semester to Barcelona.
20/20 Hind Vision: Things I wish I could have done slightly differently.

And a whole bunch of pictures.
 

Just some ideas that are floating around my head. :) Stay tuned. 

Te extraño, Madrid

Hello from Nashville!

Sorry I have been MIA! Life has been a whirlwind since I've been back in the U.S. of A.

First week back was me trying adjust to the time difference while attending a wedding and going on a camping trip only two days after being back from Spain.

The following week, I started my internship, I was helping out with my church's VBS, and then that Saturday, my grandfather passed away. That day felt like a week and that week felt like a month. Since then, I've been either working or with my relatives who flew in for the funeral.

So, long story short, a mix between procrastination, not knowing how to write about Madrid in Nashville, and a hectic life has delayed my updates on the final stretch of my semester abroad.

It's been almost a month since I've been home, and I wanted to share a couple of things I miss and a couple of things I don't miss. :)

Segovia

I am officially back home in Nashville! :) Since I have more time on my hands, I'll be posting steadily about my trips and the final portion of my semester in Madrid. I don't want to get into the sentimental things quite yet, so I'll share about our program's final group trip to Segovia. :)

As always, a visual:

I'm not going to write too much about it, but it's old and is the home to the Roman aqueducts, a living testimony to the greatness of the Roman Empire...

It is also home to cochinillo, or the suckling pig, and this soup...

...and this pastry.

And there are rumors that Disney's castle was based off the castle here in Segovia. However, most say that the Disney castle is based off a castle somewhere in Germany.

Segovia is surround by these beautiful snow capped mountains. They say the contour of the mountain range is like a woman laying on her back. The legend says, during the Spanish influenza outbreak, there was a woman with two children, who were very sick and surely about to die. The mother prayed that they take her own life in place of her children's and the very next day, the children were healed from this deadly disease, yet their mother was found dead. So the legend says that the mountains are the mother who had sacrificed her life for her children, and the children come and kiss her on the cheek in the form of clouds.

It was so cold that day, it was a little hard to enjoy the excursion, but glad I got to go see it. :)