Hello Athens, Day 17

I was able to sleep about 2 hours during the flight to Athens (it was only 3 hours long) which would serve as my night's sleep.. :( When I arrived in Athens and finished getting my bag, it was about 4am and I had 5 hours before Dr. Hoch would arrive on her flight. I was starving, so I found a food place that was open and sold the most amazing tasting sandwiches! They were called Capri sandwiches and consisted of ham, cheese, basil and tomato on thin panini bread... SO GOOD! I ended up having a second one I liked it so much! The rest of the time I spent writing some of my blog entries and organizing my photos I'd taken thus far on the trip.
Finally around 9:20, Dr. Hoch walked through the arrivals gate! Now it will be important to note that from this point on, the trip has been organized by a small little Greek travel agency.. Boy were we in for a treat!
We looked around and found our chauffer (yes, we had a chauffer waiting for us!) who drove us the approximate hour ride into the heart of Athens to our beautiful "Central Hotel". We weren't aware of it when we first arrived, but our hotel had an AWESOME rooftop view of the Acropolis!
First thing we did though was take a nap... a 5 hour nap! I was recovering from an approximate 18 hour trip from southern Spain to Athens, while Dr. Hoch was recovering from her 24 hour trip across the Atlantic!
After our nap, we walked around the small city streets for a while, mainly stealing awesome views of the Acropolis high above us, and looking for a place to grab dinner. Dr. Hoch finally found a small tourist trap that intrigued her by their "comfy" chairs. Needless to say, in my opinion, the food was not so good.. But she was persistant about the chairs! So we ate a dinner consisting of greek salad and some sort of grinder. Afterwards, we meandered around the streets a bit longer, then headed back to the hotel for an early to bed.

Traveling - Jaen -> Madrid -> Athens, Greece, Day 16

I finally woke up around 1:15 after about 5 and a half hours of sleep, and began to pack and had some breakfast. Finally around 2:45, I woke up Jenna who was still recovering. We said our goodbyes and then I was off. I walked down to the train station and caught the 4 hour train back to Madrid. Once back in Madrid, I found my way to the airport and before I knew it, was waiting past security for my flight.. 3 hours to go.. :(
So, I wandered through duty free looking for my "Black Vodka" that I'd been searching for throughout Spain. They didn't have the black that I was looking for, but they did have a red vodka that looked like it might be similar, so I grabbed a bottle of that! :)
I used some internet while I waited to check up on email and to jot down all the addresses of people I needed to send postcards to while in Greece. I ended up copying down 23 addresses, and that doesn't include addresses that I have memorized, like family members and a few close friends!! I had a lot of postcard writing ahead of me! We finally boarded our flight, and to my surprise, the plane was less than a quarter full! I had my whole row to myself, so I immediately sprawled out and passed out! Next stop, Greece!

Partying like rockstars - :) - Day 15

Again, I slept in quite late while Jenna got up at the crack of dawn to go to work. When I finally got myself out of bed, I headed out to try and get tickets to the Alhambra for later that day. But again, there was no luck. So when Jenna came home from school with the news that a friend of hers would be at the Feria later that night, we both forgot about the Alhambra. It's been around for hundreds of years.. what's another few?? So we took a nap when she got back from work, then went out to buy my train ticket back to Madrid for the next day and to visit an Arab restaurant for tea and crepes. These crepes were the most amazing tasting crepes I've ever tasted! They also had amazing milkshakes!
We then headed back to the apartment to make dinner, and start prepping for Feria. Tonight was especially important, as it was the last night of Feria AND because Jenna finally didn't have to work the next day!
Needless to say, we had an absolute blast at Feria, met up with Jenna's friend, and partied like rockstars until 6:30am! It was quite the final night in Spain!! :)

Jaen - For real this time! - Day 14

I woke up on around 1pm today... A bit of recovery was needed, not only from the night before, but also Santander and Germany! I was still trying to get over a cold I had caught in Germany!
Jenna got home around 2:30, and we decided to go up to the castle. Now I called this entry "Jaen - For real this time!" because last year (and it was almost 1 year exactly!) when I came to visit Jaen, we didn't make it to anything in the city that is really notable and worth seeing, such as the castle and cathedral! So we took a cab up to the top of the hill where the castle sits and enjoyed some really beautiful views of Jaen, the surrounding mountains, and neighboring pueblos. On the way back down from the castle, we stopped at the cathedral which was also very beautiful. We then walked back to the piso and took a nap for a little while.
We then looked for a travel agency to try and book a ticket for me for the Alhambra for the next day in Granada, but failed. So we decided to try for my last day at the Alhambra, and moved our priorities onto drinks for the night. We bought some drinks for the Feria and headed home for dinner. Dinner had an extreme likeness to last year's dinners... pasta and sauce. Total cost for two: about a euro!! While we were eating, we got a chance to talk with Victoria, Jenna's roommate, about her trip to the states and saw her photo albums. She went to odd places, like I find many tourists do.. St Louis and Missouri?? Anyways.. After dinner, it was off to night 2 at the feria. As we made our way through the crowds, we ran into the same friends that we were with the night before, and danced all night with them. Again, we stayed out until about 2ish! Keep in mind, Jenna had to work the next day around 9am each day! What a champ!
Oh, and don't forget the half an hour, uphill walk back to her apartment!

Pitstop in Madrid, Day 13

The bus ride to Madrid might have been the worst one yet. The bus driver had the heaviest lead foot I've ever known. And that was a bit scary driving through the mountains that separate the north of Spain from Madrid and the center. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much, and again, the guy next to me didn't understand the idea of "personal space".
So, after the bus ride with very little sleep, I arrived in Madrid. I took the metro to the station Chamartin to drop off my backpack for the day and to buy my train ticket to Jaen, and had an awesome, totally Spanish breakfast while there of chocolate con churros and cafe con leche. After, I topped it off with a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. I then headed to the Prado. Halfway there, I finally found the section on the Prado, and the part that said it was closed on Mondays...Like the rest of the museums.. :(
So I ended up watching the sunrise and people watching for a while in Retiro park. I love that park. Somehow, everytime I make it to Madrid, I end up spending some time there!
The time finally came to get back to the station to catch my train south to visit Jenna.. The train ride was eventless. No one sat next to me so I was able to sleep and relax. The landscape was shocking, as it always is. Barren and deserted in many places.
I finally arrived in Jaen, where Jenna met me at the train station. We headed to her apartment to drop off my bags, then it was out to Tapas bar hopping. She took me to a few of her favorites, which I thoroughly enjoyed. One of the really great things about tapas in Jaen is that they are free if you order a drink. So Jenna and I would order two Canas, or small beers for about a euro each, and enjoy finger food to last through the drink. It's a great idea!
We finally arrived at the Feria, or the fair that they hold in her city once a year. It's basically Oktoberfest, but in Spain! :) We drank away, met up with some of Jenna's roommate's friends, and just had an overall good time. Finally, around 2am, we headed back, stopping at a churros and chocolate stand on the way back.. It was great!

Last day in Santander, Day 12

First, check out all the pictures from my stay in Santander here:

Facebook Album: Otra vez en Santander

After an early night to bed, I woke up on Sunday and finished getting ready for leaving. I bought my bus ticket to Madrid for that night, and made my way to the awesome kebab place that Leanne and Lauren ranted and raved about last year. After ordering the kebab, I remembered that Pablo's mom was making us lunch in one hour! So I ate the kebab quickly in the FEVE (train) station and waited for my train that I thought ran at 1:45. I waited and waited, only to find out that the train didn't leave until 2:15. I wouldn't have cared, except that Pablo was waiting for me at the train station in Bezana and I didn't have his phone number anymore! I finally got to Bezana and Pablo was there. I was extremely apologetic on the walk back to his house.
For lunch, his mom made a rice and vegetable mixture, then some pork, and then finished with some leftover birthday cake! (it was Pablo's birthday a few days ago). After, we played some playstation (or as the Spaniards call it "Play". Imagine, 'do you want to play Play?') Then, I headed home. I packed for a while, ate some dinner, and then said goodbye to the girls. They'd been awesome hosts, and of course I really enjoyed my return to Santander. There will always be a special place in my heart for that city... the first city I lived in outside the U.S.! I headed to Elodie's to say goodbye to her before I had to catch my bus. We exchanged photos, chatted for a few, and I was off!
I caught my bus and it was off to bed for the night!

Relaxing day in Santander, Day 11

Today, I woke up at about 2PM. I was so tired from last night! I just relaxed until about 3PM, when I met up with Elodie to go to Decathalon to buy some new shoes. I found a great pair for 20 euros! Then, we passed by the jackets on the way to checkout, and I found a great jacket to replace the one I forgot at home! And just in time too! It started to get chilly in Santander that night!
On the way back from Decathalon, we decided to have dinner at Elodie's apartment, so I stopped at the Carrefour Express grocery store to buy some salmon, some veggies and pasta. See Mom, I really can cook here!
Then I returned to Katy's apartment to watch my Mom's performance. It was great! They were about a half hour behind, but that was okay. While we were waiting for the performance, Sarah, Katie, JP and I all were in a chatroom talking about the show so far and how things were going. It was nice to be able to talk with all them at once.
After the show, I headed over to Elodie's and we made dinner. I definitely made too many vegetables, but the salmon turned out great as did the pasta! It was delicious, and we ate it while watching Men in Black 2, in Spanish!
After dinner, I headed back to Katy's apartment, and called it an early night... finally!

Santander, Day 10

So after the crazy first night in Santander, I slept in half the day on Friday. I finally got myself out of bed around 12 because I knew that I had to say goodbye to Esther at the train station at 12:45! So I got down there, said my goodbyes to her, and was off to Elodie's apartment. We had made arrangements the night before that she was going to bring me to the seafood neighborhood in Santander and I was going to have "real" paella for the first time (a year after my original arrival, more or less! so sad!!)! We made our way over to the restaurant and had AMAZING paella. Now I'm just kicking myself for not going sooner! For 10 euros, we got a paella appetizer, I had a really good, typical pork dish for my main plate and then a desert! Oh so good..
Later, I found out that Mom had made it into the finals in her competition in Calgary, Canada! That must've been exciting for her. I also met up with one of my students from Bezana, Lia. She loves traveling to Ireland to practice her English. She wants to eventually go to the U.S., but when you can hop over to Ireland for under 100 euro, and a ticket to the states would cost about 500 euro, do you blame her?
That night, I went out with Katy and met up with Elodie for another awesome night out in Santander. When we were in Plaza canadio, Katy met up and introduced me to all the new English teachers for this year (our replacements! :( ). When she first introduced me, they thought I was Spanish!! :)
We met up with Katy's Spanish friend Chechu, who later, I taught to dance like an American, which he enjoyed a lot! We stayed out again until about 4AM, even after Elodie said it was going to be an early night for her! :) Obviously a great night!

Traveling to Santander, Day 9

Thursday was an early day. We had to get up at 5am to get ready, packed and off by 5:30 in order to get to the airport on time. I had a flight that left around 10:30am from Cologne to Bilbao, Spain, Leanne had a train that left from Cologne to Nurnburg, and Supy had a flight that left from Dusseldorf to JFK.
So we packed everything up, said our goodbyes to Eva, and headed to Cologne. But as we passed that same McDonalds we stopped at 2 days earlier, we decided to pull back in, because Supy had noticed a huge puddle of muddy water in the parking lot. I don't think I mentioned it yet, but the first day we had the car, someone bumped us while parking or something and left a nice scratch on our rear right quarter panel. We were afraid we were going to have to pay for it, so Supy decided we should use the mud to cover it up. It took about 10 minutes of supy splashing it on the car, and me trying to peel out in it, before it looked like we had just gotten back from a safari trip! But in the end, it worked! The car rental agency was more concerned about asking where we had gone, to notice the scratches that seemed to blend into the mud!! :) Awesome job supy!
We got to the Koln/Bonn airport with plenty of time to spare. We all had breakfast together one last time, before supy left for Dusseldorf, and I went into the security area of the airport. We had had an awesome 8 days together. What a great road trip!
My flight was pretty good to Bilbao. They had given me an exit row, but my seat didn't have a seat in front of it! I had SO much leg room! And on top of that, there wasn't anyone sitting in the seat next to me! It was a great flight!
When I got to Bilbao, I took the next bus to Santander, and after being up and traveling for the last 9 and a half hours, I finally arrived! I called up Kat and Katy who I was staying with, and headed over to their apartment.
After I had settled in, I met up with Elodie and Esther and ate Manolos! Manolos was this food place right across the street from my piso last year. The food is great and it was just so convenient! So we grabbed some of that and headed to the Ayuntomiento plaza to eat it and watch the gente (people). I immediately saw three of my students from last year!
After about an hour of hanging out with them, I left to go watch my Mom perform live via webcast from Calgary, Alberta, Canada! It was great to see her all the way from Spain, and to think that while I sat there watching her on the screen, she was on the other end at the exact same second, staring out into an audience full of people and a camera!
After that, I went back to Kat and Katy's. I mixed up some Calimocho (drink of the North of Spain consisting of half red wine, half coca cola) and met up with Elodie and Esther to play some darts at El Dorado! After that, we headed to Mala Espina and danced the night away until 4am!

Paderborn, Day 8

Today I had a flight back to Spain from Frankfurt Hahn, but after looking at maps, and talking with the others, we decided that what seemed to be a 5 hour drive to Frankfurt and then 5 hours back would have been a waste of gas and time. So I bought a new flight that left on the 11th corresponding with Supy and Leanne's departure from Cologne.
So with that out of the way, we headed to Paderborn for a day seeing the city. We started out at Eva's university, which was cool. An industrial looking building, but very interesting indeed. We had mainly stopped in there to use the wifi so Leanne could find out what train to take and from where to get to Nurnburg.
After that, we wandered the streets for a while. While we were walking through some of the smaller central streets, we ran into a bunch of freshmen college boys being hazed. They were being made to walk through this plaza in their boxers and underwear, and then having to stand in the fountain in the center while singing the German national anthem. Needless to say, Leanne LOVED this! She couldn't stop laughing and TAKING PHOTOS! This plaza was the center of the walking area, and we ended up walking through it about 3 times, and each time, there was a different group of boys. Leanne honestly had the time of her life! We had lunch in this cool little restaurant where we had the most awesome waitress ever. After seeing lots of neat stuff, like the cathedral, the Hauptbahnhof (exciting for me anyways..) and her university, we headed back to Geseke.
Once back, we just packed some stuff up and relaxed some more. Eva went and got us some movies to see, which we watched and just had a very chill night. We needed it, since the next day would be such a big day for each of us.

Essen to Geseke/Paderborn, Day 7

On Tuesday morning, we woke up at 7 o'clock because Mathias said that he would make us PANCAKES! What an awesome American breakfast to be offered in Germany! The pancakes were awesome, but we were still exhausted, so when Mathias left for work, we headed back upstairs back to bed! It felt great. We slept until about 11am, at which point we packed up our stuff, thanked Mr. and Mrs. Schroder, and headed out.
As always, staying at the Schroder's was awesome. They are really such nice people. Kate was lucky to befriend Mathias!
So we headed to Geseke, a small town where Eva lives near Paderborn, about 2 hours drive from Essen. When we finally found her exit, we found a McDonalds, which we decided would be the best spot to wait and meet Eva at. However, like always, Leanne couldn't contain herself and HAD to play on the playscape! So we took a movie.. :)
Eva finally came and led us to her house. She lives in this very cool second-story apartment in the house behind her parents' house. We dumped our stuff, and headed to the downtown area (very small, but cool) for a walk and to look for food. We finally stopped into a very cool little restaurant that served both Turkish and German food. I had something german that is meat smashed really thin, then fried. Schnitzel keeps coming to mind, but that might be completely off. After this, we headed back to Eva's to relax, drink some tea, and take some siestas. After a while of that, we went out to a bar in town for drinks. Eva brought us to this one bar in particular because it has darts, an old group favorite from Santander!
After a while there, we went home and all called it a night. The next day we had a big day of visiting Paderborn!

Cologne & Essen - Day 6

On Monday, we started real early. Esther needed to be to the airport by 9:30, so we had to leave by 8 from her house. Nothing special happened on the ride. We sang some songs on the radio, talked about what we were doing over the next couple of days, and even convinced Leanne that we DID NOT need to stop at McDonalds for breakfast!
After we dropped her off, we were off. It was finally my turn to drive (driving a stick in germany on the autobahn.... FUN!) Supy and Leanne had to repeatedly remind me that we were not in a racecar... Ooops! So we drove for an hour or two and finally found Cologne. We stopped in the really flashy looking business district first because Leanne had to go to the bathroom so bad. But it was a good thing, because we found a little Bratwurst stand that we had our lunch at. SOOO GOOD! After that, we drove towards the older part of the city where the huge cathedral sits alongside the Hauptbahnhof. We decided to not go up into it, as none of us really had a desire to climb the I-forget-how-many-steps. So we just chilled for about an hour or so there, then we took off for Dusseldorf!
Now German Matt was the one who told us to go to Dusseldorf to go see the old section of town and to see a shopping area called King's Alley. Needless to say, we successfully got lost as soon as we arrived, and got frustrated and left without seeing anything except the downtown streets. :)
We finally arrived in Essen around 4:45, and met Matt in the Burger King parking lot like he told us to. We met his girlfriend, Ella, who was very nice, and they both met Supy and Leanne. We followed Matt to his house and said hello to his Mom and Dad, and pretty much had dinner right away. After dinner, I watched the recent episode of Family Guy with Martin, Matt's brother, and then we all went downstairs to watch Matt smoke his hookah!
Finally, around 9 PM we went out to pick up Celina and head out to the strip of cocktail bars by the Gasometer. The drinks were awesome there. We were drinking things like Swimming Pools, Dragons, etc After about an hour and a half, we headed out, to find McDonalds down the way open and awaiting us. We had the munchies! And of course, like always, German Matt wanted a picture of us "Americans" enjoying our fast food... haha.
When we got back to the Schroeders house, Leanne happened to mention that she wasn't feeling well, so Mr. Schroder fixed her up a hot rum and sugar drink. It was hilarious. Leanne just sipped away at it. But then, he offered Supy and I brandy and coke! After a drink or two with Mr. Schroder, we all watched his fishing video from this year (he goes on an annual fishing trip with his buddies, and every year, they make a movie out of it!).
We headed upstairs for bed, but before going to sleep, we called Meghann real quick to wish her a happy birthday back in New Mexico.

Weisbodin, Day 5

We got up around 11am on Sunday and decided to go into the small city nearby Keidrich where Esther lives. So we all piled in the car after another typical german breakfast and off we went.

The first thing Esther brought us to was the funicular up the mountain that we were visiting. It was a nice ride up, and once on the top, we were able to go check out the high ropes course that they have available. It looked absolutely amazing!! I want to build one of my own in my backyard! They had three seperate courses, seperated by height, which you can complete on your own. As you make it around the course, the obstacles/challenges become more and more difficult. It really looked neat!

After that, we headed into the city and had some Turkish food for lunch. It was delicious, like always! We also had some really cool ice cream treats! Esther's was something like an After Eight! I had just a regular hot fudge sundae, but I accidentally ordered the one with hazelnut ice cream. It was sooo good.

After lunch, Supy, Leanne and I all

Drive to Esther's, Day 4

We woke up around 10am on Saturday. Margharethe came back over to the piso with some breakfast foods and her brother and his family. His wife is from Peru, so they both speak South American Spanish, which was a really wierd experience, because instead of using the vosotros form for "You All", they use the Ustedes form, which makes it sound like they are talking to some group of people that aren't around. Really wierd!

As soon as breakfast was done and we had cleaned up the piso a bit, we jumped back in the car and headed back to Memmengen where Markus had to get ready for a wedding, and we had to head on to Esther's.

On our way, however, we decided to stop in Stuttgart, which was really cool! It's a small city located in a valley between Frankfurt and Memmengen. It was fun a lot of fun going up in the tower they have at the Hauptbahnhof there. We were able to take pictures of the whole city, especially of the pedestrian walkway, which we went to next!

While walking on the pedestrian walkway, we realized a lot of people were eating chinese food out of to-go boxes. We quickly decided that's what we wanted for dinner, so we looked around for the restaurant. It wasn't hard to locate. There was a steady stream of Germans coming out of the doors holding the same to-go boxes!

As soon as we finished the awesome chinese, we hopped back in the car to complete our trip to Esther's. I think we finally arrived around 10pm. Esther had made us Quesada, which was absolutely delicious! After eating some of that and just relaxing for a bit (and I think some skipbo?? ), we finally called it a night. We were exhausted!

Oktoberfest, Day 3

We all got up at 6:30 in the morning to get ready to go to Munich. Leanne had an interview for a job in Munich at 10am. We dropped her off and walked around Marienplatz until she was done. When she got done, we called Margarethe and met up with her to head to Oktoberfest.

We started drinking in the Augustinir tent, which was Markus’ favorite Bavarian beer. I have to agree. It was awesome. After two liters of beer each and a half chicken, we left to go move bags from the car to Margarethe’s apartment. It was a good hour break that slowed us down. When we got back, we went into the Häufbrau House and started enjoying the festivities in there.

Now imagine, a football field size tent full of people drinking liters of beer, hanging out with friends, and listening to a live band playing really good music! It was awesome! We lasted until about 10pm. And it was worth every minute! We walked back to Margarethe’s apartment and we all passed out!

Schloss Neuschwanstein, Day 2

We got up on Thursday to a typical German/Turkish breakfast that consisted of various rolls, cheeses and meats. There were also fresh tomatoes and basil with mozzarella. It was an awesome breakfast.

After breakfast, we got in the car and drove south from Memmingen to the city where the Neuschwanstein Castle (Schloß Neuschwanstein) is perched remotely on a high hill. After walking up, we took the tour of the castle (which wasn’t worth the 8 euros!!) and saw a bridge off in the distance where people were taking pictures. We figured it might be a nice view, so we headed over. It was the most amazing view of the castle I think we could have found. We were on the edge of a steep drop-off which made the picture taking awesome.

On the way back to Markus’ house, we stopped off at the lake where he usually wakeboards, but without a boat! There are these two man-made lakes where there is a machine that works kind of like a fast chairlift that goes around in a big circle around the lake. Instead of having chairs attached to the cable, it has long ropes that you hold on to, and are pulled around the lake by. It was absolutely awesome, and had it been the season, I think I would have had to try it!

We stopped at a nice Italian restaurant on the way back and each enjoyed a huge pizza, which were all delicious, and then finally made it back home where we just relaxed and got ready for bed… We had a big day to look forward to!

Memmengen, Day 1

The flight over the Atlantic wasn’t too bad. Seeing as the night before I had only gotten 2 hours of sleep, I was really looking forward to sleeping the whole night. As soon as I got on the plane, I found my seat next to a gentlemen from Nairobi. As soon as I sat down, he saw my cell phone and asked if he could make a quick call to his son. At this point we had about 20 minutes before we were leaving, so I thought, what could be the harm… Well, 15 minutes later when he was still on the phone and I still had 2 or 3 calls to make, I was getting a bit annoyed! I kept trying to get his attention, but he was paying any attention to me. Finally he gave it back to me, and I immediately called Kate. The phone call only lasted about a minute before I had to hang up, so I was angry from the start.

Then, later when meal service came around, he did not understand the idea of sharing elbow space, so I was forced to eat crooked!

THEN, when I finally fell asleep (keep in mind how crucial sleep on this flight is, as the 6 hour flight is the transition from 9pm Tuesday to 9am Wednesday) he continually had to get up and get out to “walk around”. On top of that, the women sitting behind me was continually kicking my seat, and twice, pushed my seat forward in an attempt to “un-recline” it!

Besides that, everything was fine. Heathrow was interesting, and my second flight from Heathrow to Munich was fun because there was an Australian girl sitting next to me who was also going for Oktoberfest.

I finally arrived in Munich at 3:30pm local time, 19 hours after I had left my house the day before! I met up with Leanne and Supy and we got our rental car. Luckily Budget upgraded our car from our original 2-door to a nice 4-door! We would've never fit!!! We drove out of Munich airport, and I tried to copilot our way to Markus’ house. It was much more difficult that I thought it would have been, mainly because we didn’t really understand the German highway infrastructure and couldn’t read German!

About two hours later, we arrived in Memmengen and met up with Markus. He brought us to his house, and we met his mother and set up camp in his basement. We went to sleep pretty early that night as we were all exhausted.