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!