Spring Break (Southern Coast of Italy, Rome, Barcelona)

O hey there fans of Ben's Blog. I didn't know people were still reading this,

Anyway, last week was my spring break (yea I know, It's about time I got a vacation). The week started on Thursday morning with a 9 AM flight to Rome. I was traveling with 9 of my closest friends so there was no shortage of entertainment. We had about 8 hours to kill in Rome before meeting up with a tour company that would take us down to the Almalfi Coast for the weekend. We spent the day wandering around the city, stuffing our faces with pizza and gelato, and stumbling upon beautiful buildings and churches. Around 10 o'clock we boarded our bus to southern coast and arrived at our hostel around 3AM. The next day, the tour company had us up at 7AM for our boat ride to the tiny romantic island of Capri.  Along the way to Capri we stop by the "Blue Grado" which was a sight that we never be forgotten, nor will the hilarious method we took to get into the Grado. (see pics) Capri was beautiful. I always enjoy seeing the smaller towns when I visit a country and Italy was no different. We took a chair lift to the top to the island to get a 360 degree view. It was amazing you could seeing all the surrounding islands and ships; spectacular. That night we went to nice, authentic, Italian restaurant which was, you guessed it, amazing. It was refreshing having a nice meal because we tend to eat pretty cheap when we travel. I got muscles and red wine at dinner (fantastic). That may have been the highlight of the weekend for me. And that night we went out to local bars and had great time. Could help thinking about how insanely great is it to be enjoying a night on the Mediterranean with some of my closest friend. I also couldn't stop thinking of the hundreds of friends and family I wish were there with me. 

The next was our day at the beach in Positono Bay. The hillside town was obviously beautiful and the weather was great. We even managed to sneak in a little cliff jumping as well. That night we just relaxed which was nice and ...well relaxing. The next day we packed up and headed to Pompeii, which was a great place to stop in for a visit. It was very interesting and informative. It's also especially nice when you don't pay for a tour guide, but choose to follow closely behind some else's tour. After that we took the bus back to Roma. We arrived in the center of Rome around 6 and then took a city bus to our place of residence for the next 2 days. We dropped the ball a little bit on finding a place to stay, so we actually ended up having to stay at this camp ground/bungalow site on the outskirts of the city. It was very fun though. We got to meet some fun people and rough it for a little bit. 

On Monday morning, we took the bus back in to the city and spent the entire day at the Vatican. We got to see everything; St. Peter's Basilica, the Square, the Sistine Chapel, the Popemobile. Another great day and we only had to wait in line for about 5 hours (Vatican Holy Week crowds can be brutal). The next day was very productive. Since our flight to Barcelona was early Wednesday morning, we had to see all of the Rome sights in a day. But we did it-Coliseum, Roman Forum, Circus Maximus (lame) Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and Spanish Steps, done and done. That night we slept at the airport and you can imagine how that went. I claimed about 2 hours of sleep. 

We got into Barcelona at about 9 on Wednesday morning and checked into immediately checked into our hotel so we could relax and shower off anything the Rome-Champino Airport floor gave us. After a while, we got ourselves together and explored the amazing city of Barcelona. First we walked up and down Las Ramblas, which is the popular main street of Barcelona and had lunch. It was nice to get back to Spanish food. That night we watched the Real Madrid-Barcelona futbol, I'm sorry, "soccer" match at a packed  bar with Barcelona fans. We were smart and didn't tell anyone that we were rooting for Real Madrid (final score: Madrid-1, Barca- 0) The next day we walked down to the National Art Museum and the Olympic stadium area. Barcelona is full of interesting and unique architecture, which we full took in. After that we headed to the beach to hang ouw and swim. Dad, We saw a bunch of wind surfers, wish you and me could have been out there with them. That afternoon we took a tour of Antonio Gaudi's Casa Batllo. It was incredible. Probably one of the most interesting things I've seen while studying abroad. This is a must for anyone visiting Barcelona. That night we went out to this cheap dive bar we heard about and drank some nice sangria. Great night. One Friday, we got up early and battled through the rain to see La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell, both famous works by the architect Antonio Gaudi. La Sagrada Familia was amazing and interesting, especially after seeing Casa Batllo, definitely one of the many things I will never forget. Parc Guell was great as well, the rain made it hard to fully take it in, but we did the best we could. That night we took the over night back to Madrid. Great trips. Great week. Great life. 

Entrance to the Blue Grado...tight squeeze

Blue Grado

Capri

Positano Bay

Pompeii. Little disappointed we didn't get to see any volcanos erupt

People have been calling this picture "The Protagonist's Epic Monologue"

Barcelona's huge, colorful, farmer's market and we got Dunkin Donuts....shameful

Casa Batllo

European Swimsuit, thoughts?

Casa Batllo

La Sagrada Famila: under construction since 1882

Parc Guell, not ToonTown at Disney world

-Benjamin

LONDON!!!(and Newcastle)

Hey everyone. Last weekend my roommate and Joe and I went to London. Another great, perfect, amazing weekend. London is a great city, very busy, and full of history. Our weekend started with a good, old, traditional, English breakfast....it wasn't very good. After that we went on a walking tour of London. We saw the London Eye, Parliament Building, Big Ben, 10 Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, and of course, Buckingham place (wish you could have been there Mom). We were staying with a friend of mine from SLU for the weekend, who had taken countless tours our London with other guests. So he was able to give us a complete tour which was really nice. That night we went out to Piccadilly Circus, is London's Time Square and not a circus. It was very fun and enjoyable. It was so nice to be in a place where people speak English. The next day Joe and I woke up early and took a train to Leeds, about 2 hours train ride away, from there we took at bus ride to a small town to Wetherby to see Joe's close family friend, Rose. Rose is a very sweet 70 year old woman, who Joe has know for a very long time. Rose gave us a tour of the great town of Wetherby, a quiet town that was smaller than SLU's campus. It was great to see the simple town in England. Rose took us to a pub and then made us lunch at her house. She was so friendly and I definitely won't forget her. After Wetherby, we made our way to Newcastle and followed Charlie's directions to the ice rink just in time to see most of the game. The game was great. The fans were very enthusiastic and it was great to see how much they loved talking to Charlie after the game. That night Charlie showed us around Newcastle and we took the first train back to London in the morning. Thanks to Charlie for being a great host. Back in London we went to the Regent's Park area and artsy neighborhood called Camden Town for dinner. It was an amazing weekend. London is definitely some place I need to go back to at sometime in my life.  Still have a great time here and I can't wait to see you again. Enjoy the pics

-Benjamin

Big Ben and Big Ben

huh...I didn't know there was a wedding coming up

Go Vipers

Chuck

Morocco

Hey you, we went to Morocco last week (perfect time to go to North Africa right?) It was crazy, definitely the most different place I have ever been. So we arrived at the Madrid airport on Friday afternoon, we were about to go through security and my friend, Joe, realizes that he printed out the wrong boarding pass. We then realize that our plan is going to board in 15 mins and the line to print out a new boarding pass is way too long and so Joe missed our flight and we assumed the entire trip. The trip began with us getting off the plane and 20 minute taking a bus ride to the center of Marrakech. So we get off the bus in the center of town, and into this super chaotic town square with people everywhere and everyone seemed to be selling something. Since there we're a group of 14 completely lost and obvious American kids with our Northface back packs and digital cameras, all of the street vendors swarmed us and tried to get us buy their knickknacks. Eventually, this kid said he could walk us to our hostel. The hostel was very nice and would have been impossible to find if not for this kid. Marrakech was wild. The center of the city is this huge market where everything pretty much everything is for sale, it was like the town in Aladdin. There are street performers that blow fire, snake charmers, a guy walking around with a monkey, its crazy. And you can't take a picture of anything or someone will make you pay them. Our night in Marrakech was very interesting. We mostly just shopped and haggled with the street vendors (every price is negotiable in Morocco apparently) We didn't see any protests or riots, but  it was something I will never forget . 

The next morning we woke up early to meet or tour guide who would be taking us around Morocco for the next 4 days. At first we couldn't find him, but eventually we were able to track him down and found him in the center of town. From Marrakech, we drove south through the Anti Mountains, stopping along the way for pictures and lunch (side note: Joe Merrill should not go on this drive for motion sickness reasons) Eventually, we stopped at this old Moroccan village, where over 20 films had been shot, including Gladiator and Lawrence of Arabia. That night we stayed at a hotel in a valley, very cool. The next day we went on a tour of this tiny town in the middle of nowhere where we were introduced to this guy who gave us a demonstration on how Moroccan rugs were made and the symbolism behind them. Everybody bought rugs. I cant wait to show everyone mine. That afternoon we arrived at another small town where everyone got camels. We rode the camels for a couple hours out to this 150 meter high sand dune. Naturally, the boys wanted to run to the top for the sunset. It was impossible, running up hill in sand is exhausting, we basically had to crawl half of the way (it didn't help that we took the steepest route to get to the top) But once we got to the top, we realized it was all worth it because the view was amazing (see pics). That night we camped out under the stairs and woke up the next day to watch the sunrise while we rode our camels back into town. Then we did some more driving, stopped for lunch in this town that probably had less than 50 people in it. After that, we drove to another town, got more camels and rode them to this really authentic camp in the middle of the desert for our last night's dinner and a drum circle. However, the biggest surprise of the trip came that night at dinner. All 14 of us were all sitting around the table in this little tent when Joe, my friend who missed the flight, walks in to the tent! It was amazing, apparently Joe had gone back to the apartment, contacted the tour company, explained to him his problem and they helped him to get on a different tour that could drop him off at our camp for the last night. He did get to see a riot on Saturday night in Marrakech, which he said was pretty scary. The next morning, we rode our camels back to the town and drove straight to the Marrakech airport. A great weekend, A great experience.

I think I look pretty local

dudes on dunes

this is fake picture, I just photoshopped myself on to a screen saver image

Magic Carpets from Africa

A really dirty, smelly creature .....and a camel

Guess who was leading the pack: this guy

Ireland

Hey everybody

Last weekend I went to Ireland which was a blast. It was really nice to be in a country that speaks English. I went with a group of about 15 people and we left Madrid on Thursday night. We landed in Dublin at like 10 a clock, checked into our hostel then went the Temple Bar district. We had a lot of fun that night seeing the city and meeting plenty of locals. The next day we went on the Guinness brewery tour which was very interesting and very enjoyable, definitely recommend it for anyone visiting Dublin. After that we just wondered around the city seeing old churches, riding this big Farris wheel, checking out the Trinity University and walking along the river. That night we went back to the Temple Bar neighborhood because they were having a live music in the bars- super fun. On Saturday, we took the a bus to the small city of Galway. Galway was great. It was more of a traditional Irish town. One thing that we did in Galway that was a ton of fun was a silent disco. A silent disco is a party at a bar where everyone at the bar is wearing head phones that are playing dance music. So its a room full of people dancing to the music coming from the head phones but if you take the headphones off its all quiet. The next day we went the Cliffs of Mohr which were amazing. I cant really sum it up in words so check out the pics. Thanks for reading. Next up... Morocco!