Ahh I have been so bad with blogging lately! I have been fortunate enough to take many more awesome trips since Spring Break! The weekend after, I went with a group of my friends to the beach in Nerja. We just went for a day trip but it was amazing weather and a lot of fun! In the morning when we got there, we took a bus to the Nerja Caves. I thought they were pretty cool but they were quite expensive for the little time we were there. Then we decided to walk to the beach which took quite a while but we had pretty views of the Mediterranean on the way :) We spent the rest of the day laying out on the beach along with climbing the huge rocks in the sea. It was kind of scary but so much fun!! I was definitely sore from all the climbing the next day.
The following Thursday very late at night I was off to..SWITZERLAND! As you have probably noticed from facebook..I am OBSESSED with this country!!! I went with my friends Sarah and Patsy. We took the 1:30am bus to Madrid for our 7am flight Friday morning. I don't think I ever recovered from the lack of sleep this night but it was definitely worth it! We flew into Geneva and then took a 3 hour train ride to a little town called Interlaken. Although it was hard to keep my eyes open on the train ride, it was absolutely gorgeous. This was when I first learned how expensive Switzerland is. A man working on he train came up to me and told me I was going to have to pay 25 Franks which is more than 25 USD for putting my feet on the seat. Good thing he didn't actually! Few! This was our first glance at Switzerland and we had no idea what was to come in the following days. We got to Interlaken and immediately fell in love. The town is full of little wooden houses with precious gardens, people riding their bikes through the streets and of course, located right next to the mountains!! Friday night, we walked around the town a little to explore and went to buy some food at the grocery store. Switzerland is SO expensive, as it is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We had heard previously how expensive the food was, so to save money we went to the supermarket and bought a spread and bread for our meals the next day. Friday night we hit the hay pretty early so we would be all ready for our adventures the next day! Saturday we woke up early and took about a 15 minute train ride to a village in the valley of the mountains called Lauterbrunnen. We took a cable car about halfway up the mountain and then hiked to the next town called Murren. The view from the top of the mountain instantly took my breath away. Simply a feeling I could never describe in words. We stood there in awe for quite a few minutes and then began hiking on the snow-covered trail. It was crazy how we were trekking through snow but wearing t-shirts and nearly sweating! Somewhere along the way, my favorite water bottle fell out of my backpack :( I was very sad but jealous that it gets to live the rest of its life in the beautiful mountains! haha When we stopped for lunch, we ended up just sitting and listening to music for a while soaking in all the beauty. Then we continued on our journey to the next town where we took a cable car back down. There were serious high wind conditions so it was risky to walk to the next town in the valley, but we went anyways! We were all so slap happy and this walk was hilarious. We thought it started pouring rain on us, but then we realized it was just the winds carrying the water from the waterfall on us! We were going to go in to see behind the waterfalls but it was closed because the winds made the power go out. We took the train back to Interlaken and ate dinner in our hostel room. I thought that the hostel in Prague was the greatest but man was I wrong. This hostel was AWESOME! It was like a little cute community and everyone there was so nice! That night we went for a walk around the town and then made sure to get plenty of sleep for the next day of hiking! I truly didn't think that it could get any better than our day Saturday, but I was wrong! Sunday we were planning on going back to Lauterbrunnen to hike a different mountain, however there were huge wind storms so we weren't able to go anywhere above Interlaken. We are all bummed at first, but I am so happy now that this happened because we ended up having another unforgettable day! We took a REALLY scary train ride up this mountain that looked over all of Interlaken and the Alps. It was nearly vertical and we didn't believe the train actually rode those tracks at first. Once we were up, we went on a trail and hiked to the very top of that mountain! This was a lot harder hiking than the previous day but SO worth it! We thought we had gotten as far up as we were allowed to go and were so amazed by the view and were about to go back down..but then we saw that the trail continued behind a mound of snow. We hiked up a little farther to reach the VERY top where there were a couple of benches and the most truly unbelievable view. There happened to be a bunch of other Americans up there that we chatted with and then had our lunch. We ended up spending nearly three hours just sitting, chatting, listening to music and journaling up there. I will never ever forget the feeling of sitting up there and how beautiful it was. I loved this trip so much because it was not the typical trip of going from museum to museum and seeing all the monuments and cathedrals of the cities. Don't get me wrong I have LOVED every single one of my trips, but this one was just so different. It gave me a lot of time to reflect and realize how lucky I am to be there and to have had all these amazing opportunities to learn and grow this semester and also how lucky I am for everything and everyone that I have at home. I am having the opportunity to travel through so many countries and grow so much as a person while having the greatest life back home at the same time. After we climbed back down the mountain, we rented BIKES! We were all as excited as little kids because it had been so long! We biked through the valley and huge fields of green grass and in between the mountains. Then we arrived to one of the two lakes in Interlaken and saw the sun starting to set. Monday morning we took the train back to Geneva to spend the day there. NONE of us wanted to leave Interlaken. We had fallen completely in love with it and were already going through withdrawal. In Geneva it was pretty rainy and there wasn't an extreme amount to see. We wanted to take a boat ride on Lake Geneva but didn't want to pay the large amount of money, so instead we road the little public transportation boat across the lake for only 2 Franks! haha Our goal this trip was definitely to save as much money as possible. We also saw the famous flower clock there which was pretty neat to see. Monday night began our night of being homeless. When we were planning our trip, there were zero hostels available and the hotels were super expensive. Since our flight check-in started at about 5am Tuesday, we decided to sleep in the airport. It was definitely an interesting experience to say the least haha We arrived safely in Granada just in time to spring to the bull fight that night.
I was very iffy about going to the bull fight because I knew it would be really hard to watch but I decided to go for the cultural experience and also this one was for a charity. All of the money went for Down's Syndrome so that made me feel better about going. I was disgusted the whole time I was there. I am not even the biggest animal lover and I was still tearing up. I thought it was so wrong how everyone would cheer when the bull got hurt and how they gave the torreros a standing ovation once they killed it. They killed 6 bulls in total but I left after 3 because I couldn't handle it. I didn't eat meat for quite a few days after!
Last Thursday Sarah and I met our host mom and little sister at the beach. They had been there all week so we took the bus and met them there! They have a really cute apartment right on the beach. We spent the morning at the aquarium and then the afternoon on the beach. It was suuper windy but so much fun!
And the adventures continued! This past friday I went with my program, CEA, to Lagos, Portugal! I loved this trip so much as well because it was very relaxing and we spent most of the time at the beach! When we arrived Friday afternoon we went on a sailboat ride through the Atlantic. Some of my friends and I jumped off and it was FREEZING! We also went on a smaller boat to get closer to the Grotto/Caves in the ocean. Friday night we went to a hamburger place that had one of the best 50 burgers in the world supposedly. Nothing compared to home though! Saturday was a day dedicated to the beach. The first beach we went to we got to cliff jump! The worst part was swimming out to the rock because it was sooo cold. While climbing up I got super scraped up. You could see the blood on the top of the rock from everyone's feet/legs. It didn't seem that high up from the shore but it sure seemed like it once we were up there! I am so glad I did it, although the cuts stung for a while after it was such a fun and exhilarating experience! We spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday at the beach. Saturday night we also went to "the end of the world" to see the sunset. These are the cliffs that overlook the Atlantic where the Europeans thought the world ended! I really loved Portugal cause I got to be with all of the program and of course, I love the beach!
That brings me to this week! Sorry that was SO much so congrats if you made it through reading all of it! I have 16 days left in Spain (not that anyone is counting) and am trying to enjoy every single second of them. Yesterday we had our farewell lunch with CEA and it really hit me how hard it is going to be to say goodbye to everyone. I'm excited to spend this weekend in Granada and enjoy the hot weather we have been having! Love and miss you all, but see you SOON! :)
