Spring Break with the Fam

Sorry it took me so long to get to this. School has been catching up with me, I love to procrastinate! 5 papers and a few quizzes later, I am ready to WRITE! Like Aunt Deb said, I am here to do this thing called studying, but I try to avoid that over here as much as possible in order to take it all in. I'm definitely looking forward to being home in 3.5 weeks. I have a few detour trips to Portugal and then Barcelona before I head home home for good. However, I missed the best trip that I have experienced yet, and it happened to be with Big T, my mom, and my roomie (grandma)! The first few days of the trip were chaotic to say the least haha. Where to start, well the plan was suppose to meet my family at the hotel in Sol in Madrid at noon. Well, I had planned on staying at senora's until 10 am or so before I told her goodbye, but she had other ideas for me. She decided to tell me the night before at dinner at around 8:30 pm (after I had lost communication with mom and dad because they were suppose to be in the air, later story) that I had to be out at 6 am!!! You gotta be shitting me right? What an important bit of information. So, I woke up BRIGHT and early for me here in Madrid at 5 a.m. Finished packing, took a shower, ate breakfast, and was out of there. I didn't have anywhere to go, so I thought it was a brilliant idea to go to the airport. It really was my only option because no places were open yet, I needed the internet to do some homework, and I could surprise mom, dad, and grandma. Well I sat there until noon (I thought I noticed there flight had been cancelled, but wasn't sure what the flight number was), until I realized they were not coming in. So, I impulsively left for the hotel thinking that maybe I missed them. On my way there I got tired, it was really hot and my bags weren't exactly light, so what better break than a nice, ice cold Heineken. I asked the bartender if I was heading in the right direction and he told me I was a block away. WONDERFUL. I arrived at the front desk of the hotel, said,"I'm hoping my parents and grandma are here...Tom Wilson." The man literally said, "Ohhhh, yes you. You need to call your dad." This meant three things: 1. They were still not here, where they were idk 2. I'm getting scolded and/or called a dumbass for going against the plan 3. Dad must of scared the shit out of this guy because he could hardly look me in the eyes. Well I call Dad, we have a quick talk, and I check into the hotel room. Oh, forgot to mention the wonderful airlines known as Iberia decided to cancel their flight (full of 300 some people or something) and were sending them out the next morning. So, I made the most of my time and got some homework done, and watched some NCAA basketball games. I even went around to some local bars just to "test them out" for my dad. My research was conclusive...great places.

So Sunday late afternoon around 5:30 p.m. I heard some old folks outside the door and opened the door to find my family :)! That night we just walked around and found a place to eat. Dad and I did go to one of the bars I scouted out, it was quality father-son time. He loved the bar, I had already been there like 3 or 4 times haha. It was called El Tigre, famous in Madrid for its tapas. They literally give you a plate about 4 sandwiches high full of potatoes, sandwiches, and meats. The next day I got them instantly in the traveling mood once again. We did the unthinkable and went to Toledo (45 miles southwest of Madrid) and Segovia (45 miles or more northwest of Madrid) in the same day! Never been heard of. We got it done though, and it was awesome! I had been to Segovia before, best known for it's Roman Aqueduct built in either the early B.C. or early A.D. I cannot remember. Toledo was awesome as well, probably my favorite small city in Spain (100,000+ people). There are tons and tons of pictures I'll provide the link to, mom went a little crazy with my camera! Here is the link for Toledo to Segovia and Madrid.

Copy and paste it: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150959774508327.523342.517268326&type=1&bef=10150959819823327&aft=10150959870583327&l=7b21c27622

Once you get to the pictures of us in front of SLU Madrid that is where Madrid starts. I haven't had anytime to look over all the bad pictures, so they're all on Facebook. I figured what the hell 1,200 pictures is not worth the time right now, I will just load them all I don't care. 

In Toledo and Segovia, we were constantly moving seeing everything we could possibly see. Once we got back to Madrid that night we stayed in and got back at it in Madrid the next day. They loved all the Spanish cities, but I think they liked Madrid the best. In order to see all of Madrid you need a good three or four days, so we just did the warp speed tour. Oh one more thing before I go on to Rome, Grandma and mom were rather disappointing in Madrid when we went to an authentic Spanish restaurant. Rather than ordering the menu special like dad and I did, they got MUSHROOMS. How American..let's stay away from any food we don't know. Sad to report they didn't like the mushrooms, could of gotten anything else though. Dad and I had a 6 course meal with a LOT of seafood. It was really, really good! Who knew that deep-fried eel could taste so good. 

Now to Rome, well, again I was going to be waiting for my parents in an airport unfortunately, but what can you do? I waited for 2 hours then they arrived, we took a bus to the city center and then a cab to our hotel. The taxi cab driver was freaking grandma and mom out because he said, "I be speedy gonzalez!" hahaha dad and I were cracking up he was driving down the packed streets of Rome like he was in a NASCAR race. We made it safely though. Rome was amazing I do not even know where to start honestly. Um.. the first day we were there we met up with Brit and went to this amazing ravioli restaurant, think it was declared the best in Rome. It was phenomenal, no doubt. We had a lot of fun at dinner, as evident to mom bottoms upping here wine glass (going hard mom). I was completely tired and nearly fell asleep at dinner hahaha. Not good, wine puts me to sleep. So we left Brit, never to see her again..haha. The next day we woke up early and headed off to the Vatican for our tour with Francisco, I think that is how you spell it. She was an amazing tour guide. I mean we saw all the pope mobiles since one could remember, all the paintings, everything you think of the pictures do not do it justice. I would go through everything, but it will be easier if I go through it with you when I have the pictures. I'll do a little virtual tour of my own. I'll include the link at the bottom for all the Rome pictures, as well. Fast forward to Thursday or Friday night, I cannot remember what night it was, but we went to see the stations of the cross at the coliseum! It was amazing, we were like 100 feet back from where the Pope performed the stations (he stood there while the priests around him talked and did the ritual, but he had a homily at the end, which was awesome according to my dad) My dad had made quick friends with a priest standing next to use, and this priest translated the entire homily for dad into English. So the next day we came back to tour the coliseum, and it did not disappoint at all. We had a tour guide who was really informational. We walked around Ancient Rome some too that day. 

The last thing I want to talk about is the unbelievable experience of being at the Vatican for Easter Sunday mass. We were 14 rows deep from the steps to the altar, and it was awesome! The entire service was awesome, and they did it in about 15 different languages (English got the 2nd reading, almost good enough for the Gospel, but not quite). The Pope looked tired, understandable because he had just returned from Cuba. However, the mass went well and then he gave us all our blessing. 

Here's the link I promised:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150959915303327.523369.517268326&type=3&l=e8ae34da7a

Shoot, did not realize its already 11:15 here, I need to get to homework. I will update my blog once I travel again, which is next weekend to the beautiful coast of Alicante in Spain for my oceanography trip. Snorkling, sailing, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff in the Mediterranean Sea! I'll be heading to Portugal the following weekend if all goes as planned as well. Then, making a final pit stop at Barcelona!!! I'll be talking to you soon. Take care. I look forward to sharing my adventures with all of you when I get back in the States after some sleep of course! 

Stephen

Want to take the time and say: Thank you so much Mr. Neisewander for helping my dad get Rome organized. He was happy they came and was digging all the places you told him about. We had to of heard "this is what Ray said... Ray said... This is it Michelle, Ray said..." a few hundred times :)!  

Auschwitz...How I learned the Nazi's were the worst kind of people

Poland is definitely up there on my favorite places in Europe! I loved it the entire time we were there (the people, the city, the history) it had it all and it was a great place to be with friends. I felt like a rich person there as well, could of attributed to my love for this country (for every zoulty (Polish dollar) it is $3.10 USD). I ate king type meals and went to the casino late at night and still only managed to spend 100 dollars the entire time I was there. All of the hang out time with my group of friends was amazing, but the real reason we were all there was because we wanted to see Auschwitz and Schindler's Factory. About a month ago began to get in contact with a company from Poland that provided English speaking tours, transportation to Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Schindler's Factory. I'm not going to share any photos on the blog, but will provide a link at the end of this entry that has the pictures I took (167 or so) with descriptions to follow along with.


Where to start, well we arrived in Poland after a 3 hour flight from Madrid around 10:30 a.m., arrived to our hostel at noon-ish, and then headed to find FOOD! We made our way to a Kebab place and ate there..it cost 5 dollars for a Kebab that we could barely finish. I cannot begin to describe how cheap this country was in comparison to America and Spain. Anyway, we visited St. Mary's Parish where Pope John Paul II performed numerous masses. It was pretty cool. After that we caught some much needed ZZZZ's. Hung out that night and played some card games, then headed off to the casino next door. Bill was able to double up and made a whopping 25 euro! haha. I just watched him, didn't bet when I had no idea what I was doing (knew blackjack would make me broke). Eventually, we made our way out at night and had a great time. The next morning we were all up at 8:00 to get ready for our tour company to pick us up at 9:30. The company picked us up at our hostel and took us to Auschwitz, it was an hour long drive to Auschwitz I where we met up with our tour guide. She was extremely informative and answered any and all questions we asked her. She mad the experience better than we ever could have hoped for. The tour was amazing, no one spoke unless they had a question because we were all awestruck at how insane this whole situation was from our current perspective. Before we saw all the belongings of the Jewish people, we were taking into a room where we were not allowed to take photos. This room contained 7,000+ pounds of Jewish people's hair, which was cut off by the Nazi's prior to their death in the gas chambers. The Nazis were all about making money to, to explain, they sold anything that was of legitimate value, such as their hair? Yes, they sold the Jews hair to textile companies in Germany, and this hair was used to create blankets and other things. They had some of these hairy textiles and blankets in the showcase. It was by far the most influential part of the trip for me. It really put into perspective how many people died there. Yeah, the gas chamber was beyond morbid, but I didn't see physical objects that could remind me of the people that passed away like I could with the amount of hair, glasses, shoes, combs, etc. They would even have Jews who were suppose to push the dead bodies across the hall of the gas chambers, pick the gold teeth out of the deceased head, and drop them in the "loading area" for the oven. I've never had such an undeniable hatred for humanity and for the German people. The craziest thing is that this all happened 60 years or so ago. Words wouldn't be able to describe the feelings and thoughts we all had while on the tour. Within Block 18 there were cells in the basement, standing cells where up to 5 Jews at a time were forced into a 4 foot by 4 foot cell to await their death in at the "death wall."
At one point we heard someone gasp while we were in the gas chamber, that was because she saw scratch marks on the walls of the gas chamber. The way they killed these people in the gas chambers was beyond barbaric. They dehumanized them as much as possible, in order to find a way for them to justify the awful acts they were committing against them. After the gas chambers, in the next room, there were ovens where the bodies of the Jews were burned immediately after death. The death for these people was not fast by any means, I had thought it was instant death, but our guide told us that it typically took 15 minutes for a person to die, 10 if they were "weak." They died by suffocation, too, the chemical used (Zyklon B) attacks the airways and the lungs. Our Auschwitz-Birkenau tour, which was 15 minutes away by car from Auschwitz 1 (oh, that's right I remember I wanted to clear something up..okay. Most people just think of Auschwitz (I did before this tour) as one giant concentration and death camp. Well, very untrue. Auschwitz was broken into three different Auschwitz: Auschwitz 1, Auschwitz 2 (Birkenau), and Auschwitz 3 (Holowitz, I believe). These were spread out from each other quite a bit.) Birkenau was the typical site people think of when they think Concentration camps, Nazis, and Jews. My favorite part of Birkenau was seeing the bunk areas. The one we stopped at had a flower in it for those who had passed. The water area I took a picture of was like a trough for animals. They would pump water in there once or twice daily and people would have to fight for water. As for the bathrooms there, they were only allowed to go to the bathroom once in the morning and then once at night when the Nazis opened them. These were large bathrooms with no privacy, and they were never given enough sufficient time to do their thing because they all were suffering from diarrhea and dysentery. 


After Auschwitz-Birkenau I was ready to go home, I was emotionally and physically tired, but we had one more stop on our tour and arrived at Schindler's Factory about an hour later back in downtown Krakow, near the Jewish Quarter. Our guide told us that there are nearly no Jewish people left in Krakow. Schindler's Factory was cool, it was just converted into a Krakow city Museum. A lot of cool memorabilia but no factory.


Later that night we celebrated St. Patty's Day at our hostel with green beer and such. Played some more games, then went back to the casino. haha. Bill doubled up again...it was like deja vu. The next day we walked around to the local market and food place. I bought a pair of Ray Ban's for 80 zoulty or $25 just because they were so cheap. Later that night we watched my Billikens compete in the NCAA tourney against a highly praised Michigan State team. We all huddled around my computer, beer in hand, while we streamed the game live from a (possibly legal...maybe?) website I use to watch ESPN and other sporting events. It was a well fought game, my buddy Jordair did work, but they lost 65-61. Close but no cigar, next year will be the year haha (I sound like a Cubs fan every year..."Next year guys, next year. No? We'll never win? Oh, okay.) Overall Poland was amazing, if you ever want to have the feeling of being a millionaire, head there you will be royalty ha.


We got on the plane at 10:30 and arrived in Madrid at 2:50. Came home to Vagus's happy attitude, wondering how our trip was and why Bill and I did not get haircuts like we told her we were going to (it was closed..a haircut was $5), and why Peter looked like a zombie. This is all for me this time, I think I've said enough. I'll let the pictures do the talking for me. Love you all!


Oh I about forgot...here is the link to check out the pictures (just cut and paste it up top and it should work, if not email my mom and she'll holler at me):


https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150891357058327.513483.517268326&type=3&l=03fb76d031


I'll be heading to Amsterdam this Friday night 7:20 p.m. (1:20 p.m. your time). I will be SAFE, AS ALWAYS!!!


~Stephen

Pete's Birthday...Nothing Special

This week and weekend was rather uneventful. Just ate, went to school, did homework, and that's it. Oh yeah Peter turned 20....woooooo. Senora made like a 10 course meal for his birthday and got Pete a birthday present! I want to tell her my birthday is in late March, so I get a present. We had shrimp, a whole turkey, cake, sangria, pudding, etc. It was ridiculous...ridiculously awesome to be exact. I physically could not move from the table, I had to sit there with the guys for 20 min afterwards to feel like I could walk once again. Other than that I have just been laying around doing some homework. I hate it. Bored out of my mind, but tomorrow is school again! My next trip is the 16-19 of March. I'll be in the tropical weather of Krakow, Poland. Visiting some sites and Auschwitz would be one of them, along with the Salt Mine and Schindler's Factory. It should be pretty cool, but morbid at the same time. I thought Normandy had a lot of death, this will blow that out of the water. But I'm going to go continue to get fat, dinner time!

Paris & Normandy

  

             Hey ah guys! This four day weekend was the best yet, a very cliché statement, but the absolute truth. We spent 2 days in Paris and then spent the weekend in Normandy seeing the WWII tours with my Uncle Sean.

(To the left is a picture Joe made on his iPhone haha)

Thursday

            We left for Paris Thursday morning at 6:35 a.m. and arrived in an airport that was no bigger than the Dixon city airport at 9:05 a.m. This airport was called Paris-Beauvais; it should have been called Paris-oblivious because we had NO idea where we were. Luckily, Courtney and I researched what we were supposed to do. We took a 15 euro bus to Paris, this was an hour bus trip to the city, thanks Ryan Air. So everything went flawless getting there. We got off the bus and took the metro to the girls’ hostel; Bill, Pete, and I stayed in downtown Paris with my French roommate from last semester, Josselin Petit-Hoang. Possibly one of the nicest and kind people anyone could ever meet. He took us three in, gave us all a bed to sleep in (keep in mind that his apartment is a studio apartment in downtown Paris, so it was crammed), took us to an authentic restaurant, and so much more. Josselin made the trip 100 times better just because he knew everything that we could do and made it fun for us as well. Thursday, after we had dropped our baggage off at the girls hostel, we immediately went wandering the streets of Paris (that’s the only way to learn your surroundings isn’t it? Walking around aimlessly hoping to find something you’ve read in a book and/or heard about). So we began walking, and found Notre Dame (the only medieval cathedral in Paris) about 40 minutes from their hostel. It was awesome! I took 138 pictures in 2 hours, it got to the point where Pete and Bill were telling me to quit being a mom and asking to have pictures taken together. After we left Notre Dame we walked over to the Louvre Museum. But, the girls started freaking out and were like “OMG, look it’s the lock bridge!!” Us guys looked at each other like who the hell cares, what is it? And they told us it’s a lover’s bridge, where the guy buys a lock, writes his girlfriends name on it, and locks it to the bridge. I told the girls that this bridge is dumb because statistically speaking 50% of the people who have locks on here are divorced or never got married. So once we were done with that great experience, we finally made it to the Louvre. As students we got in FREE which was awesome because otherwise it was a $25-$30  admission fee. We walked around in the museum, after taking photos outside the infamous glass pyramid that it is known for. The most interesting part for me was seeing the Mona Lisa, and realizing how small the thing is. I thought it was a normal size painting, but it was not bigger than 2ftx2ft it was TINY! Something I found funny was that directly across from the Mona Lisa was a picture from an artist I cannot remember, but it was a painting of the Wedding of Cana. This painting had ridiculous detail. It took the artist 2 years to paint the entire thing. The painting was at least 20 feet high and more than that wide. It was awesome. After we had seen the Louvre museum, we were pretty tired, seeing that we had only had 2 hours of sleep (the plane ride). So, we went back to the hostel and got a quick nap in before Allie, who is a friend from school studying in London with Mike, arrived. Once Allie arrived, around 6:30 p.m. Joe called me from work to tell me that he would be off work at 8 and that we were to meet him at the metro at 8:30 because he had made reservations for a restaurant for 10. We got there to the restaurant, and it was extremely small (very European). The dinner took 2.5 hours, but it was the best meal I’ve had since I left the states, sorry senora. The meal consisted of appetizers, four bottles of French red wine, and a huge entrée. The service was subpar according to Joe, but it was very good food. After dinner, Joe took us to the Sacre Basilica, the second highest point of Paris aside from the Eiffel Tower, to get a nighttime view of the city. As we were walking up, we noticed that the Eiffel Tower was lit up. Joe explained to us that it lights up every night at midnight. It was a pretty cool scene. After we left there it was late, around 1 a.m., and Joe had work in the morning. So, we booked it home and stayed the night.

Use this link to see ALL 253 Paris photos I took (just copy and paste it to the internet) :

 https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150839169928327.506032.517268326&type=3&l=9bae7b134d

Friday

            Woke up the next morning and went to a pastry store. That stuff was amazing as well. I don’t not remember the name of my pastry, but it was dough with cookie dough spread between it. We left there after breakfast, and met the girls at the hostel. When we got there we were surprised to find that Mike just got in from London!!! So Mike traveled with us the entire day as well! Like us, he had only a couple of hours of sleep so he was running on fumes. We went to the Eiffel Tower (this is Friday) and went up in the tower. Pete was suffering from some vertigo walking up the steps, seeing as he is not very fond of heights. The pictures I was able to get were pretty good, some were crappy though unfortunately. We all were hungry from walking around all morning so, we decided to grab a Heineken and a pastry in the Eiffel Tower café. This was pretty surreal, as we were conversing it set in that we guys were hanging out in the Eiffel Tower, in a bar within the Eiffel Tower, and in Paris together. It was awesome. So soon after we finished shot gunning our beers, we walked across the street to what I want to say is the north? Anyways, we walked across a busy main street of Paris and got another view of the Eiffel Tower. After a brief photo shoot we managed to navigate ourselves to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a rather dull, but equally important monument in comparison to Paris. I enjoyed grabbing a few pictures of it, and finding out that the French’s equivalent to the American Tomb of the Unknown Solider was placed underneath the Arc itself. Skipping ahead to that night, Josselin (Joe, my French roommate from last semester) was celebrating his birthday on Friday night! So, we organized a party for Joe at his small, studio apartment invited some of his French friends and all of the American SLU students that were in Paris. Imagine 15 people crammed into a normal sized kitchen, while all have been drinking. You can imagine the mess we woke up to the next morning, but I’ll get to that in a quick second. Joe took everyone to a Paris club, that he said is one of the most clubs in Paris. It was AWESOME! It was along the riverside, nestled into a side wall of the river wall. We stayed there until 2 or 3 then headed home anxiously awaiting our train trip with Uncle Sean to Normandy the next morning.

Saturday

            We set our alarms that early morning when we got back to Joe’s for 9:30 a.m. because I knew Uncle Sean would be calling me once he arrived in Paris. Well, long story short my phone is a piece and couldn’t receive calls in France. This would have been great information the impolite Spanish woman who sold me the phone the 1^st week of school could have provided me with, but I guess I cannot expect a woman as kindhearted as she was to tell me details that would have helped me. So, luckily I got on Josselin’s phone and say that he had texts from Courtney saying Uncle Sean was trying to get a hold of me. I called Uncle Sean, and we made the 2^nd train out to Normandy at noon, missing the first one because of our phone troubles. Live and learn applies here I think. We arrived in Normandy around 4 pm, 1.5 hours later, and were met by our hardly censored tour guide Edward and his dog General Plato. The first thing that came out of his mouth was “Who is the bloody dumbass that missed the train, and has gone and fucked out tour up from the start.” Good start.

Hanging out in a machine gun post from WWII.

Uncle Sean!

Bill, Pete, Uncle Sean, and I on Omaha Beach. The site where the Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy.

The rest of these pictures are from the American Cemetery in Normandy where 9,000 + soldiers are buried. 

           Well we immediately got to know Edward, who turned to be out the coolest, most knowledgeable tour guide a person could ask for. He was a great tour guide and friend to us Saturday and Sunday, we were lucky to have him showing us around. He was able to add humor to all the history we were seeing, which made it manageable to not only take in all the facts we were getting, but also to enjoy ourselves and never feel bored or lost. He also had an interesting live hailing from Ireland. To explain, he has lived on 5 different continents, holding jobs in all these places, studied Organic Chemistry because his mother told him history would not get him a job, knows German, French, Italian, Chinese, and English, and knows every second of the happenings in Normandy during WWII.

            Right away he took us to Omaha beach, the main location of the American attacks on the Germans. He told us the minute we got in the car, that he was going to set the story right and change our American opinion that which “is based on the most historically inaccurate film of WWII –Saving Private Ryan.” Saturday night after a long day of touring we arrived at our hotel and then left our bags in the rooms and went to grab some food. At this point Uncle Sean was being a trooper, jet lagged and tired. We went to a restaurant, the three students got steak and Uncle Sean ordered fish (he didn’t use the butter Aunt Dawn, promise!). Dinner was great, although, the service in France is equivalent to a snail’s pace. We finished a bottle of wine and a bottle of beer before we even looked at a menu. After dinner, we all walked back to the hotel and had a nightcap glass of wine. It was the perfect end to the best day of my life. I also was lucky enough to talk to Megan, Bridget, and Aunt Dawn on the phone. Unfortunately, I had called Grandma and Grandpa Long since I haven’t heard or seen them since the day before I left in January, but they were out soaking up the sun living the life : )! So Grandma and Grandpa Long if you are reading this I love you both and look forward to speaking to you over Skype when Megan gets down there!

Sunday

            We woke up early Sunday around 8 and went downstairs ate breakfast, and then hit the tour trail again. We toured the American cemetery where the scene from Saving Private Ryan was filmed. This was an emotional experience because we say 9,500 American graves of men who were our age. It was amazing though. There are 41 fathers and sons/brother combinations buried this cemetery, while 174 Jewish-American soldiers are buried there, too. An interesting fact about this place is that the American government owns it and employs French people to take care of it. We left Normandy today at 3 or so and arrived back in Paris at 5, in time for us to take a bus to our airport at 6 p.m. We arrived back in Madrid at 12:35 a.m. and senora had dinner for us still at 1 a.m. Prior to us leaving we had told her that we would be arriving back in Madrid too late for dinner, and she told us we are never too late for dinner and that it would be ready for us whenever we made it home Monday morning. 

Again, included is the URL for all the 200+ photos I took in Normandy:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150839274363327.506052.517268326&type=3&l=e09629330d

            SHOUT OUT: Due to the amount of generosity we were shown from Josselin and Uncle Sean, I wanted to thank them for all that they did for us this past weekend!

            Josselin was way too welcoming to all of us and was the best host we could have asked for. Love that kid and cannot wait for him to come visit Saint Louis again.

            Uncle Sean…I don’t know what to say other than THANK YOU! You were way way way too generous this weekend, and you made the entire trip possible. Without you planning this trip, finding Edward, and everything else in between, we probably would have 1) not gone at all and 2) been lost and just looking at beaches. I’m glad my friends and I were able to share this experience  together with you! Thanks again for everything; I hope you had as good of a time as we did. Love ya Uncle Sean, don’t know how I will ever be able to repay you for this weekend.

Nothing Special

This weekend was really uneventful thanks to midterms coming up. We all stayed in Friday and studied and relaxed. Woke up Saturday and started studying and doing my accounting project. Saturday night we went out to a Tapas Bar called El Tigre. It was really authentic and pretty cool. Basically, you buy a liter of beer or a liter mojito for 6 euro then you get a choice of tapas with it. Bill, Pete, and I just shared our and we could not even finish all the food they gave us, if that tell you at all how much food they gave us. As for tonight, I've just been doing some more homework and trying to plan where we should go next weekend for Carnival (Mardi Gras). Oh, in greater news, there is a Spanish girl that likes me, it just happens to be my senora's 5 year old niece hahahaha. While we were at dinner, Catolina drew me a picture and ran into my room and put it on my desk chair. When I came back from dinner I had thought that Bill and Pete had one from her too, only to find out that I was the only lucky one! So, I went out to tell her gracias, and senora laughed and put her hand over her face. She said oh my, I thought it was pretty funny.

"Grenadea!" -Bill "No, Bill It's Granada." - Pete

GRANADA

The guys (Courtney's one of the guys on this trip) and I went into this trip hearing good things, but wondering if it was going to live up to the rep it was getting from those who had already gone there. Well, Granada was sick! We had fun the minute we stepped off the bus. We arrived at 8:40 and had some catching up to do with all our friends that were already there. They already had walked around the city, which is somewhat small, but still. This entire blog will basically be about the Alhambra. The Alhambra in Madrid is the Muslim castle in Granada. As everyone knows, Spain was largely Muslim in the Dark Ages and still has some Muslim roots.

(The picture above is at the gardens in the Alhambra)

Typical Pete smile. They look good together though, huh? I've been forcing the issue the entire trip with these two being together. Always provides Bill and I with a good laugh when Pete freaks out and tells me to quit making it awkward...I don't know what he's talking about.

Courtney! She's been official tagged as our "bro." This picture is at the Alhambra with the background of the city in it.

The courtyard in the Alhambra with Pete ruining my photo, Courts fine.

The outside of the building where the above picture was taken. If you look really close in the doorway you can see the pillars. It was a pretty cool building with like three different museums in it. There will be a link at the end of this entry to my Facebook album with the rest of the 85 pictures I took.

The look out towers for the Alhambra. We didn't go up in them for some reason...

One of the multiple gardens within this huge place.

The view from our hostel in Granada. We were conveniently placed right next to an Irish pub called Hannigans and Sons. 

SLU took over Granada and the Hannigan and Sons. Great time for sure.

  HANGING

                    

WITH THE BROS 

Here is the group at the hot springs!!

Granada was a really fun time. We saw one of the most popular places in Madrid, Alhambra, and were even able to go to the hot springs. The hot springs were the best part of the weekend because it was so cold this weekend and it was nice to feel warm for three hours.