Anyhow, basically I have a bunch of traveling adventures to describe to you! So here they are.
Ronda, Spain December 18th, 2009
Armelle’s parents Monyque and Ken came to Spain to sight see a little before they travelled with us to France for the holidays. At Ken’s suggestion we decided to take a day trip to Ronda, a really beautiful little town about 2.5 hrs west of Granada.
So of course to make a long car ride more interesting, what is there to do besides take random pictures??
Once we got to Ronda we found a really quaint and picturesque little town.
Armelle and her parents
Armelle and I
Kelsey and I
Standing at the brink of an enormous gorge reminiscent of the cliffs off of which the Republicans toss the Nationalists in For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway (the town in the novel is actually based on Ronda)
Unfortunately the weather was horrible and we ended up having a nice lunch and driving back home again.
Windblown and damp…uncomfortable to say the least
Upon our return to Granada we got nice and warmed up with the help of tea and space heaters and went out to tapas where Armelle and I decided bull fighting was for weaklings and bull riding is really the feat to focus on
B&B on the outskirts of Granada, Spain December 21st, 2009
Our flight to Strasbourg on the 22nd was going to be relatively early and we still had to drive to Malaga to catch it so the night before Armelle’s parents invited us to stay with them in their B&B. We had a delicious dinner and hung out by the fire before bed.
Alsace, France December 22nd-24th, 2009
The first thing we did when we got to France was get delicious food…foreshadowing indeed. On the way from the airport to the gîte (pronounced jeet) in which we would be staying we got Tarte Flambée, a traditional food from Alsace, the region in the northeast of France where Armelle’s extended family lives. It was basically a pizza…but better. It has a very thin crust, a creamy sauce rather than marinara sauce, and toppings such as cheese, ham, mushrooms, and for dessert, apples and cinnamon. Heavenly. I was unfortunately so absorbed in the food I forgot to take any pictures.
That night we arrived at our home for the next week. The place we stayed was a type of B&B common in France called a gîte. It was a home and the owners rented out rooms to travelers and gave them (us) breakfast each morning and tidied up the rooms each day. It was really comfortable and nice to be staying in a home-style setting rather than a hotel or hostel. Although I would have been more than grateful to stay with Armelle’s family, it was also really nice to feel like we had our own space and weren’t imposing on anyone else. Armelle’s parents had a room and the three of us a room next door and it was quite lovely. You can see it in pictures from Christmas morning.
The next couple of days we walked around Saverne, one of the towns in Alsace, and took a trip to Strasbourg, the bigger city, where I got a new pair of boots at a Marche de Noel or Christmas Market, basically a big fair selling every present imaginable that you can find all over Europe at Christmastime.
We also spent a lot of time eating, and when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. And the food was amazing.
Here’s a picture of us in Armelle’s uncle’s house by the Christmas tree
And here is an example of the Christmas spirit that abounded in Alsace
Christmas Day, December 25th, 2009
As we did not have our own personal Christmas tree in our room at the gîte, we put our presents for each other under a Santa decoration that was on the window ledge.
We decided to be cute and dress all Christmas-y and then decided to kick it up a notch with our amazing red socks
Hiking, Legos, Bowling, Photo Shoot, Ice Fight (still Alsace) December 26th-28th, 2009
The day after Christmas we went on a beautiful hike in the woods up by the gîte and it was glorious and sunny and freezing cold. But after the hours and hours of eating we’d been doing getting out and moving around felt amazing.
After the hike we ate more delicious food, this time raclette, delicious melted cheese over onions and meat and then we played with legos with Armelle’s little cousin Maxime
That night we went bowling with Armelle’s older cousins Laurent and Raphaël. And I found out I hate bowling. Which really means I am terrible at it and a sore loser. But it was still really fun to hang out with a group of people my own age but French. It was fun trying to get around the language barrier since they didn’t speak any English or Spanish and I spoke only a smattering of useless French phrases.
Kelsey and I at the bowling alley
How I feel about bowling
In between eating and sleeping and trying to pick up new phrases in French, we found ourselves with a bit of time on our hands and ended up having an epic photo shoot.
Here are two compilations of the shoot
On one of our attempts to get some exercise the three of us went on a walk around town and Armelle and I got in an ice fight.
We wanted it to be a snowball fight but the snow was old and had hardened. Unfortunately it turned into ice and was capable of much more damage than snow. That day I learned that Armelle has a good pitching arm but bad aim…instead of hitting me in the torso where my coat would protect me she got me square in the eye!
It was quite the fight and I was left with a frightening battle wound but since I started it and had a really fun time until my eye got hit I couldn’t exactly complain!
Paris, France December 29th, 2009-January 3rd, 2010
We took a train from Strasbourg to Paris and arrived just in time for dinner. We were lucky enough to be welcomed into the downstairs half of an apartment of some friends of Armelle’s parents and they invited us to a delicious quiche. The apartment was really nice and was directly on a metro stop so we had easy access to the entire city.
As the one with the most (or the only…) sense of direction among the three of us, Armelle got to figure out the metro system
That night after dinner we took the metro to the Champs Elysees and walked around and got our first taste of Paris. And we loved it.
The next day we decided to see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. The line for the tower was ridiculous!!!! We waited for about two hours but it was something we had to do.
We went all the way to the top and the view was beautiful. Even though it was very hard to capture on camera and still get us in the shot
But we got a great picture in front of the tower!
After a long cold wait in line we decided it was time for some coffee.
And just as the sun was setting we made it to the Arc de Triomphe!
To continue on our sight seeing mission, we spent the next day, New Year’s Eve, at Versailles. The palace was enormous and full of amazing artwork!
For New Year’s Eve itself we drank champagne at the Champs Elysees. The streets were packed with people all gathering to celebrate the new year, and at midnight fireworks went off lighting up the Paris sky.
We started at home though and for good reason, upon reaching the Champs Elysees metro station the police confiscated one of our champagne bottles! Luckily we had another one for midnight, but how were we to know that despite the fact that drinking on the streets was alright, carrying alcohol, even unopened, on the metro was illegal?
The next day our hosts were kind enough to take us on a driving tour around Paris, and dropped us off at the end at the Notre Dame.
By the seine
It’s hard to capture the Notre Dame in a photo because of its magnificent beauty and of course it’s sheer size
Flushed after a day full of sight seeing
I am pretty sure that if I spent a month going to the Louvre every single day from opening to closing I would not be able to see let alone appreciate every piece of art in the museum. It was amazing. We spent the whole day walking around trying to see as much as possible.
This was my favorite work there, Nike of Thrace
Galway, Ireland January 3rd-10th, 2010
Once again we had the amazing luck to have a place to stay on our travels. Kelsey’s friend Daragh was so kind as to give up his own bed for the three of us to use for the week. We spent the week learning all about Irish culture and sightseeing a bit around Galway. It was freezing cold the whole time though!
Here’s a view of a typical street in downtown Galway
On one of the days we were there we took a bus and then a ferry out to Inishmore, one of the Aran Islands. We got a bus tour around the island and saw leprechaun houses
At the end of the tour we took a hike up to Dun Aengus, a prehistoric fortress--a round structure at the top of giant impressive cliffs
A couple days later with Daragh, his roommate Colin, and their friend Shane as our tour guides we hiked up a mountain that was covered and ice and really slippery and enjoyed a very refreshing exercise, much needed after all the hearty Irish food we’d been eating.
The hike was really hard because the ground was covered in rocks…a really interesting terrain I had never seen before. These are the boys that led the way over the treacherous craics and clints (words for the gaps in between rocks…craics being wide and long, clints being narrow and deep)
After reaching the top of the mountain we enjoyed a nice break in the brisk, freezing, but beautifully sunny day
Padova, Italy January 22nd-25th, 2010
Armelle and Kelsey’s roommate from Santa Barbara Rachel is studying abroad for the year in Padova so we went to visit her and saw Padova (also known as Padua in English) and Venezia (Venice).
Our first gelato in Italy! Despite the freezing cold weather
Cappuccinos in Italy! A tour of typical Italian foods :)
A beautiful day for sightseeing in Padova
And of course a beautiful day to sacrifice Kelsey to the river
Rachel and I being silly in our excitement at being in Venezia
The four of us on a bridge in Venezia…it’s always lovely when other people are kind enough to take pictures for you, but unfortunately they often cut out the backgrounds
More Venezia sightseeing
London, England February 22nd-March 2nd, 2010
As a break in between first semester and second semester Kelsey and Armelle and I decided we wanted to see Greece. It turned out that the tickets were actually cheaper if we flew into London first, and since Kelsey had a friend there we decided to stay there for a night on our way to Athens. Unfortunately, the strike in Athens landed exactly on our flight day and our flight got cancelled. Fortunately David, Kelsey’s friend, and his roommates were kind enough to let us stay with them for the whole week so we ended up having a lovely British holiday.
Sightseeing in London
St James with David, our host
Our awesome 3D glasses we got when we took advantage of non-dubbed movies and saw Avatar
We cooked dinner for the boys as a thank you. They were very confused by food that didn’t come out of a box.
We went to see Wicked!!!
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