What-uh? Couch Surfing Adventures in Florence and Pisa

This is the final segment of my 2012 spring break trip to Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Pisa and Venice! We had two days to see both Florence and Pisa, which is no time at all. I would have liked just one more day.

Reminiscing about Paris

I've got a bit of a travel bug lately. I miss going somewhere new and discovering new foods and exploring back roads. But this year, I've decided to go visit my family, and I can't afford to explore new places and buy a plane ticket home! So, to try and tackle my travel bug, I'm going to write some posts reminiscing about trips I've taken that I haven't written about yet. So to start off this series, I'm going to tell you about my trip to Paris!

Prague in "Summer"

This summer my brother's girlfriend was doing a study abroad program in Prague. So of course, since she was in Europe, I had to go on a quick trip to visit her. My brother was visiting her also, so it was all four of us and we had a great time, even though we could only be there for a few days. Unfortunately, we hit a bit of bad weather-it rained almost the whole time! Even so, it was a great excuse to stay indoors and enjoy ridiculously cheap beer, and lots of meat and cabbage.

K and I enjoying some delicious beer! 

Ringing in 2013- London Style!

For the first week in January this year, my boyfriend and I went to London! It's been on my list for a long time, also my dad told me he would disown me if I left Europe without visiting this age-old city, so I decided it was about time to go.


Everyone always told me "London is awesome!" and "You're going to love it there!" so I really didn't have high expectations going in...just kidding! The best part is that in the end it lived up to my dream-like expectations! These were my favorite things:

Partilho a tentação com quem mais gosto- Portugal!

Partilho a tentação com quem mais gosto- this is from a sugar packet...sometimes you find great tid-bits on sugar! This one says, "I'll share temptation with those I like the most."

Felices Fiestas Part 1: Madrid

Puerta del Sol- everyone together now!

Since I found out that I was accepted into this program to live in Spain for a while, my family has been really excited to come out and visit me...and they finally made it! I know I'm a little late on the uptake, but this is part of our journey, starting on Christmas. The three of them flew into Madrid on Christmas day, so I took the bus down to meet them. We rented a piso for a couple of days and from there we discovered Museo del Jamon, the Puerta del Sol, the Palacio Real, Parque Retiro, Plaza de Torros, and way too many museums!

Porque la vida es como te la tomas...

I realize that it has been quite some time since I wrote my last post, but it has also been quite some time since my life has felt any sense of "normal." I think that probably has to do with the fact that I just moved to another country, but I digress.

La Calle Gran Via

These first couple of weeks in Spain have been quite the whirlwind. My very first weekend, in Madrid, consisted of an "orientation" and meeting heaps of new people that I soon learned I would probably never see again. Although, we did have a good time. We went to visit the Museum of Reina Sofia, which was jam packed with modern and crazy art, including some cubism and an entire floor devoted to Pablo Picasso. We also found ourselves wandering around around the Plaza del Sol and sampling more than one pitcher of Sangria. But, we only had a short time in Madrid and then quickly moved on to Logroño.

Seoul Soul

This last weekend we went up to Seoul...I know it's been a couple of days since we got back but I've been busy! The only reason I have time to write right now is because I'm on call for this class period and nobody called in sick! :)

We left the village on Friday afternoon and went into Daegu to take the KTX up to Seoul. The KTX is a super fast train! The fastest we went was 305 km an hour which is equivalent to about 190 miles an hour. So on the KTX it only took us 2 hours to get all the way up to Seoul. There is a slow train too, which is cheaper, but also takes about 4 hours. The KTX feels like a plane inside. The seats are exactly like in an airplane but there is no annoying wait time for take off and landing and such! The ride is also incredibly smooth for a train. The funny thing is that when we got back on to go from Seoul to Daegu, we were going backwards! They don't turn the train around so you are sitting facing the same direction but traveling backwards. So I traveled backwards for two hours..what a trip!

We get into Seoul station and go straight down into the subway. Now this is the first time I have ever ridden a subway and it was a little overwhelming at first. You go in and have to look at a map to figure out where you are going. Then you have to buy a ticket and make sure you get on the train going the right direction! The first time we got on we almost went the wrong direction but a nice guy who overheard us told us to go to the other side.