oozey mess
Cosmic Funnies
if i look back, i am lost
Jules of Nature
NASA
izzy's playlists!
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
h
YOU ARE THE REASON
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
almost home
roma★
sheepfilms
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Claire Keane
noise dept.
occasionally subtle
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
DEAR READER
Origami Around
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@valerialaexploradora-blog
Back in the land of the free....since 2.5 months ago...oops
Well at least I posted twice when I was actually in actual Europe! That's pretty bad actually, hahaha...Well, I was soaking it all in through other forms than writing and like Anais Nim said, "We write to taste life twice." Idk what's for dinner but I'm craving a stroll down that Metzican Memory Lane.... I think it's this hip coffeehouse that's getting to me or something.
Explore Jean Bal's photos on Flickr. Jean Bal has uploaded 435 photos to Flickr.
Ran past here today. I guess you never realize how historic Metz is until it's staring you in the face
SB2014 Part 1: Getting to Greece
<<<rewind to last last week<<<
Thursday (Feb 27): Train. Strasbourg. Train. Bus. Sleep.
My bags packed and peanut butter baguette sandwiches made (thanks to Mami's care package), I was ready to embark on my 10-day spring break journey. Although I knew I would get to my first destination (Santorini, Greece) until Saturday afternoon, I was excited nonetheless. Thursday was mostly trains with the exclusion of one bus. I did, however, get to explore Strasbourg a bit (due to a layover) and visit the town's amazing cathedral which had a really cool astronomical clock and gorgeous exterior. Hidden gems like that are always so fun to find.
Friday (Feb 28): Bus. Plane. Bus. BUS. Metro. Sleep.
The plane ride was actually really gorgeous. We flew around the same time the sun was rising and had the insane treat of getting a view of the Italian-Swiss Alps peaking through a thin layer of clouds with the sun shining just the right way. I felt like I was looking at a painting out of the plane's window.
The BUS in the sequence above was a 7-hour journey from Thessaloniki to Athens that was supposed to be a 4.5-hour train ride. Alas the train was full so we ended up having to sacrifice 2.5 hours in Athens (goodbye, Acropolis). Besides sleep and looking out the window at a variety of greek landscapes, I took it upon myself to learn some basic Greek in those 6 hours (yay for linguistic nerdiness haha). When we *finally* got to our hostel in Athens I got to say ευχαριστώ! (read: ef-hah-rees-TOH, translation: thank you) to the super friendly receptionist. It made her happy :)
Saturday (March 1)
Metro. Ferry. SANTORINI
Today we woke up early and headed to port to take a 6 hour ferry to the Greek Island of Santorini. I like to think of it as a un-luxurious cruise that had very few activities for its passengers but you know... It was pretty cool being a boat. After traveling for hours we really just wanted to be on the island. Around 4 or 5pm we approached a C shaped mass of land with clusters of white villas and lots of hills and OHMYGOODNESS CAN IT BE TRUE YES SANTORINI FINALLY. Granted, it was cloudy and windy but I was so excited to be there. Upon our arrival we took a cab to our hostel and soon realized how season-oriented Santorini's tourism really was (read: most restaurants/hotels were closed and we were part of a few couple travelers on the island).
After our grocery run I fully understood the phrase It's all Greek to me ...we heavily depended on pictures to know what we were buying (except for the pleasant surprise of Oregano chips. Yum!). At night we went to Perissa Beach, Santorini's black sand beach, which was about 2 blocks from our hostel. There was something hauntingly beautiful about the quiet noise of the waves, coarse black sand under my feet, and the moonlit hills surrounding the beach. Even though we were not accompanied by the summer crowd, Santorini's natural beauty was enough to make all that travel worth it.
Barcelona Weekend, Best Weekend
Like many study abroad students can probably agree, there comes a point in time where you have a weekend excursion that was just so amazing and you can't stop thinking about it. But then school lurks over you demanding attention and you finally admit to the fact that yes, you should study for that Deformable Bodies test instead of posting pictures on Facebook.
Barcelona was one of those weekends. So now that my test is OVER. I must, as Anaïs Nin once put it, write to taste life twice! Life just tastes so yummy right now! :D
This weekend was girl's weekend and I traveled with 2 of my very close girlfriends. We arrived Friday morning and were instantly pleased with the fact that we could finally understand the local language. #hispanicnotproblems... Once we found our hostel we promptly took the metro and joined a free tour in which our tour guide Miguel who took us through a lot of cool spots ending in the very the gorgeous Parc de la Ciutadella (fountain pictured below). Scattered with couples, groups of friends, and random street-er-park performers, it made a nice spot to spend Día de la Amistad (Feb 14). Once we realized how hungry we were we backtracked to Plaça del Pi to have the BEST tapas and Sangria EVER. The cheese, tomatoes and olives were dressed with a simple homemade vinaigrette but the freshness was what really kicked it up a notch and I was torn between drinking the sangria slowly to savor it or at a normal pace to keep the ice from watering it down. QUE DELICIA
We were going to go out that night but we later ran into a group of fellow explorers at the hostel. They were sitting around, talking, drinking wine so we joined them and made new friends. Long story short that night ended up in all of us dancing at the beach to Latin music because why not?
For the sake of brevity I will now sum up this post in a quasi-list of events (because if I go into details it will reach novel-length-level).
Saturday (15 de febrero)
Morning: go to the beach, see nudists, feel awkward, go the other way, freeze in the water, bask in the sun because Metz doesn't have that in February
Afternoon: visit Parc Güell (but just the forest part), pass by La Pedrera, chase pigeons in Plaza Catalunya, walk through Las Ramblas, feel like tourists, eat beautifully fresh fruit at La Boqueria Market
Evening: Run back to Parc Güell because it's free after 6 and we're cheap, recreate one of my favorite all-time childhood pictures next to the lizard (below), rush to the FC Barcelona game at Camp Nou where FCB they KILLED it against Raye Vallecano (6-0), obsess about the fact that we just saw one of the best futbol clubs play.
Night: Go back to the hostel, freshen up, eat more tapas (patatas y torta española), visit a bumpin beach club.
Sunday (16 de febrero)
Morning: Have free hostel breakfast and exchange Facebook names with our new friends, see the fountain of Montjuic and Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, lay on the grass at the Olympic Park, chill by the Stadium, get lost in Montjuic's numerous gardens
Afternoon: have more tapas (notice a trend?), pick up backpacks from hostel and say goodbye to our foreign friends, oggle at Sagrada Familia, make a note to come back in 2026 (Gaudi's 100th anniversary) when they lay down the last brick, cry a little because I have to leave and La Sagrada Familia makes me think of my own familia that I miss dearly, buy my obligatory postcard at the train station, hop on my train and venture back to Metz.
The only thing I disliked about last weekend was that it was so short. Hasta la proxima Barcelona <3
Well hello there
So I kinda failed at the whole New Years resolution thing...
Let's take it from the top-- On the date of January 1st, 2014 I departed from the USA to come to Metz, France to do a semester abroad. So pre-France I was busy getting ready to move to another country and didn't even take the cliched-but-necessary pause in my life to evaluate my year and reasses. So I've sort kind of used the start of February as an excuse to do so. And I wasn't even so great about that because it's already the 5th. ANYwayyy.
Upon my revaluation I came to a couple realizations:
1. holyballs I love Europe so much
1. a) I'm going to want to remember this
1. b) WAIT I was supposed to be journaling my travels
2. Oops....
Thus the tumblr. Also all the cool kids are doing it.
As the French would say... Allons-y! (Translation: lehgo)