Beautiful Barcelona

Part two of my adventurous weekend abroad took place in the lovely city of Barcelona. This was by far my favorite city so far. Most of that decision was probably based on the fact that is was 60s and 70s and sunny. Coming from Russia, anything above 35 felt warm. Above you see me running on the beach of the Mediterranean sea. No big deal. We arrived late in the evening and checked into our hostel, located on the famous and busy road La Rambla.

Here is the view from our hostel balcony. Everywhere we went we saw either sycamore trees or palm trees. My two favorites! After settling in, showering for the first time in 2 days, and eating some food, we took a 30 minute walk around the harbor area, minutes away from our hostel. The next day was packed full of sightseeing and, of course, lots and lots of walking.

We started by going down to Port Vell, a beautiful harbor with tons of ships and lots of palm trees.

After a relaxing rest on the beach we made our way to Olympic Port, which was built for the 1992 Olympics. Apparently the fish sculpture in the above photo is famous for the Olympics.Our next destination was the incredible Sagrada Familia. During our hike over there we stumbled across a game of football (soccer). It was a beautiful day to sit and watch a community soccer game between boys that looked to be age 3-4. They were soooo tiny and adorable out there kicking the ball around.

After walking quite a distance we finally made it to Sagrada Familia. This church was designed by Antoni Gaudi. Construction began in 1882 and is predicted to be finished by 2030! To read more about it, click here.

We took a different route back to the hostel and got to see a lot more really unique architecture. This city definitely stood out to me as being completely different than anything I have ever seen. Makes American cities seem incredibly boring to look at. After a short rest in the hostel, we hiked up the mountain to get a good view of the city at night.

We continued a little further in time to catch the magic fountain show. The whole area was filled with waterfalls and fountains with lights all moving to the beat of music. The show lasted 30 minutes. The amount of people there to watch the show was incredible.

As the show ended we walked down the main road toward a traffic circle. There was an old bull fighting arena there that had been turned into a mall. There was an observation deck on the roof, so of course we had to go check it out. On our return journey to the hostel we stopped the eat some authentic paella, Spain's national dish. I checked on Google maps to see how much we walked that day, and it totaled 12 miles! We sure slept good after that! As tired as I was the next morning, I wanted to make sure I made it to the sun rise over the harbor. I was not disappointed. Barcelona was in the top ten places to watch the sunrise!

We were told we were not allowed to leave Barcelona without going to Guell Park. Looking at it on our map we thought it was just a nice green grass park with some sort of pond or something nice. We were very pleased to find out that it was above and beyond our expectations.

This park was full of architecture designed by the same genius who designed the Sagrada Familia. The park not only looked really cool, it was also on top of a mountain, so you could see all of Barcelona! Read more about the park by clicking here.

We ate lunch at this location. Jealous?

Bottom line, you should make an effort to visit Barcelona before you die.

Fun in Frankfurt

After a short 3 days back at school I was off again for an extended weekend abroad! My first stop was Frankfurt, Germany. It was more of a long layover on our way to Barcelona, Spain. With a flight scheduled to depart from Kaunas at 9am, the only bus able to get us there on time left Klaipeda at Midnight. So we packed up our things, and caught the 3.5 hour bus to Kaunas. This bus took us to the city center, not to the airport, so we were really hoping that the local bus was running over night to take us to the airport. Luckily is was! We were in the airport, sleeping, by 4:30am. Oh, did I mention we were the only people in the entire airport?

Arriving in Germany, we took a bus into the city center and started our walk through the city around 1:00pm. We walked down a major outdoor market street on our way to the old town. Frankfurt is unique to other cities I have been to so far because it has really old buildings mixed in with massive new skyscrapers. In other cities, there is usually a separation between the two, but here they were just all mixed in. We made our way to Romerberg, which is basically the city hall town square.

We continued our walk over the famous iron bridge, and came across a really neat Lutheran Church. The lady at the entrance told us all about the history of the church and told us how to go up into the balcony. There was lots of pretty stained glass. The church seemed very plain and simple compared to some of the orthodox churches I have seen in the last couple weeks though! As we continued our walk I was approached by two men conducting a survey of tourists exploring Frankfurt during a long layover. Of course we fit the category perfectly so they followed us around and wrote down observations and asked us questions. We ended up finding a place to eat dinner and then strolling down a large pedestrian shopping district. There was this really fancy mall with a very modern design. After it got dark we went to Main Tower to see the view from the top. I read that there was a restaurant and viewing platform. Unfortunately we were an hour late for the viewing platform, and the restaurant was reservation only. We finished the evening with a late night walk around the city to get the best views.

The earliest bus back to the airport was 3am, so we got a little bored towards the end of the night. Having not slept much the previous night, we all ended up falling asleep in the central station McDonalds for about an hour. Although we were sleep deprived, we were very eager to continue our adventurous weekend abroad as our next flight took us to Barcelona!

Fall Break Day 8: SAUNA

Our final day in St. Petersburg began with a tour of Spilled Blood Cathedral. Although it may look similar to Saint Basils in Red Square, it was quite different on the inside. It was all one giant room on the inside with elaborate icons decorating every surface. If you don't know anything about Russian Orthodoxy, you should educate yourself. It is pretty cool. After our tour we went to lunch at a pie place.

This delicious creation was apple pie. Probably the best thing I ate all week. Then some of us went to the Russian Sauna. When you think sauna, you are probably thinking a small room with benches that you sit in for a few minutes to relax and leave. Wrong. Sauna in Russia is something completely different. It is a 2+ hour cleaning ritual. We all got naked together, cleaned ourselves, sat in the sauna, hit each other with birch leaves, jumped in a pool of ice cold water, soaked our feet, poured water all over each other, and repeated the process over and over until we felt completely renewed and refreshed with all the toxins out of our bodies and all of our pores completely purged of dirt and oil. Learn more about the history and tradition of banya/sauna. It was the best way to end a long week of constant walking. Extremely relaxing and fun. My skin has also never felt so soft.

We headed off for the train station that evening and took a similar overnight train back to Vilnius, Lithuania. This time my cabin had a wide variety of people: Me, a South Korean, a Lithuanian, a Russian, a Latvian, and an Englishman. The Latvian was drunk the whole time and just kept buying candy for us and telling us how pretty we were in broken English. The Lithuanian spent most of his time occupying the drunk man and making sure he didn't do anything stupid. The Englishman was just happy that another person on the train spoke English and kept feeding us tea and bread with honey. The Russian lady just kept quiet and looked confused the whole time. It made for an interesting ride, that's for sure. We slept for most of the ride, with wake up calls at 4 and 4:30 am for boarder patrol checks.

Once in Vilnius, we caught a bus back to Klaipeda. I slept the whole way. I was happy to be back to the land of the most beautiful skies.

Fall Break Day 7: MUSEUM OVERLOAD

Friday was packed full of museums for me. I started by going to the Russian Museum with a few other students. It was basically another fancy palace with lots of artwork in it. Here was my favorite from the exhibits:

It was titled the last supper. I liked it because of the medium, the colors, and the texture. It was a wax like medium the really popped out of the canvas. After the Russian museum we went to the Church of Spilled blood for some daytime pictures, and to check out the nearby outdoor market.

Nesting dolls EVERYWHERE! They are so pretty! After the market we went to lunch at our favorite pastry shop that I said I ate at everyday. After lunch Missy and I decided to go to the oldest museum in St Petersburg, the Kunstkamera. It was absolutely the most interesting place I have ever been.

The highlight of the museum was Peter the Great's collection of curious things. He started a collection of animals, skeletons, and deformed fetuses people referred to as "monsters." The building itself was originally the academy of science, which is the perfect place for a collection of anatomical things. There was a whole room full of preserved animals and fetusus. There was also a whole floor dedicated to the original building and what it was used for. The rest of the building was a display of the older civilizations from around the world, such as Native Americans, Mongolians, Egyptians, etc. A very interesting collection all in one building. All for 50 rubles! (That's less than $2) We returned to the Hermitage for another hour to finish seeing some of the areas that we had not seen the day before. The whole group then met and went to Pizza Hut together. Super Russian, right?

After dinner some of us went around and took pictures of pretty buildings at night. Here is the Hermitage all lit up!

And the Church of Spilled Blood, of course! We then checked out a neat book store and I bought some pants at H&M right across from our Hostel. Getting back to the room around 10:30 pm, I thought I was done for the day, but boy was I wrong. Over the course of 2 days my new Finnish friends had found me on Facebook and indicated that they would enjoy hanging out again before I left Russia. We originally planned to all get coffee Saturday, but then they remembered that they were going to be gone on a trip that whole day, and I was leaving Saturday evening. We decided that if we really wanted to see each other, it would have to be that night. By the time we had figured all of this out and decided on what to do and where to meet, it was 1am. We were planning to meet halfway at a metro station intersection at 1:30. I arrive there on time and look around for 10 minutes and don't see them anywhere. I think to myself that maybe they thought we were meeting at the hostel intersection instead. So I hurry back and look for them there. Nothing. Now it is 1:50. I find some free wifi and check my messages to see a "Where are youuuu" from Lauri. I tell them the situation and they tell me they are currently at the metro station and they will wait for me if I hurry. So I start running down the road towards the meeting place. On my way I passed a group of Study Abroad students on their way back from the bar. They give me the most confused look. I yell back at them "I am going to see the Finlanders!" They are still very confused but I had no time to explain. I make it back to the intersection and look around, and don't see them. I begin to think this is all a joke and they are just at home pretending to be here, making me look silly. I find some more free wifi and message them my exact location. Now it is 2:00. I wait around and keep telling them different clues about my location until they understand. Now it is 2:10 and I am about to give up and leave. Just as I start to head home I hear "Turn around girl!" from Mikko. They had finally found me! I was so happy to finally see them! They took me out to their favorite burger place and we just sat and talked about Finland, America, Lithuania, and Russia for over an hour. It was fun to compare countries and languages and cultures. They eventually walked me home and said goodbye. If I am ever back in Europe I will have a place to stay in Finland now :) To finish the story of my Russian adventures read Fall Break Day 8: SAUNA.

Fall Break Day 6: HERMITAGE

On Thursday some of us went to Saint Isaac's Cathedral (pictured above) to see the view from the top. Since St. Petersburg doesn't have any tall buildings, we could see really far, even though we didn't go that high up.

We spent a good 45 minutes up there it seemed like. Another nice day with good weather and less wind made for a pleasant time at the top. We split up for lunch and met at the Hermitage later in the afternoon.

We had free admission with our student cards, so we spent a lot of time there. It was so big that I didn't get through all of it in the 4 hours we were there. Not only did it have famous paintings and sculptures, it also had a whole winter palace inside. As the former residence of Russian Emperors, it was definitely a sight to see.

Every room was stunning and different. The walls, ceilings, and floors are what made this museum stand above all the rest. Here are a few of the many famous paintings that were on display:

We met outside the Hermitage in the evening to go to Nikolaevsky Palace for a tradition folk show called "Feel Yourself Russian." We only lost two people in the Hermitage. But they found their way to the show by intermission. It was kind a of a ridiculous show full of crowd participation and lots of laughs.

After an exhausting day, we all crashed and slept so well that night! Continue the story by reading Fall Break Day 7: MUSEUM OVERLOAD.

Fall Break Day 5: HALLOWEEN

Our first full day in St. Petersburg was VERY packed. We started out ambitious with a 5 hour walking tour of the city.

Our guide showed us most of the important buildings, bridges, fortresses, palaces, cathedrals, and museums. He also showed us good places to eat. We stopped in the bakery for pastries and I returned there everyday after that. It was snowing the whole time during the tour, but we didn't care. It was really pretty and worth every minute.

My scarf hat from Tallinn kept me warm for most of the Russia trip! Here is me in front of the Church of Spilled Blood. This is the site where Alexander II was assassinated. Another part of our tour went to Peter and Paul Fortress. At noon they fired off a canon, and took everyone by surprise! We took a rest after a long tour and prepared for the Ballet in the evening! Everyone dressed up nice and we walked 45 minutes to the Mariinsky Theater to see "La Sylphide".

It was a love story about a man who leaves his bride to be for a fairy temptress. In order to stay with the fairy he is given a scarf from a witch to capture the fairy with. The scarf ends up killing the fairy and his wife to be ends up marrying his best friend. Moral of the story is don't cheat, or else you will be all alone and sad.

That evening was Halloween so I figured that would be a good night to experience Russian night life. I didn't dress up very intense though. I just wore zebra leggings under the dress I had worn to the ballet earlier that evening. After getting some advice for locations to go from the Hostel staff, me and two other students went searching. She must have given really bad advice because we couldn't find any of the locations she had suggested. We ended up finding a night club with a bar and dance floor. There was only 2 people dancing when we arrived at 11:30 (Europeans don't usually START partying until after 12 or 1) So we just relaxed and enjoyed each others company until more people arrived. By 1 there was a full dance floor and we got to see some very interesting costumes and meet some really fun people. I spent most of my night getting to know two young men from Finland, Mikko and Lauri, who are studying abroad in St. Petersburg for the year. I love how many different nationalities you can find all in one place! Continue the story by reading Fall Break Day 6: HERMITAGE.

Fall Break Day 4: TRETYAKOV GALLERY

On Tuesday we were scheduled to go to Lenin's tomb and see his preserved body, but they were closed for renovations. We slept in instead! After a relaxing morning we split into two groups. One group went to the State Tretyakov Gallery, and the other half of us went to the New Tretyakov Gallery. The New one had more modern art, and the State one has more classical older art. The New Gallery was really interesting and full of unique art. There was a fantastic photography section that was new to the gallery.

The art was categorized by time period. It was interesting to see how the history of the USSR influenced art during Soviet times. There was also an outdoor statue park filled with old statues and monuments.

This was a very large monument that is now a memory of what it used to stand for. Walking around the park was enjoyable. We even found a bus bathroom and a bus book store! We had to hurry back to catch our train from Moscow to Saint Petersburg later that day. The train ride was only 4:40-10pm. This train was much nicer and more comfortable. There was 6 of us in a cabin with a large table in the middle for us to eat off of and play games on. When we arrived we only had to walk 10 minutes down the main road to Hostel Life, where we stayed for the next 3 nights.

Here was the phenomenal view from our Hostel room window! Couldn't complain. We settled in and prepared to take a short walk around downtown. As soon as we went outside it started snowing! It was so incredibly magical to see the combination of gorgeous St Petersburg, at night, with the glistening snowflakes falling all around you and coating everything around. To continue the story see Fall Break Day 5: HALLOWEEN.

Fall Break Day 3: SAINT BASILS

Day 3 started with Christ the Savior Cathedral. This was located by a bridge that overlooked red square and all its glory. We were beyond thankful for the lack of snow and rain, and just enjoyed being outside and taking fun pictures around Moscow. We headed over to Saint Basils later and took a look around the inside.

Instead of just being one large open room, it was a labyrinth of rooms all decorated differently. The bottom floor was museum style, explaining the history and building design. The second floor was all rooms that looked up into the towers. There was a group of men singing that resonated throughout the whole building. Probably the most beautiful sound I have ever experienced. We finished up there and went to eat some lunch at a dumping place nearby before heading to the market for some souvenir shopping! When we first arrived to the market we thought we were in the wrong place. It was this abandoned theme park that looked really really fun if there were actually people there. Lots of neat buildings, cute looking shops, and tons of stalls for street markets. We decided that they must be done for the season, or preparing for the Christmas season. Wandering around the side, we finally found a decent sized market full of plenty of options. I had fun bartering and practicing my Russian numbers that I had learned. We had so much fun with one guy, he gave us free magnets as we were leaving.

We still had plenty of time left in the day, so a few of us went back to red square and went to the State History Museum, pictured above. The inside was just as beautiful as the outside. Unfortunately everything was written in Russian, but our group leader helped translate a lot of it into English!

Here is me in front of Saint Basils at night in Red Square. I couldn't get over how beautiful everything in red square was, especially at night. If you ever have the opportunity to go, I highly recommend making the trip.We then headed over to Arbat street, which was the first merchant street in Moscow. Now it is a pedestrian street full of fun shops and outdoor markets.

The four of us in this picture met up with Denis, a friend of a friend who grew up in Moscow. He met us near Arbat street and we walked through Red Square and a few bridges overlooking the Kremlin before arriving at a traditional Russian restaurant. We ate borsh and dumplings and drank morse. Definitely a fun way to learn more about Moscow from a native! To continue the story see Fall Break Day 4: TRETYAKOV GALLERY.

Fall Break Day 2: CIRCUS

Arriving in Moscow it was cold and wet, with snowy slush everywhere. Being such a large city, they don't have time to clear the sidewalks and streets of snow, so it was a mess. We traveled by foot and metro to our home for the next two nights, the Gozilla Hostel. The Moscow metro is probably the most spectacular in the world. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures in the stations, but if you want to see some pictures of it, clink here. After dropping our stuff off at the hostel, we ventured out into Moscow to find the modern shopping mall for lunch. I ate some traditional Russian fast food. Lindsey, Kim and I went on an adventure to find Starbucks. We ordered some extremely over priced coffee with the help of an English speaking young man. When I got my cup, it said Джули written on the side, which is my name in Cyrillic! Good thing I learned the Russian Alphabet, or I would have had know idea what it said! Being able to read Russian was so much fun. Even if I had no idea what the word meant, reading it is was at least fun! Several stores and shops had familiar English words just written in Cyrillic, which made me feel like I could actually read and understand Russian! Even though it was raining/snowing we went to Red Square and prepared for our tour of the Kremlin. 

It was pretty windy and miserable, but we were all just really excited to be in Russia! In this picture you can see one tower of the Kremlin, and Saint Basils in the background. Our 3 hour tour of the Kremlin included the armory museum, and orthodox church, and some outdoor monuments. Our tour guide was really sweet and we got head sets so she didn't have to yell over the crowds of people in the museum. We only lost one person, so it was a good day. We found her with in half an hour, so it wasn't too bad. After the tour was finished we all headed to the Russian Circus performance. We had groups of 8 people so that we could travel easier and quicker. We were following the group in front of us, but Christy lost her group and we waited back to help her find them. When we couldn't find them we continued on with our adopted new member of our group. So we get to the circus right at 6, when it is supposed to be starting. We push through the line of people waiting to get in and proudly present our tickets, only to get pushed away. The lady yells something at us in Russian. Thankfully our group leader is a native Russian speaker, and she was able to determine that we were at the WRONG circus. The lady told us which metro stop we needed and sent us on our way. We finally got to the REAL circus 45 minutes later.

Our group was very excited to be there! We only missed the dog show and the horse show, and made it just in time for the kangaroo show. The circus theme was a trip around the world, and each area of the world had a different animal. They had polar bears, seals, parrots, camels, cheetahs, and acrobats dressed as frogs.

It was a pretty neat show, from what we were able to experience. Definitely an experience to remember. To continue this story check out Fall Break Day 3: SAINT BASILS.

Fall Break Day 1: TRAIN!

One of the most fantastic things about the study abroad program at LCC International University is that they sponsor a fall break trip every semester for the study abroad students to go to RUSSIA! This trip took a lot of planning by the staff and I am so thankful that I was able to be a part of it. The adventure began in the beginning of the semester when we all had to get our pictures taken for our Russian visa application. We weren't allowed to smile, and we all agreed that we looked depressed and miserable. Once we were all approved for our visas we were all set to go to Russia by train. Yes, we took an overnight train 4:45pm-9:40am and it was AWESOME. Let's back up a moment. On our way to the train station in Riga, Lativa, we all stopped at the hill of crosses, which you can read about in the hyperlink.

This hill had thousands of crosses of every shape and size on it. We walked around for about a half hour and went on our way. We stopped to eat at LIDO, in Riga, where we had eaten last time we were there. Lunch ended in a surprise snowball attack on Emas, our trip leader. We still had about a hour to wander around Riga before our train left the station.

The group of 36 students piled on the train. We took up almost a whole carriage to ourselves. Since it was an overnight train we each had a fold out bed. We had a nice time just chatting with each other, playing card games, drinking tea, and preparing our minds for Russia. We had a few stops, including two boarder patrol stops, one before leaving Latvia, and one after entering Russia. It made us all nervous as we turned over our passports, hoping that our Russian visas would be sufficient to let us into their country. It was a little difficult to sleep. Probably a mixture between discomfort, extreme heat, and excitement for Russia. I woke up every 30 minutes thinking it should be morning already! In the morning we stripped our beds, had some more tea, and watched the snowy fields of Russia rush by us as we came ever closer to the Moscow station. To continue the story, see Fall Break Day 2: CIRCUS!