The Travel Bug Bit Me

When I was younger and I would hear about peoples travels all over the world I was surprisingly never jealous of them. At Newton I had the opportunity to travel to: China, France, Costa Rica, and Italy, but I never took advantage of any of these trips because it wasn't something that interested me. Friends would go on family vacations and partake in abroad programs all over the globe, but to be frank I just didn't get it. Even within the United States the majority of the traveling I have done is up and down the East Coast.

Because of my schedule last semester I wasn't able to do much traveling, in fact the only mid-semester trip I took was to The White Cliffs of Dover in Southern England. And to be perfectly honest with you it didn't really bother me that much. But at the end of the semester when I finally went to France I was hooked! I loved my time in Toulouse and Paris, and on my way to the airport from Paris to London I found myself saying to my friends, if we have time in the Spring we should totally come back to Paris and see what it's like without the snow (and I meant it!) Then after our spontaneous weekend a couple of weeks ago in Barcelona I was finding myself regretting my lack of travels outside of New England, and could not wait to sit down with my friends to book my 4 weeks of Spring Break.

I finally have almost everything booked, but I continuously find myself looking at the map of Europe and thinking, I want to go there, and there, and there, and there!

Below is a map of Europe with X's marking my travels:
Black X= Where I have been
Blue X= Where I will be going/have booked
Red X= Where I hope to visit before I leave (during the 2 month exam period)

I keep thinking about all of the other places across Europe that I still hope to visit even once I am living back in the states. Booking all of these trips are making me think about my future (even more than I already was). I always imagined a career where I would graduate, hopefully be able to afford my own apartment, and settle into a city that would become my home, but I'm beginning to realize that I'm not sure that's the life I want anymore. Eventually I want to move into my own house that I decorate myself, ideally with a family in the future, but at this point in my life that's not something I see happening anytime soon, and I'm actually okay with that. I hope that especially while I'm still young I have a job that requires me to travel around a lot, whether it's around the world or just around the United States there are so many cities and places that I still want to explore, and I really hope that this current boost will encourage me to do the traveling that I want to do.

I have made a new goal for my life, something I've talked about before but feel like will get me motivated, before I die I want to see a game at every Major League Baseball stadium in the country...that way I get to watch a game, and visit several cities and states (2 down 28 to go!)


Who's coming with me??


xo.
-A

The Start of Something

For as long as I can remember every year when Fat Tuesday (or as the Brits call it "Pancake Day") comes along I prepare myself for 40 days without sweets (no cake, cookies, chocolate, or candy), at this point it has become ritual that I started by following in suit behind both of my parents; I blame you both for my unbelievable sweet-tooth! ;-) But over the past few months I have been making an effort to eat healthier, and with this I have made an effort to limit my sweet in take. So I figured it wasn't really a sacrifice to give up sweets again this year and decided to think about something else I could give up that would be equally difficult...but after wracking my brain I realized that giving up something this year wasn't going to be a productive "Lent", and so decided that this year I would do something to improve myself. I made the decision that for the 40 days of Lent I would either Blog or write in my journal daily, this is something that I hoped to do from the time I arrived in England and I regret not doing, so my hope is that this short daily ritual will continue for the rest of my time here, and that way I will have a more solid record of my time abroad besides from my memories. I may not always write about my experiences here, but also about my thoughts, ideas, and dreams...so enjoy and I hope you all (you know, all of those regular readers I have out there..) will check this blog more regularly and I hope you enjoy. I am already a few days into this Lenten season, but am finding this more of a challenge than anticipated, so I am excited/anxious to see where this takes me.

"I've been a dancer, I've been a dancer all my life. But I'm not dancing round this one tonight." -Tyler Hilton

xo.
-A

Barcelona Or Bust

Last weekend my friends and I were sitting around talking about how we just wanted to get off campus for the weekend, get out of the gray, rainy, windy city that is Norwich, so we decided, well hey, let's go to Barcelona, no big deal...and that's exactly what we did.

Friday morning me, Phoebe, and Patsy packed our small (under 20 kilogram) bags, per Ryan Air's instructions and jumped on a plane to Barcelona for the weekend. We arrived around dinner time on Friday evening, 10:30pm, and after finding our hotel we wandered up and down La Rambla, one of the the main streets in Barcelona, looking for something to eat. We ended up finding a delicious restaurant where I had my first ever paella!

The next morning we got ready to start our day, and when we opened the window to our balcony we discovered that the sun was shining, and we would be able to spend the day without wearing our coats! We went out to find some place to eat breakfast and made two wonderful discoveries: 1.) Barcelona has Dunkin Donuts! (so nobody needs to wonder where I got my morning caffeine fix...) and 2.) There was a HUGE market with candy, fruit, vegetables, lobsters, crabs, pig, etc, literally fresh EVERYTHING you could ever want, the perfect way to start our day.

Patsy and Phoebe had both already been to Barcelona so we spent Saturday doing mostly things that they wanted to revisit, so we pretty much had a "Gaudi Day". We went to Antoni Gaudi's partly constructed Sagrada Familia and then went to Park Gull. Sagrada Familia was incredible, and learning about the history of his architectural style as well as his personal history was fascinating, but the beauty of Park Guell is indescribable. In addition to the very modern buildings that are scattered throughout the park the view of the city was breathtaking...it was the perfect picture taking location! We spent the remainder of the day wandering up and down La Rambla watching the street performers, browsing the arts and craft stalls, and just enjoying being surrounded by so much culture and warmth!

The next day we went to another Gaudi building, Casa Batillo, which again was fascinating, but we finally made the executive that the majority of our weekend had been centered around Gaudi's architecture, and there is much more to Barcelona than just Gaudi so we ventured out to Poble Espanyol, the Spanish Village. It was pretty quiet because it was a Sunday, but the purpose of Poble Espanyol is to provide a place for artists to share, create, and sell their products. There was a sculpture garden, delish restaurants for sangria and tapas, and incredibly talented artists of all shapes and sizes. While there I bought a few sketches as well as a hand-dyed scarf (the first scarf purchase in Europe!)

Walking back to the Village on the UEA campus at 2am on Monday morning it was cold and rainy, and a very quick reminder of why we had escaped to Barcelona in the first place. We were so lucky that we had such wonderful weather, and that we were in such great company! Barcelona is both Phoebe and Patsy's favorite city, and I can totally understand why. I still think London is my favorite city (after Boston of course), but I am planning many more trips for the rest of my time abroad, so I'll have to keep you updated.