Someone's Been Munching Emily's Muffins y Mas Shenanigans

My title has nothing to do with my trip really, It just makes me laugh.



I don't have pictures yet so you all will have to wait until I can upload my camera. I'll post them in another blogpost once that happens.
So here is the summary of what happened since apparently some of you are really impatient for my blog posts *cough* (Auntie D, Rien, Brett). I spent 4 days in Madrid/Toledo, 2 days in Brussels, 3 Days in Amsterdam and 1 day in Girona (outskirts of Barcelona).

Madrid/Toledo
We spent the beginning of day one in Toledo which is about an hour out Madrid and 3 hours out of Granada. It's a beautiful extremely old city perched on ginormous hills. You will see in the pictures, when I say perched I mean houses on cliffs perched. The old city and new city are separated by an ancient stone wall that was built hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The wall surrounds the old quarter which houses about 10,000 people and has 83... yes 83 churches and ONE Cathedral. It is the 3rd largest cathedral in the world. There is breathtaking art by Grecco everywhere you turn. I toured a lot of buildings, the ONE mosque that Ferdinand and Isabella left when they converter Spain, as well as a couple museums or Grecco's art. The picture on top is of one of Greco's most famous painting, "El entierro del conde de Orgaz (the burial of the count of Orgaz)." It is gorgeous up close and personal. After all the museums we toured a sword factory where they still made all the blades by hand, as well as brooches, necklaces, guns, and a ton of other stuff, you'll love my deperado style pictures once I post them :D. After that we traveled to Madrid. We ate dinner in TGIF's (yes I know but we REALLY wanted something American), and went to bed. Of course the next day Emily and I missed our tour because we were so tired, but we spent the day wandering around discovering things on our own. We ate lunch in a little cafeteria with our two friends and after headed back to our hotel for a nap. I ended up getting sick and puking all night from whatever I ate, but still got up and went on the next days tour. We toured the palace in madrid, the statue of Miguel De Cervantes and his different book characters (he wrote Don Quixote if you don't know who he is), as well as a billion other statues, and Piccasso's most famous painting depicting Hitler's bombing of Guernica, a small town in the Basque country. I'm not much for art but I almost cried hearing the amount of passion and emotion Picasso put into this mural, it's HUGE on the wall in the Musuem of art. There is no way you can avoid thinking about the pain and trauma of the people depicted in it. I don't think I ever understood Picasso's paintings until seeing them live in front of you. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and recovering from my still ill stomach. The next day we woke up really early for our Flight to Brussels.

Brussels (Brusselas)
A group of 12 of us traveled together for the remainder of our break. We took a taxi to the airport in madrid and flew in by 11am. It was cold, snowy, and miserable when we got there. We walked around for awhile that day and then ended up going to a Belgium chocolate factory after lunch. After the chocolate everyone left to go back to the hostel because I still wasn't feeling well. THAT"S when the fun started. While everyone else was drinking belgium beer, I was purging my body of all moisture through cold sweats, hot sweats and puking... forevvverrr. I spent the entire 2 and a half day trip in Belgium throwing up. FUN!

Amsterdam
After our flight to Amsterdam I still was only eating crackers but I did find a cure. America I'm so sorry but you are soooooooo wrong about the medicial uses of marijuana... I was feverish, hot, nauseus and sick. I smoked about 3 puffs of marijauana in a cafe bar in Amsterdam and felt INSTANTLY better. I actually felt so much better that I spent the entire time in Amsterdam running around actually enjoying myself. The only mistake I made was thinking that marijuana brownies would have the same effect on me.
TIP: DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT eat an entire brownie the first time and DO NOT under any circumstances go to a Van Gogh Museum after eating a brownie. I have never geeked out so bad in my entire life. Emily and I hallucinated through the entire exibit, and I couldn't close and open my eyes without flinching at the colors. Mind you, our friends had the munchies and wanted to go to Ben and Jerry's which has the most ridiculous amount of colors in one room that you could ever have. I was NOT happy with that experience. I couldn't even sit down without moving some part of my body to make sure I was still.... Me. Never again. NEVER. The next day however was fun because we took a canal tour, saw the Ann Frank house, and the red light district.
Now Brussels is okay, Spain has spotless streets (minus dog shit) and Amsterdam is a SHIT HOLE. It is sooooooooooo dirty. You are always stepping in some unknown substance and then you realize it's because they have a red light district... dirty dirty things happen there. They have windows with prostitutes in them so you can pick them... like puppies from a farm like.. " Oh mommy I want the one with the boobie tassels and the lip peircing.. Ooo oo or the one that looks like she's 12!". It's HORRIFIC! But I guess if pot cures my headache maybe a good poke will cure someone else who knows. ( I apologize if that was too graphic for my family to read but eh).... ( wait no I'm not sorry this is my damn blog, go away if you don't like it). So yeah, in summary, streets nasty, buildings culture and musuems are an epic win, a must see city in Europe.
We stayed in hostels all trip which actually wasn't bad although you will probably not believe me when you see the pics (if you can see through the pot haze that is, EVERYONE smokes). In Amsterdam it was called Bob's Youth Hostel... yeah. Bob wasn't even Dutch, he's australian haha. But it was fun we stayed in a huge 16 person room which 4 British guys who were pretty good roommates... oh and the one random 55 yearold man who was creepy, but I prefer to forget he existed in you don't mind.

Girona
We took a train to Dusseldorf, Germany then hopped on a flight to Girona to stay in a hotel for the night before we flew back to Granada. I cannot tell you how nice it was to have a hot shower you don't have to share with 20 people. The airline we took allowed us ONE carry on size bag so we all wore the same clothes, no laundry, for 2 weeks, we all smelled reeeeeeeeally good by the end of that trip.

I'm back in Granada thank god, ready to start class at 8:30 tomorrow yay. I hope you are all satisfied now, I'll get you some pictures when I can. Don't forget to subscribe to my posts and comment when you see something you like, or if you have any questions. Love you all!
Muchos Besos Para Todos Mis Amigos y Mi Familia! Ciao