10 diaz, 5 paises, Una Mochilita

Stage One
10 days 5 countries one average sized backpack. That is what I am about to attempt to accomplish.

slightly under-packed for a rather cold 10 day trip...woops

The first leg of our trip wentrather smoothly. About 24 of us boarded the 9pm bus headed from Granada toward the Malaga Airport. For what was gonna be yet another night (and yes I realize this won’t be my last) of me sleeping at the Malaga airport whoop

This time it was basically a party though which made the time go by even faster. After some talking and joking around we decided to attempt to do something that is absolutely impossible to do at the Malaga airport .... Sleep

Since the seats have armrest that don’t go down or up and the floor at this point seemed rather uncomfortable I decided to wiggle my way through the hole that was between the armrest and seatand made a rather comfy bed

At 5 am we got ready for our first flight to the Netherlands. This would be my first time flying on Ryanair and it was an experience to say the least.

Now I've always heard the expression you get what you pay for bur never in my life had it become as evident to me as I boarded that. "plane" . But I guess with a 25 euro flight you shouldn't expect much. This is what we got

1. Our bag had to fit in the box that was about the size of a small drawer or large encyclopedia

2. No lines! Good?? No bad they weren't organized enough to make lines we just mobbed

3. Picking a seat was a free for all … first come first serve.. if not SORRY no seat for you

4. The airplane was painted in these neon yellow and blue that made you nauseous

5. They did not provide those little throw up bags

6. The seats did not recline at all

7. Window seats did not always Include window

8. Upon arrival there is a loud cheering noise that plays on the speakers which says hoorrayyy you have been on one of 11-% of Ryan air flights that make it on time

9. The airline sells you toy airplanes that cost more than your actual ticket

10. At no point during the flight were the cabin lights turned off??

Gracias a dios we made it o the Netherlands just fine. The airport in Eidenhoven was no bigger than the union and that's being generous.

We wait for the plane and we wait and wait... And then an announcement. Woo one hour delay

While we wait a group of 12 guys come into the waiting room. They are completely decked out in neon suites... We don't no why this is the case but we are all very amused. They board our plane as well.

Stage Two: Prague

All smiles on the way to Sam's

After a 900 Crown taxi ride (yeah the currency is ridiculous but cheaper than the dollar and euros) we made it to Ryan’s friends apartment.

Well kind of… You see even though Ryan new the address he didn't know which one of the apartments was actually his.

We had 10 choices. 9 door bells were blank and the other had the name Aswani.

So we figured as any normal person would that since none of Ryan’s friends were named Aswani it had to be one of the first 9

Well 9 guesses later and me saying Sam… Sammy… is this Sam?? 9 times with no answer we decided to try Aswani and bam door opens

Sam? Yes yes it was Sam and the most wonderful apartment ever

5 bedrooms two floors. For something that was given to them by their program it was a palace. We would have one pull out couch and a bed to share for the next three nights.

After settling in we decides to go off and explore a bit. Lucky for us Sam’s place was no more 10min away from the main square so we ventured off there.

We got to see some pretty amazing sights as the sun was setting and we walked through Prague old town

On our way home we stopped at these little slice of heaven. These food stands that sell sausages and fried cheese sandwiches. OM NOM NOM I got a massive sausage that was the size of my arm French fries OM NOM NOM for a really good price

Prague Day 2

We woke up and had a quick typical European breakfast... Toast with nuttella, now I regret to say

that at a later date I would actually hate this combo because of the obscene amounts that I consumed it in during my trip bit for now I still loves it.. lots

After breakfast our "super six" yeah Cory came up with that real original name, made our way once again to old time sqaure. There we met up with a free tour company and our new BFF FILLIP

Now it was during this 3 hour tour that I realizes I still had allot of old pics on my camera so I started deleting them to make room for the next 9 days of my European travels
Womp womp my camera apparently features a delete all button which I pressed woohhooo and with that I lost all the pica from the previous night. Prague during sunset, Madeline spilling her allergy pills all over the bus station, Bruce and Logan and their grandma and grandpa luggage and the original nomming of the sausage pics.

I was devestated.

Lucky for me this lil accident occurred on day one, and not later on in the trip. During the tour we went all over Prague and got to see some pretty amazing sights.

By the end of it we were all freezing. But were determined to make the most of our day so we crossed the famous Bridge and made our way to the John Lennon wall

After a couple of failed attempts at taking a cartwheel pic in front of this wall we made our way back home to Sam’s place where Madeline being the good little Italian that she is made all 10 of us a wonderful pasta dinner.

Prague Day 3

1130

Bam?-!? The bad luck monster strikes again. An alarm that was supposed to be set for 10am was not set and we do not end up making it out of the apartment till 12.

This would not have been a problem except foe tw fact that the Castle closed at 3 and the Jew museum closed at 4

We made it to the Castle at 1, walked around the castle grounds and made are way through yet another gorgeous cathedral. Afterward we made our way to the Jewish museum. This would turn out to be on of my favorite part of my Prague trip.

3 of the rooms had nothing on the walls but black and red writing. These where the names of Prague Jews who were sent off to concentration camps. It included their date of birth and death. For many of the names of the wall this record is the only record of their existence.

Upstairs featured a smaller room filled with children’s art. These sketches and doodles were drawn by children secretly inside of a concentration camp. Though this art children of the holocaust were better able to express their feelings toward the situation around them

We continued our visit of the museum with a trip to the Jewish cemetery that was also on the same grounds. This grave was about 11 feet above ground level. A result of the lack of space for more Jewish burial grounds, bodies at this cemetery are literally buried one on top of the other.

The cemetery also features the grave of a famous rabbi and as legend has it if you leave a wish with him it always comes true.

We all left a little wish behind before making our way to the Spanish synagogue one block away.

This synagogue was gorgeous and even though we were all so eager to take pictures . Pictures were not allowed

I find this no photo thing to be a reoccurring theme in Europe. Almost every Place I have visited has had one of these signs, but since no one was ever really there to enforce it all was okay

Except for the Spanish synagogue. Web we walked in we saw a various people taking photos so we thought it was okay. Then Ryan pulls out his camera and bam

Put of no where this cracky little old woman comes and starts yelling at him saying no photo ! No photo!
He apologizes and buta his camera away and then we watch in awe as a woman and her husband take a series of photos right in front f her face

Her reaction... None

After that episode was over we headed back toward the main square to do some touristy shopping

for those of you who don't no I have a thing for collecting black and white postcards and I had ye

t to snag one here

Before making it to the square we stopped and nommed another amazing sausage then we continued on with our shopping.

Now the day prior we had stumpled upon this restaurant called bohemian bagel. It was a chain restaurant

with what looked and sounded like amazing breakfast food. The night prior we had all decided that this would be the perfect place to have dinner on our Finnalt night. And we were all planning on ordering this delicious egg pancake bagel sausage bacon and hashbrown combo

We made our way to this lil gem with nothing but positive things on our mind and then we get there and I make a rather alarming discovery.

Womp womp bohemian bagel does. Not accept any credit cards or euro. The majority of us had very limit

ed crown left and none of us had thought that such a Cain place would nit exempt that form of currecy

We decide to make our way to the nearest change place to excnahw some euro for crowns to pay for the meal.

Bad idea .

We then decide that the cheapest thing to do is to just o home and call it a day. Our awaken dinner turned into a night of outmeal and waffela with nuttela

We had a early bus to catch the next day so we all stayed in and got ready for the next part Of our trip...

Sevilla

Now before I start this post, I would just like to say that Sevilla is probably one of the most underrated places i

n Spain and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is considering coming to Spain. Secondly I would like to say that I don’t think I could have gone to Sevilla with a better group of people. You guys are honestly amazing and I had one of the best weekend of my life thanks to all of you ☺

Friday Feb 4th

Woke up at 6:40. This is the earliest I have woken up in awhile. It was cold and dark out but lucky for me the bus that that takes me to the Granada bus terminal picks up 2 blocks away from my apartment. I wait for the bus and it arrives and 7:20 there is a lot more traffic than normal and I make it to the bus station around 7:45.

It is there that I had planned o

n meeting up with Madeline, Caroline, Lauren and Danielle. Much to my surprise upon arrival Lauren and Danielle were no were to be found….turns out as luck would have it that they had taken the wrong bus to the bus terminal and were instead headed toward the Sierra Nevada.

Madeline, Caroline and myself promptly bordered the bus at 7:55, Lauren and Danielle would be forced to take another bus. The bus ride to sevilla went smoothly, we were given ‘breakfast’ on the bus and I almost immediately feel asleep after eating my palmera cookies

We arrived at Sevilla around 11 and were welcomed by absolutely gorgeous weather, it was in the 60’s at least. After leaving the train we made o

ur way to the “Garden Backpacker Hostel”.This would be my first hostel experience ever.

We made it to the hostel without any problems, just a couple of creepy stares. The hostel was awesome! It featured and outdoor garden area complete with tables and hammocks as well as a full service kitchen and sun roof.

Since Madeline and I had booked the hostel later then the rest of the girls we w

ere going to have to be sharing a bed for the first night. So I checked us and we made out way to ‘our’ room. The rooms were pretty big and the beds were too thankfully.

Lauren and Danielle arrived around 2pm and as soon as they settled in we took a walking tour, that our hostel offered for free. The tour last about 3 hours and we were able to see a lot of what Sevilla had to offer

We made our way back to the hostel around 6:30pm. By then Estaban and Ryan had arrived to sevilla as well so we were gonna meet up with them and plan the rest of our day. Back at the hostel we decided to sign up for dinner. 6 Euro got us all you can eat Palle and Sangria. It was absolutely amazing and it defiantly set the tone for the rest of the night.

We spent a majority of the night just drinking and talking at the hostel and it turned into one of the funniest nights I had had in a while. It was during this time that I noticed that at our hostels ‘bar’ there were straws that were about a foot and a half long. I NEEDED to have one, I ended up with 8 and our group was entertained for quite some time as a result of these.

Around midnight our group made our way back into the city because we were really eager to get a taste of the Sevilla night life. This didn’t work out exactly as planned but we still managed to make a night out of it.

Once back at our hostel Madeline and I realized that we would be sleeping under what we decided was the creepiest man we had ever seen. So we made the executive decision to switch rooms, we grabbed our mattress and moved it into Estaban and Ryan’s room private room.

After the most ridiculous photo shoot ever and getting in trouble by the hostel staff for giggling to loud we went to sleep.

Saturday Feb 5th

We woke up the next day at 9:30 to get an early start on our day. The hostel offered us a free breakfast. Mine consisted of toast covered in nuttella, how incredibly healthy of me right?

This day I would end up referring to as The Perfect Day. During the morning we went sightseeing visiting the Cathedral, which is gorgeous and is currently my favorite, the Alcazar with its beautiful gardens. Around 2 we got a Menu del dia at one of the local restaurants. It was delicious, but it did not compare to the AMAZING paella from the night before. OM NOM NOM

Afterwards we climbed up the cathedral tower, which at one point used to be the tallest building in the world. 37 ramps later we were greeted with enormous bells and a rather amazing view.

Now for the past day or so we had all been toying with the idea of renting bikes and that afternoon we decided to go for it. This turned out to be the best decision of the weekend. We rode our bikes down the bike path, along the river, through the parks, and around la Plaza Espana. It was the perfect way to end the day.

After all off that we were all pretty hungry so we decided we needed to get food. Being the economicly savvy college kids that we are we decided making dinner for ourselves would be our most affordable option.

So we walked into super sol not knowing what to expect and then we stumbled upon this little deal… 2 full size pizzas for….. drum roll 90cents?!!!? Only catch? They were ham and cheese pizzas

Did we buy them? Of course!
Did we each eat our own? Duh?!
Did we regret it later?! Helll no. ( well Esteban did….)

That night my nutritionist approved dinner consisted of: 1 full size ham and cheese pizza (45 cents) one roll of principe cookies (they are amazing and you should all try them) (25 cents) 3 mandarins (60 cents) WIN

Sunday Feb 6th

Esteban, Madeline, Ryan and myself went to mass at the cathedral. It was the fastest mass I have ever been too… ever. It was incredible how fast the priest were speaking.

We spent the majority of our last day in Sevilla just walking around the city and taking in the sights. We even napped a lil along the river. It was all very European of us… until lunch when we all caved in and had burgerking.

Nonetheless it was another great weekend with some pretty amazing people