Well, I’m a little behind on this. I never wrote about Pisa and Lucca, but it’s fine since there isn’t much to say about them anyway. Pisa, as most of you know, is home to the famous leaning tower. They have a beautiful church and baptistery too, but other than that, there’s not really anything else in Pisa. Same goes to Lucca, it’s just a small cute little Italian town in Tuscany. Nothing too special. K, moving on to my Spanish adventures. 

We left for Spain on Wednesday morning. It was a pretty hectic morning because we had a little unfortunate situation on the bus, which caused us to miss our train to Pisa airport. We then had to take a different train, and change to another train..etc. Our plane boarded around 9:30 and the gate supposedly closed at 9:40. Except, we didn’t get to the airport til 9:45.. which meant we had to run to check in and run through security. Fortunately, we made it by 2 seconds, literally. We were the last ones to get on the plane. The flight was only about 2 hours. When we got to Madrid, we walked around and killed time while we waited to meet a friend. We went into a grocery store, El Corte Ingles, which is also a department store.  That store is pretty amazing because they have everything.. Plus, everything is much cheaper. (at least compared to Firenze) In Italy, stamps are €1.80. In Spain, it’s only €0,80! That’s half the price! Ridiccc. And their public restrooms & grocery bags are free! Anywho, we met up with Mildred’s friend (who we were staying with) and chilled, got food (tried jamon soup!), and chilled some more at this huge park called Retiro Park. What’s pretty interesting about Madrid is that it doesn’t get dark until about 10pm, so we were at the park at 9 and the sun was still up! Def threw me off! When it got dark, we headed to a cerveceria (similar to a bar, but they mostly have beer) and had tapas (similar to little apetizers) for the first time! Beer is a huge thing in Spain. They even drink it for breakfast! And they serve it with your meals at McDonalds! Since I’m not a huge fan of beer, I got sangria instead. And it was the most amazing sangria ever. Since it was Wednesday, they had this special where everything was only €1! So I had nachos and I think 2-3 little sandwiches. Oh, and I rekindled my love for chorizo! Can’t wait to go back to London because my uncle cooks them all the time! 

Thursday morning, we woke up early so we could explore a lot. We walked A LOT. Souvenir shopped, sightseeing, the usual tourist activities. I’m the kind of tourist that takes lots of time to actually see things in the city and not just go out at night. Especially since we were only in Madrid for 2 nights. We wanted to see as much as possible, and granted, we did! For lunch, we had a ‘menu el dia’ which is a lunch special where you get 2 courses + dessert & drinks for a fixed price. The one we found was only €10! I got paella for my 1st course. Bomb. Roasted chicken for my 2nd. Also bomb. And the sweetest pineapple in my life for dessert. That’s what I call a good deal & a good meal.  For dinner, we had paella again. We love it too much! haha Then we headed off to the bus station because we were taking an overnight coach to Barcelona. Waaay cheaper than taking a train. And the bus was awesome. It had individual TVs and wifi! The only thing was that there was this musty moodkilla on the bus. Thank goodness I knocked out pretty easily.

We arrived in Barcelona Friday morning and found a hostel. This was my first legit hostel experience. My first one in Florence wasn’t really an experience cause it was so nice. This time, we stayed in a crowded dorm-style room for 10 people! So European. We met 3 Americans, 3 Argentinians, and 1 French dude. They were all pretty normal. haha except maybe for the one American guy who winged life. He had no plans and just lived day by day. I mean, that’s cool and all, but that ain’t normal! He didn’t even know where he was gonna go or sleep the next day! Too intense. We ate lunch (paella again lol) But it came with tapas and a Catalan dessert as well. We walked a TON. Got to see the Sagrada Familia and a ton of other attractions! For dinner, we decided it was gonna be a strictly tapas & sangria night. And indeed it was. We tried this Catalan tapa called tomaquet, which is basically tomatoes on bread. But it’s soo good!! We also got this octopus thing, fried cuttlefish, chorizo, and crema Catalan (similar to creme brulee) Everything was soo delicious! I realize I sound like such a fatty always talking about food. haha What can I say, it’s one of my passions in life!

Saturday morning, we explored Barcelona some more. I would talk about all the stuff I saw, but there’s waay too much. I don’t even know what most of them are called anyway. I just mostly remember all the food we ate. haha For lunch we ate at this place near the beach called El Rey de Gamba. And seriously, they are the kings of seafood! We had tomaquet again! We also had another type of octopus dish and fideua (basically paella w/ noddles instead of rice) with mussels, shellfish, shrimp, squid, octopus, and other seafood. I am in love with fideua!! It’s sooo much better than paella! I think that was one of the best meals I’ve had in life. haha After that massive meal, we walked around Barceloneta and saw the semi-nudist beach. I thought everyone was gonna be naked, but I only saw a couple of topless people. Kinda awk. After that, we walked around some more and did a little shopping. Then off to the station again to catch our overnight return trip back to Madrid. I felt like we were so restless and always on the go! I can’t even imagine what’s it’s gonna be like in June when I go backpacking the whole month! 

Before we caught our plane back to Italy on Sunday, we explored Madrid some more and got to see the soccer stadium. Oh how I wish I could’ve had time to watch a game or a bullfight! Omg and we almost missed our flight again! haha We barely made it by 2 mins..again. I love how we always manage to wing it and still make it. When we arrived in Italy, we headed straight to Gusta Pizza. haha We missed pizza and Italian food a lot! We have this rule that when we’re traveling, we’re only allowed to eat food that is local to that place. Anyway, Gusta was a very Italian place with many Americans. While we were eating, we met this random Dutch girl who told us her life story and how she was connected to the Gusta family. haha So random.

To sum up: Spain was really beautiful and I had a crazy amazing time, but everytime I go on these little side trips, I realize more and more that Firenze really is my new home away from home. <3

Monday was a regular day. We had our usual routine of going to school in the morning, San Lorenzo market to buy my usual fruits and veggies (esp. arugula & pear for my salad <3) Speaking of market shopping, I realized I know nothing about cheese or bread because when I tried to buy some pecorino cheese for my Golden View Salad, I was surprised to find that there are 510 types of pecorino fresco and 308 kinds of bread. It was so hard to pick! Sigh, such a noob. Then as we were walking home, we saw our new neighbors. We noticed a camera crew and the first thing that came to mind was.. Jersey Shore. And we were right. We’ve been expecting them for a few weeks now. I love how the local Italians had no idea were all confused and had no idea who the heck they were. I’m a little confused though how the show is gonna run because the mayor of Florence said they weren’t allowed to film in clubs, bars, drinking in public, or at the historical sights. lol So what the heck are they gonna film? They live literally down the street in back of our apartment so we might stalk them when we’re bored. After our little ‘celebrity’ (lol not really since they’re not really celebs) sighting, we went to Istanbul aka the new spot and got our usual shawarma. Nom. We downed the shawarma with delicious gelato afterwards. OH, LA VITA BELLA. Life really is beautiful. 

I rushed through this as fast as I can. I know I missed a lot and made many mistakes, but whatevs sbi. Take it or leave it. Ciao!