When it rains, it pours

I did make it back to the airport again the next day to catch my actual flight to Paris. YAY!

Now I've been here for the past 8 days and its been great...didn't start out that way. The day I got in was pretty busy. My friend and I dropped off my bag at the house and headed out for some food and drinks. All great, normally, but I could just feel it happening...I was getting sick. NOOOO!!! And thats exactly what happened. I got so sick I was in the house for 3 days with a nonstop cold and cough. After the 3 days of best rest and just eating soup, we finally made it out of the house. FINALLY.

I still had to take it easy but I was at least able to walk. So where did we venture to? IKEA of course! And not only was it Ikea in Paris but it was my first trip EVER to Ikea... very exciting, I know.

still a bit sick....

That trip did it for me however. After walking around Ikea for an hour I was exhausted and we headed back home for some more soup and rest. OK maybe tomorrow will be better?

YES, much better. So since I was feeling so much better and we had been cooped up in the house for days we made a bigger trip. We actually went out into the actual city of Paris to visit some friends. Some of the girls were having somewhat of a "garage sale." So we took the bus and past all the typical attractions of Paris (Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, the river and pretty much anything you can think of). What an easy and relaxing way to see everything...without the labor of walking.

When we got the the apartment it was full of clothes they were ready to free their closets of. We hung out there for a while, drank some tea, took silly pics and went through the clothes. I walked away with some SUPER cute items. Now lets see how they fit into the suitcase when I leave :/

We did walk around afterwards because you really can't just watch Paris from a bus, you have to walk around and take it all in. Since I was just here last year it wasn't the same excitement but its still beautiful nonetheless. There was some big excitement on this walk however since we passed by a strike causing all sorts of traffic problems. Good thing we like to walk. 

The next day was exciting because we had a dinner cruise reservation! I found it on TravelZoo (groupon like site) and it was a super good deal so how could we pass it up??? The dinner cruise included an appetizer, 2 entrees, dessert, a bottle of champagne and an hour + on the river...in Paris. And did I mention one of those entrees was duck? WHAT? I mean, come on! Who WOULDN'T do this? Duck on a boat in paris???

And yes, thats exactly how excited I was for weeks leading up to this cruise. Rightfully so since it really was that much fun. The dinner was great and we loved feeling fancy eating duck and drinking champagne. SO GOOD!

That brings us to yesterday....when the weather decided to take a turn for the worst. It was supposed to be a big walking around day for us, but of course that was quickly changed...into a food day! We stopped by a pastry shop (something on my TO DO list), waiting for the rain to calm down, and I had the BEST chocolate croissant. Heaven in my mouth. 

The rain did subside a bit but it was still extremely ugly out. We ran a few errands but then headed straight to our lunch spot- Leon de Bruxelles; This place has amazing mussles and thats exactly what we got. I had gone here last year so it was all I had thought about when I booked my flight to Paris again this year. And they were just as good this year.

Since it was so nasty out we hung out in a mall area and then headed home. Of course as soon as we left Paris (city center) it started getting nice out, of course. So we decided to take a walk around a park close to the house...

I also got a chance to play around with my camera some more. Here are some of the results:

Now on to today...well nothing is gonna be happening today since I'm leaving tomorrow!!! I need to make sure my bag is all ready to go...packing is so much fun...grrr.

But my flight tomorrow is not back to Spain... I'm headed to Prague. So the fun is not even close to stopping...Just wait for those stories.

You almost got it…but not quite

After a crazy week in Granada I finally made my way to Madrid via a 7am bus (after falling asleep at 4am). I was fast asleep the whole 5 hr bus ride and thankfully so since they’re not all that comfy. Once I got to Madrid I, of course, had to catch up with E and relax before starting packing. Why was I packing? Well I had a 7am flight to Paris the next day (April 15th)! I had originally planned to have the whole evening to pack but you know, plans schmams. We end up going out for dinner with another friend I have been long waiting to see. And being in Spain…we were out from 9:30-midnight…. So by the time me and E got home, well I had a lot to do. In short, I (w/ E’s help) packed my bag and finally got to bed at 3:30am.

*Side note: the packing would have gone faster if I haven’t had been trying to pack for a 20day trip in a suitcase that couldn’t be larger than 25cmx45cmx55cm… (cheap flights in Europe mean you have to pay an extra $40 for checked luggage and you can only bring 1 carry-on, that means no extra-large purse to shove things into unless that’s gonna be your carry-on)

My “nap” lasted 2 hrs, until 5:30am, when I had to get up to catch a taxi and head to the airport. I already had my boarding pass printed so I headed straight for security, waited in the short line, and finally got to the man checking the tickets (you know, the one who makes sure you actually have a flight and don’t just wanna go through airport security for fun). Right before I get to him I re-checked my ticket and this is what I saw

remember what I said today's date was??

As I mentioned I was at the airport on the 15th of April and the flight date says….Um…that could be a problem. Which is exactly what the security man said, “this flight is not for today, it’s for tomorrow.”

Awesome. Nice try Alexis. Good test run at least.

Ok, back to sleep then. I headed back to E’s house (the metro was open by then so I didn’t have to catch another 20euro cab ride back, yay) and went back to sleep.

That all led to waking up at 2pm this afternoon and proceeding to stay in my pjs for a few hrs more. In short, today is dedicated to catching up on blog posts, emails, and rest.

Granada, you never get old

I almost didn't even want to write this post. After a week in Morocco, then semana santa in Seville, a week in Granada seems so mellow. Of course it wasn't but in comparison...

Granada is always a favorite stop for me. It is just a city with so much going on and its a must if you ever visit Spain. This time I spent my time with some friends (a few new and old) and they just made my trip. Here are some of the few pics that we took on this visit:

my favorite Pitus!!

FISH EYE PITUS

took a walk and this is what i came upon...

out with the girls...Carly, Pilar and me

i dont know that i believe them...
being that  it's in Spain and all...

of course we would come across some
dancers while strolling around Granada!

Semana Santa en Sevilla

Or for you Americanos…“Holy week in Seville”

traditional wear during Semana Santa

If you don’t already know, Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter) is HUGE in Spain and Seville is the most known for their Holy Week. So E had a great idea for us to stay in Seville (after getting back from Morocco) to see all the activity. It’s one of those things that ALL Spanish people will tell you that you HAVE TO DO if you visit Spain, along with being in Cordoba for ferria, Pamplona for running of the bulls, Valencia for Las Fallas or any local festival of any town you visit. So basically you just need to live in Spain and travel everywhere within it. Ok, you get my point.

Back to Seville.

The whole point to being there that week was to see the processions, along with the estimated 1 million people who had come to do the same thing. And I think we couldn’t have chosen a better year. Let me explain why…

One thing happens every time around this week. Can you guess what it is?

spongebob is EVERYWHERE

RAIN.

Its now a long standing joke but it does create a huge problem. The processions can’t go outside when it rains. These "statues" are hundreds of years old and the people don’t get super excited about them possibly getting ruined in the rain. So, it becomes a problem. Last year the rain was horrible and barely any processions happened at all. This year we were a bit luckier although there were a couple cancelled processions and many empty seats.

Usually, since so many people come to see the processions, there are enormous crowds and you have to wait a while before a procession starts to get a good spot to even be able to see anything (imagine an important parade happening in a large city in the states). This year however it kept sprinkling, enough so that many people didn’t want to come out because they probably thought the processions would be cancelled but in fact, not enough rain for them to actually cancel. So that meant we got great spots to see everything happen. And the max time we waited: 10min

Every time we heard some “procession music” or saw a large crowd, we joined in and saw another procession. Couldn’t have been better (or more convenient for that matter).

All the processions we saw were stunning. They really were unique in Seville and well worth the visit.

*Random info- for those who don’t know, each procession has its own unique “statues” that tell the story of Jesus being crucified, or as we would say, The Easter Story. Therefore each day brings new parts of the story to the anticipating crowds. We only saw 3 distinct ones but they were all beautiful and with wonderfully orchestrated music. Here’s a video of one: (it's not loading correctly now, I'll get to it soon)

The rest of the time when we weren’t watching Jesus and Virgin Mary being carried through the streets, we were chillin out at a tapas bar or a café. We got to try some tapas that Seville is known for like pringá (slow cooked pork) and adobo (specially seasoned friend dogfish), both of which were DELICIOUS!

this is a sandwich with pringa

One evening we found ourselves in a small café waiting for some processions to start. We decided the best way to spend our time there, besides drinking some coffees, was to play around with the settings on our cameras. These were the results:

poster effect...

...how classy...

...oh yes, I quite like this effect

now for some FISHEYE!

Actually the whole time visiting Seville I was playing with camera settings. Here are some more pics of the trip (with awesome camera settings!):

black & white

super vivid colors

"toy camera"

fisheye...one of my favorites!

The visit to Seville ended with a walk along the river since it just so happened to be a nice, sunny day! What a way to end such an eventful 4 days.

And the see all the pics from the trip feel free to check out the album Semana Santa Sevilla