This past weekend, Michelle, Melissa, Erin, Nicole and I went up to Pais Vasco. A long time ago I found train tickets for 12 euro, so there was no reason not to. For some reason on this trip we had a hard time getting places on time, but it all worked out, no pasa nada. We had to take a bus to Salamanca to catch the train, so on Thursday we left after class and stayed the night there. We're going to Salamanca this week, so it'll be like de ja vous walking thr...

On Friday I checked into my hostel before it opened, so I slept in the lobby until my bed was ready, then slept a little more. I was waiting for Barry Rivera to get there, but the hostel they originally booked didn't have space so they had to scramble and find a place-impossible in Sevilla during Semana Santa but they did. After my nap, I went into the city center to take a look around, stopping at the Royal Gardens and Plaza de America on the way. There was a...

Made it to Madrid at 11 am on Thursday, just enough time to see the Prado and Reina Sofia Museums and get on the bus for Sevilla. In the airport I met two girls doing the same thing, they were from Vermont, studying in Sevilla, and had just flown in from Athens with me. We went to the Prado together, saw the famous works by El Greco, Goya, Velasquez, Dali, all the guys we learned about in art class-- see, I WAS paying attention! It was really cool to get to se...

I took a quick hour bus up to Mikines, site of the Mycenae acropolis. In the second millennium BC Mycenae was one of the major centres of Greek civilization, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece. Now its of course a pile of rubble with markers all around saying where things used to be, but it was still pretty cool. Theres a museum with a ton of pottery and iron figures they found in and around the city. The highlight for me was a beeh...

THE BEACH!! I caught the bus to Nafplia this morning no problem, and following the advice of the hostel owner here in Athens I headed up the 999 stairs to the castle with my 999 pound pack. About 100 stairs in I was thinking that the beach below was looking REALLY REALLY nice, but I managed to make it to the top and back down safely (oo it was tempting to jump from the cliff, but I had two grandmothers' voices in my head, and they were yelling... so I didn't) ...