Spain. Portugal. The Jurassic Coast. Stonehenge. Salisbury. Part 2- Seville

The trip continued to Seville, Spain (my favorite Spanish city, which has inspired me to do a more in-depth Andalusia region trip of Spain with a little bit of Morocco thrown in as well).

This is the big, wooden waffle structure that was right outside of our hostel. I'm not sure why it was built or what it represents, but I thought it was pretty cool.

 Down a random street

 A random stumble upon. ...I forget what exactly this building was for. Something governmental.

 These ancient walls were all over the area we were exploring....

 Salmorejo (the orange stuff)!!!!

 The fountains in the middle of any surroundings dates back from the Moors

 The cross on the top of a cage- built way back when to capture all of the evil in the town.

 Down a Seville street

 La Giralda Tower

 Outside of the Cathedral

 The river!

 I believe this is called the Golden Tower... Not sure though.

 Plaza de Espana

 I love the tiling in Spain and Portugal!!!! Absolutely beautiful!

 The best paella of the trip!

 Inside the Cathedral

 Inside the Cathedral

I have a great story from Seville.While we were eating tapas, an older man (80s or 90s) gave us a note, written on a napkin, and some dried flowers. The note was in Spanish so I couldn't completely translate it, but the rough translation was "It was once said there were three daughters of Elena (who's Elena???). But you three are more (something I couldn't understand) and more beautiful than them. Kisses, Valentin" As we were about to go, we saw the older man great another man (60s or 70s). The younger of the two asked me if I spoke Spanish, I said a little, so he told us how he was the older man's son. And then they both kept telling us how attractive we are. It was hilarious! And what's nice about it is that it was a polite compliment. In the US (and even in the UK), you rarely get a polite compliment. It is usually something rude and disrespectful. So bravo Spain, you raised your men (in general) correctly.

I'll post two more parts to this one long post- Portugal and England. So keep watching this spot for more!

Spain. Portugal. The Jurassic Coast. Stonehenge. Salisbury. Part 1- Madrid and Ibiza

I feel like the best way to tell you about my trip is to show you what happened through pictures.

So lets start with Madrid, the first city in Spain. I'd like to share an anecdote before the pictures. Tapas were created in Madrid due to the low work output after lunches. Workers would drink and be too drunk to work efficiently. So a law was created that bars had to serve food with alcohol. Its no longer a law, but we went to a traditional tapas bar where we got plates of food for ordering a 5 euro stein of sangria. Anyone going to Madrid? Do this at El Tigre, its a lot of fun:
 Plaza Mayor, a big open square where they used to do public killings, just down the road from the center of Madrid- Puerta del Sol.

 We saw Flamenco the first night in Madrid. It was an interpretation of the opera Carmen. And was so cool

 Our first chocolate con churros of the trip. It is a much loved food of Madrid, and a much loved food of me.

 The photo above is of Plaza Oriente, a beautiful area nearby the Royal Palace.

 One of the many fountains in the middle of the round-abouts

 Museo del Prado!!! Excellent museum.

 The pond in Buen Retiro park. Loved this park!

Crystal Palace in Buen Retiro.

 This is the center point of Spain- in Puerta del Sol.

 The inside of the cathedral dome across from the Royal Palace.

 The statues outside of the cathedral, on the roof.

 Another cathedral roof top view.

 The organ inside the cathedral.

Pictured below is a picture of some of the ornate decorations inside the cathedral. The churches were SO embellished and gorgeous in Spain and Portugal.

Pictured above is the ham stall in a big market. They love ham here, ever since the Spanish Inquisition, where they were expelling Jews and Muslims. Both religions don't eat pork.

 Sangria!!!!!!!!!!!!

Basilica de San Francisco

 Basically what I ate the whole time in Spain- bread with some form of pork. Although I did have some good paella while there!

 More sangria!!!!

All of us at Templo de Debod, which was brought over from the Nile. At sunset, it is beautiful. This was one of my favorite parts of Madrid, because it encompassed the feel of the city. There were people hanging out, listening to music, just enjoying their nights.

Ibiza was the second Spanish city we went to.
I didn't really know anything about Ibiza, except that the flight from Madrid was cheap. So we went off, only to discover that Ibiza is well known in England as a party island in the Mediterranean. During the day, we went swimming in the Mediterranean. But at night, it was Britain Gone Wild; which was entertaining, but in a slightly obnoxious way.

 I loved all of the boats in the harbor. Being near the water was absolutely amazing!!!

 Hello, Mediterranean!

 We went swimming in this... Be jealous.

And then this happened at night.
When we were leaving, we saw the city Ibiza (we were staying in San Antoni) and discovered that we stayed on the wrong side of the island. Ibiza was more cultural and San Antoni was more party.

 The old city of Ibiza that we didn't really get to see.

 Beautiful on this island.

Ibiza>San Antoni
On the way from Ibiza, we were taking the dreaded RyanAir. On the way to board the plane, a very rude RyanAir man made me check the size of my bag. I was able to punch it into the tiny shape, so I totally defeated RyanAir!!!! And the worker was obviously upset that I didn't have to pay to check the bag.

That's it for this post. I'll continue the travel posts soon!!!

I fail at keeping on top of this blog

Sorry!!!! I'm over half a month off from my last post. Luckily for you, I have anecdotes and photos to distract you from the recent lack of posts....

As many of you, all over the world, probably know- the beginning of June was the Queen's Jubilee weekend. I went to London that Sunday to watch the Thames Flotilla Pageant. There was a World Food Festival also going on in the South Bank area, so of course I was all over that. The people I went with have better pictures of the actual pageant- we even have pictures of the Queen on her barge! But I'm still waiting for those pictures so I'll have to put them up later. Here is the madness of all the crowds and our view of the river:

I have more pictures of the food festival. The curry in the last picture ended up in my tummy :) :

We also went to a wine bar that was set up like it was in a cave! But, sadly, I don't have any pictures of that.

The Queen's Jubilee gave us Monday and Tuesday off. Wednesday I turned in my first year report!!!!! And was free of that. The next two days, my friend Jonathan came to visit, so I didn't work on those days either!
We didn't have much time to see more than the basics of Brighton, but the visit was still fun and it was nice to reminisce about UC Santa Cruz.

After Jonathan's visit, Euro 2012 started up. For those who don't know, Euro 2012 is a soccer tournament between different European counties' teams. The groups stage just finished last night (with England moving through, which is a rare event). Its been fun watching my favorite teams, England and Germany, but I haven't done anything particularly exciting to watch them. Although, it is nice to talk to Eva (who is my soccer buddy) while the games are going on, even though we are separated by thousands of miles.
Also scattered within the week days were workouts, hanging out with friends, pub quiz (and better than our usual second-to-last-place!), whining about the bad weather, and spending time in the sun while its out.
Work has been weird. I was feeling SUPER guilty about not doing anything the week of the Jubilee weekend. And still have that lingering a bit. I've cracked out some more sample prep and have attempted (but failed) to reproduce my Western results. Luckily though, my supervisors are both happy with my progress and with the report that I turned in. I'm hoping to get a big chunk of my main project done before October so that I have a lot to talk about during the conference. However, with the issues I continue to have with my Western results, I'm not so sure that will happen. But keep your fingers crossed for me! I'm really going to try and get it down. I also need you all to send luck to me for getting an Alumni Travel Grant that I applied for- which would give me 1000 pounds back. Oh please oh please oh please let me get the grant.
Finally, a couple weekends ago I did a mini vacation to the Berkshire area where I visited briefly Reading, Henley-on-Thames, Windsor, and Eton.
Henley:

When I have enough money to buy many homes around the world, one of them will be in Henley-on-Thames.
Windsor/Eton:

It was a great little trip to get away for the weekend.
Next up- Spain and Portugal. Madrid to Seville to Ibiza to Lisbon to Porto :)

Summertime and the livin's busy

Growing up, EVERY adult around me would always mentioned how quickly time has gone by. I always thought it was part of polite conversation, like "What about this weather!" and such. But maybe when life really becomes your own, you do lose track of time. That's, at least, how I'm feeling. This year has gone by SO fast. I swear I haven't been living in England for over 8 months now! I think the time has flown by because I've been so busy- and when I've had free time, I've kept myself busy with living in a new country. But still, this is madness it tell you! Madness.
My last post was about my birthday, but the celebrations have slowly trickled on. That's probably the only good thing about being away from your family and friends during your birthday- that the cards keep coming in the mail well after your actual birthday. Helps to keep the celebration going! Its also helped that I've been uncharactaristically busy and the weather has been amazing. However, as I type this, I'm looking out at an overcast day. So I think the nice weather is leaving :(. But anyway, on to the past week:
Last Thursday after lab, a few of us popped down to the beach with some adult beverages and enjoyed the sun. They claimed its what the teenagers of England do. But I was too excited about the novel ideas of not only having alcohol in public, but also for having glass on a public beach. That's just craziness! The good times rolled into Friday, where some "lab bonding" time encouraged free food, booze, and a movie. It was awesome. The movie was The PhD Movie, based off the online comics that pretty much explain the life of a grad student perfectly. After all that, I went off to my first English barbecue! Which.... is a lot like the BBQs we would have at home. Although, here's the difference: when I think of American BBQ, I think of hella meat smothered in BBQ sauce. BUT, my family barbecues pretty much all summer long and our meals never consisted of that. Hmm.
The weekend was a much needed break from the otherwise hectic life I've been leading. I caught up with friends, jogged along the Downs, but mostly just lounged around and it was wonderful. But then my week exploded with business again as soon as Monday hit. I've completely finished my first year report and have written a travel grant, as of Monday. I just have one more scholarship to apply for and my writing-based work should be done for a few months. Tuesday I actually didn't have to do anything in the lab, so I went into Brighton, explored the North Laine area (I've now been down every street in that area) and got my hair cut (finally). Did I mention the last hair cut? Not sure. But last time I got my hair cut, I paid someone 50 pounds for it and I HATED it. I then had to wait three months for my hair to grow out to justify paying more money to potentially get it cut poorly again. Needless to say, I was missing Teresa (the lady who cuts my hair in Sac) a lot. But this past Tuesday's cut turned out great- for 12 pounds. I've found my new hair person, what a relief! That night, I went to my last Brighton Festival event- a break dancing show. The main group was AMAZING. And it was probably my favorite event of the entire festival.
The rest of this week has been mostly taken up by doing molecular work, which seems to be pretty hit or miss with me. I can't consistently get my experiment to work, which is REALLY frustrating. And it's 100% because I'm messing it up. Hopefully with more practice I can get results every time. This week, it luckily turned out well. And I'll know my results in about two hours from now :). I've also learned to play Texas Hold'Em (although I'm pretty sure I have a terrible poker face) and attempted a walk to Rottingdean, only to have plans changed and thus hung around Brighton instead.
Life isn't about to slow down at any point soon. I've got tons of molecular and behavioral work for the summer, the Queen's Jubilee, friends visiting, weekend trips around England, vacations (to Spain and maybe more), work-related training, (hopefully) starting my new tutoring job, and getting more scholarships in. Luckily for me, its all extremely entertaining. No complaints from me. I'll just need to schedule days to sleep throughout the week :)