Tuesday, January 31, 2012

3 Weeks In!

Can't believe tomorrow is February 1st and that I've already been here for almost a month! I know May 7th is gonna creep up on me way sooner than I'd like it to, which is a shame because I could really get used to this whole No Pasa Nada thing for good. I haven't done anything particularly exciting recently, so this is just a post to update ya'll on what's going to happen when my life does start to get exciting and I don't have the down time to write about it like I do now! No class until 4:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays has its perks...
I've been in the process of kinda-sorta-maybe booking trips to all of the places I want to go for quite some time now, and if doing so has taught me anything, it's that I have a way bigger phobia of spending too much money than I ever thought I did (I'd like to thank Tom Orlowski for that...as that trait had to have come from him because, let's be honest, I sure didn't get it from Mom). Booking flights is scary and stressful to me, because along with said booking comes the need to find a place to stay in (insert name of foreign country here), as well as figuring out expenses for food, transportation, and fees for museums/tours/etc. Not to mention the chance that the cost of the flight will go down after I purchase my ticket. All that stuff may seem too petty to be deemed worrisome while on a 4 month excursion in Europe, however, contrary to my sunshiney disposition, fantastic sense of humor and all-around general awesomeness, I tend to worry a lot more than most people that know me probably think I do.
With that said, I have booked trips to quite a few places already, the first trip being the one I will take on my first (of two) 10 day long breaks to Ireland, Scotland, and London!!! I could not be more excited for this trip, especially because it's coming up in less than 2 weeks!! You'll be hearing enough about that by the time I get back, I'm sure, so I won't bug you with the details now :). I also will for sure be spending the weekend of St. Patrick's Day visiting one of my best friends Lauren in Brussels, Belgium! I better brush up on my ever-so-fluent Belgian before I get there. The last trip I have booked so far is to Lagos, Portugal which will be a weekend trip at the end of April, about 2 weeks before I come home!
Pending trips, that I haven't bought yet due to the fact that I believe I can find better deals still, include the trips I will take with Jilli when she comes (yay!!!!!!) to (hopefully) Sevilla, Barcelona, Paris and Cordoba, as well as the Amalfi Coast and other parts of Italy for my second 10 day long break. This leaves me with about 3 open weekends to conjure up some magical ideas about where else I want to go. I know I want to go to Amsterdam, and I would probably give my right pinky toe (a vital part of the human anatomy if you didn't know) to find someone to go on the "Sound of Music" tour in Salzburg, Austria with, and I think Prague would be such a cool place to see as well.
The worst part about this trip is that, no matter how hard I try to be frugal (and believe me, I'm trying), the money really does add up. Sometimes I feel like I'm the annoyingly cheap friend in the group, partially because I don't buy anything when shopping for clothes here and, am trying my hardest to make due without having to pay for a 30 euro European-voltage hairdryer (which is working out better than expected thus far), but when 30 euro is what I'm paying for my flight from Dublin to Edinburgh, I'd much rather spend the money on that. Priorities, people!
The other thing is that the reason everyone is spending money on clothes and (albeit really cute) bags and ridiculously expensive trips and meals here is because "I'm only going to have this opportunity once in my life." Obviously this is a valid statement, as I'm guessing most people probably don't make it to Europe every summer to spend time in their villa on the island of Santorini. However, pardon me for sounding idealistic, but the question I generally ask myself when I'm up in the air about where to travel to and what I want to buy while site-seeing is, "is this somewhere I want to go or something I need to buy THIS time around?" If one day saving up the money to come back and travel through Europe again some day isn't justification for higher education, I don't know what is.

In other news, I've been taking lots of leisurely strolls through the city lately...here are some of my findings:

 Graffiti of El Padrino (The Godfather)
 We hiked up to a lookout to watch the sunset over the Alhambra and Sierra Nevadas on Sunday
 La Alhambra at sunset

And this is my view on my walk home from school at nighttime. This river is down on the left. Not too bad :)

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