Vienna

After Munich, we arrived in Vienna and after a round-about walk found our hostel. Once we reached our hostel, we realized that apparently Vienna has a bit of a "red light district" and our hostel happened to be right in the middle of it. Apparently, prostitution is legalized in Austria. Well, I guess you learn something new everyday. Anyway, we grabbed some dinner and then took a metro to where the hostel lady told us was the happening spot. But, on a Monday night it appeared pretty empty, so we just hung out in an Irish pub for a couple hours. The next day, we walked through the center of Vienna, which contains a ton of beautiful large government buildings and museums. We ate some Shnitzel (a famous Vienna breaded meat plate) and then went out to find something to do. This night, there actually were people out and some people pointed us to a nice discotec in Vienna called Flex. It was a pretty nice club, but for 15euro you come to realize that nobody really does clubbing like Spain! The next day, we did some more random walking around Vienna and went to a large art Museum. The Museum had a lot of great pieces, with two of the more famous names being Rembrandt and Velazquez. That night, we layed low and watch UNC win the national championship! It was great to see them win and a part of me couldn't help but wish I was in Chapel Hill to celebrate. Although Vienna was a very beautiful place, it was my least favorite of the three cities we visited. I'm glad we saved the best for last though, Prague!

Munich

So, before leaving on this trip, I did not even realize that me and my friends would be visiting two of the most famous beer capitals in the world, Munich and Prague. The first stop on our trip was Munich, home to the famous Oktoberfest. The first night we were there, we went to the famous Haufbrauhaus, which is a very old, massive beer hall and restaurant. I had some delicious piece of pork w/ dumplings and my friend Matt got the pig knuckle. It was delicious and so was the beer (which is only served in 1 liter Stein mugs). We met up w/ my roommate Mike at the hostel, since he was on a separate flight, and went to a local bar. We met several Americans there and had a good time talking with them. The next day, we were on our way to meet a bike tour when a man named Lenny approached us, telling us all about his free bike tour and pointing to his spot in Rick Steve's Munich book (page 33 if I remember correctly). We were weary at first, but the bike tour ended up being amazing. Lenny had a great attitude and mixed in jokes w/ actual history to make the tour really fun. In the middle of the tour, we stopped at a beer garden and had beer and another delicious meat and potatoes meal. Once the bike tour was over, we took a nap and went out to a Munich club with some people we met at our hostel. That night, we were able to watch the UNC-Villanova game between 3-5AM in the next door hostel lobby (since their internet worked). The next day we went on a "Beer Challenge" which is a guided tour through the most famous beer halls in Munich. In total, we visited 4 places, and learned about each type of beer we drank along the way. We also learned the official German toast, it's history, and the most famous German drinking song. That night, we got some rest and in the morning got on a train to Vienna.

Spring Break

The week before Easter "Semana Santa" is Spain's spring break. For this years' semana santa, me and three friends went on a 10-day trip through central Europe. We flew from Barcelona to Munich, trained to Vienna, trained to Prague, then flew back to Barcelona. In the next few posts, I'll go more in depth about each place.

Valencia

Wow, again it has been wayy to long. We've had tons of visitors in over the past three weeks and have had almost 10 people sleeping in our house every night. That, coupled with final exams, are the two reasons I'm citing for a lack of updates. Enough excuses, here's the latest happening.

Last week, I took a trip to Valencia w/ Joel to get a glimpse of las Fallas and stayed w/ his friends from Singapore, Paul and Kelly. Las Fallas is basically this massive, 10-day firework and flame filled party that takes over the streets of Valencia in honor of Saint Joseph. The way it works, is that there are small groups of people in each neighborhood called Casal faller, who work all year fund raising to getenough money to produce a falla. A falla is essentially this massive painted, wooden construction created by an artist that is said to respresent some negative aspect of society. These fallas are placed in street intersections all around the city and go up in flames on the last day of the festival. Leading up to the burning, they have fireworks every single day, twice a day. First at 2pm (which you cannot see but it's the "rhythmn" of the explosions that is important) and then again at 2am. They also have constant parades, people and kids throwing fireworks EVERYWHERE, paella making contests and the whole city turns in to one big party from 2-6AM. Unfortunately, I missed the burning of the fallas, but was able to experience the general merryment and overall experience of the festival.

P.S. (If you haven't noticed by now, you can make the photos larger by clicking them!)

The largest magnolia tree I've ever seen

A Valencian girl in her traditional dress

Some Singaporean friends in the park

In the park near the City of Arts and Sciences

A typical "Falla"Women making traditional Valencian Paella (w/ chicken and rabbit)
Some people at the Paella making contest
Fallas decorations and craft booths
Parade w/ men and boys in traditional dress

Parade w/ women and girls in traditional dress
Joel hangin' out on the bridge
There are SO many people out at night (during the Fallas Valencia's population goes from 1 million to 2 million)
The smoke gave the fireworks a cool effect
Fuegos Artificiales

Amsterdam

This weekend 5 of my friends and I went to Amsterdam. The city itself is beautiful, but at this time of year the weather is not so much so. It was fairly cold and rainy the whole time, but we still had fun. The first day we walked around the city, visited some coffeeshops, and took a tour of the Heineken brewery. Well, it wasn't so much a tour of the brewery as it was a museum of Heineken's history that serves you three beers along the way. The Heineken beer in Amsterdam tastes so much better than it does in the U.S., it's amazing. The next day, we visited the Van Gogh museum and did some more sight-seeing. We took advantage of all of the delicious and cheap food in Amsterdam, much better than Barcelona. However, after a long weekend of vegging, it was nice to be back. A great weekend that I won't forget (mostly).

Ready to take on Amsterdam!

Heineken BreweryMiami posing next to Heineken's newest brew (Extra Cold, served at 0degrees c)

Mmm...nothing like a tour that comes w/ free beer!

Joel and Miami goofing around.
Canal by night (photocredit:Joel)

Awesome dutch fries (photocredit: Joel)

When in Rome...(photocredit: Joel)

I happen to run into Nicole Kidman and Barack Obama!

Typical Amsterdam street and canal

Tibidabo

Barcelona is geographically blessed, bordered on one end by the Mediterranean, and the other by Mount Tibidabo. The name Tibidabo comes from a Latin Bible verse of the story of Satan tempting Jesus "…et dixit illi haec tibi omnia dabo si cadens adoraveris me"^[2] — "And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me" (Matthew 4:9). Quite fitting seeing that from ontop of Tibidabo you can look down on all of Barcelona and its pleasures! A pretty tempting offer I must say. These pictures are from 2 weekends ago when Julien's girlfriend came in town from Paris. We left with the intention on reaching the summit of Tibidabo, but missed the last Funicular. But, we found a bunch of mountain biking trails that lead up the mountain and were still able to see some killer views. Hopefully soon I'll be able to climb all the way up.

A view of the southern part of the city and Montjuic (small mountain where the Olympic Park is located)

A view of the other side of the city

Julien doesn't like when I take pictures of him

Incredible view

There are some sweet (and famous) houses on the way up

Overdue Post

Wow, I've definitely been falling behind on my posts. The internet at school has been really bad the past couple weeks, so it's been hard to update. However, GOOD NEWS, I finally have internet in my house w/ speed that somewhat resembles "high speed internet" so now things will be much easier. Here are some pictures from 2 weekends ago when Joel had a couple Singaporean friends in from Valencia, along with some pictures from me and Joel's second trek to Parc Guell:

Entrance to Parc GuellWatching some kids play football (they were siiiick)
Typical Gaudi Mosaic
Parc Guell entrance w/ city in the background
This guy played the meanest violin, up until there was almost nobody left in the park

Joel snapping some photos of the great view

The way up (thank you Barcelona for installing these escalators)

Joel made Paella...delicious!

Enjoying the meal w/ friends and roommates