Amsterdam, Netherlands

A group of us went to Amsterdam this last weekend. We had a great time, it was a little cold for my liking but there were so many Christmas decorations, it was great! the first day we just walked around the city to check things out, unfortunately our hostel was pretty nasty but it had a good location, so what can you do. there were six of us this weekend. we didn't get there until around dinner time, so as soon as we put our stuff down in the hostel we headed to dinner.  Sarah and Claire and Bryce's flight had arrived earlier so they had found this good Mexican place for dinner, so we just figured we would head there. needless to say sarah is not so good with directions and actually had taken us to an entire other part of town. we just wandered and found a place for dinner. we were all pretty exhausted so we headed to bed after walking around after dinner. the next morning we got up and headed to this bakery for breakfast on our way to the anne frank house. the bakery was really good! we got the the anne frank house pretty early so there wasn't too much of a line, so we got in pretty fast. this museum was really neat. very creepily real feeling. we actually walked through doorway that had been blocked by the bookcase that she had described and we walked through the attic that she had been living in. throughout the whole attic were quotes from her diary explaining everything, they had done a really nice job with it. they also had a video of her dad, that was really sad, being that he was the only one of the family that made it through the concentration camps he found her diary and it was really neat to hear his side of what she had said. i have nothing but good things to say about the museum! from the museum we headed to lunch and then to the heinekein brewery! we were all soo excited! the tickets were only 10 euros for the 2 hour long tour and 2 free beers! so great! this brewery was really neat, i took so many pictures, they did a really nice job with this. and of course the beer was good!!! then it was shower time and of course dinner time. this time we actually tried again to find the mexican restaurant and with me directing, i was so proud!, we found it! only unfortunately it was booked for the whole night! so once again we just walked around and we found this brazilian food place that was pretty good. after dinner we headed to check out the red light district, we couldn't leave without seeing this district at night! as we walked around it was insane! there were girls in bra's and underwear just hanging out dancing in front of doors with red lights behind them. so odd and there were so many sex shows and sex shops...only in amsterdam! we had some laughs there, but unfortunately there are no pictures allowed or else i would have shared it with you guys! 

me and christen are headed to Berlin this weekend and we are so excited they are known to have the most amazing "christmas markets" that are outdoors with horse carriages and SNOW!!! im so excited! can't wait to see all of you, love all of you!! hope you had a great thanksgiving. 2 weeks until i come back to AMERICA!!!!

Prague, Czech Republic

SORRRY its taken me soo long to do this, things have been crazy busy! but anyway Prague was an amazing city, i LOVED it! one of my favorite places i have been!  i went with Max, Christen, Mikaela (my roommate), and Joe.  we first headed to our hostel which was pretty nice, nothing too exciting but we had an apartment style room for only 12 euros a night, it was nice for everyone to be in the same room. so we got there in the evening, so we headed to dinner after dropping our stuff off, the ride from the airport to the hostel got us all excited to see the city. we went to a place called Larry Fary, which max's dad had recommended. we got there and it wasn't like he had told us, he had said it was an underground restaurant and it had good cheap steaks. well we were definitely not underground and it looked more like a sushi restaurant. so we sat down anyway and well the prices kinda blew us away so we stuck to the menu of the day; which turned out to not be that great. we ended up asking about the underground misunderstanding and they said, yes we do have an underground part to the restaurant...so it all made sense we just didn't know what we were doing. but when we called cam to tell him our mess up, he made us go back the next night! after dinner we headed to meet up with brennan and monica who ironically were in Prague the same weekend on a school planned trip. so we met up with them at this bar that had bud on tap and it was really amazing! prague is known for there beer which i really wanted to experience but i didnt have in mind bud, but it was still good. i was looking forward to trying their beer, pilsner. we had a beer with them and their whole group and then they were heading to a club; we were all exhausted from going out the night before so we decided to head to bed and meet up with them again the next day.  the next day we got up and headed to check out the main part of the city. we went to the main square, kinda just walked around. we had so much fun! we took a bus tour which was great to see the whole city and really get orientated. it would have been better to do a walking tour but it was raining. after the bus tour we needed to do some shopping, max's bag had never come through to madrid, it was currently lost somewhere and we didn't have a clue where cause he took delta and delta doesn't have a tracking system for their bags (DONT EVER take delta!). so he had been switching between two shirts and a pair of pants, so we decided to buy him at least two more shirts so he wouldn't start to smell, being that he had been in madrid before this for a couple days wearing the same clothes. haha! so we found a surf shop for him and me and him went in there to get stuff while the other checked out around that area. max was happy to have a new outfit to wear. after we headed to the hostel to shower and head to dinner at the same place. this time we made a reservation downstairs. as they brought us downstairs immediately the mood of the entire restaurant changed! we saw this couple next to us order these huge kebabs and we knew thats what we wanted! we ordered two bottles of wine to go with too! and then three...and then four...and then five! we were having a good time! the kebabs were absolutely amazing!!!!! sooo good!!!! brennan met us at the restaurant as we were just paying the bill, cause we had been there for 3 hours im sure! she then brought us to the club they had gone to the night before. i was a little unsure being the big clubber that i am....but we had a good time there. i think overall the best part was partying with bren and monica and max! it was like a little piece of home! the next day we got up early and headed to the castle which is literally a city. its surrounded by a huge wall with a whole lot of stuff inside, a cathedral, a temple, a government building a whole bunch of buildings. on the way there we walked across the famous charles bridge which was really neat and had a great view of the castle. the castle wasn't very impressive. there was a lot of stuff but most required entrance fees and nygil had told me that there was nothing in there worth paying for, so i kinda knew what to expect but was still a little let down. but this was literally the only thing that wasn't that great in prague everything else i loved!!!! we grabbed lunch at this little pub as we headed back to grab a view souvenirs before we had to catch our van back to the airport. we had such a great time here, none of us wanted to leave!!!!

just pictures

ive come to understand that there are some people who are wanting updates with photos, so here are some pictures for those who are interested... these are pictures from halloween night, we had quite a good time if you couldn't tell.  LOVE YOU GUYS!!!! miss you!

more paris pictures

first pic - moulin rouge even though ive never seen the movie, 2nd - view from notre dame towers, 3rd me and max on the second floor of the eiffel tower with my camera so you can barely see the view, 4th pic is the louvre again, 5th is notre dame

Paris!!

(1st pic eiffel tower at night, next during the day, next is us loving the fall that doesnt exist in madrid, and finally me and max in front of the louvre) so max finally made it out to visit a few days before his birthday and i was lucky enough that he stayed for 2 weeks!! within those 2 weeks we enjoyed celebrating his birthday and i took him out on the town and to the madrid casino and to Paris!!! we left for Paris this last friday morn or should i say thurs night, our flight left at 5:30 am thanks to ryanair - the low cost airline - so needless to say we were all exhausted being that we were at the airport at 3:30ish. so we tried to sleep on the oh so comfortable ryanair, with the baby kicking max's seat the entire way...i slept but he didn't. we finally made it there and had the rest of the afternoon to explore after we dropped off our stuff at the hostel, which was nice i thought. and we headed to grab food, we found this quaint little italian place (even though we all wanted french food, this was the only place that looked good around were our hostel was -in the ghetto). the people of the restaurant were really welcoming and so excited to have us there. it was a tiny little place and we just ordered the menu of the day, little did we know (couldn't understand what we were getting with the french/italian language barrier, too bad they didn't speak spanish) we got a salad to start and then a pizza that was delicious and then pasta from this HUGE pan and then dessert that the lady made special for us. after this very filling and absolutely amazing lunch we headed to a cathedral which was up on a hill a little ways away...we needed the walk! this cathedral was cool, but nothing too exciting. from there we headed to the catacombs which was really neat except for me freaking out in small spaces!!! saw it for a while took some pictures of the dead body skeletons which were cool and then booked it out of there. after this we walked to the louvre which we planned to go friday night cause we got in free from 6-10 so we went in there and i enjoyed it for about 1 1/2 hours and then i was done with that...not too much of a museum person but i was impressed with the time that me and max made it. the next day we got up early and went to the palace of versailles and spent a lot of the day there and had lunch at this tex-mex place right by it which had amazing margharitas!!! so good except i was a little nervous cause it came out blue but it was really good!!! and then we made it to notre dame walked around inside the church and then watched as mass began and made our way home to take showers and get ready for dinner but first with a stop at the french's version of a "chino" and picked up some alcohol. we pre-gamed in the hostel and had a lot of laughs there, we lost of the boys, and then we headed to dinner. we found this french place right in the heart of the restaurant zone so we headed in and me and max and kathleen got cheese fondue (i mean we were in france, it was a must) and it was very good!! after dinner we headed back, we were all exhausted and were planning on getting up early. the next day me and max headed to the aquarium while others did some more museums. the aquarium was pretty small and we were not real impressed but we had a good time! and from the aquarium we went to the towers of notre dame to meet up with everyone cause they were closed the day before. after this we grabbed lunch and then headed to do a boat tour on the Seine River for an hour, which was really nice and perfect cause the sun was setting and we got some really good pictures. then it dropped us off at the eiffel tower just as it was getting dark. we headed up to the top of the tower and of course i didnt last long with the whole heights problem! but we all took pictures in front of it as it sparkled and was blue! my friend took these pictures cause she had the fancy camera so ill try to post those when i get them. we had a good time! lots of things to see and do, it was very much of a whirlwind (what else is new in my family haha).

love you guys very much!

miss you all!!

SWITZERLAND!! with mom and dad!!

i arrived on thursday night to meet my parents in the airport in Zurich and from there we went to our hotel, grabbed a late bite to eat at this pub near the hotel and headed to bed, ready for the next day adventure to Interlaken. The next morning we got up early and headed to the train station, and within 2 hours we had made it to Interlaken and the whole way there we had gorgeous views of the countryside along the way even though it was raining! once we got there we had some lunch and did some shopping around town. we were in our room when all of a sudden we heard lots of noise, almost like bells and as i looked out the window we saw a heard of cows coming down the road being followed by a man completely dressed in the stereotypical swiss outfit!! it was so funny, unfortunately i missed the picture!! but for dinner we found this great place called the Chalet. the next day we headed to Lucern, unfortunately a 2 hour train ride but it was absolute gorgeous again the entire way there, this time we were on a panoramic train and we went to this town way up in the mountains where it was snow/raining! we made it to lucern to find it was a lot colder there than it had been in Interlaken but fortunately it wasn't raining there. we hopped on a ferry to get to Burgenstock, but once we made it to what we thought was burgenstock we found out we had to take a tram up to the top of the cliff/mountain to get to burgenstock! it was absolutely fantastic! the tram was really steep but we had so many gorgeous views and we actually ate lunch right on the cliff looking out onto lake lucern! it was breath taking! as we walked around the town a bit we kept hearing these bells, well learning earlier that it was the cows being moved we kept looking for them cause i wanted to get a picture but we couldn't find anything...finally we saw this one man leading one cow on a leash down the 1 lane road, well we watched as the car came down and wondered how this man was going to deal with the cow...dont worry there was a cow turn out! just like a car turnout would be for the slow cars, this was just a smaller version that couldn't fit a car...just a cow! only in switzerland!! we headed back that evening and grabbed dinner at the same restaurant and had fabulous cheese fondue!! the next morning we decided to trek to the Top of Europe! we took a bunch of little, old trains to get there! but it was absolutely worth everything! the view was spectacular, and luckily it had cleared up for us so it was a beautiful day! i cant even explain how amazing this place was! we even found an "igloo" up there, what they call the ice palace, was just a big igloo that you could walk through! it was sooo much fun! but unfortunately i had to leave the next morning so we headed back to zurich early and my parents are staying there one more night and then will head home. but we had such an amazing time!! switzerland was absolutely amazing! i recommend it to anyone and if anyone else goes, count me in!!! we were thinking we might move there if the US is going down the tubes! 

love you all!!!

Brennan's 21 in Bonn, Germany

--(1st pic: walking across the rhine, 2nd: bren's birthday shot, 3rd: in the beer garden, 4th: brennan's house) This last weekend i went to visit brennan and monica in bonn, germany for brennan's 21st birthday. i flew from madrid to frankfurt and then trained it to bonn from frankfurt and the train ride was so amazing! there were vineyards and green hillsides everywhere, and every once in awhile you would come across a random castle on top of a hill! it was absolutely amazing! that train ride made me fall in love with germany and i hadn't even done anything yet! it was definitely cold and i had to change from my flip flops to uggs as soon as i got there! bonn was city-like but definitely not as city as madrid is, it was similar to saying santa rosa is a city, its spread out and not as fast paced as a regular city. monica met me there and then we took a bus to brennan's house, which was very quaint and in a nice neighborhood. its a three story house and she is the only one on the top floor so she has here own space. she has a sister and two brothers in her host family, all of which speak english (lucky for her). we all hung out there for a while at caught up and then headed to dinner, at a regular dinner time which was unusual for me! we ended up going to a spanish restaurant, which was really good and enjoyed sangria and some vegetable paella that i could actually eat (cause in spain they only make it with shellfish)! after dinner we walked across the rhine river and headed to this bar called flowers. we walked in and there were flowers and disco balls hanging from the ceiling and murals of the beatles everywhere, playing of course some good hippie music! we had a lot of fun there and lillie and her friend emily ended up meeting us there with two of their friends they had met in germany. we hung out there all night and had a lot of birthday shots for bren! the next day we walked around bonn and went to a beer garden to cure the hangovers! the beer garden was so great! it was hidden and the girls had been there before so they knew where to go but it sat right on the edge of the rhine river and we had some delicious german beer and pizza. saturday night brennan's host family was out of town so me, bren, monica, lillie, and emily cooked at brennan's house. we made vegetable pasta (which turned out to be absolutely amazing) and salad. we just drank wine and hung out, it was really nice (something i miss being able to do at home!) sunday i headed back home. but we had a great time and i think brennan enjoyed her birthday!   ...thanks mom and dad for letting me go! i love germany!!! hope everyone is doing well. email me to let me know whats going on in everyone's lives!! miss you all! love you lots!

xoxo, Lex

La Noche en Blanco

Saturday night was a huge festival in madrid called La Noche en Blanco (the white night), its supposedly a European festival event and it has to do with the arts and the museum and the full moon that night. all the museums were open all night and there were concerts and other art performances around the city. there were so many people, i have never seen so many people in one place!! my senora got the newspaper the next day and i saved it because it has pictures of the masses of people and some of the events. but we all met after dinner around 1130 in the palace park where we drank there and then started walking around finding some interesting people and tons and tons of tourists. we stopped at this bar/club called dream and went in, i was a little upset about this cause i felt like we could've gone there any night whereas tonight me and mikaela wanted to actually go to one of the events but i went along with the group. we went in and the place was packed we had a lot of fun dancing and this place had really good music. at around 330 me and kathleen decided we were ready to head out and so everyone left with us. so we were walking to catch a cab because it was freezing outside and we really didnt want to walk 45 mins in the freezing cold and also because one of the girls with us lived the opposite way we did so we had to find her a cab. well an hour later we were still standing on the side of the street waiting for a cab...lots of cabs were driving by but every one of them was full! so we started our direction figuring we could get out of the main area and find one...well not so again we waited an hour and still no cab and let me tell you I WAS FREEZING!! you know me always cold! so aroudn 530 gi, one of the guys said he needed to go home because he had to be ready to go at 10 am the next morning to celebrate a chinese holiday, so i "volunteered" to walk with him being that we lived 2 blocks apart and then joe came with us too. so i made it home around 6 am! it was quite a night!

Party of 2 with Don Simon

the first picture is mikaela's closet...gotta love it!!! just like the song keg in the closet except its sangria in the closet. this night mikaela and i decided that we didnt want to go out so we just drank the two of us in her room and listened to music and chatted! it was pretty entertaining! we loved it! and it was nice not to have to worry about the spanish creepers! we could just have fun!! so we had a little dance party and lots of laughs haha!!

Dubbliners

so we started at the bar that we don't know the name of but we do know the name of the waiter, kevin, so we call it kevins bar! haha! he helps us practice our spanish and told us that his mom was watching an american soap opera and decided to name him kevin! he is completely spanish too so the name kevin really doesn't fit! but we had a drink there cause its on the cheaper side and then we headed to this irish pub called dubbliners. which was a lot of fun. the drinks were expensive and really sweet but there was a deal going on if you ordered 2 drinks at once you got a discount so what can i say, you have to get the discount when you can!! haha! although the drinks were really sweet they had a good amount of alcohol in them so i felt like we got more of our moneys worth that way. we had a good time! and made it in time to catch the metro home which was even more exciting!!! save money on the metro or take a cab....METRO!!! except that it closes at 1:46 so we have gotten our timing down well to say the least.

Retiro Park

today myself, christen, bryce, kathleen, claire, megan, and sarah went to this amazing park called Retiro Park. this park was huge we didn't even make it through half before it started pouring so we had to head to the metro. but we are real excited to go back and i really want to ride in the boats and have a picnic there, so hopefully this weekend when the weather is supposed to be nice. once it started raining we decided to get churros and chocolate for the first time since we have been here, and i was actually able to find the same place nygil had taken us...im pretty sure. and it was just as i remembered!!!! sooooo good! school again tomorrow...we had a holiday today which is why we headed to the park. long story short on the holiday...the spanish people are soo lazy they made up a holiday cause they didn't have enough this year. gotta love the spanish folks! 

love all of you! miss you tons!!

xoxo, lex

cave bar and salsa bar

first we started at the tapas bar close to our normal meeting area where we ordered a bottle of red wine...well it came chilled. very interesting.... we had been told that there was a cheap bar close to our house that was really fun, so we thought we would check it out, the place was called the cave bar. so we walk in and the atmosphere was really neat and the drinks were all specialized drinks of which you had to choose from. so of course we asked around to see what was good, cause they didn't explain what was in the drinks. the jota jota was a favorite of one of the girls we met in the bathroom (girls bathrooms, what can i say). so me and christen got one to share, so we could test it out. well it came out in this huge glass (no wonder they told us to share one) and it was green. fortunately the girl was right and the drink was quite delightful, not too sweet like i expected. and then the beers at this place were huge. it wasn't quite as cheap as i was hoping but it was definitely better than what we had been paying. by 2am we were pretty ready to leave when someone suggested that we go to the salsa bar, everyone was in so we began to walk. we walked for probably 30 minutes trying to find this place (always walking in this city) when we finally found it. we went in and this was a great bar. none of us knew how to salsa except joe so he was teaching all of us and we had a great time trying to learn. andrew and joe walked me and christen home as we walked and walked and walked, not really knowing where we were going. we knew which direction we had to go in but what streets we needed to take to get there was another story. all of a sudden i looked up to cross the street and i saw my street sign on one of the buildings, so i led everyone up to my door and directed them which way to go to get to their area. overall a good night with a lot of walking with the discovery of a park and a new part of the city.

in first picture its all my girls except for lindsay, who was missing this night. the other picture is the entire group that was out with us. this night was a school night so we just decided to go out for a glass of wine and it turned out that everyone's roommates wanted to come, which was no big deal and it actually turned out to be one of the girls 21st birthdays but she didn't drink. we went to a cheap bar in puerto del sol (which is the main party area) and had a few pitchers of sangria for the table and then the girls and i shared a bottle of wine. nothing too exciting but we had a good time! although the next day at school was a little exhausting being that it was my longest day, but i sucked it up!

school started

above are pictures of my senora's house, i thought you guys would want to check out. so school started last wednesday so sorry i haven't updated in awhile but i figured school wasn't a very fun update. but the university is very small, they only have 4 buildings haha and no sports facilities or anything. but the teachers are cool, a little too strict for my liking but ill deal. they are very strict about going to class, so ill just have to feel out the teachers and go from there. but im going to go out for a run, so ill update more when i get back! ps its raining! im so excited its not hot today!!!!!