TravelStream™ news feed for member sarahmrue on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/sarahmrue en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:20:25 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1211428740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1211428740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1211428740/tpod.html Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:20:25 -0400 Summer 2008

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Fort Collins, United States

I thought it would be good to give everyone my travel itinerary information, schedule, and contact information in case anyone needs to reference it:

I will be leaving on May 23rd and returning July 3rd!

Itinerary:

May 23rd, 2008:
USAir 1676
Depart - 11:10am [Denver]
Arrive - 4:44pm [Philadelphia]
layover
USAir 740
Depart - 6:00pm [Philadelphia]
Arrive - 5/24/08 7:45am [Madrid, Barajas]

June 25th, 2008:
Air Europa UX1041
Depart - 7:05am [Madrid, Barajas]
Arrive - 9:30am [Rome, Fiunicino]

July 1st, 2008
easyJet 5234
Depart: 5:00pm [Pisa, Italy]
Arrive: 6:10pm [London Gatwick]

July 3rd, 2008:
United UA939
Depart - 1:05pm [London, Heathrow]
Arrive - July 3rd, 4:14pm [Denver]


Contact Info:
I will be staying with a 31 year old lady named Monica Lerma Zarza in Granada Spain. It is about a 20 minute walk to the University of Granada. The house has one double bedroom and one individual bedroom for students. There is also a living room, kitchen, and two bathrooms, one of which is for students. She also has two cats.

Address: c/Bruselas 3, 5°C
18008 Granada, Spain

Phone: 011 - 34 - 638 - 03 - 83 - 70
(this is the household phone, I will have my own cell number in case you need to reach me)

Spain Cell Number [from May 24th - June 25th]: 011- 34 696945781

Italy Cell Number [from June 25th - July 1st]: 011- 39 3315708345

E-mail address: sarahmrue@yahoo.com

Skype Name [free internet video and phone chat]: sarah.rue
you can sign up for free at skype.com

DropShots Website [where I will post a bunch more pictures and videos from my trip!]:
http://www.dropshots.com/SarahMarieRue
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1213090200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1213090200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1213090200/tpod.html Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:51:18 -0400 Summer 2008

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Seville, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands

This past weekend we went to Sevilla and it was awesome! I just posted some new pictures on my dropshots page: dropshots.com/SarahMarieRue

Sevilla is SO full of history! (But whatelse is new? All of Spain is like that!) I almost felt overwhelmed by it all. The buildings are so old! It is hard to believe that almost everything in Spain is older than anything in the United States! It was amazing to see everything so well preserved. Sevilla also has an ambiance all its own. It had the power and presence of a big city while still maintaining the intimacy of a small town. The streets were clean and there was a café or tapas bar on every corner. All of the buildings were full of character and class, exemplifying the refined nature Europe is known for.
It was so relaxing drinking a glass of wine, chatting with friends, while watching the
sun set over the river. The bridges are illuminated at night, which is a beautiful view, as the lights of the city are reflected off the water. (Check out the pictures!!)
The second day in Sevilla was also a great experience. We saw so much! I also learned even more about Spanish history and culture. The visit to the palace was so interesting! It was fascinating to see how architecture is changed and influenced over time. It was like being surrounded by a thousand history books. I could not help imagining what the palaces would have looked like when kings and queens lived there.
The gardens were SO beautiful!! There were many types of trees, plants, and flowers from all over the world. Some of the flowers I had never seen before. I took way too many pictures of flowers! I thought it was interesting that the type of dirt they used for the paths can only be found in two parts of the world, Sevilla and China.
Walking around Sevilla was also very enjoyable. I had to stop myself from buying all of the paintings, jewelry, pottery, and other hand-made works that were in almost every store. I thought the horse-drawn carriages were so cute! Hearing their hooves clomp around the streets, and seeing them pulling the carts made Sevilla seem even more historical. It is amazing to visit buildings I have been reading about and taking tests about. We visited
the cathedral in Sevilla. The ceilings were amazing. I could not believe how tall they were. There were also so many windows. Despite the amount of tourists inside the building, it seemed very still and quiet. It was also amazing to see the tomb of Columbus!! It was incredible to imagine that the remains of the person who discovered America were right in front of me!
Despite the heat, we walked up the tall tower and saw the whole city of Sevilla. It was beautiful! It was the perfect thing to end the trip. The three hour bus ride home I spent trying to absorb everything I saw and learned about. Now I want to take everyone to see all of the awesome places I've been in Spain!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1212661020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1212661020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1212661020/tpod.html Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:22:36 -0400 Summer 2008

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Granada, Spain and Canary Islands

Hello again! This week has been full of just school stuff and studying. Yesterday on the way to school, Caroline and I were apart of a commercial! They were filming it in the middle of the road where we walk to class every morning. We walked right in the middle of one of their shots! We looked like extras so no one noticed! Maybe you'll see us on TV? Maybe if you live in Spain!

Last night everyone from the CSU group met up for pizza and we watched the soccer game between the US and Spain! It was really fun. Too bad we lost! :( Oh well! I posted a bunch of pictures up on dropshots! There are even a few videos I took of the people filming on the street!

Here's the webpage:
www.dropshots.com/SarahMarieRue
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1211504040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1211504040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1211504040/tpod.html Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:05:05 -0400 Summer 2008

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Madrid, Madrid, Spain and Canary Islands

Schedule for Summer Trip!


May 23 Departure from U.S.
May 24 Arrive in Madrid. Hotel and rest. Visit the Plaza Mayor. Overnight in Madrid .
May 25 Museo Reina Sofia and El Escorial. Optional visit to El Prado in the evening. Overnight in Madrid
May 26 Travel to Toledo. Tour of Toledo. Overnight in Toledo.
May 27 Exploration of Toledo. Overnight in Toledo.
May 28 Travel to Granada and meet host families
May 29 Orientation at ISA office and tour of Granada
May 30 CSU classes meet four hours a day
May 31 & June 1 Free weekend
June 2-6 CSU classes meet four hours a day
June 7 & 8 Overnight excursion to Seville
June 9-11 CSU classes meet four hours a day
June 12-15 Optional excursion to Morocco
June 16-19 CSU classes meet four hours a day
June 20 Day excursion to Nerja
June 21 & 22 Free Weekend
June 23 & 24 Final exams
June 24 Travel to Madrid on overnight bus
June 25 Leave Madrid for Rome to meet up with Mom, Dad, and Rick
June 26 In Rome
June 27 - July 1st In Tuscany
July 1 Leave from Pisa to London
July 3 Leave London for US
July 3 Return home!!! [London is a day behind]

Madrid
- The excursion to the capital city will include visits to the Museo
del Prado, which houses works of Spanish and European painters from the
12th through the 18th centuries; the Reina Sofia musem; and the Puerta
Del Sol and the Plaza Mayor both of which capture the spirit of old
Madrid.

Toledo
- Declared a national landmark Toledo is the city that inspired El
Greco in the 16th century. Since then it has remained largely unchanged
in its blending of Arabic, Jewish, and Christian influences. Toledo is
also famous for its outstanding Cathedral which houses many of El
Greco's paintings along with a variety of other art treasures. Toledo
was the first capital of Spain.

El Escorial - The small town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is located
approximately 30 miles northwest of Madrid. The principal attraction of
this city is the 16th century complex built by King Felipe II. The
result is more than a royal palace; it is a massive monument containing
not only the King's residence but also an ornamented church, a world
renowned library, a monastery, and a royal mausoleum and the final
resting place for most of Spain's royalty.

Seville-
This wonderful Spanish city rich with history is known as the "City of
Reflections." Seville rests along the banks of the Guadalquivir River.
Sights include Europe's largest gothic cathedral, which houses the
remains of Christopher Columbus, and the Alcázar, a beautiful 14th
century Mudejar palace. This is a two day, one night
excursion.

Nerja
is undoubtedly the best-situated and most picture-perfect of Malaga's
many beaches, where visitors can find great seafood, mild weather, and
a series of prehistoric caves of great archaeological significance.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1212504120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1212504120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1212504120/tpod.html Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:00:17 -0400 Summer 2008

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Granada, Spain and Canary Islands

So I thought I would fill everyone in on what I've been up to and what Granada is like! I really like the city. It is full of old buildings and really cool stores. There are little cafes everywhere and you can walk to pretty much everything! We have class every weekday from 9:30am until 1:30pm. There are about 13 people in the class, all from CSU. We have been learning a lot about Spanish history and culture! My professor is also really good at explaining the grammar to us. I feel better about my Spanish already!!
After class we come back and eat the lunch our host senora left for us. The we either take a nap or go back to the school and check e-mail or upload pictures and stuff. Some nights we go out and get tapas (which are free when you order a drink.) They are pretty good!
I noticed that a lot of people here have dogs, which is interesting because it seems like a lot of them live in apartments. Some of these dogs are huge! It made me nervous at first because a lot of the dogs are not on leashes and they just walk down the side walk with their owner. They are smart though and they know not to cross the street unless everyone else is walking.
It is SO expensive here!! Because one euro is around $1.50 it makes everything that much worse! I can't believe the prices of some of the clothes and things here. It's kind of crazy! Eating out definately adds up!
The weather finally warmed up! The first week and a half it was rainy and freezing!! I wore my only warm clothes like 5 or 6 times! Last night our senora finally did laundry which is AWESOME!! :) Yay for clean clothes!
The one thing I can't get used to is the way their tap water tastes! It is safe to drink but it tastes so bad it is hard to drink it. They only really drink water at our house so its either drink it or get really dehydrated! It tates better when you put it in the fridge for a while though.
On Sunday we took a bus to the beach in Almunecar. It was just me an Caroline so it was kind of interesting figuring out how to catch the right bus and when. When we got there were not many people! The beach was made up of little pebbles! I've never seen a beach like it. They were really flat and smooth. We laid on the beach for a while and I ended up falling asleep, hence the sunburned frontside! Ouch!! It's getting better though. I told Lawrence I look like a strawberry frosted sugar cookie (because its only the one side!). That sounds better than a tomato or lobster haha!
This weekend we are going to Sevilla. Its a very historical city also! I'm excited to go! I will upload more pictures soon!!
I just uploaded more pictures from the beach and a few more of the Alhambra from a distance. There are some pretty cool shots! (Some of them are under May 29th, my camera's settings are still all jacked up!) Here is the web page again : dropshots.com/Sarahmarierue
I hope everyone is having a good start to their summer!! Talk to you soon,
-Sarah
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1212147600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1212147600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1212147600/tpod.html Fri, 30 May 2008 07:45:25 -0400 Summer 2008

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Granada, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands

So we made it to Granada, met our host families and are getting to know the city. It is SO beautiful with tons of history and a lot of character. Yesterday we visited the Alhambra. It is this huge castle/ fortress that was built by the Muslims like 1500 years ago. Very cool. I just posted pictures on dropshots www.dropshots.com/SarahMarieRue. Some of them have the wrong date, i think it is because my camera is still on Colorado time. I will try to fix it asap. Some of the pictures are from my roommate. Either way it is really cool! Check it out! I will update more later but it should do for now!
-Sarah
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1211883900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1211883900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sarahmrue/1/1211883900/tpod.html Tue, 27 May 2008 13:12:57 -0400 Summer 2008

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Toeldo, Spain and Canary Islands

So I made it!! We have visited SO many cool places since we've been in Spain. I've posted a bunch of the pictures on www.dropshots.com/SarahMarieRue and I can briefly explain some of them!
Madrid is a beautiful city!! It is very modern and has a lot of cool shopping and restaurants (and about a thousand Starbucks!) It is kind of like New York City but with less skyscrapers (not nearly as tall of buildings.) It is actually really cold here! I've been wearing the only warm clothes I have like 5 times.
When we were in Madrid we went to the museum, La Reina Sofia. It has a bunch of modern art work by artists like Picasso, Miro, and Dali. I saw the painting "Guernica" by Picasso and it was HUGE!! (I had no idea because it is so little in an art history book, no sense of scale) It is 25 feet x 11 feet!! That was my favorite thing from that museum. You can see what it looks like (I just got this image off google, they wouldn't let you take pictures inside)
Then we visited a place called El Escorial. It is this huge monostary/ palace in this little town about an hour outside of Madrid. The day we went it was SO cold and rainy and no one had an umbrella or anything so we were all FREEZING! It was built in the mid-1500's by King Phillip II. It was designed after the temple of King Solomon and has a floorplan based off of that. It was dedicated to St. Lawrence, who was apparantly grilled to death by the Romans. So there are all these little symbols of a grill on everything (which i found kind of funny, the tour guide called it a barbeque, haha!) Even the final shape of the building is in the form of a big barbeque.
We were guided through the palace portion of the building. It was SO interesting because they still had all of the furniture and paintings in their original locations. The beds still had the original silk fabric on them!! SO COOL! We saw his daughter's room and the room where King Phillip died. His bedroom was built so hat he could watch mass from his bed because he had gout and couldn't move around much. Then they took us down to the mosoleum or pantheon where the remains of 26 kings and queens of Spain are kept in these tombs that they have stacked up in this room with a huge dome, right beneath the high altar of the basillica. The queens had to have had sons that became kings to be placed in that room. There are three empty tombs that are meant for the past mother of the last king of Spain, the last king and his wife, who all died. They are currently in the "rotting room" (described to us in a heavy Spanish accent by our tour guide, lovely visual) and will be there until they are finished rotting for another 25 years or so and then the monks take the bones and put them in the tombs in the big room. I was curious why the room was courpse odor-free, and now you know! Thanks to the rotting room. There were also a ton of other tombs in these other rooms for the other members of the royal family. They had this big limestone birthday cake which I thought was cool looking and interesting. Then the guide told us it housed all the remains of the royal family that had died before the age of 7. Weird and ironic way to bury somone. In a birthday cake?
Then we walked into this room called the "secrets room" because it was designed in such a way that if you whisper a secret into the corner (yes literally at corner of the wall!) a person standing at the opposite corner of the room can hear what you're saying like you're standing next to them, and a person standing in the middle of the room can't hear a thing!! SO COOL! It was CRAZY! It's because the room is in the shape of an ellipse, something to do with math...
Then we went to the basillica (all the same building) which was really neat! It was huge and has 5 massive organs! (I mean MASSIVE) It also has this huge dome and lots of cool sculptures and oil paintings. The tour guide said you can get married there for about 1 thousand dollars if you are catholic, but the waiting list is like 2 years or something. That would be one crazy wedding.
Then we went up to the library and saw the collection of SUPER old books. There were litearlly thousands of them. A lot of them were hand-written manuscripts. They took one monk 14 YEARS to make. CRAZY! It has the 2nd best collection of religious books in the world. Pretty cool. [None of the interior pictures are mine b/c no fotos permite]
Then we went back to Madrid and stayed the night there. The next day we visited the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) of Spain. Which surpirise surpirse, you couln't take pictures of the inside! But it was really neat. There were lots of rooms, this palace has over 2 thousand of them! They are all decorated in unique historical styles and it has A LOT of neat artwork and fabric and other decorations.
Now we are in Toledo which is the cutest little town I have ever seen! I just posted pictures on dropshots. (They are the ones after May 26th. I think the date is wrong on my camera because I took them today, the 27th) It is the original capital of Spain. All of the buildings are in the mideval style and are SO cool and beautiful. We visited all these cool sites like this castle building (which I have lots of pictures of) and one of the worlds oldest synagauges, and el Greco museum (a famous artist), and one of the worlds oldest Mosques. Very cool. They also have really good tapas and wine bars. It has been a lot of fun! We leave for Granada tomorrow and meet our host families!


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