Feliz Año

Hey Everyone! I can´t believe Christmas break is already over. It went by so fast and so much happened.  Let´s see, where did I leave off on my vacation update?  O ya, Anja´s family! Well, the Prograjsek family was amazing. They never stopped feeding us from the time we got there until long after we were out the door. They sent along bags of fresh and dried apples to tie us over on the train ride.  Anja took us on a tour of her town (that took about 5 minutes.) and gave us a tour of the farm complete with all apple products and different grains. We loved it! From Slovenia, we went to Vienna on train which was much nicer than the scary van ride we had take to get to Anja´s. 

From the moment we stepped off the train, Patrick, my Austrian friend who was an exchange student in Mio several years ago, was there waiting for us with transportation tickets all ready to go. He took us to his house right away and his mom had a wonderful lunch waiting for us which was amazing. The food we ate in Austria was so awesome, I can really only use my food experience in Slovenia to describe how much I liked it.  He even had the kitchen stocked with American food for me such as Doritos, Kisses, and Poptarts. With Patrick we never had to lift a finger; he had everything planned and organized. But, we did have to lift our feet. I don´t think I could have taken another step by the time I went to bed each night. He took to see all the major buildings of the city which, in Vienna, is a lot. We got a full tour of Schonbrunn Palace, Hofburg Palace, and the famous Opera.  It was such a treat! I´ve decided Vienna was my favorite city on the tour, and I´m not just saying that because I know Patrick will read this blog. :)
The next stop was Germany for New Years. We went to Dusseldorf to hang out with a guy we knew from MSU.  When we went to the Rhine to watch the fireworks after the countdown, I was shocked.  Can I just say, I´m sticking with my beliefs that people under the influence of alcohol should not be allowed to operate fireworks. I had a mix of, Wow this is awesome to see so many fireworks, with, O MY GOODNESS! PLEASE DON´T BURN MY HAIR OFF! There were people everywhere just lighting off fireworks in every direction which may or may not have been pointed directly at the sky.  I´ve really never seen anything like it especially because the last ten New Years Eve parties were spent at my parents house where explosives were not involved.

My favorite thing in Germany, however, was that there is a chocolate factory in Aachen! It was a Lindt factory, which, yes, is Swiss and has headquarters in Zurich, but this is a branch. If you know me very well, you know that I eat chocolate like nobody´s business. I was so excited I was like...hmm...I guess the only way to describe it was that I was like ME at a chocolate factory. I think I left with about 5 or 6lbs. of chocolate for about 10€. 

From Germany, we carpooled to Paris. At this point, I was pretty burned out, but I wanted to make sure Esteban saw all the main attractions of Paris such as the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Notre Dame. But in addition, because I did all of these things on my first trip to Paris, we went to see the palace at Versailles which (I´m sorry Patrick) was even more magnificent than the Schonbrunn palace in Vienna.  Also, we went to Montmarte which I never heard of before this trip, but is a Must See spot in Paris. It was interesting how we finally got there because the directions we had initially been given took us to the Moulin Rouge neighborhood and you could easily say Moulin Rouge was the classiest joint on the block. We quickly left that part of town and found Montmartre the next day.  It was magnificent and overlooked almost the entire city, also it turned out to be better that we couldn´t find it the first time because when we went the sky had finally cleared up and it was a gorgeous day to get the full effect of the view. 

We finally dragged ourselves back to Madrid on Friday night and spent all day Saturday recovering.  Sunday was spent around Madrid at the famous street market, and let´s just say, I´m not fully recovered from all the walking and exploring of cities. I´m back at school and happy to see everyone. My Spanish definitely improved over the vacation from talking a lot with Esteban in Spanish. I´m getting more comfortable with it everyday. After dealing with the Parisians, who were much more rude that last time unfortunately, I´m was really excited to get back to a country where I can communicate with people in their own language.  It was a great tour, and I can´t believe how smooth it was. Luckily, all the planning payed off and we didn´t have any problems with transportation delays or cancellations.  Now, with the New Year, I´m going to have to work hard at my resolution to become fluent in Spanish, and I need to get on the boat with my plans for med school this summer. Happy New Years everybody! I hope it´s a great one!