Tag Archives: Carnival

Expect the Unexpected

I quickly learned after traveling to just a couple of cities that no city is completely how you expected it to be. France was no exception to this rule. Before I went to Paris all that came to mind about the city of love was high fashion, romance, and rude people. While Paris was a very romantic city it has a lot more depth than just being a romantic getaway. Paris boasts wlourveorld famous museums all through out the city. I had the opportunity to visit both the Pompidou and the Louvre. And the best part: both of my visits were free! (You can get in for free by showing a student ID card and an ID card that shows you live in the EU). The Lourve is massive. I think you could spend weeks in there and still not see everything. If you are able to go give yourself a few hours to walk around (and of course time to see the Mona Lisa even though she was named the second most disappointing tourist attraction in the world because of her size).

The architecture in Paris is absolutely breathtaking from the Notre Dame Cathedral to the Eiffel Tower to the Galeries Lafayette (which is a mall!). I would recommend definitely experiencing all the three of the places I just mentioned. While the last is not well known, it has an amazing rooftop view of the city and is the most gorgeous department store you will ever see in your life.

During our trimeandlocksp we stopped at the Love Lock bridge to put up our own locks. We accidentally  put our locks on the wrong bridge (oops!) but turns out that was not such a bad idea since the original bridge had begun falling apart and all of those love locks have been taken down. It is easy to find locks in the tourist shops around Paris especially by the bridge.

Paris is known for its food and after visiting I can see why! The street food especially was amazing. Make sure to get a crepe or two during your visit! There are also many restaurants in Paris but just because Paris may resemble the hustle of New York City during the day it does not at night. Be aware that a lot of things close early in this city. I ate at Le Refuge De Fondues one night in Paris and the food was amazing! They serve steak that you cook yourself on the table and bread with cheese fondue. They also are known for serving wine in baby bottles. It was a great restaurant to go with a group but make sure you have a reservation!

After Paris, we flew to Nice using Easy Jet. You can also take a train to Nice, however, flying niceviewthere worked better with our schedule. Nice is absolutely gorgeous. It boasts a large market in town with delicious fruit and beautiful crafts and paintings. If you like soap you will find lots of handmade soap here especially lavender. Climb up castle hill for a great view of Nice and of its rock beach.

We specifically went to Nice for Carnival in March. The parade was amazing and everyone watching was dressed up. It was a mix of Halloween and Mardis Gra. The parade was much more interactive than any parade I had been to before. People dressed up would enter the crowd. Everyone watching would throw silly string and confetti on friends anicecarnivalnd on the people in the parade. And everyone on the floats was doing the same. The floats were very elaborate and there were a lot of performers walking through the parade too.

Hedgemazes and Sitges Carnival

The first two weeks of March had its ups and downs. 

The week was relatively warm, so one day I grabbed a drink similar to a “Yoo-Hoo”, sat on a bench in a park, and read my psychology book for a while in the sun.  I think I’ll have to start doing this more often, especially with the way my psychology grade looks right now…

My nights that week were all very exciting.  One night, I went with a group of people to an indie rock bar in a neighborhood in Barcelona that is known for its welcoming and original bar scene full of locals.  While some people studying here stray away from this area for that exact reason, my friends and I embrace it.  Each time we have bar-hopped there, we met interesting people and got great prices on drinks.  Anyways, the indie bar was interesting, but the band was really bad.  I like indie music, but this band only sang Spanish indie songs that were just awful.  They also performed one of the worst covers of The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” that I have ever heard.  Another night, we went to another live music club in a different area of the city.  This place was a lot more classy and calm.  We bought a bottle of wine for the concert and it came in an ice bucket and a waiter to pour it for us.  I felt so special.  The musician was an Argentine guitarist who was excellent.  He played for about 2 full hours and kept us entertained the whole time.  One of his songs was exceptional, and I tried to find it on youtube, but my search was fruitless.  One of the other nights we went to one of the most fun bars I have ever been to.  It is a giant warehouse that is full of tables (Hofbrahaus style), foosball, and pool tables.  At this bar you can order “towers” of beer.  It is a giant container of beer that comes with its own tap.  There are students from all over the world at this bar, and it always makes for a good time.

On Saturday afternoon, my friend Emily and I ventured to a beautiful garden/park on the northern city limits.  Parc Laberint is a garden with a confusing hedgemaze, a pond, a waterfall, many statues, and an extensive romantic garden which was extremely peaceful. Parc Laberint I couldn’t help but feel I was in the Tri-wizard Tournament from the Harry Potter series.  At the entrance to the parc, there was even a giant trophy-like cup that was similar to what I imagined the Tri-Wizard cup to look like.  I had a blast walking around the gardens and taking pictures.  It was exhausting though, so I took a nap next to a hermit hut that reminded me of the Shire.  After the nap, we stopped to get a small bite to eat.  Next to the food stand was a playground.  Of course I had to go play on it!  Spanish playgrounds are so much cooler than American ones!  Maybe is the safety rules and restrictions that are set up in the States.  As a 21 year old, I had so much fun playing on the playground; I would have been overwhelmed with excitement if I went there as a child.  I am definitely going to back to the park to take more pictures because unfortunately I don’t have any to share.  But I’m getting ahead of myself…

pond in parc laberint

Sunday I hopped on a train to the city of Sitges, which is a small city about 45 minutes south of Barcelona.  Travis, Eric, and I were going to Sitges for our second Carnaval fiesta.  I knew it was going to be an interesting night; Carnival and the fact that Sitges is the homosexual capital of Spain is a dangerous combination.  I had bought a cheap mask and a glittery hat, but I wasn’t dressing up as anything too fancy.  Travis painted his whole face silver and wore a batman mask.  It looked awesome.  We got there and explored the city a little bit.  We walked down to the beach and watched the sunset from the seaside church.  It was really beautiful with green palm trees and golden beaches and the blue sea.   After dinner we found a place to watch the parade.  After witnessing the elaborate floats and costumes of Nice’s Carnival parade, I guess you could say I was a little bit spoiled.  The parade was good, but it was not as extravagant or as fun as Nice.  There were less clothes on the people in the parade, though.  It was still a good time

Sitges Carnival

                After the parade, the streets were absolutely crazy.  It was like one giant club, people were everywhere and loud music was blaring from every bar.  To make a long story short, when we left one of the bars, I know I had my camera on a string around my wrist because I was spinning it.  Then, as we meandered through the crowd while we looked for the train station, I went to take a picture of something and noticed my camera was gone.  I have no idea how it disappeared, but I assume somebody cut the string without me realizing it.  So of course I was pretty distraught.  I had taken over 150 pictures throughout the day, some of which were very funny.

Im rich

  Not to mention I would now have to buy a new camera in Europe which mean shelling out more cash than I already was. (Good thing I had a 1,000 dollar bill!)  Then we realized we had no idea where the train station was.  So I had just lost my camera and now we were lost in a foreign city.  At least we weren’t alone.  We ran into others who were lost as well.  Eventually we could see the train station, but could not get to it because the police had blocked all the roads and bridges leading to the station except for one road.  It took us a half hour to get on that road and get in line for the train.  This was the 5:30 am train back to Barcelona and hundreds of people packed into the train like sardines after a long night of celebrating Carnival.  It was a long, exhausting trip back.  I didn’t get back to my homestay until almost 8 am.  That afternoon, I dreamed that I still had my camera.  It was brutal.

                I had two field trips to museums in Barcelona the following week.  On Wednesday March 9th, I went to the “Sun Factory” with my Sustainability class.  It is an interesting building near the beach that used to be home to the gas company.  Since the gas company moved into a much bigger, better, and more beautiful building, the old building has become a museum dedicated to explaining ways to be more sustainable, and in particular how to fully utilize the sun.  It was interesting, but a little bit boring.  The following day I went to the Olympic Museum with my Sport and Society class.  I really enjoyed this museum. It had thousands of artifacts from the 1992 Olympics that were held in Barcelona.  They had memorabilia from sports I had never even heard of before!

                The weekend had terrible weather.  I think it rained every day.  I stayed in Barcelona and relaxed.  Eric and I bought an “Articket”.  It is an entrance ticket to 7 museums in Barcelona, including “La Pedrera” and the Picasso Museum.  It cost 21 euros, which comes out to only 3 euros per museum!  We visited MACBA, which is the Museum of Contemporary Art.  I’m not a fan of contemporary art, but I keep going to art museums hoping one of them will change my mind.  We went on a tour (in English) hoping to understand some of the works of “art” in the museum, but to be honest it just confused me more.  I simply don’t see the complexities in some of the mundane and simplistic paintings and sculptures.  Some works of art were interesting, but most just made absolutely no sense and seemed to require no artistic skill whatsoever.  That night, Penn State basketball played Michigan State in the Big Ten semi-final game.  I had met a whole group of MSU students earlier in the week who were in Barcelona for the weekend.  They convinced the owner of an English pub to play the game.  It was me vs. 21 Michigan State fans.  I cheered on our Nittany Lions to a victory!  I should congratulate the team for making the NCAA tournament for the first time in a while. Unfortunately, I was not able to see the game vs Temple because it coincided with football (soccer) games, so the football games took precedence in all of the bars.  Sunday night we found a small bar to watch the FC Barcelona game in.  Watching the games with locals is so intense and their passion is contagious.  I can’t wait to go to a Bar�a game on April 10th!  It is going to be unbelievable.  First I need to buy a Messi jersey!

                So if you were wondering why I don’t have many pictures from the two weeks covered in this entry, it is because somebody else somewhere is looking through the pictures on my camera.  I eventually did buy a new camera, which is actually better than the one that was stolen.  It cost a lot of money, but I had to buy one to document the craziness that was Las Fallas.   I will be posting an entry about Las Fallas and another about my trip to Ireland as soon as I have time.

Hasta luego!

~Sean


Location: Sitges, Spain

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: The French Riviera

                I spent this past weekend in one of the most beautiful places in the world, Côte d’Azur also known as The French Riviera.  It is also one of the richest places in the world.  The cars, the hotels, the palaces, the boutiques, and even the restaurants all showed the wealth and glamour of this part of the world.    The coastal landscape was absolutely breathtaking and the blue water looked so refreshing.  It is too bad that the water was too cold to swim in…

                My adventure started on Thursday night when I boarded a mini-bus headed from Barcelona to Nice, France.  The trip was through EuroAdventures, a travel company that organizes bus trips for students studying abroad in Europe.  We were on a mini tour bus, but it was kind of uncomfortable.  Luckily, we had 4 movies to entertain us on the trip up.  With the movies, the 9 hour bus ride did not seem that long at all.  Interestingly, in Spain there are a lot of rules restricting bus drivers and truck drivers.  For every 2 hours on the road, the driver had to stop for a half hour or so.  That got a little bit annoying, but at least it gave me a chance to stretch my legs and grab some food.  We arrived at our hotel at around 3:30 am.

                The next morning we caught a train to the second smallest country in the world, Monaco.  It was about a half hour train ride, but the train tracks ran right along the coast so I had spectacular views of the landscape for the whole ride.  The first thing we did in Monaco was take Port of Hercules, Monacoa bus to the Prince’s Palace and the Cathedral of Monaco.  Unfortunately the Cathedral, which was where Princess Grace Kelly married the former Prince of Monaco, was closed due to construction.  Not only did the construction restrict entrance to the Cathedral, but it also was an eyesore to an otherwise elegant building.  The Prince’s Palace was also under construction, but the grounds and the building were still very regal.  The view of Port of Hercules from the Prince’s Palace was unbelievable: fancy, expensive boats and yachts floating in incredibly blue water surrounded by cliffs and the Mediterranean.  From there it was only a short walk to the Exotic Gardens, which were very pretty.  The gardens contained Prince's Palace, Monacostatues, flowers, fountains, and birds, and opened up to a great view of the Mediterranean Sea.  After the gardens, we walked around Monaco a little bit before heading toward the highlight of the day, playing Roulette at the Monte-Carlo Casino.  It was €10 just to enter and they made us bag-check our cameras and phones so we were unable to take pictures of the inside.  I wish I could have had my camera; the inside of the casino was extremely elegant with ornate chandeliers, paintings, and gold everywhere.  It was so cool being inside such a stylish casino, surrounded by the rich high-rollers.  That day was the first time I ever saw a €500 bill.  We played a few slots, but once again, I hardly won anything on the slots and I went through €10 very quickly.  So after some observation, I headed over to the roulette table with the lowest minimum bet at €5.  I wanted to play some blackjack, but the minimum bet was €25 and I am terrible at blackjack.  I spent a lot of time at the roulette table, having my ups and downs, but always staying around the break-even point.  In the end, after the ball landed on “0” a few times, I found myself down €20.  My roommate on the other hand won €175 with his last chip.  I walked out of the casino down €40 in total (10 to enter, 10 at the slots, 20 at roulette) which I didn’t think was too bad considering where I was gambling.  For example, one guy at our table was betting at least €800 on every spin. Whew!  I one of my €5 chips as a souvenir of my gambling experience at the Monte Carlo.Monte Carlo

                After losing money at the casino I hopped on a train and headed back to Nice to grab some dinner.  We were told that Nice had excellent seafood and pizza.  Pizza at NiceAnybody who knows me will surely know what my vote was.  We went to a pizza place right near our hotel that had one of the best pizzas I have ever tasted in my life–and I’ve had a lot of pizza in my 21 years.  I got a chorizo pizza, which is like the European equivalent of pepperoni, and a glass of wine.  I was in heaven.  The cheese and the thin crust and the chorizo were perfect.  After the pizza, the guys at EuroAdventures offered all of us students free champagne at the hotel before exploring the Nice bar scene for the night.  I realized that night that I am spoiled with the originality of the bars in Barcelona.  In Nice, the bars had excellent live bands that played popular alternative music from the US and UK, but the drinks were very expensive and the bars themselves were very plain.

              On Saturday we took the morning train to Cannes, the site of the famous annual film festival.  Once again, the tracks were right on the coast, so the ride was full of stunning views. When we got to Cannes, we headed to the Cannes Palais des Festivals et des Congrès which is a giant convention center/auditorium where the Cannes Film Festival is held.  Once again, due to construction, the building was closed.  We were not allowed in the back lot because they were setting up for a gaming festival that was happening the following weekend.  That was ultimately disappointing.  I was looking forward to seeing the building and maybe seeing a famous director or something.  I guess it was just wishful thinking.  There was a miniature “Walk of Fame” in the area surrounding the Palais with famous movie stars’ and directors’ hand prints in the concrete.  After spending some relaxing time enjoying the sun on the beach and on a dock extending out towards the Mediterannean, we looked for a place to eat along the famous Promenade de la Croisette.  On the Promenade, we passed many expensive shops, boutiques, and hotels such as Chanel, Gucci, Prada, and about a hundred other fancy looking designer boutiques that I had never heard of because I don’t know the first thing about fashion or trendy clothing.  We eventually found another pizza place aptly named “La Pizza”. 

I have to say it was the name that most attracted me to the restaurant.  In the states, an €18 ($24) pizza would have turned me away in a heartbeat, but I’m only in France once.  This pizza, heated in a brick oven, could have even been better than the first one.  The chorizo was very spicy, and the cheese was extremely flavorful.  It was very filling but very delicious.  After eating so much fantastic pizza in France, I hope to make a trip to Italy to try some original Italian pizza! 

Cannes

From the pizza place, we ventured up a hill to an archaeology museum that had an ancient tower with a panoramic view of the city.  I think I mentioned this in another blog entry, but I am very interested in archaeology and ancient artifacts so I enjoyed looking through all of the rooms, especially a room filled with Egyptian and Christian sarcophagi.

Cannes with mountains

The view from the top of the tower was stunning.  On one side there were snow covered mountains and on the other were golden sandy beaches and bright blue water.  It was awesome.  I could have spent the whole day up on that tower just taking in the view and appreciating where I was.

               After sneaking onto the train back to Nice because I lost my train ticket, we got some inexpensive kebabs for dinner.  I couldn’t believe it when I found out they had ranch sauce for the kebab.  Of course I got it and it didn’t disappoint.  Then we got ready and headed out to the Carnival parade.  It is hard to explain how cool the parade was.  Of course it was crazy; there was silly string and confetti flying in all directions.

Ferris Wheel

  I was covered in both within 5 minutes.  There were thousands of people packed into the streets as giant, ornate floats drove through the crowd.  I have seen the balloons at The Macy’s Day Parade in New York and I have seen floats in many other parades, but nothing compares to the floats in Carnival.  The people are decked out from head to toe in colorful costumes, so much so that they don’t look human at first.  The balloons were huge and the floats depicted scenes from French culture and historical figures from Nice.  It was a long, fun night that culminated in getting lost in the streets of Nice after the parade ended.

carnival!

               

The next morning I met up with Morgan and Renan who I had met the night before.  They live in Nice and offered to show me around the city for the day.  I had a blast walking with them to the Castel, which offered fantastic views of Nice and the port.  From the Castel, I followed them all around the city, taking pictures, and they told me about French culture, French people, and about the way of life in Nice.  We got lunch at a bar by the port and I ordered a delicious pasta dish.  In the bar on the TV was the music video of Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow”.  It was a little bit surreal seeing my hometown on a TV in a small bar in Nice, France.  They were incredibly nice, friendly people and if they read this I hope they know how thankful I was for the experience that day.  Morgan even gave me delicious croissants and pain au chocolat for the bus ride home!

Beach at Nice

              I was surprised at the friendliness of the French during my visit; not only Renan, but also all of the people in the stores and people that I asked for directions.  A lot of people talk about the French hating Americans and about the terrible experiences they have, particularly in Paris, with the locals.  I had no such experience.  I was also shocked at the amount of people who spoke English in the French Riviera.  However, that could be due to the tourism aspect of the area…   

              The bus ride home seemed to drag on longer than the ride there, but that is usually the way these type of things go.  Luckily, it was still light out for most of the ride back so I had an opportunity to see some of the landscape of France and Spain that were very different than what I had seen so far.  After 9 hours and 4 more movies, we arrived in Barcelona around 1:30 am.  Lucky for me I still had a Spanish essay to write, so it was a long night to end a long, exciting, enriching, beautiful, breathtaking weekend.  I had a great time in the French Riviera and experiencing Carnival!

Cannes panorama

Hasta Luego!

Sean


Location: Nice, France