Anem Salvatges, Pujar a un Avió, i Seguir Els Nostres Somnis

"Let's Get Wild, Jump on a Plane, and Follow Our Dreams"

The night of Thursday October 20th marked the beginning of Hazel & I's 10 day jaunt around Europe. We got off to a good start by miscalculating travel time between Florence & Pisa which left us scrambling to find the check in desk, get through security, and find our gate. Once on the plane we thought we were set and would be in Barcelona by 10:30ish. Wrong. We did not realize you had to take an hour long bus ride from the Barcelona airport to the city. And lucky us, once in the city all public transportation was shut down for the night. We finally decided to hop in a taxi rather than continue to wander aimlessly. Much later we finally arrived at our hostel. Poor Alyssa and Sara had been waiting for almost an hour but luckily they had some entertainment, Edgar, the front desk receptionist. Once he realizes we're all together he immediately asks which one of us is the best cook. Everyone (including myself) said I was so he looked me up and down and then told me to get in the kitchen and make him something to eat. Warm welcome haha That night the four of us stayed up late to catch up on our lives & Edgar occasionally joined in on the conversation with his smart ass remarks or just sat there rolling a joint in front of us, nbd.

First photo in Barcelona!
(Right after we got yelled at by security,  typical us getting in
trouble not even 2 minutes in a foreign country lol oops)

The next day we headed to the Sagrada Familia where we would meet up with two friends of Alyssa's from her Seville program. After being mesmorized by the outside of the church we made our way inside to be completely thrown off by the difference. Outside is all gothic style with lots of uneven points and dark colors (kind of like a drip sandcastle) while the inside was all bright white marble with extremely high ceilings. A huge crucifix was hanging in the front and colorful stained glass and decorations lined the walls. I loved it because it was so different from any of church I had been to. Afterwards we stopped at a supermarket to pick up some lunch and made our way to Park Guell. Although we seemed to miss the part of the park filled with all the mosaic objects and lots of colors like everyone told us about we still enjoyed wandering around the part we were in. The views were incredible minus the 'street' performer dressed in a skin tight leopard print outfit, although he was entertaining to watch and listen to. That night we got to enjoy the most beautiful light & water show. Down by the Olympic Stadium there is a huge fountain that they lit up all different colors while playing a variety of music. I'd have to say the best part of the show was at the end when they started playing Disney songs in unison with the colors lighting up the fountain. I think the four of us were all missing Cascino 2nd North then. Once that ended we met up with Andy & Tim's friend Conner then got some authentic Spanish food for dinner. We had some yummy appetizers then we all got paellas, a typical rice dish with veggies, seafood, chicken, ect.

I found Him :)

The cutest roomie ever!

Crazyyy performer guy

Yummy seafood paella

Day 2 (final day) we went through the center of the city and the main market place. We passed some really cool buildings on the way. The architecture in Barcelona is really one of a kind. We did a little shopping, got some lunch then decided to head to the beach for a short visit before Hazel and I had to catch our next flight. After saying adios to Alyssa and Sara we hurried back to the hostel (all the way across the city). And just to keep up with the theme we realized it would take too long to get to the airport by public transportation so we called a taxi which arrived 20 minutes later and then made him drive as fast as possible. Once there we rushed through check in and security only to end up waiting in the boarding line for at least another 20 minutes. Oh well, better than missing our flight for sure. & even though I wasn't in the best mood after that experience it didn't really matter because our next stop was for the amazing city of PARIS! :)

Why don't we have awesome buildings like these back in the States?!?!

loveee the sky here

vida, l'amor, la felicitat

Mi chiamo Melissa e sono un chocoholic

"My name is Melissa and I am a chocoholic"

If you know my family at all then you know of the infamous M&M bowl that is never empty (unless it's Monday and we're already through bags #1 & 2 from Friday's grocery shopping and someone hasn't had time to run to the store yet). Needless to say, we are a chocolate loving family which is why a particular Italian festival reallyyy caught my interest. This year the dates of October 14-23 marked some of the most wonderful 10 days in Italy. During this time Perugia, Italy hosted their annual Chocolate Festival. Yeah you read that correctly, CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL! And I got to go :) Upon arrival I was greeted with not only a magnificent view of the Italian countryside but booth after booth after booth filled with chocolate. BEST COMBINATION EVER. There were all different types of chocolate in the form of massive bars, ginormous pyramids, balls, truffles, pizzas, and even chocolate flavored pasta! Not to mention a 10 foot bear made form Lindt chocolate and a "chocolate wall" you could climb up. And thanks to our EuroChocolate cards we even got lots of free samples, including some of the best hot chocolate I've ever had. Talk about pure bliss. It is definitely a day I will remember fondly. It would have been nice to have my whole chocolate loving family there with me, but then again it's probably for the best that they weren't because Matt's college savings may have been in trouble :P
Here are some photos for you to drool over & I promise my next posts will be all about my fall break. I know they are longgg overdue!

So this is what love looks like?

Chocolate Pasta!

Who knew pizza could be made any better than it already was...

I'm gunna stick with the idea that this actually was made of all chocolate

Beautiful view from the city on a hill

vita, amore, felicità

Meglio tardi, che mai

"Better Late Than Never"

Let me begin by saying that I AM SO SORRY! I know I am over a month behind on updating but it has been a crazyyy bunch of weeks for sure. Let me see if I can remember everything. Alright well back in September Katie, one of my roommates, and I decided to join the soccer club. We thought it would be a good way to stay active and make sure we kept off any extra weight all the amazing food here may bring along with it. The last Wednesday of September marked our first scrimmage. If you know me at all then you know I am not much of a soccer player. As a matter of fact the last real time I'd probably played soccer was back in kindergarten.... so needless to say I was a bit nervous. Turned out I had reason to be. We got divided on to 2 fields and lucky me ended up on the side with all the people who seemed to be playing for the World Cup. I decided to play defense, thinking it would be the safest position for me not to make a complete fool of myself. OH but don't worry I still managed to and I even had my own personal cheerleader who enjoyed pointing out my every mistake to the entire field. That's what teammates are for right? After that I can't say I was that thrilled to return the next week for our tournament. Thankfully these players were not as intense and I was able to actually enjoy myself. Having my "cheerleader" on a different team didn't hurt either haha. Although we didn't do the best in the tournament, it was a blast and now the scrimmages are a lot more fun. I even scored two goals last week! Never thought I'd rely on soccer to help raise my mood or relieve my tension but I'm definitely glad I decided to join. Hopefully these last few weeks go well, and I wouldn't be opposed to getting the opportunity to show up that cheerleader of mine either :)

Katie & I during the last tournament game!

Ok more catch up. The first Saturday of October our study abroad group got to take a cooking lesson! The combination of taking a cooking class and being forced to make my own meals here has really intensified my love for cooking so I get really excited for any chance to use my skills and try out new things. At this class we got to make Millefoglie Di Verdure (Vegetable Appetizer), Pasta Fresca all'Uovo con Tortelli di Patate e Ragu alla Bolognese (Fresh Egg Pasta filled with Potato Torelli and Meat Sauce), and finally for dessert Tiramisu! Talk about a delicious meal. There were 6 of us working together with the help of Chef Fabrizio. Fabrizio was a good teacher but any time someone would do something wrong he would give them a "what were you thinking?" look. However, he seemed to take a liking to me so whenever I was doing something he'd come over and just say Melissaaaaaaaa! I couldn't tell if that was his way of telling me I was doing it wrong or if he just liked my name but either way it made us all laugh. And by the end of the lesson the guy cleaning the table was even saying my name like that. It definitely made for an entertaining lesson and I can't wait to try out the recipes myself!
Here are a few pictures:

Tiramisu!

Fabrizio showing us how to make the ravioli

Sprinkling some olive oil on our delicious eggplant appetizers

Finished Product!

Fabrizio & I :)

vita, amore, felicità