In less than two weeks I leave for Spain. I have a fall break, which means a week off to travel. And finally, I can demonstrate how useless my five years of Spanish classes were. I hope to engage as many Spaniards as possible in conversation, and hopefully humiliate myself*. Hopefully.
Other than fall break, I have five chances left to travel outside the United Kingdom (My trip to Liverpool therefore doesn't count, but thanks for voting to send me there loyal readers!). All I've scheduled so far is my fall break, which consists of Barcelona, Madrid and Porto, Portugal (home of Port wine).
Barcelona
Madrid
Porto
Here are five other destinations I'd like to visit out the UK before my time here is up. None are arranged yet, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. Factors include exoticness, cheapness*, and super awesome-ness:
Dublin - FYI, it's not a part of the United Kingdom. FYI, Irish people might just be the friendliest people on Earth.
Oslo - One of my goals is to visit Scandinavia. Or some off the beaten path destination. So in other words Scandinavia. Here's why Oslo wins. Ryanair flies there. It's the only capital to ever host the Winter Olympics - and there's a giant ski jump still there. The place offers cross-country skiing tours through the forests. Fjords are beautiful. Norse mythology rules. Fjords are fun to spell. It doesn't get that horribly cold there because of something to do with the Gulf of Mexico.
Obviously, this is the only one I've really researched so far.
Austria or Germany - Right now I'm leaning toward Klagenfurt. It's a hub in Austria that's about two hours from places like Vienna, Salzburg, Hungary, Italy and Slovakia. Also, it's surrounded by like forests, mountains and schisse.
Milan - It's the center of the fashion world. I think as an American, and coming from a land where cheese is a fashion statement, it'd be cool to just see how these folks dress and where they shop. And how I can't afford any of it.
Paris - Originally when I arrived in London I had no intention of visiting the City of Lights. The more I think about it the more I realize I'd be stupid not to. Mimes, croissants, Eiffel Tower. How does that not get you excited?
Loyal and also unloyal readers: do you know anything about these places - any advice, any palces highly overrated? Much thanks.
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Foot notes
*The way I see each conversation happening is midway through the Spaniard's first sentence I realize I can't understand any of it. So I ask "por que?" Senor/Senora says something else, and I ask "por que?" again. This keeps happening for another five or 10 minutes, until the Spaniard realizes I'm just acting like a four year old.
*Ryanair is a budget airlines (something that doesn't exist in America), which every couple days offers flights to smaller cities for as low as one pound one way (plus about 10 pounds in taxes). Ryanair's amazingness can be seen in my fall break. I'm traveling from London to Spain and Portugal for about 65 pounds (aobut 110 dollars). Believe it or not Ryanair profits (something that doesn't exist in America).
5 comments:
A week off in the middle of the semester? That sounds nice.
Agreed for sure that the Spanish classes were likely completely useless. Other than the stuff everyone knows, I only know a hand full of other words, and most of those were learned from Hispanic friends, not from my 2 semesters of Spanish, which I have completely forgotten about in terms of what I learned.
"Por Que?" I love it. You have to do that!
Ryanair sounds like a dream come true in terms of having to travel, that's for sure.
Don't know anything about any of the places, obviously, but they all sound interesting and I'd say go to as many of them as you can.
you should go to Paris even though it might be a little bit over rated. Stay in Montemarte where Amelie was filmed and make sure to eat plenty of pastries from there. also, if you're there on Friday the Louvre is free for our age group from 6-9, so you can see La Giaconda. or whatever. Actually don't go inside, the best part is the pyramid and it's free. Don't go to Versailles either.
You still have to go, it's just something that every one must do while alive.
by the way, if you go to klagenfurt, you MUST go to Ljubijana. I mean, who's been to slovenia? exactly.
Yeah, Paris is turning into a MUST. And there's a reason nobody goes to Slovenia.
Werewolves.
Levin, you should go to Belfast instead of Dublin. More countryside.
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