London, Paris, and Barcelona

So I'm a bit late (ok..actually over a month late) on this whole blog thing.  But better late than never!  This is my first time in Europe and I am LOVING every second of it.  I already know it's going to be extremely difficult to go back to the states after this.  I'm hoping that the next 3 months will just take their time and go by as slowly as possible :)

So before I arrived in Sevilla to start my semester abroad, my parents decided to make a little vacation out of taking me over here.  So for 10 days we went to London, Paris, and Barcelona.  It was awesome!  And you would think in the dead of winter that it would be freezing in these cities, but we surprisingly had really nice weather!

We started out with an overnight flight to London.  The plane ride was awful.  I was soo jetlagged the entire next day.  But we landed in London around 9am and went straight to our hotel.  The room was so small!  We then ate lunch at Harrod's.  It was so hard not doing some serious shopping there.  The rest of our trip to London included seeing the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, taking a tour of Westminster Abbey, riding around on the double decker buses, seeing Chicago on broadway, checking out the Egyptian exhibit at the British Museum, seeing the royal jewels at the Tower of London, and eating lots and lots of fish and chips, of course :)  Overall, London was such an amazing city and I will definitely be going back sometime in my life.

What's a visit to London without a picture in a phone booth?

Buckingham Palace!

I had to imitate the cover of Winning London (Mary Kate and Ashley Movie- duhhh)

Parliament and Big Ben

Next, we took an extremely easy 2 hour trainride under the Chunnel to Paris!  This city was a bit of a culture shock because it was my first time in a country that didn't speak english- and I don't speak french!  But we surprisingly made it through pretty easily.  It was definitely a test of my nonverbal communication skills (I mostly knew what people were saying through their body language).  Here, we caught the beautiful view of the city from the 2nd level on the Eiffle tower, strolled down Avenue des Champs-Elysees, saw the insides of Notre Dame, took a night cruise down the Seine, ordered crepes from a street vendor, hiked the bajillion steps to see Montmartre, and saw the Mona Lisa at the Louvre!  Paris was beautiful, and I would love to see it in the Spring when everything is in bloom.  But I definitely suggest going in the winter- it was only a 10 minute wait to get to the top of the Eiffle Tower!

View from the Eiffle Tower!

Yummy crepes hot off the street :)

The Louvre

Then it was time for Barcelona!  I feel like this city should just be called Gaudi-land.  Everything had to do with him!  lol it was a great city.  I loveddd seeing some palm trees.  They make me so happy :)  Our first night we at outside close to the beach!  We had paella de mariscos (seafood paella) and sangria.  So delicious.  The next day we saw La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell.  This city was so full of life!  And apparently roller blades and skateboards never went out of style here.  Now that's my kind of city!

Paella y Sangria :)

La Sagrada Familia- a piece of work that will never be finished.

Entrance to Parc Guell.

Before I knew it, we were headed to Sevilla! My new home for the next 4 months.  And it was by far my favorite city :)  My parents and I stayed in a hotel for 2 nights.  The day they left is the day I moved in with my Señora.  I'll save all the info. on my new home for a different post.