World Urban Forum & "The Women's Car"

I’m sorry it’s been a while since I blogged!! I’m going to try much harder to blog more frequently in the future, even if it means shorter but more frequent blog posts!!

Quite a bit has happened since I’ve last blogged--im glad im back in my blogging world!

So, this past week was the UN-Habitat World Urban forum in Rio. It is held every other year in a different city of the world. This year, I had the random luck of being in Rio, where it was held, and here at the time when it took place. So, it was actually free to register and attend the conference. They had a bunch of discussions, round tables, panel discussions, debates and an “exhibition”. I went to a bunch of discussions including: comparing Rio to other latin American cities, violence reduction globally, and most interesting to me, mapping inequality/poverty and the urban divide. While some parts of the conference were not that well organized, and while some of the lecture topics were sometimes too broad, in general I thought it was a great forum and definitely helped inspire/guide my research quite a bit! It was overall a great experience and I’m glad I was able to participate in it!

Here are some pictures from the forum:

This is one of the smaller panel discussion rooms.

The "exhibition" where NGOs, Companies and Governments had booths.It was held in a really neat, old building on the dock in Centro. (picture to come, cant get it to work at the moment)

We were right next to huge cruise ships at the dock

One of the smaller panel discussions. I think it was about violence alleviation in big cities. One lady was from Baltimore--I really really wanted to ask if The Wire was accurate. I held back.

The “womens car” on the metro.

Rio has a small and not very wide spread metro system. However, there’s now a metro station 3 minutes from my apartment, which is super fab. Rio has this thing which I’ve never seen before (feel free to let me know if you’ve seen this elsewhere). It’s called the “Women’s Car” and it’s “active” I think from 6am to 9am and 5pm to 8pm. So, it’s an interesting idea, that during rush hour, there are metro cars that are meant to be for women only. And they always start out as women only, because at the first 2-3 stops, there are guards at the doors both preventing men from coming in, and making them get out of they snuck in. But the funny thing is, after the first few stations, there are often no guards at the doors, so the car often becomes an 80% women’s car, with 20% men who are ballsy enough to enter the “pink” car with mostly women. It’s a funny situation. As one friend said when talking about the women’s car at rush hour vs going in the regular car, “When you go in the women’s car at rush hour, you’re just going to inadvertently be smooshed against an old woman’s boob, instead of smooshed or accidently touching a gross sweaty guy. Pick your poison”.

Also, be on the lookout for a post on women’s gym clothes (and craziness) soon!

The Settled Life & Jelly Shoes

While my last blog post highlighted the craziness of life the past 3+ weeks including moving in, carnaval and bureaucracy, life here in Rio, is now, well...settled! In the best way possible. And since it's been settled (for a whopping three days or so) life has been excellent!!

Observations of "The Settled Rio Life":

1) There is construction going on in the apartment above ours. Not light construction. Not painting, not fixing faucets. No. Lots and lots of banging and hammering. Nonstop 9am-5pm Monday thru Saturday. This is pretty lame. And it should be over within a few weeks. But it's usually so loud that it wakes me up. Usually I can put earplugs in or headphones on and sleep a bit later. But one of the random positive benefits is that it makes me leave the apartment for the majority of the day. So, I take the good with the bad, but i DO hope the construction ends soon.

2) Jelly shoes are HUGE here in Rio. There is one chain of stores called Jelly/Melissa and it's all different types of jelly/plastic shoes in different designs colors etc. I LOVE that jelly shoes are so popular here, because they were only popular until I was about 6 in the U.S. In fact, I typed "jelly shoes" + "brazil' into google, and a New York Times article popped up about this phenomenon here in Brazil! So if you're more curious about the fad, here's the article link! Oh yeah, and I bought two pairs of jelly shoes, one pair at Jelly/Melissa and one at a generic store. I love that I have an excuse to wear them.

The shoes I got are the ones toward the left with the white high heel print. They're flats and super fun! (I also met some really awesome Brazilians at the shoe store, and once they got off work we all hung out! It was super fun and I look forward to seeing and talking to them again!)

3) I love amazon.com, a lot. I love that I can find almost any book, dvd, cd, socks, computer thing that I possibly need without leaving my house. I love that my dad forgot to cancel our amazon prime trial membership so I can get anything I need sent to me in two days. (like the day I was almost out of socks and instead of doing laundry, I ordered new socks and they got to my house right when I needed them). But, while I love love love the convenience and breadth of amazon, I now realize that I really miss good bookstores. Brazil still has FABULOUS bookstores. They're usually charming and have nice cafes and wall to wall, ceiling to ceiling books, something I hadn't seen in a while. I went to a bookstore in Ipanema to find some books I needed for my research on Joao do Rio and I went in and the people there were so helpful. And they luckily had all the books I needed and the guy just walked up to different random stacks of books here and there and found what I was looking for. It was wonderful. And the cafe inside the bookstore was delicious too. It was international women's day yesterday and the bookstore cafe gave out cute bookmarks to all the women. it was lovely. apparently international womens day is celebrated everywhere in the world except the U.S. hmpf.

4) FRUIT. Brazil has some of the most delicious fruit and when it's from Brazil ie "local" it's cheap! As I mentioned in the last post, there's a farmers market on the plaza outside of my house so I went today. I got much more fruit than one person can eat, but the prices were so low it was hard to get smaller quantities than I got. I got 3 bananas today for like 80 cents. 3 mangos for around 2ish dollars. plums, grapes, cherries, apples! delish!! and right at my door step!! and some biscoito globos which are delicious crunchy light sweet or salty and round cookies/crackers. im going to try to now always buy enough fruits and veggies at the farmers market so that i dont have to buy much of that at the regular super market where the quality is lower and its more expensive. Speaking of FRUIT. 1) two of my roomates had never seen raw mushrooms before in their lives (i had bought them for a stir fry, and they were so weirded out...i havent shown them tofu yet...how do you even describe tofu to someone?). in general people here only eat canned mushrooms which are gross to me. and 2) one of my roommates barely eats any fruits or veggies. i was cutting a mango today and she had never had a mango, so i made her try a piece AND SHE SPIT IT IN MY FACE. just kidding. but she DID spit it into the sink. and i was horrified! mangoes are so so delicious and sweet and yummy, and she spit it out. i couldn't believe it. i will no longer waste my delicious pieces of fruit on her... (CUSP(i)O NA MINHA CARA Livia, hein!?)

5) my living situation is still way awesome! until a few minutes ago I was up with my roomates hanging out, talk and laughing and it was taking me forever to write this post and then I realized it was 4am!! so we all went to bed, but I wanted to finish this blog post before I went to sleep, so all my anxious readers would have something to read in the morning hahaha (right..). but as the days go on i'm learning more and more about my roommates and hanging out with them more and more which is great fun and we laugh about english and portuguese, and candy and spitting out fruit and besteira and tudo isso. but, they now know I have this blog and Livia reads it, so I have to be careful what I say....just kidding...kinda (é uma brincadeira, sabe!)

6) I joined a gym today!! I'm super excited to start going!! I think I'm going to try spinning, and maybe some of the other classes that they offer, but we'll see. It's not as chique as my other gym was in Leblon, but that's okay. I'm excited to see what this gym culture and experience is like.

I think that's all on the blog front for the moment. I'll try and blog again soon!! Also, thanks to all of you who e-mailed or IMed me or commented about the blog!! I'm glad to know people are enjoying it, and I'll definitely continue posting! Also, I got some requests for pictures of my apartment so I will try to do that soon. I also got requests for pictures of the farmers market, so I will try and do that as well next week. Does anyone else have any request for photos they want to see or topics they want discussed? if so, let me know!

P.S. To those wondering..I am IN FACT doing research down here!! Those books I got in item # 3 were extremely research related and are greatly going to help my research. I should be visiting the archives and meeting with people in the next week or so, and in the mean time, I'm reading my books and "prepping" and making a research plan.

But yes, the books, the fruit, the jelly shoes--life truly is paradise down here.

Life in Brazil So Far: Carnaval, Bureaucracy & Settling In.

Oi! This is my first blog post from Brazil this time around. So, I'm back in Brazil and I'm here for longer than the last time, when I was studying abroad. This time I'll be here from mid-February to sometime in January 2011. I am here on a research grant and will probably do one (or many more) posts on my research project in the future, once it gets going.

This post is going to serve as an update/summary of what life in Brazil has been like so far, and in the future I'll write posts more often about little tidbits of life here, since you'll all be caught up on my life so far.

After a lovely, jaunt to New York to see some friends and then a fabulous trip to Israel (Hi birthright friends reading this!), I went home for less than 2 weeks to prepare for my journey to Brazil!

So, I have been in Brazil for about three+ weeks now. The first week and a half was great!! I was with my parents and we celebrated carnaval going to the sambodromo for two nights (9 hours each time) which was a blast and a crazy once in a life time experience!! The parades, costumes, themes, music, and stamina of the Samba schools were truly incredible. Some of themes were fun, creative and cohesive whereas some of the others were random and kind of bizarre with odd costumes and floats. There were also tons of street parades/parties or "blocos" which often took place outside of our hotel.

There were a variety of samba schools that included black painted faces/bodies. ohhh brazil!


A little carnaval nap! But it gave my Dad a second wind!

This was by far one of the most bizarre floats...it was about technology and the future. And apparently that means robots delivering babies..















One of the many judging booths.

The sambódromo before the parades started.

One of the street parades outside of our hotel.

After carnival was over, I moved into my apartment and spent my last few days with my parents getting settled and enjoying my neighborhood, Ipanema.

So, the living situation!! I live in an awesome place with great people!! I live on the main commercial street in Ipanema, in a 4 bedroom 3 bathroom apartment. My 3 other roommates are Brazilian girls, one studies medicine, one is an actress and doing a second degree in administration and one is doing her post grad in physiotherapy. They're all from different places in Brazil and are all really nice and fun girls. I think they all speak varying levels of English, but we all speak Portuguese to each other which is good. Aside from my excellent apartment and location, we have a 24 hour doorman and gate which is nice and safe. Also, RIGHT next to my apartment is a Zona Sul supermarket, and right past that is a 24 hour juice place which is great because you can always get juice, salgados, açai, pizza, sandwiches and more there, for a very reasonable price. I also live 2 blocks from the beach and live almost directly on a plaza where there is a farmers market every week, and the "Feira Hippie" which is a arts and crafts market that happens every Sunday. ALSO, a huge thing is there is now a metro stop in this plaza which opened in January which completely opens up the metro for me and means that I dont have to take a bus to the metro in Copacabana, which is what I used to have to do. So, the new metro is awesome and a public transpo wonder!

So that's my living situation and location, which I super love!

Another thing that has taken up A LOT of my time since I moved here, but which I am now done with, is the inevitable and slightly (VERY) agonizing Brazilian Bureaucracy. Capital letters, because it's an institution. So, any foreigners on a non tourist visa have to register with the Policia Federal. Fine, that's reasonable, they want to know who's in the country for more than just tourist purposes, and that's completely legitimate. But, ASIDE from the extensive amount of documentation (and money) I needed in order to apply for my research Visa in the States, once I received the visa from the US Embassy, I needed even MORE documentation (and money) at the Policia Federal (which of course you have to trek all the way out to the airport to do, because a local office would be much too easy). So, once I went to the bank to pay more fees, got 12 smaller than passport sized photos taken of me on a white background without me smiling (of which I only needed 2, but they only sell them in packs of 12 (so if anyone wants a 3x4 picture of me looking mean, let me know)) and had to pay MORE money to get every page in passport with a Brazilian reference notarized, I was ready to go register at the Policia Federal. So, based on the advice of a fellow research buddy down here, I was told you had to get to the Policia federal by 7am if you wanted to ensure you would be seen that day. So I took a cab all the way out to the international airport and arrived before 7 am and got my "#" for the line. The first number for the day would be 611 and my # was 653...glorious. Of course you need to get the number at 7 am, but they dont actually start calling people until 8:30. Long story short, my number was called at 4:30pm, and once I actually got called, my paper work was luckily completely in order and it took literally less than 5 minutes (which makes me wonder why I had waited over 9.5 hours there...why did everyone else's not take 5 minutes or less?). The two plus sides to my crazy inefficient day at the Policia Federal? 1) nothing was wrong with my paperwork so I didnt have to go back again (which happens to some people and 2) I met a really nice french girl in Rio on an internship, and we've already hung out a few times. And she speaks Portuguese with a French accent, which blows my mind.

So, that's all for Bureaucracy right? Haha, no... So, apart from registering with the PF (WHICH I AM DONE WITH!) while it is not mandatory, something very very useful and almost completely necessary to have in Brazil is a CPF. I dont know what it stands for, but it's some kind of number which lets you buy certain things like 1) a cell phone and 2) a super market discount card, among other things. Rumor on the Brazilian street is that it will technically allow the government to track what people are buying, especially big purchases, but I don't know if that's actually true or not. So there are 2 steps to getting a CPF (obviously). So the first thing you have to do is go to the bank (or post office), and register there and have someone enter your passport info and Brazilian address into a computer (which can only be done from 10-2pm, which someone forgot to tell me the first time I went, so when I got there at 3pm the 2nd time, I was shocked that the "System" is only open until 2pm which makes sense...right?..not (besides that banking hours are short in Brazil anyways) so the third time I went was around noon). The registration process was fairly quick, but of course, paying when I registered would be too efficient, so I then had to go in a separate line where I waited over an hour to pay a R$5.50 fee, which literally is $3. So that was painful, because I still forget to bring a book with me everywhere because I keep forgetting I wait in line oh so much here. So, of course after an hour, my number was called and I paid and it took 2.3 minutes. Great. But, that didnt give me a CPF..that was just the registration/fee. I had to wait a day and then go to the Brazilian version of the IRS, which is luckily in my neighborhood. So, I went there, and miracles beyond miracles, I get my "#" to wait in line, and it's called before I even sit down! So I go into the office, and get my CPF and I am in and out of the Brazilian IRS in less than 5 minutes. It was GLORIOUS. and now I have a super market discount card!! and am done with Brazilian government Bureaucracy for the near future. I'm sure I will be soon confronted with other forms of bureaucracy in the coming weeks as I start my research, but, being registered with the federal police and having a CPF (& a super market discount card!) is wonderful.

On a less complainy note (though my previous complaints were 100% justified and can be confirmed by other foreigners in Brazil), I will write about my fun weekend in São Paulo that took place last weekend. Last weekend was the official start of the grant term, so all the grantees met up in Sao Paulo for an orientation. It was very informational and we got lots of good info about life in Brazil. But the best part of the orientation was definitely meeting everyone and hearing about their different projects and stories. Some of the most fascinating were about the animals and environment in Brazil. For example my roommate at the orientation was studying seahorses and conservation and another girl was looking at how the introduction of african bees in the amazon effects native tree species. Also, a lot of people in Salvador were doing public health topics. But in Rio, the majority of projects were history, culture or social science based. On a separate note, São Paulo overwhelms me. More so then New York. It's massive and I don't quite get the city yet. From my two brief stays in the city, I feel like one needs a "purpose" in SP, like a reason to be there, be it research, visiting someone or a job. Whereas someone can go to Rio for a free day or weekend or week and just hangout on the beach and drink juice, life/activities in SP don't seem as obvious to me. As our tour guide in SP said, Rio and Salvador are obvious cities, São Paulo is not.

Life in Rio the past few weeks has been more of a settling period. I'm settled now and have met and hung out with a few fellow gringos, but other than my roommates, at this point I haven't met that many Brazilians..but I think that will change over time. There were a couple of good beach days a few weeks ago, but since then the rain and clouds here have been incredibly overbearing. Yesterday the power went out in Ipanema, and today while it was beautiful in the day, by the evening the rain was torrential, Copacabana and other neighborhoods flooded, the power went out in the trains and some of the metros were shut down...so, definitely not beach weather. But hopefully that will change soon.

This week and in the coming weeks I plan to start meeting people related to my research and getting my research jump started which ranges anywhere from buying a bunch of books I need to deciding which archives I'm going to use, how to get access to them and what I'm looking for in them.

Now that I have done my massive "Welcome to my Life in Brazil" post, I plan on posting much more frequently about stories and random occurrences in daily life. Most future posts definitely wont be so novel-like and will be much more like short crônicas. (heh..heh, reference to my research here...nerd alert!)

I hope you are all doing fabulously wherever you are!! Keep me updated on your lives as well!

It's impossible to stay annoyed at Brazil's little character flaws like bureaucracy when you see a sunrise like this over Ipanema beach.

Abraços,

Hannah

Back in Spain!

I know that I am way behind in blogging but Portugal was fabulous and now we are back in Spain! I don't know if I will be able to do any real updates before I get back to the states but our trip had been dab so far!
Highlights of portugal were definitely viseu and lisbon!

Hope everyone is doing well!!
Xoxo
Hannah

Crazy Condensed Summary Post to Tide You Over!!

I am very behind in blogging. Stacey is updating her blog at a better pace then me, so if you want more details up to barcelona at this point check out http://stacey323.livejournal.com

But, heres a short short summary of everything so far.

Ibiza-went to another beach the second day. it was a farther bus ride but also a great beach in a really nice and calm cove. Ibiza was a great way to start the trip and we got really rested and kind of tan

Barcelona- The hop on hop off bus was a great was to see some of the city. Loved barcelona´s public art and both new and old architecture. Really loved Gaudi and his style. Our second to last day in Barcelona we did a walking tour through the Barrio Gothic and went to the neat Museu de la ciutat which had roman ruins, and also went to the Picasso museum. We also had delicious gelatto that day. Our last day in Barcelona we dropped our bags at the bus station and then wandered through a huge park in barcelona, took a gondola ride from the beach to the hills, went to the Poble espanyol which is a recreation of an old spanish village and had Paella on Las Ramblas before catching our bus to Pamplona. Also, shopping trip number 1 to H&M--oops!

Then we took a bus to Pamplona. We got in at 5 in the morning and arrived to a bus station where it was swamped with people in white and red sleeping everywhere they could. Pamplona doesnt have enough accomodations for everyone who goes to the San Fermin festival so people sleep in the bus stations and parks or dont sleep at all. Luckily Stacey and I booked our accomadations in May. They were a short bus ride from the city center which was perfect because the city center was nuts and packed and so loud I would not have wanted to have stayed there the whole time. We got very little sleep this whole time though. Also Pamplona in general was very very cold. When we first got there I was so cold that I changed clothes at a bus stop to put on jeans and a warmer top. (around 6am). We saw a huge "Big Heads" and San Fermin Parade, 2 bull runs (once on the street and once in the stadium) and one bullfight. They were all crazy experiences. (I hope to explain them in more detail at some point in my blogging future). It seems that after we left Pamplona, the bull runs turned violent, but we managed to escape those human tragedies. Also, everyone in Pamplona got the Memo that one needs to wear white shirt white pants red bandanada and red sash for the entire festival of san fermins. Stacey and i didnt get the memo, but we adapted and bought the right garb, except for the white pants, which are never flattering...ever.

After Pamplona we took a bus to Bilbao where we stayed for less than 24 hours but had many fabulous hours to check our the Guggeneheim Bilbao, which is a fabulous and beautifully designed museum inside and out. I really loved that museum and tons of the art in it. Also, the riverside in Bilbao was really nice and had some great bridges and walking paths.

Then we took a bus to Santiago de Compostela. 9 hours later we arrived, I was sick with quite the cold and lack of sleep but we arrived at our Parador whcih was luxurious and beautiful. The next day we explored the church which is a huge pilgrammage site, and the old town, and moved to our much cheaper hotel.

The next day we took a bus to Porto, Portugal where we are now. We walked around the city a bit yesterday but it was dead on Sunday. Today we did a hop on hop off tour and explored the old town which is a Unesco world heritage site. Tomorrow we are talking a boat ride on the river to explore and see some bridges and who knows what else will be in store for the day.

Then the following day we are off to Viseu for three days to visit Sofia (who is TC and Matt´s sister in law). It should be great to get a taste of the less-big-city-like portugal and to experience Portugal with some natives!

From Viseu we go: Lisbon-->Seville-->Granada-->Madrid!!

PHEW! Hows that for a summary?!?!

Hope you are all doing fabulously!! I am!

Xox
Hannah

PS: The food, ice cream, desserts, pastries etc are all still awesome. Also, I have wayyyy over 1000 photos already!! And people in Portugal dont eat as late as in Spain. And people more or less understand my Brazilian Portuguese which is good! Also three places so far in Spain have had their own language besides spanish, Catalan, Euskara (basque), and Gaelic--yikes...!

Barcelona: The city in Spain where Spanish isnt spoken...

just my luck!!! so my title is a bit of an exaggeration. obviously the speak spanish in barcelona. BUT it isnt their main language on any signs, menus, etc and therefore instead of feeling lucky in other places when english is the second language, here I´m lucky when spanish is the second language on something and it´s not just catalan. also, sorry for the no caps, but they´re a little too much effort to deal with on this crazy foreign (not that crazy im just lazy) keyboard.

So to recap the last few days! (Photo note: I´m at our hostel right now and we have computer access but no access to the hard drive, so I cant post photos now, so I´ll be back-posting photos from the last few days once we get to an internet cafe and can put photos up. But for now, be fulfilled with my lovely and enlightening adventures and stories.

Sooo where did I leave you?

Our second day in Ibiza we took two buses to a more remote/quiet beach called Cala llenya which was beautiful. The water was great and so was the beach. that night we had our final dinner in Ibitha and packed up our stuff because we had an early flight to Barthelona the next morning.

We got to Barthelona EARLY the next morning and couldnt check into our hostel yet so we schlepped our suitcases around (which i love doing...) and first looked for a non-existant internet cafe that both of our books had and then when we couldnt find it we went to a cafe and had some drinks until it was time to check into our hostel. Our hostel is GREATTTT! it´s filled completely with Ikea furniture (which is my dream!) and right on Las Ramblas and Placa Catalunya. Once we checked in we had lunch. I had a tipico dish (tipico nibbles mom!) that had spanish sausage, a fried egg and potatoes which was really good. Then we bought a 2 day ticket for a hop on hop off (also known as flop on flop off bus in my family due to the inevitabilty of napping on such a bus) and took all three routes in offered which was about 5 hours in total. Of course I fell asleep while on the top of the bus (hence flop on) and got a weird sunburn and now have an odd rash on my left cheek..awesome. I keep touching the odd bumpy rash and hope it goes away..fingers crossed y'all! We didnt hop on that day because we wanted to get a good layout of the city and see an overview of all the sights before deciding what we wanted to do. It was also amazing to see the incredible parks, great architecture and art all throughout the city. Barcelona seems like a really art and design focused city. which = super cool.

That night we went to a fabulous dinner at a restaurant called Organic off of las ramblas. it was great!! Then we prompty fell asleep once we got back due to our early morning that day.

Today we woke up, went to a fabulous place for breakfast where we has dark hot chocolate with cream (it was like drinking melted chocolate) and I of course had a proscuitto sandwich. IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: (it´s not actually proscuitto, its ham made in spain and there is a whole section in my lonely planet about it and is glorious and common and I try to eat it every day so as to appreciate spain as best as i possible can. so i called in proscuitto, but its actually spanish ham and delicious!)

Then we began our GAUDI Day!!!! We started with La Pedrera which was really amazing, beautiful and innovative and I´m convinced that Gaudi is the Dr. Seuss of architecture. It´s too bad they made that a public building and not apartments anymore because I would love to live there.

Then we stopped for lunch (didnt have a proscuitto sandwich) and made our way to La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi´s huge church in Barcelona. It´s still not finished, is full of scaffolding, but you can still see Gaudi's design and vision. we decided not to wait in the two hour lines for the elevator up to the tower and strolled around the church, took pictures and looked at the different designs and details that Gaudi made sure to include in this work.

Once we got our religious fulfillment of the day, we made our way to Park Guell, the park Gaudi designed which was originally intentioned for private residences. We walked around there for a long time, looked at the mosaics, hansel and gretel like houses, listened to the musicians playing in the different areas, and ran into people from Stanford. <--- :-0 is that your face of surprise right now?!? Yeah stacey randomly ran into her big sib from stanford that she had her freshman year who was there with two friends. And not only did we randomly run into them in Park Guell in Barcelona, but we are also on the same bus with them to Pamplona and plan on having lunch with them there. Quick tangent: Vote/survey: Should we go to a bullfight in Pamplona? (answers could be stuff like, yes it is a cultural experience, no it is cruel, or yes it is a cultural experience but be aware it is cruel, or other and explain. grathias)

So, we walked around the park for a while, took a bunch of pictures and then took the bus back. we stopped at Casa Batllo which is another Gaudi building and while we didnt go in because the entrance fee was 16.5 euro which is literally the price of dinner, we did look at the outside which really exemplified Gaudi´s style and aesthetic (ie what houses would really look like in Seuss Land).

Then we walked back to our hostel, looking at street performers on Las Ramblas on the way. One other observation. Barcelona recently added bike lanes to all of its major streets and on top of that also has began this public transportation effort called Bicing (bicing.com) where people can pay an annual fee and rent bikes for up to 24 hrs per time throughout the city at electronic bike stations (there are 100s of them throughout the city). I think it´s a really intriguing and great idea for people to pay a minimal amount and be able to use public transportation bikes whenever they need to.

Now, it´s 10 at night and dinner time!!! Overall, so far I love Barcelona. I love the art, design and parks throughout the city and also really appreciate their efforts to have alternative forms of public transportation. We have two more days here and I look forward to going to a crafts market tomorrow and also some other non Gaudi sights.

Adios all! (or whatever they say in Catalan)
Hannah

PS-please hope that my odd, one sided-not visible but tactily noticable facial rash goes away. grathias.

Ibitha and fruit thalad

Hello All,

I´m in Ibiza for our first real day and its fabulous and I´m much more rested and not about to keel over.

Last night we had a good dinner, walked back to our apartment and I promptly passed out. This morning we woke up and I had a fabulous breakfast of fruit salad which was in fresh orange juice, and prosciutto and cheese on toast.


Then we took a bus to these beaches called Ses Salines which was so nice. We got there early, before it was too crowded, and paid to rent two lounge chairs, an umbrella and table, which was great. It was hot but having the shade was perfect and the water was so nice nice and clear, but kind of shallow.



Also, it was a beach where many people were inhibitionless and went topless...ahhhh europe. After laying there for a few hours and reading my old people magazines about why Chase Crawford from Gossip Girl doesnt pluck his eyebrows, (something I had been dying to know), we left our towels on the chairs and had lunch at the restaurant right above us. We had the most massive fruit salad I have ever seen and shared a pizza. I think we counted and there were 14 types of fruit in our fruit salad.

Then we went back to our chairs and I fell asleep until Stacey woke me that it was time for us to catch our bus back to Ibitha.

Ibiza has a Unesco world heritage sight in it which is this old fortressed town which now has hotels, restaurants and shops in it. We climbed up to it and walked around there and took some pictures and read the signs and it was nice to see the more "cultural" and historic part of the city. The other more modern part of the city that we drove through to get to the beach was kind of dingy and not cute or charming, but the area that we are in now that is more touristy with shops and restaurants is pretty nice.


After we finish interneting I think we are going to go get a desserty waffel since we are still full from lunch and probably wont do dinner. Then we have to rest up for our last beach day tomorrow.

So far our itinerary has worked out really well because I´m still recovering from the long flights and it´s great to just be doing the beach now and not much else.

Other Ibiza observations:
When ham is on the menu, it actually means proscuitto. proscuitto = happy hannah (and its on the menu a lot!!)

Most of the tourists are European, we´ve seen a few americans, but not many.

On the beach big groups of people would come by and promote parties/things going on at clubs, but other than that, it´s pretty easy to avoid the clubing/partyness of Ibiza.

Also, to clarify, a question I got from my earlier blog post, (many) people in the airports pay 9 euro fore a man to shrink wrap their luggage in neon green plastic. If anyone knows how or why they do this..enlighten me!


Well, that´s all for now! this blogging experience was actually rather easy and painless because we found a much much better internet cafe then yesterday. so, as long as we can find good and fast internet cafes along the way, blogging shouldnt be too big of a hassle!

And here is some graffitti to make you think:

In Spain! First Blog (in list form)

1) so many babies on all my flights..doesnt make me like kids any more, at all.
2) people on my flight to madrid played musical chairs until like 3 hours into the flight
3) the madrid airport terminal 4 is verrrry large
4) our flight from madrid to ibiza was sponsored by mtv, literally
5) people really love paying 9 euro to shrink wrap their suitcase in neon green plastic
6) i dont get why number 5 exists at all--i saw it in latin america, but never to the extent i saw it here
7) we are in ibiza now
8) we had quite the schlep to get to our apartment and to our specific room, but sooo worth it--ocean view, bright sunny huge window etc
9) i dont even want to think about schelping my luggage out of there..at all
10) i barely slept on any of my flights so im exhausted, but not sleeping till tonight.
10b) i could keel over at any minute

ok thats all for now! but see?¿!! i blogged!

Testing blogging

From my iPod!!

After quite the Hiatus...

the lovely travel blog will return! First, for a month in July, and then from February onwards while I'm in Brazil.


Stay Tuned!

BudapesTourist and FULL of PICTURESSS

OK, So I am a bit tardy on my Budapest blog from last weekend (2 weekends ago?), but I am going to do it now, so that I don’t get too behind.
So, last weekend I decided to do a tourist weekend of Budapest to see as much as I could, so that I would know the city’s highlights etc.
So on Friday, some lovely expats and me went to Thai food. It was a restaurant that is basically the only Thai food in Budapest and luckily, it was great and not too expensive!! So, yay for finding good thai in Budapest. Afterwards we went to this great, cool outdoor bar on the top of Kaiser’s supermarket. Apparently, in the Summer, a bunch of outdoor bars open up all around the city because it is too hot inside most places. So that was really cool, just sitting on top of a roof hanging out in the middle of Budapest.
On Saturday I decided to be the ultimate tourist and do a city bus tour so I could see all the main sights. I found this great bus tour that was called a Hop On Hop off tour, where your ticket is valid for 24 hours and you can get off at a bunch of different stops, and then hop back on a later bus. So I basically saw all the big sights in Budapest. Some of my favorites were the Castle District in Buda and City Park and Heroes Square. It gave me a bunch of ideas of where I want to go back and visit in depth later. I especially want to go take a tour of Parliament if I get the chance, and just explore the city more. After hoping on and off, I made my way over to the Chain Bridge where they hold a summer festival every weekend in the summer. Each weekend is a different event, some weekend’s theater, some weekends, music, etc. I was there for a music weekend. It was really cool, they have two stages on each side of the bridge, and then the whole bridge is closed off from cars, so there are a bunch of food and drink and craft booths. After walking on the bridge and scoping out the different booths I headed home. That evening I went with my friend to a Café in Buda. Buda is really nice and perhaps a quieter part of the city. The café was nice and we were actually the only people there who weren’t part of a Russian birthday part going on, so that was funny. So after the café, we walked around Buda and then went home.
On Sunday I decided to do Hannah’s Day of Budapest Jewishness. To start the day, I decided to go on a “Jewish tour”. It started at the famous synagogue on Dohany street. The synagogue is the 2nd biggest in the world, after one in New York. Ha. The inside is really really beautiful and I think I might head there one Friday night for Shabbat services. The synagogue also has a really nice museum and in a back they have a great Tree of Life Holocaust memorial statue. It’s actually really beautiful and different. People are apparently always adding new leaves to the tree, when they find out that there is a holocaust memorial like this. After that I walked around the old Jewish ghetto from during WWII. It was such a small area, but apparently jews were much safer in there than out in the city. I saw an orthodox temple and community area with a super kosher restaurant, etc etc. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, I went to the House of/Museum of terror. It was the building that the Hungarian Nazis used to torture and capture Jews. It was quite an interesting museum, though a bit overly dramatic in the sense of music etc. But it was quite a nice museum. After that I went with my friend to a café where I got a lovely cherry fruit soup. Then I came home and that was that.
So, overall it was a really excellent weekend of exploring and getting to know the cities great sights and neighborhoods etc.
That week was just a nice work week, and actually was short because I left for Bucharest, Romania Thursday night. But, that’s a different blog! Until then!

Szia!

PHOTOS: In no particular chronological order, etc.


Hop On Hop Off Pics:

Post office in Buda. An example of how charming every aspect of the Castle District in Buda is.
A view of Buda.
Buda.
From left to right: Buda, Danube, Pest.
Me, Buda, Danube, Pest.
The reason they call it the castle district.
View of parliament from Buda. It's huge and extravagent.
Me and the castle.
Someone getting married outside the castle!
Horse and carriage in Buda.

SECOND wedding by the castle in Buda!
Castle cone?
Castle through castle arch.
More parliament and Danube.
Tunnel into Buda.

Charming Castle district in Buda.

Model of the Castle.
The art museum at Heroes Square.

Heroes Sqaure
Keleti Train Station

Parliament.


The Opera house
Parliament.
Other museum on the opposite side of Heroe's square.

Chain Bridge Festival:

At the Chain Bridge Festival.
The Chain Bridge.
More bridge.

Chain Bridge Festival
Music
More festival
Lion on the bridge.





Jewishness:A leaf on the tree of life memorial.
Leaves on the tree.
This is a cemetary next to the synagogue. Something really unusual. It's a mass grave and they have no idea how many people are in there. Or who.
Flip this photo in your head 90 degrees to the right. It's a statue of an angel helping someone, found in the jewish quarter

Ceiling on the synagogue.
Windows of the synagogue.
Tree of life memorial sculpture.


Inside of the synagogue.
2 levels: upper for women lower for men.
The beema.

The torah arc.

Outside the synagogue.
Inside the synagogue.

Swastika outside one of the buildings in the Jewish district, before it was related to Nazis.
Napolean on the Menorah.
Outside the museum of terror.

A Couple random ones:
The kaiser's market where the bar is on top of that I went to.

People taking dance lessons in a park/plaza.
Graffiti on trains in Buda.

My Cherry fruit SOUP!

And coming very soon: A recap of my trip in Romania!