Mazie

• 3:20 Wake up, pack up, say goodbyes. Have a safe journey home Jamie/dad and Tyler!
• 3:45 Meet our Uber outside the apartment. Wonderful driver, got to know him a little bit!
• 4:15 Arrive at airport. Line to check luggage
• 4:45 Security and walk to gate. Mazie gives the airport an early morning Bridge Over Troubled Water concert at a piano along the way.
• 5:45 Board the plane. We were almost the last to board (out of choice)
• 6:15 Take off!!
• 8:15 Landing!!
• 8:45 Collect luggage and take a very overpriced taxi to the Split city center
• 9:00 Drag luggage across very bumpy cobblestones to the Airbnb to check in. We had to give it a few tries before we found the right door :)
• 9:30 Climbed the secret ladder in our apartment to the old palace walls. We walked along the entire stretch of wall!
• 10:00 Walk around Split for a bit! We saw a nice park with Easter eggs, the Adriatic Sea, Froggyland, and the palace ruins on which the current city is built.
• 11:00 Pastries from Bobis. We tried two versions of cheese Burek- one was warm and rolled, the other cold and pizza shaped, and despite being cold, the pizza one was absolutely amazing!
• 11:30 Make our way to the edge of the city for our olive oil experience!
• 12:00 Meet Marian and he drives us to his farm in the mountains. We pick up Jason along the way- a hitchhiker that Marian met yesterday and blossoming friendship.
• 12:00-4:00 Tour Marian’s sustainable farm, learn a ton about olive oil and wine production notably. Two learnings that stood out: Balsamic is made from aged figs, and almonds and peaches share 85% of their DNA! Apparently there are almonds inside peach pits…? We enjoyed a charcuterie board of dried meats, cheese, and dried fruit all made by hand at the end.
• 4:00 Marian drives us back to the city center.
• 4:30 Explore, walk the windy streets, accidentally hike part of the way up Marjan hill.
• 6:30 Pit stop at Airbnb.
• 6:45 Walk to dinner at Pizzeria Portas. This will be our first and last pizza experience on this trip cause Tammy’s stomach is currently not liking pizza. The pizza itself (and olive oil) was amazing though!
• 8:00 Back to Airbnb for the night.
• 10:00 Goodnight!

I am not a fan of flying. In fact, I really don’t like flying and am continually annoyed by how takeoff puts half the plane to sleep while it only ever seems to jolt me awake out of fear. That is why, when the flight attendants buzz the classic “enjoy your flight” message over the loudspeaker as the plane is approaching 10,000 feet, I don’t expect to actually enjoy it much.

But my flight back from Paris was different. To start off, we were the last flight out of Terminal 3 for the night which was equal parts fun and depressing. The people on our flight were pretty lively, which made the airport feel fuller than it really was. I noticed a few people sporting Disney Paris merch! Soon after we finished boarding, the pilot gave a full blown speech over the loudspeaker. He talked about many things, notably how two of the flight attendants had just gotten married (to each other, I think?) and how handsome they both were. He had the entire plane laughing and clapping.

He then went into a little section about how aviation is the safest mode of transportation nowadays but why many people are still wary of flying. I’m not sure a pilot should joke about the safety of their passengers, but there were plenty of jokes sprinkled in. At one point during his explanation of airplane safety, he said: “Well, we’ll see about our flight tonight. Hope for the best!”.

And then he repeated an abbreviated version of the same speech in English and French (actually I’m pretty sure all he said in French was “Welcome aboard, we value your safety…. I really don’t speak French”), meaning he was talking for close to 10 minutes. Definitely the most connected I’ve ever felt to a commercial pilot! Aside from the intense turbulence storm as we came into Barcelona, he did a great job flying the plane as well :)

Remy (our adorably hilarious mouse friend from Ratatouille) invited us to dinner at his restaurant. He himself prepared us a delicious three course meal and, because he has a special place in his heart for our family, reserved us the best table in the house. Hardest part was figuring out how we were going to fit in the mouse sized door as very much as not mouse sized humans.

Disneyland Paris: The second leg of a wonderful weekend with some wonderful people!!!

Hashtag our family is reunited in Paris! City of ❤️- We really planned that well :)

Después de la misa salí de la Sagrada Familia para encontrar la calle llena de gente gritando. Tuve suerte de estar en el lugar perfecto al tiempo perfecto para ver los corredores del Maratón correr al lado de el Sagrada Familia! Entré en el muchedumbre y empecé a gritar y animar a los corredores con los demás. Fue divertido simplemente mirar mientras tantas personas pasaron. Había un letrero que dijo que los corredores habían ido 14km (8 millas). Casi un tercio del maratón!

Decidí que debía caminar hacia Arc de Triomf, donde completó la carrera, para ver algunos de los corredores élites terminar. No llegué a tiempo para ver las atletas mas élites, pero vi muchas atletas muy buenas (porque cada participante era buena!) cruzar la linea de meta. Entonces encontré otro calle donde continuó la ruta (todavía estaba relativamente temprano en la carrera; la gran mayoría de las atletas no habían terminado) y decidí seguir los corredores en la acera para sentir mas como una parte de la carrera. No aburrí de caminar y tres horas mas tarde, crucé la linea de meta con las ultimas corredores (quienes que, a este punto, hubieron transformado en caminantes también).

Pienso que caminé las ultimas 7-8 millas de la carrera al lado de los corredores. Al fin estaba sudando y motivando a mi mismo para seguir adelante. El calle siguió haciendo curvas y virajes, pareciendo como nunca iba a terminar, pero estaba intenta en llegar el Arc de Triomf usando mis propios piernas. Lo poquito de triste que había sentido al principio por no estar participando había desaparecido y fue reemplazado con un sentido de asombro por todos los corredores: si mis piernas me dolieron como resultado de caminar una sección de la carrera, como fue posible que ellos estaban corriendo todavía?!

No obstante, experimentar el maratón de manera tan intimo me hizo completamente seguro de que voy a hacer un maratón un día. Seguramente estoy idealizando la experiencia de hacerlo, pero quiero experimentar lo que estaban experimentando los corredores hoy y poder decir que lo hice. Podías sentir la energía del muchedumbre en cada calle, validando la lema del carrera y patrocinador oficial, Hoka: “Barcelona te hace volar”.

Hola! Para los que no quieren practicar su español, pueden usar el Google Translate :). Mientras que estoy en España, parece que debo escribir algunas blog posts en español!

Hoy fui al servicio de Misa Internacional en la Sagrada Familia. Es una oportunidad especial por does razones: Puedes atender una misa en unas de las iglesias mas famosos de todo el mundo, y puedes entrar al iglesia sin pagar (aunque no están felices si intentas sacar fotos o explorar fuera de tu silla). Aprendí de mis errores la ultima vez que intenté ir (no había espacio porque llegué en un espíritu optimista 5 minutos antes de que empezó) y llegué a las 7:45- mas que una hora temprano. Me admitieron, pero fue bien que no llegué mas tarde porque solo admitieron 20 o 30 personas mas después que yo.

Fue una experiencia muy bonita y estoy feliz de haber despertado tan temprano en un domingo para ir. La única parte desagradable de la experiencia fue sentando en mi silla para 50 minutos esperando para que el servicio empezara. Nos dejaron entrar unas pocas minutos después de las 8 pero el servicio no empezó hasta las 9, así que quedó mucho tiempo para mi sentar y leer mi libro de Kindle. Hubiera explorado el interior de la iglesia y sacado fotos pero las guardas se pusieron enojados cuando salías de tu asiento.

Jamás había visto el interior de la Sagrada Família; solamente he podido imaginar lo que pudiera tener basado en el extravagante que es el exterior. No me decepcionó! El altar fue decorado y iluminado con velas, había estatuas por todas partes, y el techo tan alto y intrincado fue muy impresionante. Pero mi parte favorito, sin duda, eran las ventanas. Eran tan grandes y muy, muy altas- casi llegan del suelo al techo- y de todas las colores del arcoíris. Los diseños fueron suficiente impresionantes, pero cuando filtraban la luz según el arcoíris fue una belleza de otra planeta. Tomé todas las fotos que podía antes de que las guardas me empujaron por la puerta.

And… a taste of what I’ve been up to since Switzerland! I’ll give a bit of context:

• Photo 1: Me in a shop between classes. I don’t remember which shop.
• Photo 2: I’m pretty sure this was later that same day. I randomly stumbled across one of Gaudí’s iconic houses while walking around el Barrio Gótico!
• Photo 3: To give you a sense of just how magical it is to walk into El Desván Bakery. Pictured front and foremost are the Linder Bueno and Nutella cookies/mounds of joy. I snapped this one during the HOUR I ended up waiting for my lemon pie cookie (I was told it would be 20 minutes until they were ready…)
• Photo 4: Me with my Turkish kebab at Parc de la Ciutadella on Wednesday. I like this one because I just look so happy!
• Photos 5-7: More from Parc de la Ciutadella. I’d been wanting to go for a while, but finally did it on Wednesday afternoon to finish an assignment for my sustainable development class. As you can see it was so, so beautiful and I must return.
• Photo 8: A street.
• Photo 9: My 99 Cheesecake pic from this week, of course. Sauces were Lotus and Kinder Bueno, toppings were Lacasitos (basically m&ms).
• Photo 10: Me leaving my house this morning prepared for a day of who knows exactly what, but something that was going to include running and walking.
• Photos 11, 12, 14: Sights I saw on my run/walk. I managed to exit Barcelona proper and got to see some of Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Badalona, which are two immediate suburbs.
• Photos 13: Special for Friday the 13th! Ooooo! An ancient cool looking ship I passed that seemed photo-worthy.
• Photos 15-16: Streets of Santa Coloma de Gramenet (At least I think that’s where I was).

A few aesthetic Switzerland photos! My friends thought I was crazy for photographing my Lindt chocolate ball so intensely 😆.

I really don’t like sausage. Like, not at all. Maybe I’m the crazy one, but something about chunks of leftover meat and fat collected from factory floors and stuffed into a clear intestinal casing just doesn’t sound too appetizing. Most of the time things I sweep up from the floor go into the garbage, so by my logic it would be fair to call sausage another form of garbage. I bet the Latin word for garbage was something like “saucsus”. Well anyways, guess what I spotted on my plate when I sat down for dinner tonight? Three long glistening (the intestinal casing makes for a really nice glimmer) speckled sausages. To add insult to injury, my roommate Natalie is currently on a week long trip in France so my plate was the center of attention; I had nowhere to hide and no other option (other than break my host mom’s heart, make the situation real awkward, and waste a poor pig’s life) than to eat the sausage.

The longer and the larger they are, the worse they are. These were probably 3-4 inches long and on the skinny side, so I had hope that they might be manageable if I really just dove in and embraced the garbage-loving part of me that surely had to exist somewhere. The moment I cut into the first one, however, I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. I had to saw at that casing to get it to snap and I didn’t notice the giant fat blobs until they were bouncing and squeaking between my teeth. But I put on a smile and tried to focus on how good of a blog post this experience was going to be. When the inevitable “do you like it?” came a few minutes later, I nodded and responded enthusiastically, speeding up my pace and controlling my face to make sure I didn’t accidentally resemble Emily Hobbs eating maple syrup spaghetti for breakfast in Elf. I was sawing, stabbing, and chewing like a lumberjack turned racecar driver. In fact, I probably looked like I’d been craving some good old sausage and no doubt my host mom made a mental note to serve it again soon.

I made a pact with myself that I only had to eat the middle of each piece. I could cut the ends off and leave them to the side (that would be weird, right? It would be like cutting the crust off of toast). Although they looked slightly more flavorful, that was where I assumed any extra casing would be hiding and I wasn’t about to take any chances. I discreetly shoved any fat bits I could spot into the same pile and covered it with my napkin when I finished. After washing my mouth out with the rest of my dinner (the beans, veggies, and bread I had all ‘saved for last’), I walked my plate over to the the garbage and returned those sausage bits back where they belong.