Supriya Uchil

Today is my last day in Barcelona, tomorrow I leave for Madrid and spent two days there. Then I begin the Gap adventures tour of Spain for two weeks. http://www.gapadventures.com/tour/SMC

Barcelona has been extremely relaxing. I saw so many cool things here. La Sagrada Familia and La Pedrera, two monuments by Gaudi were my favorite. Today my friend Audrey suggested I check out the Parc Guells designed by Gaudi. Audrey has been to Spain several times and I wasnt dissapointed. It was a really nice park but I walked there and back, a total of two hours so I am going to take a long siesta this afternoon.

Yesterday I walked up to the rambla. My hostel is totally awesome, its called backpackers and is in a really nice neighbourhood. I really enjoyed the intensity of the rambla, following Reza’s strict instructions I looked out for pickpockets. I packed my bag with lunch instead of my passport and nobody yet seems interested in it. I also walked up the gothic district and the arc de triomphe area. Today I intend to see the picasso museum and the Sagrada Familia which is one of Gaudis famous work.  

I would love to live in Barcelona for the summer and must try figure out a way to do that for my next summers internship.

The tour has finally ended. I am exhausted and in Barcelona, refusing to leave my hostel even at 11am in the morning. The tour should be called “Glimpses of Europe”. In 14 days we did a lot of things. Although it was a very tiring experience, I really enjoyed the time with Mommy and saw many cool things. This was my first time since I turned 21 that I spend alone time with my Mom. I think my Mom is cool now so in a way I accomplished my mission that I set earlier this year to really try and understand my Mom and Dad. My Dad is visiting me in Philadelphia this July so I will get to spend some time with him as well. I really wanted to break the pattern that I have of getting irritated with my parents. I think I am growing up.

Details of tour

Day 1 London Tower of London , marvel at the royal jewels

Day 2 London Swaminarayan temple, very beautiful and a tour of London Eye, adjust to tour group.

Day 3 London to Brussels, see the brussels square, eat some chocolates, help several people at opening the hotel doors, turning the lights on, explain how to use telephone card, how to use elevator, breathe in, breathe out.

Day 4 Brussels to Amsterdam, city tour of Amsterdam, visit Keukenhof gardens filled with colorful tulips.

Day 5 Onto Cologne see the Cologne Cathedral

Day 6 City tour of Paris, see the Eiffel tour at 11pm with the lights, really nice, see Paris De Latin, some artistic show at Paris

Day 7 Ditch tour, take a break with Mom, see the louvre amd spend several agonising hours at the bookstore to find the perfect painting book for mommy. Go for walk by myself, lots of calming down at this point since there is hardly any time to myself.

Day 8 Switzerland, stay at Hotel Terrace at Engelberg, Switzerland was probably the best overall part of the trip. Go to see Mt Titlis 10,000 feet. Transfer through 4 gondolas. Freeze hands off and marvel at the snow. Take a tour of Lucerne, ditch tour and take a long walk by lake marveling at the snow capped mountains.

Day 9 See Jungfraujoch at 13,000 feet. Experience altitude sickness. Send postcards and realize that I am really missing fruits and vegetables. Visit Interlaken, see the lake, see the Trummelbach falls.

Day 10 Tour guide leaves us, receive the new tour guide, go to Zurich, city tour, visit tiny country of lichtenstein on the way.

Day 11 Insbrook tour in austria, see sarowski factory. Buy tiny baubles of crystal.

Day 12 and 13 Stop thinking, visit Venice see Murana blown glass outlet, buy an exquisite pair of red handblown glass set for Mom and Dad. See florence, again very beautiful the duomo (spelling). At rome see the vatican and the sistine chapel.

Day 14 Mom leaves at 4am in the morning. Sleep till 9am, then fly to Barcelona and sleep for 12 hours.

Day 15 Try and find excuses to stay at hostel in Barcelona including writing long post. Pretend walking to the Rambla is an adventure.

In 5 days we have been to london, amsterdam, brussels, cologne and paris. I dont know how we have done it, its been really tiring. I get 10 minutes to myself everyday sometimes even less. The tour gets up at 6, has breakfast at 7 and leaves at 8. On an average we come back at 11:30pm to the hotel. Its crazy busy, we are in Switzerland now and I am getting fat every single day because there is NO exercise.

Off to bed, the alarm will go off in a few hours.

Today I got tired of being with my group and decided to do something else instead. Surprisingly the 63 year old Finnish woman and another cool woman judge from Brazil felt the same way so we decided to go check out the island of Iona today.  The isle of Iona  has a very old abbey from the 5th century. It was really peaceful and spiritual. We saw several wild reindeer, one seal, wild goats, and hairy coos (the scottish pronounciation for hairy cows). We were expecting to see some puffins but we didnt see any.

Tonight I made shahi peas (Indian dish) and naan (from store) for our guide Neil. Everyone wanted to try the dish and the manager came over and commented on its popularity so I am quite happy. Neil also bought some Indian beer called Cobra (snake) and after two glasses I am looking forward to going to bed!

On Sunday I meet with Mommy for a two week tour of Europe. I am a little apprehensive of spending two whole weeks with Mommy alone but I decided at the beginning of the year that I wanted to spend quality time with my family so I am also looking forward to it.

At the town of Inverness a couple of nights back, our guide Neil bullied us into going to a pub for some Scottish dancing. I went at 10:30pm thinking the place would be filled with drunk people. Surprisngly it was the most fun I have had at a pub. 20 of us learned some intricate scottish dance moves. There were two musicians and it was complicated as hell because it involved the whole group. It was super fun. After that I went to a really fancy restaurant and got sticky toffee pudding. Its a well known English dessert that I really wanted to try.

The tour ends on Saturday so there are only two days left now. Today we are in the town of Oban and tomorrow we go see some seals.

We are at the Isle of Skye - a tiny island off the west coast of Scotland. We did so many varied things today, we went to a tiny town called portee and then drove all around the island. Went for a really long hike on a really steep mountainside where we saw tons of wild goats with thier tiny little kids. The trial was barely six inches wide at some point, kind of a little scary because of the height. The 63 year old finnish women beat the hell out of us again. She just ran up the mountain side. She has the energy of a 10 year old girl.

Fairies are apparently a big thing out here, we went and saw some tiny hillocks that looked exactly like fairy land. That was kind of exotic and then went and swam in a river. I dont have to make Indian food :), Neil is making Italian.

I am three shades darker because of the sun, warm warm day out here.

On Sunday May 7th I started a seven day tour of Scotland with macbackpackers.com. It has been the most amazing experience so far. Its 11 of us from all over the place - New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, South Africa and then one Indian girl. There is this 63 year old woman from Finland who kicks my ass while walking. She is almost jogging and I start huffing and puffing in twenty minutes. For my friends, I have successfully jogged 20 minutes 3 times so far so I am quite happy. My new goal is 1 hour jogging - yes I know I am crazy.

Scotland is really beautiful, our guide Neil has this cute Scottish accent and is very resouceful on Scottish history. The whole tour starts at 9:30am every morning and lasts till 2am. Neil stops at all these places that we wouldnt stop as normal tourists, today we went to a beach close to the Isle of Skye that even he was seeing for the first time. The tour stops at a hostel every night. People are really super friendly. One night I was really tired and this girl came up and offered my vegeterian soup.

Tomorrow night, Neil and I are making Indian food for the whole group. I am crossing my fingers its not a disaster.