Las Fiestas de San Juan Y La Copa Mundial

Hi everyone!  This may be my last post because I’m heading out on my one month-long trip tomorrow.  (I don’t have time to put pictures on this site, but they are all in the albums here at: http://picasaweb.google.com/x3xleggedxninja )

First off I’ll be heading to Milan, Italy.   From there I’ll be going up to Sion, Switzerland and meeting a travel buddy there named Sevy for a few days.  She knows Switzerland very well so I’m very excited for everything that is in store for me there.  She also speaks French, so when we head back down into Italy, between our English, her French, my Spanish and limited Portuguese I don’t see how we’ll have any trouble at all getting around.

We plan on heading to Venice, Cinque Terre (look up pictures of this place!), Florence, and Rome for sure, as well as maybe including a day or two in either Pisa/Sienna/Civita/Orivieto.  Rome is as far south as I’ll get in Italy, before we part our separate ways and she heads back up to Switzerland.  I’m very excited for these places in Italy, and I’m sure I’ll want to head back to explore the rest of it once I’m done.

Anyways, from there I will go to Budapest, Hungary on the 19th to stay with a friend I met here in León, Berta.  She was wonderful to hang out with here in León and I know I’ll have a great time there too.

Afterwards on the 23 I’ll go up to Cologne again to see Jasmin, and depending on my poorness, I may head down to Munich to meet a German kid I met at the Centro here.

On August 2 I’ll come back to León, stay a night here, then it’s off to Madrid with two more stops between there and Portland.  So basically in the next month I’ll be at least on 7 separate planes.  As long as getting back to the US takes less than my last 72+ hour trips back from Brazil, I’ll be happy.

I’m also happy to say that this last week has been one of the best in León.  There has been a festival called Las Fiestas de San Juan, which involves fairs, burning stuff down, watching fireworks, drinking lots, and more.  There has been tons of stuff to go around and buy and lots of people out.  On top of that, school just got out (I had my last exam on Monday, my grades should come out really well actually) so students are kind of going crazy, along with all the foreign people having their “despedidas” (going away parties).

And on top of THAT, it has been the World Cup which is AWESOME to watch here in Europe, especially with a team as great as Spain.  I watched my last game yesterday here in Spain, where Spain beat Portugal and I made a little video so you can all see what the center of León is like after they won.

It’s of the Plaza Mayor, the cathedral, and the Calle Ancha.

Now that they won I feel like I need to take my Spanish jersey with me traveling so I can support them in their next game(s).  Anyways, it’s just great to be where so many people care about the sport, and I’m lucky to have been here during this time.  I’m sorry Italy and Switzerland are out since I’m going there…

So that’s really all that has been going on.  Studying and enjoying the atmosphere that León dominates during summer and desperately lacks during any other time of the year.  I went on an excursion to La Cueva de Valporquero a while ago and took a video of that, but haven’t had the time to put it together.

Thanks a lot for those of you that have been checking out what I’ve been doing.  I know I have very little good things to say about the study abroad situation in León, but the one thing I’ll take back from this trip will be the traveling, which I don’t think I really have anything bad to say about.  Traveling here as been wonderful.  And I’ve been in every community of Peninsular Spain except for 1, which is a pretty big achievement.  Up here in the north we get commercials of the south (Andalucía, just one part of Spain) and it’s pretty cool to say you’ve been to every recognizable place in the video:

So I guess that’s all.  I hope you’re all well, and I’ll be back in the US on August 4 after traveling one month with a 14-15 pound backpack!!  Let’s hope everything goes smoothly.

Love you all,

Nate

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~ by x3xleggedxninja on June 30, 2010.