So I am back from my whirlwind summer in Europe. In St. Louis, MO right now at my mom's beautiful house in the suburbs. Its nice to see the family of course and to be grounded for a little while, have some good food and a comfortable bed. I sit here and look back at this summer which started in New York. I had left my job in mid-May and had a good six weeks of partying and enjoying the city with my friends, which got pretty excessive if I can say so myself! I left for London on the first of July, flew to Paris a few days later, which was a great trip. I had not been to Paris in 7 years and had a great experience this time. Met up with some friends from New York and we had a great time there. Also went to Chambord to see the Chateau with my friend Samira. Headed down to Aix-en-Provence after that to see my good friend Anjuli. Beautiful, little city, great feel, very unlike Paris, quaint, medieval looking, and everyone knows each other. Had a lot of great nights there with Anjuli and her friends. Headed to Nice after that, stayed in a beautiful hostel in the hills called Villa de Saint Exupery, which used to be a monastery. Met a good group of people there, we went to Eze and Monaco, enjoyed the Nice nightlife, walked a lot, made baguette sandwiches, pasta dinners and definitely hit up the nice beaches of Nice! After that I headed down to Spain, to Barcelona by bus from Marseilles. I had lived there for 2 months 4 years ago and the city had not changed that much, I still love it and the life and the spirit and had a fun four days there. Wanted to go to Valencia after but there was no lodging available so I did Alicante before which was a good idea because I needed a relaxing couple of days to undo the damage of France and Barcelona. Was there by myself, did a lot of walking, reading, had some good food, went to the beach. Made it to Valencia after a few days and stayed in a great hostel called Home, met some cool people there and we had some great nights at the bars and long, lazy beach days together. Valencia definitely joined Barcelona in my list of favorite Spanish cities. Afterwards I headed down to Granada where I was interested in subletting an apartment for six weeks and breaking journey for a while. Stayed in another beautiful hostel called Oasis in the Albaizin district, which is the old Arabic quarter. Met a cool Aussie there, who would become my housemate for the next month, since the apartment I rented had two bedrooms. Granada was great, the six weeks went by so fast and I met a lot of amazing people and have some great memories and photographs. The Alhambra was spectacular, especially the Palacio Nazaries, everyone should go there at some point in their lives, although ideally not in August like I did! My housemate Georgie and I took a week long trip to some other Southern Spanish towns: Tarifa, Sevilla and Marbella. Tarifa was gorgeous, beautiful beaches, great little town center and streets, and full of Italians! Sevilla is a gorgeous city, also among my favorite Spanish cities, "the fiery capital of Andalucia" as my Lonely Planet described it. Gorgeous people, sights and nightlife. A little hot but not unbearably so, its just dry heat, no humidity. We got to Marbella when their annual festival was peaking and the streets were filled with drunk, festive people in traditional garb. We got some great shots and I enjoyed a one liter Mojito only for 6 Euros! Georgie left for Italy soon after, and I started two weeks of advanced Spanish, and also opened up a CouchSurfing account so I could share my second bedroom with travellers. I hosted a bunch of people, and made some good friends. Stay tuned for the next part.
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