Street Art of Florence

I've been to Florence a couple of times now, and I've noticed various street art signs there and throughout Europe. But, this trip spotting the redesigned street signs became a bit of an obsession for Caitlin and me.

Most of these signs are "hacked" by street artist Clet Abraham, a French artist based in Italy.

Here is some of what we found, just in Florence. I'm on the lookout for others!

And, what would Florence in December be without a picture of the Duomo and a beautiful Christmas tree.

Florence's Duomo in December

Stockholm...in December...Brrrrrr!

Early in December, I packed up all my winter gear and prepared for the freezing temperatures of Stockholm. I had been invited to attend the Google Teacher Academy, so the timing of this trip was not my personal choice. But, I was thrilled to be part of this small, selective group.

a beautiful view of the city

I arrived in Stockholm after 15 hours of travel. I'm quite sure I could have made it all the way to the States in the amount of time it took me to travel from Milan to Stockholm, but at least I made it on that first day. I had allowed only one day for sightseeing in Stockholm and losing that would have been truly disappointing.

On Monday, my roommate for the few days, Stephanie, and I headed out to check out the major sites and do some shopping. Stephanie and I had "met" on Twitter and I asked her to share the hotel room I had reserved. She had arrived earlier than I had and was able to show me some of the places she had checked out already. We found lots of great places to shop and spend all our money since Sweden is definitely not cheap. I found it comparable to Zurich, which also stood out as above standard European expenses.

checked out the Christmas markets in the Old Town

the Royal Palace

Brrr! But it wasn't as cold as I expected it to be!

Please notice that it's 3:30 and the moon is fully visible. 

The 2nd and 3rd days of my trip were spent in Google Stockholm. I met a lot of great people and was able to make some new connections with people in jobs similar to mine. At the end of our long first day (about 12 hours) a large group of us headed to the Ice Bar. I had never been to a bar like this before and felt like this was an appropriate location to have this experience. It was cold! And cool! And only necessary for one drink.

Now one of about 1,400 in the world!

celebrating at the Ice Bar with Stephanie and Anne

The Fiera. It's a Monstrous Thing.

I heard about the Fiera when first moving to Milan. I was told it was a big festival filled with food and gifts from all over the world.

I was thinking something along the lines of Christmas Made in the South, but I was really not even close.

You have to multiply that by 10-- and then you might have the right idea.

The Fiera is held just outside of Milan in Rho for 10 days right at the beginning of December. It's convenient that you can take the red Metro line straight out there. But, beware, a regular urban ticket won't cut it! You must buy the ticket for Rho, and it's €2.50 each way.

This year I was able to go twice. Caitlin and I went once mainly to eat and snack on delicious foods that are difficult to find here on a regular basis. We had a dinner of German pretzels and beer and snacked on English cheddar cheese. Mmmmmmmm....

Yum!

Cheddar cheese: does not exist in Italy.

I went again on Saturday with the intent of doing a little shopping. The venue gets so crowded that you really have to map out a plan and strategy to avoid being overwhelmed. The last two years I've learned that the European and Italian sections have the best stuff. There is a US section, which seems to indicate that every American is a cowboy and most of the Asian and African stuff is cheap and doesn't feel well made.

But there is good food to be had and fun presents to be bought. Many people come with a suitcase or trolley cart to load up all their purchases. And this year they sold a trolley for €3. It's really unbelievable. There's also live music in different halls.

a Scottish band that was pretty great!

beer garden

salsiccia!

pretzel and strudel

the Hungarian section

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Bar...Bar...Barcelona!

Thanksgiving seemed to fall sooooooooooooo late this year. But, I guess that the perk of that is now it's already December and I can start counting the days until I get to return to the States and visit my family.

15 days!!!!!!!!!!!

However, the Thanksgiving holiday gave me a four day weekend and I was off to Barcelona. Thankfully, my key to my apartment jammed on Tuesday (and not Wednesday) and gave me time to have it fixed long before I had to jet off to the airport. Thankfully, my landlords are pretty great in that they took over figuring things about getting the whole situation straightened out but it did mean I was locked out of my apartment for about 19 hours. Argh. Thankfully, Caitlin came through and fed me dinner and let me sleep over so that I wasn't stuck outside. This was definitely one occurrence that reminds you that expat life isn't always easy.

Anyways, on to Barcelona!

We arrived easily by AeroBus (€10.80 or so round trip) to Placa de Catalunya and took the metro out to our hotel. I've always heard that Barcelona is notorious for pick pocketing and simple thieves. We hadn't been in town for more than two minutes when some guy tried to open the top section of my backpack. I felt something brush against me and turned and looked around to see some creepy guy a little too close for comfort. He moved away and I got on the metro. Stacia checked out my bag and said the top portion was open. I keep my iPhone there, so I'm happy to report that the thief was unable to ruin my weekend, because my iPhone was safe and sound!!! What a relief!!!

Stacia and me!

We wandered around Thursday night a bit, checking out the area where we were staying and hopping the metro back in to the main part of the city. We tried some tapas at a little joint near the hotel and then headed towards a recommendation from Angela. Oddly enough, we made our way to the place and then ran into Angela! So funny!

Barcelona...under the lights!

On Friday, we started our day at Starbucks (of course!). We decided to check out the Sandeman's Free Tour of the city. While the tour was good, I had a hard time connecting with the history of Barcelona so I spent the time taking pictures and enjoying the sites. We met up with Angela again and she gave us a back alley tour of her old neighborhood. The Gothic Quarter is a really cool section of the city. We indulged in some more tapas and shopped around. Before we went back to the hotel, we had another round of tapas, which quite frankly intimidated us since we couldn't identify anything!

so cute!

Saturday we went to Sagrada Familia. I had booked tickets for the entrance, audio guide and a tower tour in advance. That was the best decision since we didn't wait in any lines at all! Sagrada Familia is Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece. It was so unique and so intricate. I loved that it was meaningful and yet playful all at the same time. I mean there is fruit on the top of some pillars, curved staircases and lines, and so many unique touches.

Passion Facade
cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo by Martin Pilát:
http://flickr.com/photos/martinpilat/4930300304/

close up of one element of the Passion Facade

fruit, from part of the Passion tower...of course, this place is always under construction

from the tower you could see all the way to the sea!

We also took a stroll past the Block of Disorder, a set of houses designed by Gaudi and others, in the same modernistic design. I really loved the house of his design. Next we moved on to La Rambla and took a stroll down to the Columbus monument and the port of Barcelona. I also went out to Parc Guell to see more Gaudi design.

La Pedrera

kind of love this one...

at the port

Barcelona was a great city and I hope to make it back again. There's so much more to see and do that I didn't get to this time around.

On another note, my favorite sister had a birthday this week! Wishing her the best of days!

Happy Birthday Cece!

Have you been to Barcelona? What's your favorite thing to do in the city?