Beachy waves and Hockey fields.

Hello world!
I'm back with another travel post!
This time I will be talking about my trip to Valencia. The trip was a graduation present for my sister and I of sorts. We went for 5 days, from monday to friday. I just got back which is why this post is a little (A LOT) late. I want to try an upload a post every friday from now on as I have more time during the summer holidays. So back to Valencia, as most of you might know, Valencia is a big city on the east coast of Spain. It has a few very impresive and famous musea apart from an historical centre. And beautiful beaches, lots of them. Apart from going to the beach and to the musea, we went to a six nations field hockey tournament. The last training tournament befor the olympics. My sister and I where very excited as it was men hockey and we had wanted to see a few players in particular before they went to Rio.


Well firstly we had to get to Valencia. It was a 7 hour drive, which my sister and I are used to as we do it occasionally for hockey. Besides we had American Horror Story (Love that show!) season 4 Freakshow, to keep us entertained. After a long car journey we finally arrived in Valencia, at our apartment. It was part of a big complex called Port Saplaya. If you ever go to Valencia I suggest staying there. It is cheap but offers good quality, includes passes to a pool and is literally 5 steps from the beach. The only "bad" thing is that there is no WIFI, but hey we can live without that right?
The first thing we did after dropping our bags of was go shopping for food, there is a big supermarket about a 5 minute walk from the appartments. I was excited to go there just because they have these A-MAZING cinnamon-apple muffins they don't sell anywhere else, or not as far as I know. I am literally obsessed with them so naturally I ate one (Okay maybe 2) every single day.

We where lucky to get an apartment with a big balcony wich had a perfect view of the beach. unfortunatly for us, we where in the west so there where no sunsets from this part of the beach. So my sister and I decided to go out one morning at 6.30 AM to watch the sunrise just like I did the year before. Only this time, my camera's memory card decided to die, so I only had my camera, but I will include a couple pictures I took last year.

Apart from taking lots of pictures of the beach and going to the beach, which caused my hair to become very frizzy and wavy (hence the title). We went to the "Ciudad de las artes y las ciencias." which is essentially a bunch of beautiful buildings designed by the architect Calatrava in the "Jardin del turia" There is 6 different musea but we only went to 2 as we didn't have a lot of time, and wheren't really interested in the other ones.

On the second day in Valencia we visited the science museum which was very exciting for me as I am a big science geek (I also studied science Bachillerato) I was suprised about the amount of things in the museum I actually allready knew. It wasn't as excited as we expected but it was good eitherway.
The day after that we went to the Oceanographic, which is a big marine museum/zoo. There are lots of different acuaria with different sea animals of all different parts of the world. It was a lot bigger and nicer then expected. I have always loved the ocean and marine life, so naturally I was very (VERY) excited. My favourite things was the acuarium with the sharks (I have a strange facination/obsession with sharks.) and the Dolphin show, as dolphins are one of my favourite animals.

Of course we can't forget the six nations tournament!
We went for 2 days/ evenings as there where 3 matches each day that started at 4 PM. There where many different hockeyplayers I was dying to meet, and my sister in true stalker style, where hunting for pictures, we forgot to take anything they could sign so we had to deal with just pictures.
I will not go into further detail as it will be very boring for you guys. I am going to add a couple of pictures with a few players from New Zealand and Ireland, who are going to Rio.

Hope you liked this post!
Have an amazing day/ night wherever you are and I will see you guys next week.

Simoneex

Art overload & fairytale walks.

Hello world!

Recently I uploaded a blog post about my trip to madrid. As it was getting very long and I still had a lot of photos and things I wanted to show you/ talk about, I decided to make a seperate blog post mainly about the things we discovered the last day in Madrid.
So enjoy!

Prado Museum:
Now the Prado Museum is heaven for anyone who loves art, paintings and history. I am a bit of a history nerd, so I simply had to go. I had allready been twice before, but this year at school one of my most important subjects was History, this subject appart from studying things that had ocurred in Spain in the XIX and XX century we also had to analize documents and paintings/photographs from these time periods. Two of which are located in the Prado, which was my main reason for revisiting, knowing I would look at these paintings with a diferent point of view then before having studied them. Apart from these paintings by Goya (spanish painter) there was a piece from Rembrant and various paintngs from Jeroen Bosch (who was born in the same town as I). My sister and I roamed the beautiful halls of the Prado museum for several hours before leaving to get some lunch. unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside so a picture of the building will have to do.

After lunch (Pizza) we went to the Retiro park, a very famous part in the middle of Madrid. It was very big and beautiful, with maze like foresty walks and a cristal palace. After walking around for about an hour we sat under a tree on some towels we brought and enjoyed the last hour or so we had in Madrid. It was very hot by the way (35ºC). The last thing we visited was the rose garden, or at least I call it that. It was filled with different types of roses and fountains with arches covered in roses as well, it was very fairytale like. But I will stop talking now and let the pictures speak for itself.

Have an amazing day/ night!
XxSimone

Madrid adventures!

Hello world!

Yes, I know, I haven't written a blog post in agees!! But I have a reason, hopefully for you a valid one. I had to study. It's as simple as that. I was in my final year of Bachillerato ( similar to the english A-levels). and had final exams, but now I have summer holidays so I will be able to write a post a week probably.

This week is another travel post. This time of Madrid. I went to Madrid for a concert with my sister.(5SOS concert BTW). We where only there for a weekend flying in on friday and back on Sunday night but we saw a lot of things. This wasn't my first time in Madrid but i was once again amazed by the amazing architecture and the atmosphere of the city. It was a lot busier then I was used to, and I was quite nervous going alone with my younger sister (she's 16). But the city was very welcoming and people where very friendly. It was very hard to get lost actually as everything is very easy and we where lucky to have a room in a small hostel in the centre of the main avenue (Gran Vía). On friday night we went to dinner in my all time favourite restaurant, I had only been there  once but fell in love all over again. The restaurant was called Tommy Mel's and is an american 50's diner. They had all kinds of typical american food (obviously) but apart from that, the entire interior decoration seemed to take you back in time, all was 50's inpsired, looking a lot like a scene straight from Grease (amazing film!) I had an amazing chicken BBQ hamburger with sweet potato chips while my sister had a cheese burger with normal chips. There was an old jukebox in one corner and everything was white, light blue and hot pink, which I think is an amazing combination. Everything was completed by two couples who performed dances on songs from Grease and Hairspray, complete with checked blouses and big black skirts. It was the perfect start of our small holiday. Also the prices are very accesible, it's slightly more expensive as a normal hamburger restaurant but with way better quality. As dessert I got american pancakes with maple syrup and whipped cream (A-MAZING!), something I had never tried before, and my sister had a massive vainilla milkshake, with two straws (Yup we where on a sister date ;)).

 Day 2:

The next day was the day of the concert so we took it easy. We got up after a nice sleep in our very small but cosy room and got breakfast. after that we went shopping dying to visit the new Primark that recently opened on Gran Vía and was said to be amazing. It was! It had 5 floors and was located in an amazinly beautiful building, alltough it was big. the way they build it was very good, as it was a round building, you would start at one point and just walk around till you got to the beggining again and could go up a floor. We didn't buy any clothing but I did buy a few nice accesories (like a new phone case full of glitter). After wards we went to H&M, where they had some nice dresses and other clothes (obviously). My sister and I both bought a dress, and I also bought some other items of clothing.

Then we went back to the hostel and watched some tv (Pirates of the Carribean) and got ready for the concert. After that we got on the Metro(subway) to head towards the venue where the concert would take place. In the metro we met two lovely girls from Menorca (balear isles) who where meeting up with three other friends from Cantabria (North of Spain). So there was a whole mix of accents. They where all very excited and nervous (me a little less as I'm not a big fan) after the concert, which was amazing BTW, we all had dinner together at burger king (Yup, super healthy).
Then we went back home and watched some more tv before going to bed, dreaming about the awesome night we had.

Day 3:

On our last day we woke up still on a concert high, especially my sister. We had breakfast, packed our suitcases and left our room. After that we went exploring the city and did some more shopping.(The shops where opened on sunday.) armed with backpacks and my camera we looked like your basic tourist. But we didn't really care as we where very excited to see all the beautiful buildings and other sights. It was a very warm and sunny day which made the city look even nicer. First we went to the Prado museum, a very big museum with some very famous and important pieces of art from spanish history. As a history freak I was very excited! haha. After strolling around the museum for a couple of hours we went and got lunch in a small restaurant called "La cocina de Neptuno" (Neptune's kitchen). We both chose pizza (DUH) which where delicious. After lunch we walked towards the Retiro Park, a big park in the middle of madrid, which has two small palace's a rose garden and many fields. We walked around for a while befre lying down and relaxing in the shade. But I will do a seperate blog post on our park adventures. unfortunatly, after the park we had to collect our suitcases and make our way towards Madrid's airport. Our flight left at 22:30 but we wanted to get to the airport early as it is massive and neither of us had ever been there. After 2 hours of waiting we boarded our plane and back home it was.

So yeah, that where our Madrid adventures. hope you enjoyed and if you're visiting Madrid soon, let me know and I can give you some directions of the best places to visit/ eat.
Have an amazing day/ night wherever you are!

xxSimoneee23

Hockey.

Hello again!
So this post is a little different as it is not about moving or any trips I have been on, but about one of my biggest passions: Hockey.
I learned how to play hockey when I was 9, but I didn't start training untill I was 13. Ever since my first day I have loved it and stopping never crossed my  mind not even when I got hurt. (Which happened a lot...)
I started playing at C.D. Málaga 91 and would also compete with them. But this year I am competing with another club called Isla de Leon, a 3 hour drive from where I live. All this because my club,being very small, doesn't have a team competing in my age category and I can honestly not live without competing.

 Ever since I started we would compete both at indoor and field hockey.
The first big competition I went to where the 2011 u14 andalucian indoor championships. We had to place first to go trough to nationals, which we did after a very hard final. I won't go into detail because you probably won't like it. Normally after the "state" championships you have qualification rounds from which only 2 or 3 teams of each round qualify for nationals. But this year the first team in the andalucian region went straight to nationals. Us in this case. We travelled to Valencia with the only hopes of not becoming last at nationals. We won our fist match, and our second, and our tird. tied our last two mathes and before we knew it we where in the top 4 and playing the semi-finals. We where on cloud nine, thinking we where unbeatable but got knocked down when we lost the semi finals against Club de Campo (Madrid) 4-2. We where all very upset but determined to win third place. And not just because our coach had promised we could cut of his ponytail if we won a medal (Altough it did play a big part haha.) We had to play against atletic tarrasa a club near Barcelona, who had won nationals the year before. We played before the final which was Club de Campo against Valdeluz, both from Madrid. Most people came to watch our match as they believed it to be more spectacular then the other one. We didn't know it at the time but a team from Andalucia had never before ended that high. We played a good match and ended up winning 1-0. To say we where happy was an undertstatement. We jumped,dances,cried and celebrated. When it was time to collect our trophy and medals we acted very professional and relaxed (NOT). We took tons of pictures before getting in to our van and embarcing on the 7 hour journey back home. But not before cutting of our coached hair and storing it in our cup oh and taking lots of photos!

After that competition we where one of the countries "star" teams we had a few news paper articles dedicated to us trough which we found out we actaully wrote history, being the fisrt under 14 team from andalucia to win a medal at a national championship.

After this year, I got a bad knee injury and spent 8 months without training. I tried everything I could to get back as soon as possible and I managed to get back in shape just in time for the u14 field hockey qualification rounds for nationals, which we unfortunately lost, not qualifing. Since then we have won Andalucian indoor chamionships 5 years in a row in 3 different categories ( u14,u16 and u18) went to several national chamionships both indoor and field and even had the honour of playing against the english U21 selection team (a HUGE honour!)

I still play hockey but now play in the senior division or over 18, which this year is with another team. I love my teammates and they have become like a family to me. They are some of my best friends, and with some of them I share classes such as my best friend sandra (pictured below). I literally see Sandra (almost) everyday. We do nearly everything together. We have even ended up in hospital together with the same injury (Best friend goals anyone?)

So yeah that's about it on hockey, I mean I could ramble on and on, but that would just bore you all... If you play or played hockey let me know! or if there is any other sport you love just as much as I love Hockey and need someone to talk to I am here as I understand you completly! Now I will leave you with another couple Hockey photos.

Bye!
                                                                       Simonexx

Padua, Venice & Milan

And I'm back!
This is the last part of my Italian trip.
First up is Padua or Padova.
We only spend half a day there as we where travelling through to get to Venice.
Padua was very cold but very beautiful. In some ways it looked a bit like venice with some canals running through the city. We didn't see much as we where only there a short time. We visited the church, the town square and the university. After visiting the church which had a lovely patio, my friends and I had a little photo session. After that we got back on the bus and continued our trip to Venice.

  

Venice:

When we got to our hotel it was dark,raining and freezing. So we quickly got inside and went to dinner, which for once was not terrible as it had a salad bar. After that I went to bed early aa my throat was on fire. So hoping I would get better I went to bed early. The next morning I still felt bad, but not wanting to miss Venice I went along anyway not knowing it was going to rain all day and I would be walking around with a fever.Venice, even tough it was raining and cold, was beautiful! I had seen a lot of pictures as anybody would but to just be there was unbelievable. It is truly a beautiful city. We had to be carefull as the city was flooding because of all the rain. I took quite a few pictures but not as many as I would like. I didn't take my camera with me as it was raining and honestly I felt very bad. We also had the bad luck that the most famous bridge was being renovated. I had more bad luck as we happened to have the best lunch of the entire holiday that day, just the day I could barely swallow a thing. But oh well, there are worst things in the world.

After lunch we walked around Venice some more visiting a classical music exhibition. In the evening we took a boat back to our hotel, where we had dinner and quickly shoved all my things in my suitcase as the next day we would be leaving for Milan from where we were going to fly back home.

Milan:

Now this is going to be short as I only went to the cathedral and the famous gallery before going to lunch and leaving for the airport. It was once again raining, like what is up with this country and rain? why does it have to rain the week we are there like seriously? So i took some pictures and sought shelter from the rain inside the gallery with some friends where we waited for the teachers to take us to the restaurant and then we went of to the airport, where we checked in and waited, and waited, and waited. (our flight got delayed.) When we got to Madrid we had to run and catch our next flight to Malaga which luckily hadn't left yet.

We got back home late at night and as I was still ill I went straight to bed.

Sorry for the picture overload.

So that's it for now. Hope you have an amazing day/ night!

Simonexx