Spain provides plenty of finals week distractions

Preparing for finals is difficult in Spain. I’m without a 24-hour library, midnight screams and the collective stress of 40,000-plus students. Instead, I’m surrounded by the best weather I could ask for, a beach within minutes and a culture that exudes relaxation.

I really just want to drink sangria in the park — staying inside is nearly impossible.

Schoolwork aside though, my Semana Santa proved to be one of the most interesting travel experiences thus far.

First, I went to Prague with Charlotte. We had planned to go to Amsterdam, or Italy, or Portugal. But if I’ve learned anything from making travel plans, nothing is in stone until tickets are purchased and we eventually bought two to Prague.

Prague is considered the most westernized city in Eastern Europe so I’m eager to see other parts of Eastern Europe because Prague was different than any other European city I’ve visited. It was beautiful and mysterious and fascinating.

We had a guidebook, but no set plans aside from our shared interest in exploration. So we toured the Prague Castle, unsuccessfully searched for the John Lennon graffiti wall and instead stumbled upon an underground exhibit of the history of mining in Prague. The last part was more eerie than educational.

Another thing about Prague: They use the Czech crown, which translated to about 18 crowns to every dollar. Dropping 200 crowns a meal felt sweet until I realized it’s only about $10.

I can’t leave Prague without mentioning the bone church. Charlotte and I bought train tickets to where we hoped was the right destination — a little town called Kutna Hora — and ended up at an exhibit of bones of more than 40,000 people. So replace the plague victims with the stressed-out MSU students and you get the idea.

The small church welcomed visitors with a chandelier made of bones, a family crest made of bones, light fixtures made of bones and if that’s not enough bones — each corner had a floor-to-ceiling display of human bones. To say it was bone chilling would be cliché, but true in every way possible.

I stopped in Valencia for a day before jet-setting to London to stay with my friend, Alice.

My first reaction: English language.

After four months or hearing Spanish, or German, French or Czech, hearing English everywhere felt foreign. I could communicate without stumbling over complicated Spanish constructions or the most basic Czech words.

My friend Alice let me stay with her and 20 other study abroad students in a flat that’s about as clean as a frat house, but it’s across the street from Hyde Park and was free so I didn’t complain.

Instead, I walked around the park and it smelled like freshly cut grass and spring flowers. I saw Buckingham Palace, other British stuff like that and ate fish and chips. I went to Portobello Market, bought a funky dress and soaked up more history at the Imperial War Museum.

I went to the London Tower, but didn’t want to pay 17 pounds to get in so I just took pictures of the outside and watched a demonstration in ancient weaponry.

After a walk across the London Bridge, I got to the Globe Theater just in time to get a free tour of the place in celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday. I walked around inside, wishing I had read more Shakespeare or had more patience for crowds of tourists.

I read two lines from a Sonnet on camera as part of the theater’s attempt to break the world record to number of sonnets read in one day (though my guess is they’re probably just trying to break their own previous record). Then I went to the Tate Modern where I enjoyed some of the art, tried to understand more of it and thought the rest was just pretentious.

After a week of trains, planes and cross-cultural interactions, coming back to Valencia felt like coming back home.