Surprise Sardinia!

Hola guys! Today we're gonna talk about Sardinia, which is surprising because it is completely out of order. Madrid, Toledo, and Florence are in the works, but the pictures are not ready yet so I figured that surprise something is better than nothing. So, without further ado I give you Sardinia:

We selected the Italian island of Sardinia to visit in celebration of Kaitlyn Nolan's birthday. Kaitlyn was my roommate for the first 2 years of college and remains, as we say in Spain, my media naranja (literally: half orange. In practice: other half). Marie and Erica met us there. For the more visual learners, here are the players:

From L to R, Marie, Kaitlyn, Erica, and some random stranger

We got off to a bit of a rocky start. We had booked a villa on the beach (cheaper than it sounds) but 24 hours before arriving we found out that the property is actually closed for renovations. Expedia had let us pay regardless, so after some brutal phone calls on the part of Kaityn's daddy, we got refunded and did not have to pay the cancellation fee that they wanted to charge. Luckily, we were able to book a hostal for 3 nights in Cagliari, which is the same town the airport is in. The reception was nice and the rooms were much better than we expected. We had booked an 8 person room (that was all there was left) but they put us in a 4 person instead. Kaitlyn, Erica, and I were in one room with a random woman and Marie was in a room down the hall, cuz of the short notice. This is more or less what it looked like/what we did there:

Kaitlyn, in our window

The room! Kaitlyn and I slept upstair and we stuck Erica downstairs because she snores

Me! and the view

The plaza below our window, plus a rooftop garden (what i'm pointing at)

Many of you know that I am a raptor in my spare time....

Marie's room, trying to fix the bathroom doow

The Birthday Girl!!!

Us! If you need a refresher, we are Marie, Erica, Self, and Kaitlyn

The city itself was beautiful, when it wasn't raining. It poured both mornings but cleared up around afternoon and we were able to go hiking around an old fort area and the main port:

This is also the plaza below the hostal

No idea what this building is

Marie and Me!

2 lighthouses

Old fort-type thing

Hiking to the fort

Tower with drawbridge!! scroll down for more...

So Spiky!!!

From the stairs of the tower

We had coffee on this street

This one's for you Momma!

Lunch!

Erica and Kaitlyn at the birthday lunch

Patio where we had coffee

Birthday dinner!

The main port

So there you have my Italian adventure. Well, one of them. I have quite the week coming up, finals start in 11 days and I have a few presentations to give. I'll be back at this every spare minute, I promise! For those of you who are counting, I will be home in 34 days. This is kind of bittersweet, but I'll be poorer than a rock in a few weeks so it's probably best that I come back. On that cheerful note,

Hasta Luego!