One week!!

Today is our one week anniversary in España!

But first I shall update on the events of yesterday.

Yesterday we went to the Palacio Real (The Royal Palace) aka my new house.  It's located close to where I'm going to be staying.


We did the audio tour of the place since it's quite large and there's a lot to look at.  It's all very lavishly decorated.  It's hard to imagine people actually LIVING there as opposed to it being a museum.  But I did learn that the palace is still used by the current monarchs (Spain is like Britain in terms of government) for special functions.  It's fun to imagine being a princess or the queen and being able to call a place like that one of your homes.  One of the coolest things we saw was the Royal Armory, which we didn't see on our last trip to Spain.  It was really awesome.  The suits of armor were lavish and ornamental and they had all these old weapons etc. Really cool.  After the palace we walked to see the Egyptian temple of Debod, buttt found out it's closed the entire month of August (when most Europeans take their vacations).  But the good thing is I'll be able to go back when it reopens.  Since that didn't work out, we walked a bit more north and rode the Teleferico! It's a cable car that takes you from the center of Madrid out to the Casa del Campo.  It's a really cool ride, and lets you see the city from an entirely different angle.  It's only 11 min each way, so we got off at the other end and looked around.  It had a lot of trails for biking, hiking, areas for picnics etc.  It's still technically in Madrid, but it might as well be in the desert-y/forrest-y type area.  Whist riding I discovered mi nuevo novio.  He was muy guapo as the Spainards would say.  Very muscle-y and such.  He waved to us, and it was amor a la primera vista. There's a cool amusement park in the distance.  If I can find out how to get there I'll go.  We rode the teleferico back, all happy and whatnot.  Got some food after that since we were a little hungry.  But the place was kind of a rip off. ( In Spain you have to ask for tap water, agua de grifas (from the pipes) or else they'll give you bottled water, and that can be expensive.)  After that however, we went to a flamenco show.  It was really great.  The dancers were fantastic, esp. the male one (mi otro novio). Carolyn liked him too. We decided he could dance for us whenever he wanted :) But it was a really great show overall too.  Very intimate setting, drink included, and just overall cozy and fun.  It was a nice way to see some other cultural aspects of Spain, besides art.



Today, our one week anniversary in Spain (ish, we left home a week ago and didn't technically arrive in Madrid till Saturday) we planned on picking up our rental car and driving the 1hr and a half trip to visit Segovia.  Pero, fue un disastre.  We got a late start, it took a million phone calls, and walking all over the freaking train station to find the place where you pick up the rental car. It took legitimately hours to find the rental car place, then dad had to go back and get the passports to pick up the car, then we had to go find the car, like I said disastre! Then it was too late to drive all the way to Segovia so we decided on El Escorial and Valley of the Fallen instead.  Then there was traffic on the highway, then Valley of the Fallen was closed due to maintenance and security blah blah blah... SO we ended up just doing El Escorial.  It was nice though.  It's an old monastery and palace together.  We did the audio tour again, but it talked too much about some things so we skipped a few and just looked around instead. Again you couldn't take pictures of the really old things.  We were going to get something to eat afterwards in Escorial town, buttt we couldn't find public parking, and we faced life and death situations with our parents driving around hilly streets in stick shift cars. So we convinced them to just go home instead of risking our lives, or them killing each other, neither of which would have been good. We ended up on the scenic route home, but it was really cool (other than being afraid of dying) to drive down the mountains.   When we FINALLY arrived home, we decided it was time for our tapas crawl.  A tapas crawl is when you go from bar to bar and have a drink and order just little bits to eat.  I had three great glasses of wine... make that 4, and some really delicious tapas, some of the best being on C/ Cava Baja.  So we made our rounds and enjoyed some gelato in the end.  Tomorrow, we're possibly heading our to wine country so more interesting car rides to come. Bueños Noches!

Day 5? Already!

So I've been remiss about keeping up, but it's only because I've been so incredibly tired! I'm going to do my best to recollect the adventures that have occurred over the past two...now three-ish days.


If today is Wednesday then I'll go back to... Monday.  Ok so if I remember correctly on Monday we went to the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art. Modern art is in a word, weird.  The entire purpose of going to that museum is to see the Guernica, which is probably Picasso's greatest work.  It's supposed to represent the devastation felt by the small Spanish town the painting is named for, after Hitler used their town for target practice essentially.   Personally however, I think Picasso and some other artists of his time, Miró and Dali (melting clocks dude) were all doing some sweet drugs.  The building is supposed to be all modern and such, which means all the walls are white and
there is 1 painting every 20 feet, and one bench to sit on every 100 feet.  But I suppose one must try and have some sort of appreciation for paintings that are.. different.  After that we went to the Caixa Forum for lunch.  The food, once again, was delicious.  We've been eating like Spaniards too.  Light breakfast, big lunch, light supper.  The Caixa Forum is also a museum too, it has different photography exhibits on display. It's free, but we didn't stroll around that one since we were all museumed out for the day. We walked to Puerta de Atocha, the train station, after lunch to see the memorial to those who lost their lives in the Madrid train bombings in 2004. It's basically a giant indoor forest thing with a million and a half (possibly slightly exaggerated) turtles swimming around the water. But it's kind of cool.  We also bought our train tickets to Toeldo.  That afternoon Carolyn and I were kind of tuckered out so we chilled at the apartment whilst our parents wandered around some more. I honestly can't remember if we ate dinner or not that night. I don't think we went out.  I'm pretty sure we had sandwiches.  Our parents went out to a vinoteca and Carolyn and I went and got some gelato (gelaterías are EVERYWHERE around here).  While Carolyn and I were walking back to the apartment we saw our parents chilling in the window of the vinoteca so we waved at them like loons until they saw us and invited us in.  We had a glass of wine with them and some how I ended up paying the tab. hmmm. The credit card machine is broken you say..? In any case, I did enjoy the wine.

Yesterday we went to Toledo. Toledo is a medieval village will a wall surrounding it.  We took the high speed AVE train from Madrid.  Its only a 30 minute ride. Rick Steves (aka my parents Spain Bible) said the "hike" from the train station was only 20 minutes so the padres decided we could walk.  Well Rick should've said "best to get a burro because the entire trip is uphill." He also should've mentioned, "All of Toledo is a hill. You may think you are finally done climbing the mountainous streets, but you are wrong my friend, you are very wrong." So in Toledo besides becoming more sympathetic to pack mules, we saw a few "must see" sights.  The first was a museum, Museo de Santa Cruz, which housed a number of El Greco paintings and a ton of 13th century tapestries (or big rugs as Carolyn called them).  It also had an ancient Spanish pottery exhibit. The second was the cathedral.  We bought audio tours of the cathedral in order to learn more about its history. Its massive, and gorgeous.  I snuck a few pictures in before I knew you wern't supposed to take pictures (though I don't understand why. If the building has been around since the 13th century, it's certainly not going to crumble after a few photo flashes.)  We went to the cathedral the last time we were in Spain, but it's worth going to again.  After a minor breakdown in the street (I was dying of hunger/thirst/legs falling off and Patty continued to march around) we went to another church, of Santo Tomé where we saw El Greco's most famous work, El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz (the Burial of the Count of Orgaz) is exhibited.  Greco put his image in this painting he liked it so much.  The painting is literally right when you walk into the church in the hallway basically, but the church itself is also very pretty and it gave me a moment to relax.  There is a reason why we have the expression "Holy Toledo."  Toledo, being all in all probably less than 10 square miles, has 79 churches and one cathedral.  We finally ate lunch after that in a play Rick Steves recommended. Rick was wrong, this place wasn't too fabby.  But it was food nontheless.  After that we tried to go see the mosque (Toledo was home to the Christians, the Muslims, and the Jews before the Inquisition) but it was under construction.  Being tired at that point we decided to take a ride on the cheesy tourist train that goes around Toledo.  It was actually cool though because it allowed us to see the entirety of Toledo that we definitely would not have seen walking around.  Toledo is known for a couple of things, one of them is marzipan (go figure) so we bought some of that to try.  Also all the convents have little bakeries attached to them and you can go up to this itty bitty window and a nun will appear and you can by some sweets from her.  Those nuns sure can bake, because whatever we bought was delicious.  After allll that hiking around we were done, so we trucked it back to the train station and came home and went to bed.

After sleeping like 13 hours we finally awoke today.  God did we need that sleep. Every muscle in my body is killing me because of the Toledo hike.  We chillaxed all morning and early afternoon today.  We decided that since the Prado is always free from 18:00 - 20:00 we'd go back and see more. We saw one more section today. We'll probably go back and see more since there's so much.  After that we walked around El Parque de Buen Retiro.  It's a beautiful park located behind the Prado.  I took a bunch of pictures and then my camera/computer decided to be stupid and loose them while I was trying to download them.  I'll just have to go back and take more.  I finally saw a lot of people running in the park! I was really nervous about running around the streets of Madrid and looking like a fool since, well people here don't run in the streets.  They do run in the park though! And it's super close to school, so I think I know what I'll be doing after classes end :) For dinner tonight we had a jillion tapas in this restaurant in La Plaza de Santa Ana, called Naturbier.  They brew their own beer, and its like all natural. No chemicals, preservatives, colorants etc. Dad wanted to try it so we said hey what the heck. Once again awesome food. Calamari, croquettes, etc. And dad liked the beer, so everyone wins. Mom ended up talking for like half an hour with the girls at the table next to us who were, of course, from Mass.  How does Patty do it? Anyhow, they were grateful for the advice and the quick Spanish lesson.

Now I think I've finally caught up.  Hope you made it through all of this!

Besos y abrazos.

Day 2

This will be short because I'm super sleepy. Today we basically canvassed the entirety of the center of Madrid. We started at church, then went to El Rastro, the ginormous flee market. I bought a scarf for 2€. There were sooo many people, you kind of just have to go with the flow and such.  We perused around for a little bit after that. We stopped in this market-place type deal, almost like Quincy Market, for a snack. I'm pretty sure it's called San Miguel, but I may be wrong. Carolyn and I had an empanada and a water, and split some chocolatey/rum-y cake. Mist comes down from the ceiling, which is pretty cool (literally). We were hoping to go to the Palacio Real, but it closes at 15:00 on Sundays and it was already 14:30. Then we walked to my school! It's pretty nondescript from the outside, but I took a picture nonetheless.  After that we ate lunch at a restaurant near the Prado.  It was a 3 course meal for only 12€, pretty cheap.  Gazpacho is delicious, which is good since I've already had a lot of it! We then walked around the Prado for a bit (it's free at certain times during the week and Sunday evenings is one of the times). Carolyn wanted to see Spanish art, mainly Velazquez, so we were basically confined to the 1st floor.  (Btw, on floor numbers: when you first walk into a place of the street that's floor 0, then the 1st floor is what we would call the 2nd floor and so on).  My school is basically a stones throw away from el Prado, so I have a feeling I'll be visiting there a lot (especially during the free hours!)  After that, our feet were killing us, so we went back to the apartment for a little bit, and relajamos un poco. We decided that we didn't need dinner and instead went out for churros and chocolate at a place called San Ginés Chocolatería. It's right around the corner from my homestay. Hopefully I don't come home gordita. We strolled for a bit after that and decided it was enough for the day.  We chillaxed at home and enjoyed some sangria and vino :).

Bueños Noches mis amigos.

El Primer Día

Day One (and a half?)!
We left Boston at 6:20 pm on the 13th. It's almost midnight on the 14th. Madrid is 6 hours ahead of home, and since we lost about half a day traveling my internal clock is all thrown off.

Aer Lingus was good.  Carolyn and I called it when we said the meal on the plane would be boiled potatoes and carrots.  The airport in Dublin is old, but the inside is a shopping mall. The store selection in the airport is probably bigger than that of an actual mall in Ireland. It was pretty chilly in Dublin at 5:30 am, and we had to go outside to get on the second plane.  But it was kind of neat being on the runway and such.

The flight to Madrid from Dublin was only 1 hr and 55 min, but Madrid is an hour ahead of Dublin, so we arrived in Madrid at 9:45 am.  We waited in line for customs only to have to go back to the end of the line because we didn't fill out some stupid paper. Not that I should have to fill out some dumb paper at customs. The visa should be good enough, especially since it's so difficult to get one. Once we got through the oh so cheery man at customs, we found our luggage and some speedy dude drove us to our apartment.   The apartment is on Calle de Leon (in case anyone wants to creeper), and it's pretty sweet.  Modern looking with high ceilings etc.

After we took a nap... a 3 hour nap.... we decided we needed some groceries since by that point we were STARVING. So we ventured out into Madrid. We found the nearest El Corte Ingles (which for those of you who don't know what that is think: Macy's + Supermarket + Wal-Mart all rolled into one). So whilst out venturing we found the street where I'll be living for the semester. I took a creep picture in front of it, so when I download it, I'll post it.  We had some tapas at a small restaurant where the waiter ignored us, probably because we're American, got our groceries and pack muled it back to the apartment.  After nomming on some delicious cheese (if you like cheese you'll LOVE Spain), we decided to get some more tapas.  So we went to a restaurant right around the corner from our apartment which was DELICIOUSSS! The sangria was especially yummy (being in a country with no legal drinking age is fantastic ;) ).  We walked around a little bit after, but were too tired to really do anything.

So all in all a good first day in Madrid. Hopefully it won't take long for me to be able to find my way around this city.  Bueños Noches!!