First full weekend in Madrid!

Traveling every weekend is so much fun, and you get amazing experiences and pictures and stories, but let me tell you, its exhausting! I am so relieved to be staying in Madrid this weekend and having a low key few days. Not needing to pack anything up or sleep in linoleum floor, its a beautiful thing. 

While staying in town this weekend, my friends and I went to most of our usual sights: El Parque de Retiro, El Rastro, El Palacio Real, a tapas bar. We'd already been to each place, but we did some different things and actually got to enjoy them, no rush, with a larger group of people. For Retiro, its pretty much like Madrid's version of Central Park. Its gigantic and has art exhibits and playgrounds and grass to hang out on and a mini pond to paddleboat in. Its really fun, I just can't wait for everything to be in bloom! But this weekend, a dozen of us went there and played games and hung out. One of the people that I met there, Phillip, he is a camp counselor, so he had plenty of games up his sleeve for us to fill our time with. He spoke like the truest American, knowing slang and having a great East coast accent, but insisted that he was from Austria and does in fact still live there! Anna and I didn't believe him for the longest time, and if you heard this "Austrian" speak you'd understand why, but turns out he's been going to the states for over 10 years to attend this camp, and the last 4 he's been a counselor there. So I guess learning the language intensely for 8 weeks a year for 10 years might add up and give you no accent. Very weird and very cool though! 

I was also introduced to a new tapas bar. I'm sure I have mentioned the famous "El Tigre" to you all. It's  supposedly the best tapas bar in Madrid. Well I went there a few weeks back and didn't have a good experience, so I'm not that interested in going back there. But this tapas bar is actually right next door, and is the exact same thing, just with better drinks! So how it works, for those of you like me that had never had tapas before, is that the bar has no tables, but instead is lined with a shelf for you to rest your drinks/tapas on. This place actually has stools for people to sit on as well (when its not packed) which is greatly appreciated by the end of the night. The beauty is, when you order a drink, you get a FREE plate of tapas! So if I get a small beer for 1.60 euros, I also get a plate of paella, or sausage and french fries, or fried mushrooms, or tortilla de españa, or whatever it is they serve you. Oh yes, that's right, you don't pick your tapas, they chose it for you. So you always get a random selection and something different! Its pretty cool and forces you to try new things. 

Also, on the first Wednesday of each month, Palacio Real has a changing of the guard ceremony at noon. Since the following Wednesday was just that, we of course had to go. I had probably too high of hopes. I thought there would be a mini parade and music would be played and they would switch formations and move around. This is how it went down:

1) 29 men and 1 woman (yay) walked out in uniform with their fake guns and stood in formation (3x10). So far, so good.

2) 20 men on horses pranced out to join the formation behind the 30 people before hand. First problem arose: one of the horses is seriously foaming at the mouth. Very impressive lol.

3) They stood in formation while 2 of the horses took a dump.

4) The remained in formation. No music, no talking - unless you count the mumbling going on amongst the "guard" to one another. Very professional.

5) The still stood there! They stood there for 20 minutes doing absolutely nothing. 

6) One of the men played a short note on his trumpet, everyone lifted up their weapons and turned 90 degrees to their right. 

7) They stood like this for another 5 minutes. 

At this point my friends and I are wondering if this is all it is. Every 20 minutes they turn! And to think there are at least 200 tourists watching this crap. 

8) Finally something happens. 2 horses prance by in the back. Then 2 black Clydesdales prance by pulling a wagon.

9) Another guard in a different uniform comes out of the palace, playing a tune. And the entire guard leaves. 

Yup, that as it. So, all in all, I highly recommend not going to one of these things unless its in London. Every tourist there that has actually been to London said the same thing. I'm assuming this is kinda like the Igleja de Santa Maria vs. Notre Dame experience. 

Even though the changing of the guard was a bust, it was free and really I didn't have anything else I needed to do with my time, perfectly fine with me to see that so I can tell all you fine people about it. Besides, the rest of my weekend was perfect, and filled with parks and shopping down the main street Gran Via and at El Rastro. What more could this American girl want? 

Well next weekend I'm off to Rome and Venice!!! I know I've already been to these places to visit my brother Brian when he was studying abroad, but that was 4 years ago and he was the most informative tour guide I've ever had, so I was a little overloaded with information. Going back again will be perfect! Hasta luego. 

Off to Portugal!

Once again, I am quite behind on my blog entries, but my trip after Paris was the following weekend to Lisbon, Portugal. We flew out on Friday morning, so once again I slept at the airport. I think I'm learning a few tricks to the act:
1) Since they don't let you through security until around 4:00 am and there are no chairs or carpetted floors in the entrance area, bring something to sleep on because the linoleum floor gets mighty cold.
2) Eye masks are key. They help you just relax and sleep!

That's about it. Honestly, I don't think sleeping in airports is the end of the world, but I'm sure I'll change my mind once I'm not a college student trying to pinch every penny I have!

Once we arrived in Lisbon and had checked into our hostel, we went exploring. We walked through Lisbon on our way to Castelo de San Jorge. While on the way, we saw some really cute shops, well 1 really great shop: a purse store! The store was filled with boxes and boxes of purses for 15-25 euros, all made of leather! I'm pretty sure they were all made in China and just brought here since the store owner didn't speak a lick of English or Portugese, but either way, Anna and I decided we needed to come back the next day!

After that, we went to Castelo de San Jorge, which was beautiful. The castle was really more of a fort now. There wasn't an interior that we saw, just plenty of places to stand guard and watch for intruders. Still, since Lisbon gets rain ALL THE TIME, the trees and plants were gorgeous. All green!

Then for lunch we went to Lautasco, per Nora's request. Let me tell you, it was excellent! I got this Portugese dish that is a bread/seafood dish. It looked a little like mush, but tasted so good. Portugal is also known for its green wine, so of course we had to try a bottle. It is said that green wine is the most misunderstood wine in all of Europe, and I understand why. I didn't like it one bit, but a bunch of my friends did and reordered it during the weekend.

As you know, I went to Paris last weekend and saw Notre Dame. If you have ever seen that cathedral, you know its one of a kind and beautiful. Well, unfortunately for Portugal, I saw the mini version of Notre Dame 1 week after seeing the real deal. Igleja de Santa Maria is a church that seriously looks like a small town version of Notra Dame. So if you are ever going to see them both, do Santa Maria first, because otherwise you don't really appreciate it.

On Saturday, our group split up. Half of the group went to Bellum, while Anna, Mel, and I stayed to go shopping. Anna and I are coming back to Lisbon with our families and we figured we could go to Bellum then, but in the mean time we had a shopping fix to settle. Luckily, our plans were inside all day because Lisbon held up to its stereotype and rained all morning. We stayed in the stores and bought some really cute purses and other items. The man that works at the hostel poked a little fun at us saying how much American girls love to shop. Oh well, I can handle that stereotype!

That night we went out with a group of people from the hostel. Let me tell you, if you have never met Brazilian people, you're missing out. They're so much fun and so nice! Obviously there were a bunch of Brazilians in our hostel and just in Portugal in general because they speak the same language. Easy place to travel and study abroad. We all hung out in the hostel and cooked dinner together and played a Polish drinking game and then we went out to the erasmus corner (erasmus is the term for European study abroad students). Its an area with plenty of bars and music for young people, and most of them speak English!

I think the moment that I realized just how much nicer Lisbon is than any other place I've traveled was when we were trying to find our way back to the hostel. My friends and I decided not to join everyone else that was going clubbing, so we just headed back to the hostel. Only problem was, we didn't really know where it was. So we started walking and asking people to point us in the right direction. Every single person that we asked was happy to stop and look at our map and give us advice. One man even started telling us which streets to avoid for safety reasons and offered to drive us back. Of course, we were thinking stranger danger and didn't take him up on the offer, but it was a sweet thought. I didn't find Paris to be rude or anything, like people say, but I could see thinking that Paris is a bit snooty after visiting a place like this. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly, it really was wonderful!

The last day there, we traveled to Sintra and Cascais. They are 2 cities outside of Lisbon. Sintra has a beautiful castle that is the kind of thing you think of when you hear the term "castle". They even have rooms on exhibit so you can see where the Queen and King lived. Very cool! Then in Cascais, there is a beach which we walked along and relaxed. Unfortunately in February, it is most certainly not warm enough to wade in, which one of my friends learned the hard way! But walking along the beach and looking at the stars was a great way to end the trip. Looks like I'm headed back to Madrid, and won't be traveling next weekend! Its the first weekend I'll be in Madrid the entire time, look out!

Paris!

This past weekend, the weekend before Valentine's day, Mel, Anna, and I went to Paris. It was wonderful! A girl on my dance team, Sarah Erxleben, is going to grad school in Paris and speaks French fluently. Luckily for us, she was more than happy to show us around and take us out and such. It was perfect!

We saw the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe on Friday. Apparently Paris has a nasty habit of being overcast, much like London, but knowing that Mel and Anna and I were coming, she opened up the skies and it was blue and beautiful all day on Friday. I didn't even need the coat that I carried around all day. So we climbed up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower; our workout for the day. It was amazing. The view was incredible, and we got an idea of where everything was and where we would be going.

That night, Sarah took us to Sarce Couer, which is a basilica near our hostel. It was beautiful, and of course had steps leading up to it. We drank wine and ate cheese and it was really fun. Sarah brought brie and Camembert cheese, both of which I had never had before. The brie was so tasty! I'm going to have to work my way up to the camembert though, its a real cheese and I'm still a noob.

The next day, we went to Notre Dame. It is the most beautiful cathedral I have ever seen. I know I loved the cathedral in Toledo, and then I loved the cathedral in Burgos and for each one I said that it was the most beautiful one I had ever seen, however, I doubt this one will be topped for quite some time/ever. The arched ceilings and stained glass were stunning. And both of the other churches I saw were over the top. They had gold plated walls and their jewelry on display, and everything. I found Notre Dame to be beautiful with amazing detail, but to still be humbling. It was the perfect combination and definitely my favorite classical European aspect of my entire study abroad trip thus far. I would say the only thing that beats it in any aspect, is the Eiffel Tower, cause I mean, come on... its the Eiffel Tower!

We also went to the Louvre, and it was astonishing! I had no idea the Louvre used to be a palace and I had no idea how big it is. People say that it is large and you could spend days in there, but honestly, you could spend months, maybe years! It is incredible. Unfortunately, I'm not much of an art fan myself, so it was a bit wasted on me. But, I did see Napolean III's apartments, and they were luxurious and by far my favorite aspect of the Louvre. I guess the good thing about it being so big, is that of course it will have something for everyone.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. The not speaking the language part was a lot more difficult than I imagined, but we got by. We also learned that we are going to learn some key phrases each time we travel, such as "do you speak English" "where is the" "bathroom" and "thank you".

It was an amazing trip, and I can't thank Sarah Erx enough for everything she did!


Au revoir!

Madrid

So after going to Burgos, I realized that I keep traveling elsewhere, but haven't really enjoyed Madrid yet.

For that reason, a bunch of friends and I went to some plazas around Madrid, and we went to the Rastro, which is this shopping event that goes on every Sunday. The Rastro has everything. It is just booths that are set up in the street and it goes on for miles it feels like. It seriously just takes over. People crowd there to buy things from purses and gold trinkets, to rubberbands and magazines. It is such an odd compilation, I can't do it justice. Some of the booths seem legitimate. They are themed and maybe even hand-made. Others look like someone cleaned out their attic and brought all of their crap to the Rastro.

I think the biggest surprise was the people selling their items. I expected people to be in your face, bargaining, pulling you over to their booth. It was exactly the opposite. They would sit their, sometimes with their back to you. Which is especially surprising because Spain is at a 20% unemployment rate right now... And when you wanted to buy, no one would bargain. The price listed was it.

It was still such an experience and I got my first satchel bag. Anna recommended it, and she was right, once you get a satchel bag, you never want to go back. It is the most convenient thing!

Well I hope everyone is having a blast! Keep reading for Paris!

Burgos!

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with this, I didn't realize before how much time is involved in documenting a trip... The last place I had left off was I had moved into my apartment with Mel, but we had no internet, and my classes were all screwed up. Obviously, my first priority was the internet; I mean who goes abroad to learn?! So Mel and I delved into finding internet. We tried asking anyone and everyone for help and worked on this for a few days. Finally we had a brilliant idea! We just went over to a neighbors and asked them if we could pay them to use their internet for the next 5 months. The woman that lives above us was so helpful and said yes! Sooo on February 1st a 9:32 pm Mel and I got internet. I don't think we had been so excited in a really long time. (If you want confirmation, you should look at our facebook statuses that day.)


Then the next thing I needed to worry about was classes, which you will all be glad to hear worked out. I now have classes Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. That's right, no class Wednesday and no class FRIDAY! Now I have 3 day weekends, along with most of my friends so we can travel together. And Wednesdays are a nice break in the middle of the week to get me away from the "oh so demanding" school work I have.

With all of my classes and my apartment all taken care of, Mel, Anna, and I decided to take a little trip. I should probably rephrase that, Anna decided to take a little trip, and Mel and I invited ourselves...

Anna met a woman on her flight over to Spain that lives in a city 2 hours north of here, Burgos. The woman was ecstatic for Anna to come visit, and naturally Mel and I asked if we could tag along. So, on Saturday morning, bright and early, we took a bus over to Burgos. Let me tell you, this trip was so much fun! The woman, Laura, picked us up and took us out to breakfast, her treat, and then started showing us around. We saw Plaza Mayor (main plaza for the city) and their cathedral, which is gorgeous - completely Gothic and over the top - and another church, and she drove us around the city. It was great. We learned that all older Spanish cities were fort cities and were surrounded by "Muralla" or a big city wall, so we also saw that. (Pictures of all of these things are on my facebook by the way, you should check them out if you haven't).

The best part of the trip was after sight seeing though. See, Mel and I live in an apartment, just the two of us, so we don't get the typical Spanish dinner experience like Anna does. Apparently the dinner we had is what Anna gets EACH NIGHT! But, it was great. Laura, the host, made us tortilla de patatas (an egg, potato, and onion dish. Very traditional for Spain), sandwiches with avacado (my favorite!!!), her home made jelly, her own orange cake, a bunch of fruits from her family's farm. So much great food it was unbelievable.

The most interesting part wasn't that she made all of this food for us, it was more the presentation. She just wanted to give us everything. She brought out a sweet food that looked exactly like green olives if you ask me. They were in a jar with juice, same color, maybe a little bigger, but then we tried one and they were not olives, they were so sweet and amazing! So we asked her what they were, and she told us but problem was she didn't know the name in English and we didn't recognize the Spanish word. So we talked about it and she then brought out prunes and said that the green things were prunes before they're dried. I got all excited, because I had just talked about this last week with my dad and was like, "They're DATES! I know it, I just talked about this with my dad, THEY'RE DATES!". Well I was wrong. Laura immediately shot me down. She then brought out some dates, and showed me the difference. So then we talked about these green things some more, and finally Laura's husband whipped out the dictionary. Turns out they were plums! I still don't know why they were green, but they were amazing!

But all of dinner was like that, we mention something, and Laura goes and gets it and force feeds us this amazing food. It was wonderful and I was so full. Good thing we had breakfast with her in the morning too. She made us crepes with her home made plum jam and hand squeezed orange juice. Let me just say, going back home to the apartment where I would be eating pasta and sandwiches wasn't as exciting as one would imagine...

Oh and I forgot to mention another type of food you must get if you ever are in Burgos: Morcilla. It is so good, its a type of sausage that is moist and sweet and if you put pickled red peppers on top of it (all of which Laura sent us home with), it is superb.

All in all, The trip was beautiful and fun. I got the true Spanish experience an a part of me wishes I had chosen a host family now... Oh well, I'll have to just enjoy my freedom and enjoy all the money that I'm saving :) What a rough life lol.

First week in Madrid and visit to Toledo!

Hi everyone! So good news: I have an apartment. I met up with my roommate, Mel, later on Monday and we went out for food and walked around Madrid. We started looking for apartments on Monday and ended up finding ours and moving in on Tuesday night. The one we took was the 5th that we saw. The first 4 were interesting. Some were tiny closets, some were extremely expensive, a third was great but we couldn't move in for a week, and another the landlady seemed overbearing and like she would come and check on us following her rules all the time. The one we took has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a main room with a futon that pulls out to a double bed, a kitchen, and a courtyard/patio area. The apartment is a bit small and not perfect, but we were able to move in right away and have our own space which definitely made the transition process from the US to Madrid a lot easier and was exactly what I needed.To know where I would be sleeping each night took one additional stress out of the picture.

The hardest part about getting the apartment was going through the lease. Since our landlord doesn't speak any English, we had to go through all 13 clauses in Spanish! It was so interesting though. He was so patient and thorough, making sure we saw the numbers on the gas and water and checking each light switch and outlet and every detail. It was definitely reassuring.

There was a definitely low point though. The night we moved into the apartment, we left and then came back a few hours later. When we left we locked up our apartment. There are 2 locks, the one on top and the deadbolt on the bottom. When we got back, we could not open the door. We tried all of our keys and could hear the locks moving in the door but the door wouldn't budge. We tried every combination of locked and unlocked that we could think of, but at 11:00 at night, this is the last thing you want to be doing. Not to mention, we had moved in so all of our stuff was locked in this apartment and we couldn't get in. Oh and also, Europe is very conscious of electricity, so the lights in the hallway turn off every 2 minutes. By the end of it, we had one of us standing by the hall switch to turn the lights back on. After 25 minutes, we went and knocked on a neighbor's door to get help. A woman came out and tried to open our door too. After about 5 minutes of that, she gave us back the keys and said "lo siento" which isn't just 'I'm sorry', its apparently a way to show empathy and completely sincerity. (In the states we use "lo siento" all the time when saying I'm sorry, but that's not actually what it means. It translates to more of "I feel for you"). Anyway, so after she left, we both are an inch from breaking down and crying. I was wondering if everything was a scam; if all of our things were stolen and we'd paid him all of this money and he had just ran. We tried calling the land lord, but its 11:40 at night by now, he isn't awake, or he's just not picking up because its a scam. So I put the key back in the door and just shove the door and voila! It opened! We both were just about as excited and relieved as a person can be. It took us another day to figure out what had happened (which is just a matter that you have to hold the key all the way to the left, pull the door towards you, then turn the key further to the left, and then it will swing in). Very tricky, but now that we know it, its a lot better! And, the woman brought us soup to eat later that night.

Two nights after moving in, we had 5 other people that we've met come over for sangría and vino to just hang out and talk. It was so much fun. A really good group! Of course, 6 of the 7 of us are Americans, but we're hoping to branch out more once the Spanish intensive course starts on Monday the 31st.  Our goal is for each of us to make friends with at least 1 non-American.

While we've been here, we also had the orientation day on Wednesday (so my third day here). That was where we got to meet everyone and learn where everything is and all of the details of the school. I was really planning on Wednesday being the day when I finally felt like I knew what is going on and finally felt less culture shock and was settled in. Of course, that didn't happen. Wednesday was probably my most stressful day. Not only did my schedule not work well (I have classes all 5 days of the week, so its harder to travel) but also it took them an hour to figure out how I could log in to the computers and they didn't make it clear when classes start or how to change your schedule. Needless to say, I felt completely lost and since Spain is such a relaxed country, they have slow processes and aren't organized. Lovely. Hopefully everything will work out next week. I'm going to go back and talk to the coordinators for a third time. Cross your fingers!

Good news is a group of 6 of us went to Toledo! It is beautiful! Its a city just 45 minutes south of Madrid by bus. We went on Friday morning and came back Saturday night. The city is a fort city, so its on a hill and is walled in. Interesting fact: Madrid was actually built as a small town north of Toledo to protect it. That way, if people were going to invade Toledo from the north, Madrid would slow them down and give Toledo time to prepare.

Also, the city was built to be difficult to invade so it is hard to navigate. They don't use the grid system to make it confusing on purpose. Luckily Nora, one of the girls we traveled with, was an excellent navigator and got us everywhere we needed to go. We call her "Nora the Explorer"! And she even sings the Dora song for us lol.

The city was beautiful. We saw the cathedral, a synagogue, la puerta del sol which is the look out for Toledo, Alcazár which is the highest point in the city, and went out for tapas and drinks at night. Also, Toledo is known for their marzapan (mázapan) which is a sugar almond candy, so of course we needed to buy a bunch of that. It was amazing. You need to get it "hecho a mano" (hand made) if you ever go, but it is excellent. Just be prepared to not eat too much because it is basically pure sugar. It was an amazing experience and a great way to start off studying abroad.

There was also a beautiful view out in Toledo. My facebook profile picture has me there right now. It was just a cliff that looked out over the river and on the other side you could see the more rural area for Toledo. Gorgeous! It is such a serene area that just shows up in the middle of a really crowded city.

All in all, everything is going really well! The only downside is that I want to change my classes to get a better schedule and feel very lost, and that our apartment doesn't have internet yet. Hopefully I will get both of those things fixed this next week and everything will be peachy!

I'm planning on going to France in a couple of weeks to visit Sarah Erx from my dance team at school and my group here was talking about going to Greece in a few weeks too. I hope everyone is having a great time back at home :)

|Buenos días!

Arrived in Madrid

It took me 2 flights to get to Spain. The first was from Chicago to Dulles. On that flight they announced any scoring for the Bears-Packers game, unfortunately it was 14-0 when I got off the flight. I was able to see the end of the first half in the airport before taking off again for Madrid. Interestingly enough, my second flight was an Airbus 330 and was gigantic, 8 seats across and I´d guess at least 30 rows; only 83 people were on my flight though. This meant that later in the flight I just put all of the arm rests up in a middle section and lay across 4 seats and took a nice nap. Best sleep I´ve ever gotten on a plane. Plus, we each got our own TV to watch movies and what not. It was very nice, I highly recommend Aer Lingus. The woman sitting next to me was from Spain and didn´t speak English so we talked a bunch on the flight and she helped me practice my Spanish, she was so friendly. Excellent way to get welcomed to Spain.

Once I got off the plane, Carlos and his friend Javier picked me up. They drove me back to the hostel so I could drop off my bags and then took me around Madrid so I could see where the university is, where I need to go for my orientation on Wednesday, and they helped me find a citibank ATM and get a cellphone. All of this was done in Spanish, but I think I´m handling it pretty well. Carlos and Javier were patient and explained things in English when I needed, but for the most part everything went really well.

Now I´m just waiting for Mel, my future roommate, to wake up and come out to the lounge. Once she does that, we are going to go apartment hunting so that we have somewhere to sleep tomorrow night. Carlos said that he would be happy to look at apartments with us if we need him to/make sure we aren´t getting scammed. So far everything is going really well and I don´t have any jet lag. I´ll let you all know how it goes!