Ya ha pasado un mes...

Even though it's hard to believe, it's true! I've already been in Madrid for a month! It seems crazy, because for the months leading up to the trip I got very used to telling everybody I would be in Spain for five months, and now I'll be home in fewer than four! While the time has flown by, looking back I can see that I have easily done a month's worth of activities and work, what with already being done with the intensive Spanish course, and having traveled to Paris and Toledo. 

The next month will be just as exciting as the first... this coming Saturday we have a group excursion to some famous sights around the greater Madrid area, such as the Royal Gardens in Aranjuez, and the famous Universidad de Alcala de Henares. And just one week after that, Mom will be here to visit for an entire week, which ends in me traveling to Granada to see the Alhambra, the most visited site in Spain! Not to mention, my real classes start tomorrow. I'll be taking 20th Century Spanish Theater, Spanish Cinema, Contemporary Spanish Culture, and Contemporary Spanish Novel. 

I don't really have much else to say today, but there are a few random things I can tell you! For example: the elevator in my apartment building (I live on the fifth floor) has a very strange smell. I cannot identify it, but it is very weird. 


In the park about one kilometer from my apartment there is a HUGE netted-in driving range. It's really sweet, and it makes me wish I had my clubs here. 


Ummm... I now eat pickled carrots and beets? It's not by choice, but the only two things I told Angelina at the beginning of my stay that I didn't like were tomatoes and coconut. So everything else I just go with the flow. I also eat fish now, which I don't particularly enjoy, as well as fried eggs. Yuck. But I'm getting all of my meals prepared for me, so I can't complain! After living on my own at school for a few years now, I feel quite spoiled at my homestay. My laundry is done for me once a week, and my room and bathroom get cleaned as well. I could get used to this!


Anyway, I think that's all... wish me luck with my classes tomorrow, and I'll check in soon! Ciao!

Relaxing weekend in Madrid.

Hello everybody! I am relaxed and well rested this evening, and my long, lazy weekend isn't even over yet! So Friday was definitely a lazy day. I slept in, hung out with Angelina watching Spanish movies, and then went out for dinner for the first time in Madrid. While Spanish food is delicious, it is very mild. We were all craving algo picante (something spicy)! So we decided that every few weeks from now on we will hit the streets of Madrid to try out various ethnic food. First came Indian food, something I have been dearly missing. For all of the Indian food I've eaten with my lovely friends, I had never really eaten at an Indian restaurant. We went to the "ethnic food district", called Lavapies, and just started wandering. We soon found a street with about eight Indian places in a row on it, and they all had guys out on the sidewalk trying to get us to come in. Neha chose one for us based on the menus that they had outside and in we went. The food was delicious. There were six of us at dinner, and we just ordered five dishes and went family style. Quite honestly, I don't even remember what we got, because we had Neha order for us, but I liked everything. I think we're going to go for Mexican next time!

Yesterday we hit up the Reina Sofia, which is the name of Madrid's modern art museum. It is most famous for being the house for Picasso's "Guernica", which was awesome to see in person. It has a sizable Picasso collection, as well as Dali, and various other well known surrealists. We wandered the museum for about two hours before heading back to the subway, stopping at Dunkin' Coffee on the way. Yes, that's right, here they don't call it Dunkin' Donuts, for some reason. I got some hot chocolate because it was freezing outside, but I couldn't even drink it all because it was so so so rich! It is way more melted chocolate and less milk here. 

We have realized that one thing we miss about being at home is being able to socialize very cheaply. In Spain, it is not customary to have people over to your apartment/house very often. Sure, friends have friends over for dinner every once in a while, but the vast majority of the time, socializing happens in the streets, at bars, at clubs, and at restaurants. This makes it very expensive! We are all craving just a movie night or something, but we can't have friends over at our homestays, and we don't want to spend our weekend nights alone in our rooms, and we can't go out every single night! So last night while some people went to a concert Sinead and I went over to the apartment of our only friend here who is not living in a homestay. Stephen and Matt came as well, as they are in Joel's (the apartment dweller) program. We had a great night of just hanging out, and the apartment is within walking distance of where I live so it was very easy to get home. 


Today I actually got up at a decent hour and went to the Rastro (flea market) with some friends. I got sunglasses, which I did not manage to bring with me from home! I've just been hanging out at home this evening, I will have dinner shortly, and then I'm heading to a club later for the Super Bowl! It's going to be a late night, considering that the game doesn't start until 12:30am Madrid time. Good thing I took a siesta this afternoon!! 


So I bid you all farewell for the evening, as I will soon be heading out for the first time in Madrid with the intention of being obviously American. It will probably be weird, I usually try so hard to blend in! Anyway, hope you guys eat lots of chips/wings/spinach dip/etc. for me! 


Love you all, GO GIANTS!

Done with the intensive month!

Hello all! I am in an excellent mood this evening, as I'm now done with my "intensive month" of classes! I took my finals today and I believe they went quite well. Now I have five days of relaxing ahead of me, which sounds just lovely. Unfortunately the weather here has taken a bit of a dip, so I don't know if I'll get to spend as much time at the park as I had previously hoped, but I'll find plenty to keep me busy.

So this will mainly just be a miscellaneous post! First of all, I got the opportunity to go to "El Hormiguero" again (the TV show that I saw taped previously)... and this time the guests were Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds!!!!! It was awesome. ISA had 10 spaces for people to go and I was lucky enough to get one! Seeing them in person was so cool. Just hearing Denzel speak live was incredible; he is such a mega-star! They were hilarious together, and many of us American students found ourselves laughing early, because they would speak in English and make a joke, but it would take the translator a moment to get that message out to the Spanish-speaking audience. The show was just as random as last time, but it was totally worth it to get to see those guys!! I'm having a hard time finding video of the episode online, but I'll keep working on it! But the moral of the story is that I was on television again, in the same episode as super-stars. No big deal.

 Anyway, to continue with the random-ness... One of the biggest differences between my life here and my life at home is that I am essentially living life without a cell phone. At home I'm constantly texting, making phone calls all willy-nilly, texting, etc., but here that is not the case. I have a cell phone that works here, and I have decent calling rates, but texting is very expensive. I think I make an average of 2 phone calls per week, and they do not usually last more than 2 minutes. I only text using "what's app", which is used with wireless internet, not my texting plan. And I only have 2 "what's app" contacts, so you can imagine that that is hardly used either. To be honest, it's kind of nice. No one is very dependent on their phones. When we need to make plans we do it the old fashioned way: we talk in person and decide to meet somewhere at a certain time. I know. Pretty crazy. there is no texting a half hour before just to make sure everyone is still on the same page, we just assume people will be there! We use facebook chat as well, when we are at our homestays, but when we're mobile it's pretty much every man for himself! A lot of the time I don't even turn on my phone!


While that particular difference is definitely not an inconvenience, I have discovered one that is. There are apparently no clothes dryers in Spain. And no fabric softener either. It's very strange. The bummer is that none of my jeans fit the way they should. You know what I mean, girls? The first time you put on a pair of jeans out of the dryer, it should be a struggle. It should involve some jumping, wriggling, and possibly distress noises. Then after a certain number of wears, depending on the pair of jeans, they will have baggy-butt syndrome and will need to be washed again. Here it's like I'm already 3 wears in when I put them on for the first time. Kind of a bummer. And on top of that, all my clothes are super starchy and rough. It's taking some getting used to, but if my biggest complaint about living in Spain is not having tight jeans, I think I can learn to deal with it. 

So I figured I'd put up a few more Paris pics! And I thought of something else I forgot to tell you guys: my flight to Paris was my first one on a plane that wasn't some kind of huge airline jumbo-jet. Instead, we walked out of the airport and took a little shuttle to the runway where the plane was waiting and we climbed the stairs! Maybe this isn't a big deal, but it was a first for me... but obviously it won't be the last time this is required, once I have a private jet that kind of thing will just be standard operating procedure. Ok, enough of my dream world, here are some pictures! 

Our uber-luxurious hostel room... reminded me of Taylor Tower!

Pretty standard on this trip... me looking at the map.

We found a bridge over the Seine that had hundreds of locks with things written on them, mostly couples initials/names it seemed. Sinead happened to have a lock with her and I had a sharpie-like pen, so we added our own lock!

Caught on film... me taking pictures in the middle of the street.

Tiny door leading to the bell tower at Notre Dame!

Not too far from home! Who knew there was a cafe called "Columbus" in Paris??

Gotta love old friends! Me and Stephen in front of the Louvre at night.

Here is proof that we were staying on Goblins Street! Neha and Sinead have their crepes in this picture... Nikki and I had devoured ours already!

Well there you have it. I don't think I have much more to say tonight... so I'll say hasta luego, amigos! 


P.S. I almost forgot! In exciting shopping news, I haggled for the first time this week! It resulted in me getting an awesome cross-body purse that I have been admiring for weeks in the window... for only 8 euro! Yay for being thrifty!

El Viaje a Paris!

Hello hello hello everybody!! Or should I say, bon jour! I probably shouldn't, because that might imply that I speak even a little bit of French, and after this weekend I can assure you I certainly do not. I have spent the last two days recovering and worrying about how I was going to do this post, but here goes! 


The trip was amazing. Going back to Paris nearly 8 years after visiting with my family was strange, and I remembered so many of the sights, but the experience was completely different! First of all, having never gone sight-seeing without my mother means that I have never had to worry about getting lost or knowing where we were going next, the all-knowing trip-planner did all of that for me (thanks, Mom!). So, naturally, I became "the map girl" for this trip. I was nervous at first that Nikki, Neha, Sinead, and I may have different goals, or maybe we wouldn't travel well together because one person needed too much time to get ready, but I needn't have worried. We meshed very well. Neha and Sinead had never been to Paris before, so Nikki and I suggested things that we had done, and we decided as a group how to spend our days. I mapped out museums, schedules, churches, and graveyards, and Nikki did all kinds of research on food, night life, and hidden gems around the city. I don't want to go into too much detail, but I'll give you guys a rundown of our trip and then some pictures!! I also put all of the pics up on facebook, so feel free to look there as well.

We arrived in Paris on Wednesday night, exhausted and hungry. On the way to our hostel from the airport, the weekend's jokes began... the street our hostel was on was called "Villa de Gobelins" and since none of us can pronounce anything in French, we decided that it was pronounced just like "goblins". As in Gringotts goblins. Moving on, we found a cafe near our hostel, grabbed some quick food, and hit the hay to gear up for our action packed weekend! Our hostel was all we could have asked for. It was much more of a hotel, as we had our own room and bathroom. They served breakfast every morning which consisted of croissants, coffee, and cereal.

Day 1: While we were still in Spain, we bought 2-day museum passes, which would get us into everything except the Eiffel Tower. We decided to use those on Friday and Saturday (days 2 and 3), so Thursday was the day of free sight seeing! We started off by walking from the Jardin du Tuilleries all the way down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. We popped into our new favorite store called Naf Naf, where Nikki bought a fabulous fake-fur vest to fit in with the Parisians! Notably, I found a trench coat that was fabulous, but I put it back. Bummer. Anywho! Back to the sights! We took a million pictures of the Arc, and I did indeed run out into the middle of the street to get a picture... I guess I am turning into my mother after all. Further proof of that hypothesis is that next we headed north of the city to Sacre Coeur, the church situated on a hill overlooking the entire city. We climbed the many stairs to the building and enjoyed the sweeping views! The inside of the church was gorgeous as well. Next we wandered west to Montmartre, a very large and old cemetery. It was like a city: there were street signs and winding streets. Some of the graves were new, some old, and there were some huge family crypts as well. Once we'd had our fill of Montmartre, (we didn't fancy wandering around there in the dark) we sought out a famous Parisian candy shop that Nikki heard about from a friend. It was right across from the Moulin Rouge, and is famous for it's caramels. We of course tried them, and it's a good thing we waited until we had already left the shop, because otherwise we probably would have bought every single one she had, they were so delicious! So then we headed back to Oops! (our hostel) and took siestas, like true Madrileñas! That evening we had dinner at yet another cute street cafe (all the outdoor areas had fantastic heat lamps!), and then met up with some of Nikki's friends from Berkeley who are studying abroad in Paris!

Day 2: Friday brought another early morning, as well as the initiation of our museum passes, and what better way to kick off Paris museums than with the Louvre! We said "hi" to Mona, of course, and the Venus de Milo as well! I had forgotten how beautiful the building itself was. So after about 2.5 hours we departed the Louvre and headed toward the dreaded stairs of Notre Dame! The top level did not open until later in the afternoon, but we climbed to the highest point that we could and started snapping pictures like there was no tomorrow! As a bonus, the sun came out while we were climbing, so we had some nice sunny views! I took a million pictures of the gargoyles, and there were a ton I didn't remember from last time. We stayed on the island in the middle of the Seine for lunch, crepes, and our next adventure, Sainte Chappelle, the church with possibly the most complete stained glass collection in Europe. The windows tell the entire biblical story, from Genesis to the apocalypse. The last activity for the day was the Musee D'Orsay, my favorite! It's the impressionist museum, so we saw Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir, Monet, and many others. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures, but it was a fantastic museum! We were pretty exhausted after the D'Orsay, so we headed back once again to Oops! for our siesta. That evening we went and explored one of Paris' most happening restaurant areas, in the St. Michel district. We met up with Stephen and Matt and had dinner and then took a night walk around Paris! 

Day 3: Our final day in Paris was slightly more laid back, but there was still a lot to see! We didn't leave the hostel until about 10:30 (as opposed to 9:00 the first two days), and we made our way back to the Notre Dame/Sainte Chappelle area to go to the Conciegerie, the prison made famous by the French Revolution. We saw Marie Antoinette's prison cell! Our next mission was to find a restaurant which claims to have the best falafel in the world... and we decided they may not have been exaggerating! We each got a HUGE falafel for 5 euros, and it was topped off with eggplant which I usually can't stand, but this was exceptional. I could eat that falafel every day. Next was the Pompidou Centre, or the modern art museum. While modern art isn't usually my cup of tea, the museum had some interesting pieces, and not everything was just a white piece of paper with a black line through it (although there were some just like that, and I just don't understand them!). After changing our clothes back at Oops!, we headed for the Eiffel Tower at last. Unfortunately we were fools and didn't think there would be a line. We were mistaken. The line to take the elevator to the top would have taken at least two and a half hours and we would have missed our dinner plans! So we decided to be big girls and hoof it up to the second level! Doing the tower at night was amazing, I loved seeing the city all lit up! For dinner on Saturday we met Stephen and Matt again and went to a Corsican restaurant where I had some incredible lasagna. It wasn't traditional marinara sauce lasagna, it had a red-wine sauce and strips of beef that were so tender it was incredible! To finish our trip off we got some crepes from the "crepes and chicken" establishment across the street from Oops!. Our flight back to Madrid was so early the next morning that we couldn't take the metro, so we had a cab pick us up from the hostel at 4:45am. Super fun! 

Ok so here are a few pictures to give you a taste...

Stormy skies over the Seine.

Throwback pic for Mom... the tanning wasn't so successful in January.

Parisian window shopping: the trench coat I just had to try on!

As promised, the Arc de Triomphe as viewed from the middle of a busy road!

View from Sacre Coeur.

Sacre Coeur.

Grave in Montmartre... we couldn't decide if the tree grew around the headstone, but it was pretty neat!

The Louvre!

Notre Dame... note the confused Parisians... Christmas was more than a month ago, yet there were still Christmas trees and lights all over the city! We also ran into a Chinese New Year parade, but that was completely unrelated.

Inside Notre Dame.

Clearly the best gargoyle.

But this little guy was pretty cool too!

Sainte Chapelle. Very small chapel with such incredible windows!

Four very tired girls at the end of a long day of museums and churches!

Just a touch of modern art!

Beautiful.

Paris by night.

And my favorite... O-H-I-O!!

So some general thoughts about the Paris trip... it was cold. We endured quite a lot of wind and drizzle, but it was all worth it. We found some amazing restaurant districts, which was a new experience for me, since I was so young on my last trip! I was so lucky to travel with girls who had similar goals to mine, and I will definitely continue to travel with them as my stay here in Madrid continues. The food was amazing, and the crepes were just as good as I remembered. And we walked a lot. I will put up some more pictures in a later post once some of the other girls put theirs all up on facebook!

While Paris was incredible, coming back to Madrid was awesome as well. It's definitely feeling like home here. Angelina continues to be frustrated with my roommates, who skip meals without leaving notes and apparently yesterday one of them was in the shower for a full 30 minutes. Angelina also told me that today they told her they would prefer to eat rice almost every day instead of potatoes and whatnot. Angelina is not having any of that, she is very clear that she's been doing this for a long time and there's no way she's going to change for these high maintenance girls! The slightly awkward part for me is that I sometimes have to come act as translator when Angelina is scolding them, because they can't understand her. Angelina and I will both be relieved when their month here is over. 

Most people in our program are traveling this weekend, because we have Friday through Tuesday off. Finals for the intensive month are on Thursday and the regular semester will start next Wednesday! I will no longer have classes on Fridays, which will leave lots of time for Madrid sight-seeing!  Since we had a big trip last weekend, I am having a little stay-cation time in Madrid, during which I will read, go to parks, and visit the flea market. I think it will be a lovely break! One thing I was worried about was the Super Bowl. First of all, I believe it starts at 2 in the morning Madrid time. But one of the clubs is hosting a party with a big screen and pizza, so those of us remaining in Madrid will be going there to watch the game (Go Giants!!). Good thing I don't have classes on Monday, because the game probably won't end until after 6am! 

Alright, well I think that's all for now! Hope this post wasn't too too long, and I'm sure I will think of other tidbits to relay later! I'll try to post Thursday after my exams, love you all!

TV, dogs, PDA, and assorted other nonsense!

Hi guys! Ok, I give you fair warning, there will not be pictures accompanying this post, so I apologize if it's not very exciting. To get the most boring things out of the way first, I get to schedule my classes for the rest of the time that I'm here tomorrow morning and things were a little bit better today with my roommates... whose names I still don't know. They managed to eat all of their food and they called Angelina when they were going to come home late. But they're still messy in the bathroom.

So, on to the fun stuff! I promised to talk about TV. I am going to try, but I fear that I will not be able to really convey the differences and that it will just be a bore to read. But here goes! Besides shows like "The Simpsons", which are dubbed over in Spanish and showed all the time, TV shows in Spain are very very different from what I'm used to in the US. Most of what I watch with Angelina are game shows, the "news", American movies dubbed in Spanish, or very bizarre pop culture talk shows. 

The game shows are decent in format, but they are not very entertaining for me, as a main component of Spanish TV seems to be pointless talking. The shows are not as formulaic and formatted, and therefore there is a lot of rambling by contestants, hosts, etc. Maybe it has something to do with Europe being more laid back than us up-tight Americans, but I often find myself wondering why on Earth we are listening to this guy defend his choice of category for five minutes instead of just getting on with the game! Even on "Rueda de Suerte", or "Wheel of Fortune", the contestants gab on, and not just during their allotted 15 seconds to discuss their "beautiful wife" in the audience. They sometimes give a play-by-play of the previous puzzle, for example, "Oh! I didn't think it was going to say 'football', I was going to guess 'goofball'!". Really? How fascinating! Oh, and my other complaint with "Rueda" is that "Vanna White" doesn't wear super fancy gowns.

As far as the "news" programs we watch, they are interesting. There is a decent amount of world news, but I have yet to see a true local news broadcast. Usually we watch while I'm eating lunch, which is when many families are home for siesta. Maybe I'm just jaded from depressing American news broadcasts, but the news here seems to focus on broader events, and fewer horrific stories of kidnapping and fires. The main piece of news here has been the Costa Concordia cruise ship. I'm sure you guys have heard about it as well, and there was one Spanish man still missing, and his family today issued a public statement saying they were going to hold his funeral soon. Kinda a bummer.

So moving on: watching American movies in Spanish is a strange experience. I usually partially find myself trying to read the lips of the actors, and partially listening in Spanish. I've realized just how much of my ability to understand Spanish comes from watching people speak it. It is hard to understand people on the phone too, as I cannot see their mouths move or their facial expressions, which are both key when trying to decipher a word that I may not understand. Long story short, I prefer "Ella Enchanted" in English.


And finally, these awful pop culture shows. They are very difficult for me to watch. I find them confusing, boring, and rather pointless. Most of them seem to have between 4 and 8 hosts, who spend most of the show yelling over each other. Part of that is cultural, as it is not considered quite as rude here to interrupt or speak loudly. The movement around the set by the hosts does not seem scripted or purposeful. They wander about, and the camera follows at awkward angles when necessary. On my least favorite, called "Sálvame", or "Save Me", there are 9 "hosts". 8 of them are seated, split into two groups of 4 on either side of the set, and the main guy wanders around, never sitting on the stool I assume is dedicated for him. During the show, they start with a piece of pop-culture news and then just willy-nilly start yelling/crying/laughing/singing or reading tweets off their phones of someone that may know something about the incident. It's bizarre. And they repeat the same stories day after day, as I have come to find out when I am lucky enough to see it 3 days in a row. 


But enough about that. I got to attend the filming of an evening talk show today! It's called "El Hormiguero", which means "the Anthill", and refers to two ant puppets who give funny commentary during the show. The show seemed entertaining, and the guest was fun to watch, even though the formatting of Spanish shows still seems odd to me. The guest for this particular episode (which just aired and I was on TV a bunch of times in the audience!) was Vincent Cassel, who is a French actor known for "Ocean's Twelve", "Ocean's Thirteen", and "Black Swan". He was charismatic and very handsome, and he spoke fairly decent Spanish, although at times he lapsed into French, at which point a woman translated live! After the interview, the show got strange and fell into what seemed to us Americans as rather disjointed segments. There was a moving art demonstration, a DJ demonstration, a science "trick", and a pendulum demonstration. I'm going to try to find a link online where you guys can watch the show, because even if you don't understand what they're saying, you will know what i mean about the awkward camera angles and the general description of Spanish shows having multiple personalities. The experience was very fun though, and we were glad we went!


Wow, this post is getting long. Apparently sending me to another continent can't keep me from talking too much! So onto the next topic: dogs in Spain. I will try to keep this short, but impress upon you the differences in cultural norms. First of all, most dogs here are incredibly well trained. I would estimate that 70% of them are not on leashes, just dutifully following their masters. It doesn't matter if it's in the middle of the city or at a park, these dogs never run up to strangers or out into the street, they are completely obedient. Which is pretty cool. The not so cool part is the waste disposal. Or lack thereof, as the case may be. Unless you are at a specified park, there is no grass in Madrid. And dogs have become accustomed to this. Which is just fine. But many of their owners have apparently not become accustomed to cleaning up after them. When you're in residential areas, you have to be very careful where you step, because there is probably some poop fairly close to you. It's not a pretty sight. I don't want you all to think that all the streets of Madrid are filled with poop, but it's definitely more than you see at home.


Next, and final, topic for today is Spanish PDA. This stands for Public Displays of Affection, just in case anyone is out of the loop. The Spanish are a very affectionate people in general. Everyone is greeted with kisses on the cheek, personal space is fairly nonexistent, and physical contact in casual conversation is quite normal. When a couple is dating, you can imagine that it gets taken to another level entirely. We Americans find ourselves rather uncomfortable when the two people standing next to us in the metro car are having a very graphic and icky make-out session as though they will never see each other again. I'm not exaggerating. In the middle of the street, in line to buy coffee, on escalators, and at an outdoor cafe are all places where excessive PDA occurs. I think I have sufficiently described the situation.


Well I hope you all enjoyed this long post! It will be my last until Sunday or Monday, after I get back from Paris, as I am not taking my computer with me. This will be my first hostel experience and I am very excited! For those of you that know my friends Stephen Daniels and Matt Joseph, they are currently in Madrid studying with another program and they will be in Paris as well, staying in another part of the city. But we intend to see the sights with them, especially because Stephen speaks French! So au revoir! I will check in with you guys soon!


P.S. I felt bad for all of the words words words with no pictures... so here's an unbelievably adorable lion cub! Toodles =)

Toledo y el Finde

Hola! Hope everything is going well back in the States! As for the title of this post, I incorporated a new colloquialism I learned today: finde. Which is short for "el fin de semana", or weekend!

So Saturday was my trip to Toledo, which was beautiful. It is a city with a rich history, and it is known as "the city of three cultures" due to its mix of Christians, Jews, and Muslims before the Spanish Inquisition. at the height of this cultural mix there were 11 synagogues in this small city, but now only one remains and it has been restored, as it was used as a church after the Inquisition. The city is walled because it was a fortress at one time, and it sits on the side of a mountain. Most of the entrances to the city are by bridge, and the bridges have as many as three separate doors to keep out invaders! I don't want to drone on and on, so here are some pictures!

View overlooking the city. While coming into town, the bus stopped at the scenic viewpoint, where you can see the entire city and the wall that surrounds it. We were quite lucky, it can be very foggy in January, making pictures as great as this one rare for this time of year!

Shot of the cathedral from the same view as above. It is the second largest cathedral in Spain.

We started off the tour with a church called San Juan de los Reyes, or St. John of the Kings. The church had incredible architectural detail, of which I took a million pictures, but only included a few.

This seal is repeated over and over again on both walls of the main chapel. The eagle with the halo represents San Juan, whose symbol was an eagle, and the crown is over top of the seal of Queen Izabel and King Ferdinand. Izabel was Queen of Sevilla, central Spain, and Ferdinand was king of a large territory which included Naples. The two getting married was a consolidation of two large powers! Izabel commissioned the building of this church.

I always find flying buttresses so beautiful! This was the hallway around the cloister of the church.

Apparently the architects and workers who spend decades building churches like San Juan get bored. There are little jokes in all of the important sites in Spain! This particular one is a monkey sitting on a toilet reading a book. It is from the original construction, and not noticeable from a glance.

 Moving right along in our tour of Toledo, this is the synagogue and Museum of the Sephardi Jews: 

This is a part of the original floor from the 13th century synagogue.

The beautiful wall (restored) above where the Torah is kept.

This is the incredible cathedral!

Amazing detail above the door of the cathedral, it's "la Última Cena", or The Last Supper!

We had two hours of free time at the end of the trip, so of course we saw some more sights, shopped, and goofed around! Here are Sinead and I with one of my favorite characters from literature, English or Spanish, Don Quixote!

And finally, the one all of you Ohio people will enjoy. If you click on the picture to enlarge it and look closely at the sign above my head (and above the yogurt sign) you will see... Calle Toledo de Ohio!

On the whole, the trip was awesome. The city was beautiful and the weather was fantastic! Sunday was a leisurely day, which started out with a new experience! I went to church with Angelina for the first time. First of all, I hadn't realized how short Angelina was, because we are rarely both standing side by side; one of us is usually sitting. But when we walked to church she linked her arm through mine while we went and I realized she must be under 5 feet tall! Church on the whole was a very interesting experience, because I could recognize all of the prayers in Spanish, but of course I do not know them, so I was silent during most of the mass. Her church is very very small, and has a very old clientele, so I think I will go with her sometimes, but I want to try out a big cathedral as well!

This weekend also brought me two new roommates, and a handful of new difficulties. They are two Chinese girls, whose names I do not really know. They arrived right as I was walking out the door on Saturday morning to meet up with my group for the Toledo trip, and it was evident right away that there may be problems. They speak almost no Spanish and their English is rather poor. As I was leaving, Angelina called me into their room to try and impress upon them the importance of keeping their keys safe, what with all of the pick-pockets around the city, but they just stared at the two of us as if they were terrified. 

When I got back from Toledo that evening, Angelina was very happy to see me, as she had been having trouble communicating with them all day. I helped them connect to the wireless internet, and tried to ascertain their names, which proved challenging. I wanted to give their Chinese names a shot, even though they would be hard to pronounce, but they would only tell me them once, and just stared at me when I asked them to repeat them. They said they prefer English to Spanish, but I cannot tell if they understand a word I am saying, as they just talk to each other in Chinese. Angelina is quite frustrated with them, because they have been leaving the house and not coming back for meal times, but not informing her that would be the case, and when they do come for meals, they are very reluctant to say what they do or don't like, and they don't talk to us! I'm trying to stay positive, but they left the bathroom we share quite dirty this morning, which seems a bit disrespectful in my book. I'm hoping the communication will get better, and they are only going to be here a month, so Angelina and I are working together to make the best of it! For me, the best part so far has been the conversations with Angelina about them, because I can tell my speaking is already faster than when I got here!

Ok, I think that's pretty much all for now! I'm going to try to post tomorrow evening, as I will be leaving Wednesday night for Paris and won't be able to post for a while! In tomorrow's entry you can expect my TV evaluation, in part because I'm going to a filming of a TV show tomorrow at 6! I also anticipate talking about dogs in Spain, as well as PDA, which is a topic I cannot believe I haven't mentioned up to this point. It really is shocking, but I will leave that for tomorrow! In academic news, I got 100% on my midterms and I schedule classes for the main semester on Wednesday morning, which is quite exciting!

Love and miss you all, hasta luego!

El Parque del Retiro

Hello again! So to jump right into it, yesterday afternoon we went to a large park in Madrid called el Parque del Retiro. It was a very sunny afternoon and Nikki, Neha, Sinead, and I spent a few hours just meandering and taking pictures. So without further ado, I present el Retiro!

Church across the street from the park.

View from the main gate of the park; beautiful even in the Winter!

We saw several strays in the park, this one was definitely the prettiest.

Sinead and I in front of one of the many pretty lawns.

Man made reservoir where you can rent row boats or just sit on the steps in the afternoon sun with a book! We plan to spend time doing just that as the weather gets better.

One of the many statues in the park; the sun was just beginning to set.

I found my feline friend again!

There is graffiti almost everywhere in the city; here is some particularly cool work in the metro station.

There isn't really a whole lot to say about the trip, other than that it was lovely, and we are going to go back many times to try out the row boats and everything! We were there for about 2 hours and didn't see nearly all of the park, so there is still a lot of exploring to do. We also stopped at a French travel store and picked up our museum passes for Paris next week!

In other news, I anticipate an entire post in the future about Spanish television. I watch it when I eat with Angelina, and the shows are completely different in formatting, production, and definitely content! The only similar one is "La Rueda de Suerte" otherwise known as Wheel of Fortune! But it is so much harder in another language. Anyway, I will describe all the bizarre shows in full sometime soon!

Ok well I guess that's all for today! I will be going on a day trip to Toledo tomorrow and I will take tons of pictures. Ciao everybody!