Trip to Toledo and Madrid (el veintinueve día en España)

Trip to Toledo and Madrid

This last weekend we took our first trip organized by our program to the awesome cities of Toledo, which used to be the capital of Spain, and Madrid, which is currently the capital of Spain. Both cities were unique and beautiful. Toledo is set up on top of a hill, which put them at a major advantage in battles throughout history.J

In Toledo we took a guided tour where we visited churches, cathedrals, and various historical parts of the city. When we had some free time we enjoyed shopping around and admiring all the trinkets unique to Toledo. Toledo is particularly famous for it’s gold, and it’s swords, so they were absolutely everywhere. One of my friends actually bought 215€ sword! Crazy... I bought a letter opener that looks like a sword and a pair of cheap, but pretty gold plated earrings. I also had to buy some marzipan while I was there because I saw Rick Steves buy it in one of his travel videos and I want to be just like him :D So I did, and it was delicious.

 It pretty much tasted like cookie dough, so how could it not be. Oh! I also got to pet a pig! At dinner time we went to a restaurant where we were stuffed with an insane amount of food before our main dish even came out. I had a really tasty fish. While we ate we played one of those games that drive people insane because they have to figure something out that is basically impossible to figure out. I am not going to ruin it in the blog because I want to drive people in the U.S. insane too ;D After dinner we went to the local bar that the students in Toledo go to all the time. We learned there that Toledo may be beautiful, but there isn’t much to do their studying for a whole semester, so pretty much everyone comes to this bar every weekend. It was way to crowded for my taste, so I did not stay long at all before I asked some of my friends to go back with me. When we got back we just hung out late in one of our rooms, which was fun.

The next day we headed about and hour and a half away to Madrid. Everyone slept on the bus because we were so exhausted from the day before. In Madrid we took another guided tour throughout the city. The weather was sooo nice and we learned a lot of interesting information. We also went to the Prado, which is the art museum in Madrid with hundreds of famous works by artists like El Greco, Velasquez, Picasso, and Goya. It was really awesome to be able to see these works of art in person after having learned so much about them in school!  Usually I am not a fan of walking around art museums, but with our tour guide and these amazing paintings, it was really cool! After the museum we went to lunch at a really tasty all you can eat buffet. I was super exhausted and ended up falling asleep on the table lol. After that we headed to the Palacio Real, which is a giant palace that has been used throughout history and is still sometimes used by the king and queen today.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any pictures, but it is okay because I bought a coffee table book in Spanish that has all the pictures and information I could want! After that I believe we had free time so we all went back to our hotel and took nice long naps before going out for the night. When we woke up we met up and went to a bar where you order one drink and they give you EACH a giant plate of tapas that was soooo good! We hung around there and talked for awhile and then went out to a small club that gave us two free drinks and a free hookah thing! So that was nice! After that people wanted to go to another club but I was pooped so me and Julia went back and immediately fell asleep. The next day we woke up for breakfast and got ready to take a lovely walk through the park in Madrid. We had really been looking forward to this because the leaves have changed colors in this park, so it really felt like fall J

After our nice walk we all went out separate ways and found a place to eat before hopping back on the bus to head back to Granada.

P.S. Today is the one-month mark of me being in Spain! I miss everyone!!!

El veintitrés día en Granada

El veintitrés día en Granada

Thursday is my favorite day of the week in Spain! Here Thursdays are the new Fridays! I only have one class in the morning and then the day is mine! I can stay up as late as I want because I don’t have class tomorrow and I have practically no obligations except to make sure I am at home on time to be served lunch!

Today I went to class and only took a small nap afterward! I spent some time cleaning my room, caught up on a few American TV shows, and enjoyed all my free time. After lunch, I went by myself get some coffee so I could enjoy the beautiful weather today while reading my Harry Potter book. 

I went to a café and felt really cool sitting all by myself in Spain, sipping coffee, reading Harry Potter in Spanish. It was fun to look up every so often and try to see what little bits of conversations I could pick up. I was having a really hard time understanding one group before I realized they were speaking French lol. 

As if I weren’t feeling cool enough, I also decided to order myself a glass of red wine, which I don’t really like that much but I really want to because it looks more sophisticated than white in my opinion. I actually liked it this time though. Maybe it was just the ambiance from the street performer playing the accordion that made it taste better.

To make my day even better, an adorable little tiny Spanish boy and his parents sat at the table next to me and I couldn’t help but take a picture because he was so darn cute. Hopefully nobody saw me do it… 

After I decided my brain hurt enough from reading Harry Potter in Spanish, I took a walk and finally sat down on a bench and read to myself out loud, which probably made me look crazy, but whatever it was helpful! Even though I spent most of the day alone, I had a great day here in Spain. Tomorrow we are off to Madrid and Toledo for the weekend so I should have a super fun weekend!

P.S. Yesterday we went to an incredible Flamenco show! If you have not already seen the videos from them on my Facebook you should check them out!

El dieciocho día en españa

El dieciocho día en españa

-We woke up at around 7 am so that we could take a bus to the bus station and be there at 9 o clock

-Everything went smoothly and we all made it to the bus that would take us on our 2 hour journey to Nerja, Spain on the eastern part of la costa del sol, on the Mediterranean Sea. The round trip cost 20€

-Julia and I slept most of the bus ride until we finally arrived

-We ate at a café as we waited for the next bus that would take us up a big hill to these awesome giant ancient caves. The walk through the caves was shorter than we expected, but still worth seeing for 8€

-We decided to skip the bus and walk to the beach. On our way we enjoyed the city of Nerja and stopped by a grocery store to get some drinks to bring to the beach. I was happy because I found Smirnoff ice!!! I didn’t think they had it here!!!!

-We got to the beach, set up camp, and enjoyed the rest of the day swimming, relaxing, and climbing around on rocks

- We took the bus back home and went out for a tiny, overpriced, not that good pizza that we will never get again lol

-After, Julia and I went back to the house and stayed in for the rest of the night, but some other people went out.

El dieciséis día en españa

El dieciséis día en españa

-Today was a super fun, and also productive day!

- I went to school and enjoyed my history of Spanish art class

-Went home and cleaned my room and took a short nap

-ate lunch

-I went to the gym by myself. I realized that I don’t really go many places by myself because I have a roommate so it was actually kind of refreshing to be walking alone and enjoying the city on my own

- I dropped by a couple stores to pick up a few things I needed

-at 8:30 we met the rest of the group to head up to the albaicin to have dinner and then watch a flamenco show, both of which were awesome! Flamenco is sooo impressive, I never really knew what it was. I love the guitar and the dancing. The singing is really good too, but a little loud for my taste.

-After flamenco we headed to the club Camborio, which was free because it was ladies night! Whoo! We also got free tinto de verano until 1:30 which was nice.

-We had a fun night of dancing and finally got home around 4 something

Stuff that I have already started to crave....

-Apple pie
-Pumpkin pie
-Gianorios
-Chipotle
-Cheese (Our señora cooks very healthy)
-Mexican food in general
-potatoes :(((((

El doce día en Granada

El doce día en Granada

-We woke up and got ready to go to the Alhambra for our tour that is included in our program costJ

-We were supposed to meet at the Alhambra but Julia and I walked too far so we were late and basically had to run up a giant hill to meet the group before they began, it was terrible but we made it in time

-We got to walk all over the Alhambra, which was sooo beautiful! I did not realize how big the grounds were! We were there for over 3 hours and I still don’t think we covered a huge amount!

-I plan to go back again with Josh and Shelley when they come so maybe I will be able to cover more, although the gardens may not be quite as pretty

-Julia and I headed back for lunch

-I saw a really cute little stray puppy napping on the path

-I saw cool people sketching the entrance of  the Alhambra and wanted to do that

-When we got back I grabbed paper and a pencil and tried to sketch the view from my rooftop but I gave up L I am not patient enough for that

-We hung out and watched a movie, and I skyped my parents

-At 11 we headed to the Botellon, which means “big bottle” in Spanish and it is basically like a big street party where everyone drinks before they hit the clubs. It was pretty fun and not as crazy as I expected it to be, which was cool. Apparently the Spanish people used to do Botellons in random places in the city but the city got mad because they made such a mess, so they have designated this one spot in the city where it is legal, and that’s where we go!

-We stayed out til probably around 2:30 before we headed back home and slept. The nice thing is we have nothing to on Sunday!