First trip outside of Spain

This past weekend was so much fun! I went to visit Colleen in London and Katie came from Dublin as well. It was great to see such an amazing city and also great to see friends. I even enjoyed hanging out with U of R people that I don´t even know because we could still reminisce about Aja Noodle and California Rollin and how good and comparatively cheap they are. London is such an expensive city! I am glad I am not spending the whole semester there because it would be so stressful. Every time you buy something you double the price in your mind and then say; wow, I just paid $5 for a cup of coffee or $10 to ride the subway, etc. I couldn´t believe how expensive the public transportation was. But despite my minor complaints it was a great weekend.

I arrived on Thursday afternoon, and since Colleen was still at work I decided to take a bus tour to get an overview of the city. Then I met up with Colleen and we went back to her flat, then out with her roommates for wings at an American-like sports bar. The BBQ wings were such a good change from all the jamon (ham) here in Madrid.

The next morning Katie arrived and we went to the Tate Modern to see some cool and some very strange art. There were huge slides there that Katie wanted to ride, but unfortunately there appeared to be a bunch of elementary kids there on field trips, so the lines were too long. We then went to a pub for some fish and chips. We didn´t even order any alcohol and we were still asked for IDs (which she looked at skepticly since they are from New York, Michigan and Wisconsin.) According to wikipedia "you must be 14 to enter a pub regardless of your intention of drinking alcohol" so apparently we all appeared younger than 14. It was fun to just sit there and watch the locals and get a little glimpse of what it is like to be British. After that we checked out Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey from the outside. We couldn´t go inside the Abbey because it had just closed for evensong.

On Friday Katie and I went to the British Museum while Colleen went to school to do a bit of work. The museum was so big that it would have taken all day to see everything, but we got to see a lot of interesting stuff from all over the world, including the Rosetta Stone. We then met up with Colleen again and went to Leicester Square to try to buy tickets for a show that night. The lines were crazy and there were no half price tickets for that night (which is what we were hoping for) but we got tickets for ₤25 to see The Mousetrap. From there we headed to the Tower of London and took a Yeoman Warder tour. I´m definitely glad we took the tour because we got to hear a lot of interesting (albeit gruesome) stories about the people who were imprisoned and executed there. We followed the same path that Anne Boleyn did when she was brought to be executed. We then went in to see the crown jewels. It was kind of funny b/c they put everyone on an escalator and just glide you past them. Then we went inside the palace for a look, but it was mostly full of military stuff like swords and armor that didn´t really interest us. It was cool to know that that is where the British royalty lived for over 500 years.

From there we grabbed food and ate it on the bus b/c we were in a rush to get to the show. The Mousetrap is a famous Agatha Christie murder mystery and also the longest running show in London. After the show the audiences are always asked to keep the secret of the murderer and become part of ¨the best kept secret in London.¨ We were all pretty tired at that point, but I still enjoyed the show. After that Colleen made an excellent dinner then we went out with her flat-mates to a chocolate bar where we ate free chocolate all night. It was great, they just kept bringing around plates of chocolate and filling up the bowl on our table, which someone of course promptly dumped into her purse. I left Colleen´s flat around 2am that night to catch the bus to the airport. I got to my apartment in Madrid around 11am and went straight to bed. I basically slept all day on Sunday, waking only to shower, eat and do homework.

Hopefully all of my future trips are as much fun!

Working 9-5 just trying to make a living

Actually, that is not true at all. I was expecting to be working at least 2, if not 3, full days a week, since my program is an internship program. But that is not the case. My internship is at the Fundacion de Derechos Civiles, better known to you non-hispanohablantes as the Civil Rights Foundation. I am not able to go into work until 4:00 because they do not have any offices or computers open until then. I then stay until 7:00, 7:30, 8:00, really whenever I want, because they don´t really seem to care. It is very weird. They said I only have to work on days that I don´t have class, but since class ends at 1:00 I will certainly be coming in more than 2 days a week. They also told me I don´t ever have to work on Fridays since I will surely be traveling! I am enjoying the flexibility though, since I can go to el entierro de la sardina (more on that later) tomorrow and London on Thursday and not have to worry about work.

My project is basically to write a report on immigration laws, statistics and trends in the US and Western Europe. So I sit in front of a computer and look at websites. Not as exciting as I had hoped. When I heard Civil Rights Foundation I thought I would be doing some hands-on, hard-hitting work. And I don´t get to practice my Spanish quite as much as I had hoped, since my task doesn´t involve much interaction. Only when I have to translate things from the english websites. I don´t know what I am going to do when I have to start on Europe and the sites are in Italian, French, Dutch, etc.

First trip outside of Madrid

Yesterday I took a day trip with my school to the city of Toledo. It is the hometown of the painted El Greco, and is filled with relics of a time when Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together peacefully. We visited a mosque, a sinagogue and a cathedral. Many of the buildings had names that came from more than one of the religions, and many had been used for more than one religion over the tears. In fact, the cathedral was built around a mosque, whose original walls are still standing inside the cathedral. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of inside the cathedral b/c I couldn't figure out how to turn the flash off on my new camera. But it was absolutely the most ornate, beautiful, monstrous building I have ever seen. It has 17 different chapels, all for a different type of religious service, including the only Mozarabe chapel in the world. I may have to try to find some pictures somewhere, b/c there is no way I could ever describe this building. The same goes for the inside of the other buildings. But I did take a lot of pictures outside in the city though, so check out the link on the left to see them.

The teacher of my grammar class is from Toledo, so she went with us and showed us around, which is really cool. I'm sure I got a lot more out of the trip from going with a local, rather than by myself with a guidebook. This teacher is hilarious. She pointed out to us that "la solucion es femenina, pero el problema es masculino." In class she is really funny too. The classes are so different from what I am used to. The teachers really like to get to know the students and just have fun in class. Classes center around group discussions, and my culture class is really interesting b/c she always asks us to compare things in Spain to our home countries. Most of the students are American, but there are also students in my class from Thailand, Japan, Great Britain, Italy and Holland, so I am learning a lot about other countries too.

***EDIT***
Here is a link to some pictures of the Cathedral
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cathedral_of_Toledo

You learn something new every day

Some new Spanish vocabulary I have learned since arriving in Spain:
perchas=hangers
contraseña=password
fianza=deposit

There are more, but those are some that stick out because they gave me a hard time.

Also, I am in love with Nocilla (the Spanish version of Nutella.) It is amazing on fruit! I may have to bring some back with me.

Long weekend rundown

Thursday was another kind of un-Spanish day, haha. We went to see "Mas Extrano que la Ficcion," also known as "Stranger that Fiction" (en ingles of course.) Then we went to a Mexican restaurant that Bernie told us about. The dinner was very good, although a little unsettling since we didn't eat until 11pm. Then on the way back to the metro we managed to get whistled at, even though we were in the gay neighborhood, great.

Friday was spent exploring a nearby neighborhood that we hadn't been through yet. It is called Salamance and is the 'rich' neighborhood with lots of upscale shops like Dior, Burberry, Jimmy Choo, etc. Then we went out dancing with some other Americans who also go to Nebrija. Spaniards are crazy, because when we were leaving at 3:30am (which is sooo late for Americans) they were just arriving.

Today El Museo de Reina Sofia was free in the afternoon, so went there to see some incredible Picassos and Dalis. I realized that I have seen a couple of famous paintings already, including The Guernica today, by Picasso, which was massive.

Also there was Mujer en Ventana by Dali.


And at the Prado I saw Las Meninas, by Velazquez.

Quick update

So much has happened over the last week. I would like to give a more thorough update, but I have class in 7 hours, so I am going to run through it quickly. Ok, so on Friday I moved into my new apartment and then took a walk around our "neighborhood" with Evelyn. Except that we ended up walking for like 3 hours all over Madrid. During that time we were stopped by an old Spanish man who talked to us for a long time, but basically said that he is an artist and would like to paint me some time because I am beautiful like the Virgin Mary. Right. Then we went to dinner and a flamenco show.

On Saturday Maria Jose took us to the Royal Palace then I had my first experience at Corte Ingles, which is the biggest store I have ever seen in my life. Then we had a roomie dinner, with Leen, Bernie and Evelyn. It was a lot of fun to get to know them. We went to the Prado on Sunday with Maria Jose, but we only checked out the work of El Greco, Goya and Velazquez, so I definitely want to go back.

On Monday we were craving some American food and decided it would be ok to be a little touristy, so we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. And let me tell you, that was the best burger and fries I have ever tasted (even if it did cost 12 euros.) Then we tried to go see a movie, but we got a little bit lost on the way there and showed up late, and they wouldn't let us in! So today we went clothes shopping (b/c my closet is the barest it's ever been) then we went to see the movie tonight. We saw Scoop in ingles, which was very amusing.

Tomorrow I have class from 10-1, then it is the weekend for me again, haha, pretty sweet. There are so many more museums in Madrid that I want to check out, so that is the plan for my 4 day weekend.