SO MUCH has happened since my last update!!! It's so hard to make time for blog updates when you're this busy. I'm kind of overwhelmed just thinking about how many things I need to talk about.
Last Thursday was my first time going to Joy. It was a pretty awesome place, with a big stage with dancers in freaky costumes, and a ginormous dance floor. Probably not worth paying 12 Euros to get in, though.
Friday, we went shopping ALL day. There was some sort of celebrity at the mall that day so there were tons of screaming Spaniards and a video camera filming everybody going crazy. We tried to find out who it wuas... apparently it was some actress from a Spanish TV show. Even though we were at the mall for 6 hours, I only bought two pairs of shoes and a shirt. That took a whole lot of self-control.
Then on Saturday, we went to Tapas with Professor Ferri. I seriously love tapas nights more than anything! We had some good bonding moments with each other and with the Prof. We tried cow intestines, cuttlefish, and I even tried octopus! I'm trying to be more open to the foods here, since this is pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We topped off our night with more churros & chocolate. Nom.
Sunday we explored our home base of Madrid!! I finally got a chance to see the Rastro, Gran Vía, Banco de España, Retiro Park, and the Prado museum! We all met first to go to the huge flea market that is held every Sunday in Madrid, called El Rastro. There were a lot of interesting things to see, but nothing actually worth buying. Then we wanted to get lunch, but every place that we saw was expensive. So we went to the supermarket, bought a kilo of turkey and a kilo of cheese, 3 huge baguettes, a 6-pack of apples, a giant roll of cookies, and a 2-liter bottle of water. When we split the cost for 6 people, it was only €3.50 per person. Talk about bargain shopping.. Only problem was, we had nowhere to eat it!! We found a random bench on the side of the street and just started assembling sandwiches and eating them in public. We looked like stereotypical sloppy Americans but it was great. We then took a walk over to Retiro park and explored for a while. There were giant catfish in the lake, and we fed them our cookies :) Then 4 of us took a boat ride in the lake, and it only cost €4.50 for all of us to go for 45 minutes! I'm totally doing that again. Later, we met up with Professor Ferri and other friends to go to the Prado museum. We got in for free, and stayed until it closed. The artwork was amazing, but not typically my favorite style of art. It was mostly Neoclassic and Romantic artwork. And there was SO MUCH to look at. I felt a bit overwhelmed. My favorite artwork there was probably Goya.
At the museum I started feeling pretty sick, and I felt like I was getting a fever. The next day it got worse, and I didn't really do anything Monday (except for homework and such). Luckily, I woke up feeling much better on Tuesday for classes. Wednesday was a homework-filled day as well, and then Thursday I had class again. Lately for our meals at school, we've been going to Super Sol (a supermarket right near campus) and grabbing some noms. Usually I'll buy a pack of strawberries and some yogurt and eat it for my breakfast. We have a lot of spare time between classes, so we play Donovan's amazing card game called Dutch Blitz. It's addictive. For lunch we usually eat the cafeteria food, which is a bit sub-par, but it's cheap. They have amazing guacamole though, but all my friends hate guacamole and they think I'm gross for eating it :(
Thursday night, we went out dancing! In my last post, I talked about my friends going dancing with their Latin Rhythms class. We decided not to go until this week. It was a lot of fun! My friends helped teach me a few Salsa moves. I'll be a pro by the time I leave! Also, this weekend is "Carnivale" in Spain. As far as I can tell, everybody just dresses up in crazy costumes and goes out and gets wild. Everybody at the dance place had the most ridiculous costumes! Later that night, we went to a club called Palacio for a while, and then I took the night bus home for the first time. It was nice to have another way of getting home at night since the Metro closes at 2 and doesn't open again until 6. The only problem is that night buses take FOREVER. It probably took about an hour and a half just to get from Sol to my house.
Friday was mostly a work day. We went to school to do some work and then we went out that night for a "Girl's" night. Or at least that's what we tried to make it! We basically went to Sol and found whatever seemed good. We went to Dubliner's, our favorite Irish bar. Then we went to O'Reilly's, the almost-identical Irish bar literally next door to Dubliner's. Then, some guy directed us to another Irish bar with free Sangria, so me and Asuman went, but Anna and Ari decided not to come. We met some interesting fellows from Mexico City who tried to teach us latin dance. Professor Ferri was out with other Lafayette students after having Tapas night, so we met up with all of them at ANOTHER Irish bar. We had a blast and danced the night away. We got Ferri to dance on stage! Mwahaha. So the moral of the story is, we went to four Irish bars in one night. And it was amazing. The end.
Saturday... what a long day!!! We wanted to experience Madrid again, so we met up to see the Palacio Real. We didn't go in because it was closing soon, so we just wandered the area. There were these gorgeous gardens right next to the palace, with PEACOCKS roaming around! Yes, wild peacocks. Best thing ever. We grabbed some food at a nearby place and then it was already past 6:00. We had to meet Ferri for tapas at 8, so I rushed home to get ready and then met everyone a little late. We had a blast at tapas, as usual. No Irish bars that night, though. Tapas lasted until about 12:30, and then Asuman and I met some friends to go to Teatro Kapital. We've been wanting to go to Kapital since the beginning of the semester, because it's apparently the most legitimate club in all of Madrid. And IT WAS. This place was seven floors tall, had three dance floors, a lounge floor with beds, a karaoke floor, and a MOJITO floor. It was literally amazing. It made Joy look like a joke. The 1st floor was the main dance floor, and all the other floors were like balconies around the perimeter, so you could always look down at the main dance floor from above. The ceiling in the middle had crazy lights, and every few minutes it would shoot out freezing smoke into the crowd. It was incredible. Easily worth paying 15 Euros to get inside. And it's free for girls on Thursdays so you better believe I'm going back! We met so many people that night, it was ridiculous. Spaniards are extremely friendly people. I already miss being there.
Today is not going to be a very eventful day because I'm so exhausted from last night. I'll probably do some homework. I have a Dynamics midterm on Tuesday, and a rough draft for my VaST paper due Thursday. I better stop slacking off with this blog! Oh and by the way, this weekend I'm going to Oslo for 2 nights, Stockholm for 2 nights, and London for 1 night!!! We haven't booked any hostels yet so I guess we'll be couch surfing. That will be fun. :)
Happy Valentines day? :(
<3 Hallie
Sunday, February 14
Thursday, February 4
Abono = Love
I guess it's about time for me to write a new entry... I don't like writing in here. Writing is not my thing. But I'm doing it for the sake of the few readers that follow this thing. So let's see... this week was very eventful. I dropped Art History. It was turning out to be more work than I was willing to deal with. Instead, I'm going to take an Art class at Lafayette called "Art, Neuroscience, and Consciousness" that sounded really cool. So now I only have four classes, and more free time :)
This weekend, we went to Granada, which is in southern Spain. It was absolutely fantastic! When we got there, we got sorta lost, and ended up walking for wayyy too long. I only brought one pair of shoes and my feet were killing me after that walk. They got a little better by the next day, but it made the trip a tad bit less enjoyable. We were all pretty nervous about getting to the hostel, because most of us have never stayed in one before. It turned out to be really nice! The woman at the desk was great to us, and they actually had clean, not-grimy sheets and towels. There was a sink in the bedroom, and the boys had a balcony in their room with a nice view :) We had to share the bathroom with the rest of the floor though, but that was never a problem, because barely anyone else lived on our floor. Now I can definitely say that I'm comortable booking hostels for future travels.
So after the hostel, we went exploring around Granada. We basically walked as far uphill as we could get, and saw an absolutely breathtaking view of the city. We stayed to watch the sunset (you can watch the video on my facebook). We browsed around our area later that night and got tapas at a few places. We also discovered this AMAZING frozen yogurt place! It's basically the Granada equivalent of Pinkberry. Yum :) The next day we went to the Alhambra, a Moorish palace. It was gorgeous! We spent most of the day there, but we went out again that night and had some yummies. We got the frozen yogurt again because it was just so good. On Sunday, we went to la Capilla Real, a chapel near our hostel, where Ferdinand and Isabella are buried. I've been to a lot of chapels and cathedrals since my arrival in Spain, but this one stood out to me. It was filled with beatiful religious paintings. A bunch of my friends here have been trying to explain Christianity to me, Anna and Asuman, and it has really helped me appreciate the things I've seen from their point of view.
Today was a good day. :) Anna and I got our Abonos!!! We've been waiting two weeks for them to be ready. Abonos are cards that you get that allow you to purchase a monthly metro pass. The under-21 one is only 29 Euros a month. I've already spent like, 50 Euros on metros in the 3 weeks that I've been here. This will save me a TON of money. And now we can travel anywhere anytime and not have to worry about paying extra! I'm SO happy. Another good thing that happened today: I finally purchased a straightener. Anna, Aaron and I went to a mall near him where we ate and shopped a little. I bought a little midget-sized straightener for 19 Euros at Corte Ingles. Yes! I also bought this very odd Spanish CD for only 1 Euro. And I got a cute little purse for 12 Euros! This was my first time shopping for anything since I've been here. Can you believe it?
Tomorrow night, I may possibly go dancing with a bunch of my friends. They're taking a class called "Latin Rhythms" and the class is going to some dance place... I'm not really sure about the details, but they told me I should come. So I might learn a bit of tango tomorrow! I also might go back to that club called Joy that I got rejected from last time. And then Friday, I'm going shopping with Asuman and Kevin! Finally, an actual shopping spree. I'm super excited. This will be my first weekend staying in Madrid so I plan on doing some tourism around my home base for once. Maybe we'll hit up a museum or something.
As for other plans during my stay... I'm trying to get everything planned out but it's very difficult. I'm already pretty much booked every weekend with things that my friends basically planned for me. Winter break is coming up in a few weeks, and I'm not sure yet where we'll go. We found cheap flights to Dublin and Oslo, which would both be spectacular. If all else fails, Asuman said we can stay with her family in Turkey. Then soon after that is Toulouse with Lafayette. Then my family is coming, and we're probably going to Barcelona for a few days! Then we might try and get in a trip to Amsterdam but I'm not sure. Then I'm going to Portugal for the first half of spring break, and Morocco for the second half. Then I may go to Mallorca or someplace warm. And then Barcelona (with friends this time) and Italy are scattered somewhere in there too. Basically, I'm swamped with plans and I have no idea what's going on. So once that's all figured out, I'll probably put up a schedule on here.
Ta-ta for now!
Hallie
This weekend, we went to Granada, which is in southern Spain. It was absolutely fantastic! When we got there, we got sorta lost, and ended up walking for wayyy too long. I only brought one pair of shoes and my feet were killing me after that walk. They got a little better by the next day, but it made the trip a tad bit less enjoyable. We were all pretty nervous about getting to the hostel, because most of us have never stayed in one before. It turned out to be really nice! The woman at the desk was great to us, and they actually had clean, not-grimy sheets and towels. There was a sink in the bedroom, and the boys had a balcony in their room with a nice view :) We had to share the bathroom with the rest of the floor though, but that was never a problem, because barely anyone else lived on our floor. Now I can definitely say that I'm comortable booking hostels for future travels.
So after the hostel, we went exploring around Granada. We basically walked as far uphill as we could get, and saw an absolutely breathtaking view of the city. We stayed to watch the sunset (you can watch the video on my facebook). We browsed around our area later that night and got tapas at a few places. We also discovered this AMAZING frozen yogurt place! It's basically the Granada equivalent of Pinkberry. Yum :) The next day we went to the Alhambra, a Moorish palace. It was gorgeous! We spent most of the day there, but we went out again that night and had some yummies. We got the frozen yogurt again because it was just so good. On Sunday, we went to la Capilla Real, a chapel near our hostel, where Ferdinand and Isabella are buried. I've been to a lot of chapels and cathedrals since my arrival in Spain, but this one stood out to me. It was filled with beatiful religious paintings. A bunch of my friends here have been trying to explain Christianity to me, Anna and Asuman, and it has really helped me appreciate the things I've seen from their point of view.
Today was a good day. :) Anna and I got our Abonos!!! We've been waiting two weeks for them to be ready. Abonos are cards that you get that allow you to purchase a monthly metro pass. The under-21 one is only 29 Euros a month. I've already spent like, 50 Euros on metros in the 3 weeks that I've been here. This will save me a TON of money. And now we can travel anywhere anytime and not have to worry about paying extra! I'm SO happy. Another good thing that happened today: I finally purchased a straightener. Anna, Aaron and I went to a mall near him where we ate and shopped a little. I bought a little midget-sized straightener for 19 Euros at Corte Ingles. Yes! I also bought this very odd Spanish CD for only 1 Euro. And I got a cute little purse for 12 Euros! This was my first time shopping for anything since I've been here. Can you believe it?
Tomorrow night, I may possibly go dancing with a bunch of my friends. They're taking a class called "Latin Rhythms" and the class is going to some dance place... I'm not really sure about the details, but they told me I should come. So I might learn a bit of tango tomorrow! I also might go back to that club called Joy that I got rejected from last time. And then Friday, I'm going shopping with Asuman and Kevin! Finally, an actual shopping spree. I'm super excited. This will be my first weekend staying in Madrid so I plan on doing some tourism around my home base for once. Maybe we'll hit up a museum or something.
As for other plans during my stay... I'm trying to get everything planned out but it's very difficult. I'm already pretty much booked every weekend with things that my friends basically planned for me. Winter break is coming up in a few weeks, and I'm not sure yet where we'll go. We found cheap flights to Dublin and Oslo, which would both be spectacular. If all else fails, Asuman said we can stay with her family in Turkey. Then soon after that is Toulouse with Lafayette. Then my family is coming, and we're probably going to Barcelona for a few days! Then we might try and get in a trip to Amsterdam but I'm not sure. Then I'm going to Portugal for the first half of spring break, and Morocco for the second half. Then I may go to Mallorca or someplace warm. And then Barcelona (with friends this time) and Italy are scattered somewhere in there too. Basically, I'm swamped with plans and I have no idea what's going on. So once that's all figured out, I'll probably put up a schedule on here.
Ta-ta for now!
Hallie
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