Madridejos....bringing back the memories

Bahh ok sooooo so behind on the whole blog thing but here goes some catch up time...

So 2 weekends ago I decided to take a little trip to my old stomping grounds of Madridejos to visit my old host family. Since there are only 2 buses that run there per day from Toledo I caught the later one at 5:30 hoping to make it there by 6:30. Unfortunately, the bus was late by a half hour...so my host sister and my host mom had to wait at the station for me. When i got there they drove me to their house. It was exactly as I remembered it. The only difference was that they had gotten a dining room table. It brought back wonderful high school memories of saying si to everything and not understanding a word they said. Fortunately, this time around I could actually converse with them...it was fantastic. They even said that they were happy they could finally speak to me and that I could speak back.

 So after I first got there I went with my 2 old host sisters to pick up my old little host brother (who is now 10) from a bday party. Then we came back and changed and got cute and went to the dining room where they had a welcome dinner for me with all of her friends who I had met last time I was there. We ate delicous food like pizza and spanish tortilla. I had a wonderful night speaking spanish and catching up. The next day I helped my old host sister with her pharmacy school english homework and she helped me with my spanish homework...it was the perfect trade off. Then the scariest part of the entire day happened.......LUNCH!

I had never told my old host family about my fear of seafood and fish because it was only 5 days and I sucked it up....soooooo they made the worst possible thing they could for me, paella with gigantic pieces of god know what kind of monstrous seafood pieces. Being a champ i ate it.......but it took all i had not to throw it up. After all of this I caught the bus home after a wonderful weekend (well except for the ending that is). Here are some pics:

Me and some of the girls

Me, my old host sister, and the only two girls I didnt know

All of the girls

Amelia my old host sister and me

Torres, Alcala de Henares y Churros con Chocolate

So, last Thursday my art of toledo class was canceled...so me and some other americanos went and found the towers that we need to write about for our paper. When we got to the first tower it had a "for rent" sign on it and had trash laying in front of the door...we thought it was strange that our teacher was having us write a paper on a tower that looked so trashy and had been turned into an apartment building but we saw some arcos and thought this must be it. So we spent about 10 minutes taking pictures for our paper and when we started walking up the street to Plaza de Zocodover we turned around to look at the cathedral tower which looked really pretty and noticed another tower right next the one we had been taking pictures of....we had been taking pictures of some random building this whole time. Naturally we now understood all of the strange looks. We visited 5 more towers and called it a day. I put some pics below, they all look the same so dont get too excited lol:

The tower that we almost put down in our paper as an apt building

Mamposteria

This one had the best location in my opinion

Arcos de Herradura, un Alfiz, Rodeada de Ladrillo y Mamposteria Encintada : ) I am so ready for this midterm on Thursday

Told you they all look the same

Friday I went to Alcala de Henares, which is about 15 minutes north of Madrid, for a day excursion with my school. It was freezing that day and none of us were prepared. I only had my light white sweatshirt...but luckily i decided to wear my jeans and boots that day :). First we toured the first university in Spain. It was very old looking, and had a lot of patios. There was this one room we went in which I thought was absolutely gorgeous! would not mind having class in there. Unfortunately the university is only for tours now and doesnt actually hold classes.

After the university we went to a famous comedy club and theater. We got to tour it and went below and looked at all the fun props like the barrel that if you turn it make it sound like its thundering. We went upstairs where the women and men had to sit in separate sections. The women got the center seats and the guys sat on the side. After that we had free time...we found the house of Miguel Cervantes, writer of Don Quijote, and found a tienda that had adorable scarves. I got two.

 Then we went to go eat. The dinner was super nice. We got three courses...and of course pan! We got lasagna, a dish that reminded me of moms crockpot meals :) , and desert was something weird, it had a squishy texture so i only ate the chocolate part which didnt have that texture. Then we boarded on the bus and headed back. About an hour into the bus ride home im talking to my friend anna and across the aisle i see one of the guys stand up and puke into the garbage can in front of him. He was lucky and was sitting in spot with the back door stairs and a garbage can. It was really gross though. Then other people started throwing up because of the smell. So we stopped the bus and everyone had to get out. We sat in a park for about a half an hour. Then the bus came back and picked us up...all cleaned up.  There are pictures below...of the day not of the vomit ;) :

A model of the city



Entrance to the University






Just chillin with Don and Sancho in front of Miguels house



Eating our Delicious Dinner

                                                          The pretty room at the University

Thunder noise maker



On Sunday I woke up and woke up to the nice surprise of going out for churros and chocolate with my family! It was absolutely delicious and an awesome start to midterms week :)

and that was the week of the 10-17 in a nutshell :)





Monasteries, Intercambios, Alicante, Feet, Surprises, and Metro Stations

I have obviously not been updating this like I should be...so here goes. Last Thursday during my art class we went to an old Monastery where monks lived. It was built by Ferdinand and Isabella (Ysabella back then) who were titled "Los Reyes Catolicos" and represented by the phrase "Tanto Monta, Monta Tanto" symbolizing that they ruled together. Other symbols that represent them are the arrows and the yoke. The monastery had a beautiful garden in the middle and was attached to a gorgeous church where they still hold ceremonies! Here are pictures:



The ceiling upstairs was gorgeous!




The beautiful gardern layout was stolen from muslim architecture with a well in the middle and the four corners representin the "four" continents





The symbol of Ferdinand and Isabella "Tanto Monta, Monta Tanto"





The walls of the courtyard...arent the windows gorgeous?



The Cathedral attached to the monastery

This last weekend I went to Alicante, Spain...which is on the Costa Blanca (basically the florida of Spain). It was seriously my absolute favorite vacation here yet. We started out by taking Ryan Air (my first trip by plane here...how exciting :) ) and im not gonna lie its kind of a sketchy airline. My friend Katherine and I got yelled at by the flight attendent for whispering during her safety presentation (she wasnt even talking...shes was showing ridiculous...even though we may or may not have been talking about how her and another flight attendant have a thing). Luckily i didnt have to figure out how to skydive and we made it safely to Alicante.

Our hostel was amazing...the owners were so nice! They gave us mats for the beach so we didnt have to buy towels and gave us advice on fun things to do. There was a rooftop terrace that had an amazing view and that we spent a lot of time hanging out. We met some nice people from Australia and Holland. The front desk lady even called up the ferry place for us so nothing would get lost in translation.

The first day we went to the beach as soon as we go there and got our tan on. We had a lot of fun swimming in the mar and the locals were so nice. They told us how to hold our stuff so it wouldnt get stolen and one old lady who was tanning on a chair behind us told us that we have to go to la isla de Tabarca, which you can get to by ferry. So claro the next day we decided to figure out this whole Tabarca thing. We got the ferry info from the front desk lady on our way up from breakfast and found out we had 40 minutes to get ready and buy water shoes (cause you cant swim there without them) and get to the ferry. Five girls and one bathroom later we had 20 minutes to make it to the ferry landing and buy watershoes. We split up into teams...I was on team ferry and three of the girls were on team water shoes. My team (me and my friend Clare) found the ferry landing, but didnt have enough money to buy 5 tickets but convinced the ferry people to wait for our friends. Team watershoes arrived just in the nick of time and we all got safely aboard the ferry.

The ride was an hour long and so we camped out on a spot with a pretty good view. Suddenly this Spanish guy came up to us and started talking to us. He told us how he goes to the island of Tabarca every year because he spread his boyfriends ashes there after he died of lung cancer. He then talked with us for the rest of the trip giving ideas on where to go. He may or may not have decided he was besties with one of the girls Katherine...he even gave her a book her had written about Alicante and signed it.

When we got to the island it was amazingly beautiful and gorgeous! There were hardly any people on the island. It wasnt built up and had a few restaurants and souvenier shops here and there but not that much stuff. We bought two sets of snorkel gear at a shop and went around looking for a place to snorkel. We found the most gorgeous cove to go snorkeling. There was no one else there the whole time and it was as if it was our own private swimming cove. There were these amazing caves to swim in and explore. We did a swim in one of the caves that we named  "the swim of death". It was a narrow underground tunnel between two of the caves and it was amazing. You could barely fit just had to pull yourself through on the sides.

In our private cove I snorkeled for the first time. I was coral, and lots of pretty fishies and under water rocky caves. It was amazing and I really wish I had an underwater camera. After swimming all day we headed to a local restaurant on the island and all of the other girls got paella con mariscos and i got my seafood-free lasagna :). We headed back to Alicante on the ferry and arrived safely back at our hostel. We got chinese food that night...delicous...filling..and cheap! For 7 euros we got drink, 4 four courses, and coffee at the end.

The next day we were set to leave...only three of us had tickets for 11 that night and wanted to leave with the other two girls at 2 so we all headed to the airport together to try to negotiate...unfortunately we were told the only way we could get back to Madrid on the 2 flight was if we bought 300 euro plane tickets...so the three of us headed back to Alicante for an extra day. We grabbed lunch at a cute little place and ate there for probably 3 hours or so and then found a movie theater and saw "Siempre a mi lado" or in america, "Charlie St. Cloud:. I am probably pretty sure that had I seen this in english I would have hated it because it was so corny and predictable but I loved watching it in dubbed over Spanish because I could actually understand it. All I can say though is that Zac Efron should probably stay away from all serious roles. This whole time mind you we were carrying around our giant backpacks and one of my friends, Nicole, was carrying around her giant suitcase we named Sally. My backpack is named Luther and the other is Hubert. They had a fun day. After getting done with the movie we caught a bus to the airport once again and got on our plane. Had another sketchy Ryan Air flight but at least didnt get yelled at this time.

Once we got to madrid we had an hour until the subway stops running and we already knew we would have to wait until 6 to catch a bus to Toledo but we figured we might as well sleep in the bus station and not in the airport so we made the subway to the bus station only to find out once we go there that the bus station is not open 24/7. So we ended up sleeping on the metro station floor...we had officially sunk to an all time sleeping accomodation low. But we managed to dodge the security guards trying to kick us out and find comfort among the dust bunnies on the floor. The next morning we boarded the 6 am bus to Toledo, except we got on the one that goes through all the little pueblos too and not the direct one so we ended up taking 2 hours to get here. I headed home and got an hours worth of sleep in my own bed before I had to get up and go to class. Here are some pics from the weekend:

Rooftop Terrace <3

On the ferry

Spanish Man that gave us signed book



TABARCA :)



Oh you know just our private cove nbd

Exploring our Cove

Picture from a hole above one of the caves

Movie theater with sally, hubert, and luther :)

Beach on the first day...these pics are so not in order

Sketchy Ryan Air

Snorkeling :)

Next topic is actually just a couple pictures but I met with my intercambios last weeke and they took me to a beautiful look out over Toledo and I thought Id share the pics:

Ok so for the foot topic...kind of gross but last week I cut my foot and over the weekend it became infected. I think swimming in the mar (Mediterranean Sea) wasnt very good for it because it swelled up on Sunday and Yesterday I went to the school doctor and he prescribed an antibiotic and said if its not better by wednesday to go to the hospital. The good news is that it seems to be a lot better now...the swelling has gone down a lot. So hopefully by tomorrow I wont need to go to a scary spanish hospital. But anyways my advice to you gente is to not swim in the mar with a cut. :)

And that is my adventures in a nutshell :)...more to come soon! Italia is almost here!

¡Hay Una Huelga...Huelga General!

Wednesday was the Huelga General in Spain. The people of Spain are not happy with some new reforms the Spanish Government has passed to help with budget cuts. They say it hurts the common worker in an unjust way. So wednesday most of the stores in Toledo were closed. My host dad did go to work...as a few people did. I showed up to my first class that morning only to have the teacher never show up because she went on strike. So instead of class, I went and watched the strike for awhile in Plaza de Zocodover...the main plaza in Toledo. My second teacher did show up, though. Here are some pics from the strike:

"Workers of the world, unite!"



Sign on a Store: "Closed for the general strike, I am going!!"



More signs



One of the Homemade Protest signs

giant banner

Grafitti like this was everywhere

Barcelona!

Day 1:

A big group of the kids from the fundacion (my school) took an ovenight bus to Barcelona on Thursday. Friday morning we find our hostel, which is located right next to the Ramblas, which is a big walkway surrounded by trees on either side. After getting there we decided to maybe see what the stores had to offer since it was still pretty early for the beach. After walking a little ways we noticed ALL of the stores were closed...even though it was well after the time they are supposed to be open according to their signs. So I asked a spanish couple por que and they told me that it was The Festival of Barcelona this weekend and all the stores would be closed all day. We just happened to come to Barcelona during the biggest weekend out of the whole year...who knew? Giving up, we went back to our hostel and changed into our swimsuits and headed out to the mar. We had a fabulous afternoon swimming in the Mediterranean Sea and laying on the beach. Here are some pics from day uno:

La Playa

Las Ramblas

Their snazzy drinking fountains



Day 2:

We woke up and decided to be tourists today. So what does a tourist do in Barcelona? See Gaudi, Claro!!! After grabbing a delicious brunch at a gyro type place we headed onto the metro...where happened to be a grocery vending machine to buy some delicious water. We got off at the stop for Parque Guell....a park that Gaudi built for his friend Guell that was supposed to be a whole community...but I guess that didnt work out. So after getting off of the metro we expected the park to be only a little bit away...little did we know that we had to climb a mountain to get there! That is not an exaggeration either. After losing a good 5 lbs we were finally at the park...and it was worth it. It honestly looked like candy land...it was full of amazing statues and the buildings were from a fairytale. The artwork was unbelievable. Pictures are posted below :) . After spending quite a bit of time at the park we were off to yet another Gaudi masterpiece. We went to the Cathedral called Sangra Familia. It is an unbelievable...like seriously indescribable Cathedral that began construction in 1898....its still under construction and wont be finished for another 100 years. By still under construction...i mean they are actually actively working on it too. It is that ornate and amazing. I cant really describe it because it is so detailed...but pictures are definitly below. After looking at the cathedral we had a Cafe con leche break....they gave me cutest little to go cup...seriously tiny. We then made the trek back home after a successful Gaudi day :)

View from Top of Parque Guell

What was supposed to be the marketplace of Parque Guell

La Sangre Familia

My Small Coffee

Guy Painting Sangre Familia

Day Tres:
We woke up and had a great breakfast at Starbucks...which i personally had been missing dearly and then checked out of our hostel. We took the metro to the area around the museo del picasso and had a nice nap a small patch of grass. Then we got lunch at a supermarket and headed to the Museo del Picasso. Its an entire museum dedicated to guess who....Picasso! It was really interesting seeing his work before he found his "style". He has a ton of amazing works that don't have that "Picasso Look" to them. After the museum we went to a wonderful mexican restaurant and called Pleasure. Then we went to the Bus station to make our way back to Madrid...on the way we went through the Arc de Triumf.

Museo de Picasso

The Placemat at Pleasure (its in english...que raro)

Anxiously awaiting our food

Arc de Triumf

Day 4:
I got back to Toledo at 8 am and instead of going back to my host family's house I decided to just stay at the school since I have class at 11:30. Well, if we stay with a family we arent supposed to eat breakfast in the residence halls but I figured one time would be ok. As soon as I walked in this lady stormed up to me and yelled at me and I pretended I didnt understand her. So I sat down and started eating. She left to go get her boss and then came back. I was like this is ridiculous so I just started leaving....she booked after me running. I ended up having to pay 2.50 for the breakfast and be given the evil eye the whole morning. But i guess it was one of the most hilarious moments any of the people who were down for breakfast have ever seen....they were cracking up.