Los padres en España

In Toledo with Mama and Pappa


Dinner with Al and Amy


Best Cathedral ever.


Pappa with his favorite Ninot


At a full size Falla in China Town

Last friday I took a train to Madrid to meet up with my parents and Al and Amy. Pappa did not come in with the others because he had a conference in Switzerland. So I took the train and then the metro to their hotel. It was really nice to see some people from home. That night we just had tapas and bummed around downtown. Pappa came in a little later and we all called it a night.

The next day we went to the Prado. It is amazing how many pieces of art they have in that museum! You could easily spend a week in that museum alone. We also went to the Royal Palace. This was really cool as well. I enjoyed this more than the museum. Right next to the palace was an AMAZING cathedral. It is probably my most favorite to date on this trip. Look at the pictures. The colors are so vibrant, a little different to have such a modern touch on a cathedral. A nice change of pace. We had a great dinner that night at the "older restaurant in the world" according to the Guinness Book of world records. The food was wonderful. I had some real meat for the first time in a long time. haha

Sunday we took the rented car and drove to Toledo. I showed them the cathedral that I had been to with my group. It was a nice day and we just bummed around town. Then we drove in to Valencia...Valencia by car is much trickery than Valencia by foot. haha

The week was filled with classes for me and adventuring for them.

On Thursday I went to the craziest disco tec ever! We took a bus there and i didnt get to bed until 7:30 am. I woke up at 8:30 to go to the aquarium with the folks. It didnt go as horribly as I thought with the lack of sleep. I wouldnt have gone, but i felt it was a necessary adventure for cultural immersion. haha.

The aquarium was awesome! Much better than the one in Atlanta in my opinion. The weather was wonderful yet again. We also saw an Imax film about the Alps. It was really good.

It was nice that they were all able to see some of the beginnings of FALLAS. Elsewise no one would believe me as to how crazy this festival is! There are soooo many people, awesome "floats", great fallera costumes, and sooo much more. THe city is packed and the night life is ridiculous. There fireworks everyday at 2pm and 1am. The party goes alll night. Sleep is for the weak... haha actually Stephanie had a bunch of extra ear plugs that have come in handy.

more to come on fallas.

Granada...amazing

markets in Granada


Relaxed after the Arabian bath house


At the Flamenco show


Great view from plaza de san nicolas


train on the way to granada...1 am



The fortress at Alhambra


Alhambra


Palace at Alhambra


Walls at Palace at Alhambra

This past weekend i went to Granada with 4 other girls from my program. We took the midnight train and arrived in Granada at 8 am...my first over night experience on a train...much like a plane, kinda impossible to get good sleep.

Anyways once we arrived in Granada we went to find our hostel. The neighborhood looked a little sketchy, but as we continued to climb the hill to our destination we saw that the view was amazing. So after about an hour of hassle we managed to get in touch with the manager of our hostel. We shared a room with a queen size bunch bed, so two on top and two on bottom, then a futon for the fifth. We had our own bathroom and they hostel had a living room, a computer with free internet and a nice sized kitchen. There was an awesome terrace that looked down on to the city. So we dropped off our stuff and began to adventure.

Stephanie and I went to the main cathedral of Granada and went into various markets and side street shops. The city had a very "arabian" feel to it, with the Moroccan influences. Hookahs, robes, pastries, and tapestries littered the side street with multiple vendors. We then wandered to the main square called plaza nueva. there we saw belly dancers and street performers. We had a great lunch of wine and tapas. Afterwards we went to an Arabian bath house...it was amazing, probably one of the coolest things I have ever done... there were 6 different pools of varies temperatures and different depths, so you would move around from pool to pool either lying or sitting in them. There was also an icy cold one to cool off in and i guess it is the equivalent of cleansing your pallet in between courses...weird analogy. So there was soft middle eastern music playing in the background, everything was dimly lit, and silence was enforced. there was a den with tea and little candies to have when you wanted to get out of the water for a little minute. We were in there for an hour and a half...it was nice to have some quiet alone'ish time.

Later that night we went to a flamenco show. It was great to hear live music. We were in like a little catacomb and the performers were great. the dancing was amazing! It was a fun filled day and i felt i really experienced the culture of the city.

Sunday we got up and had breakfast on the terrace and went to the Alhambra. The views were AMAZING. On one side there were lush green valleys and the opposite boasted the the snow covered Sierra Nevada. It was breathtaking. We spent about 5 hours on the ground on the Alhambra and saw the room where Christoper Colombus was commissioned to find the new world by queen isabella...crazy. The architecture was unlike any other I have seen in my travels. This was the first arabian influenced city i have been to. The work was all so incredibly intricate.

we took the 10 pm train back and arrived in valencia at 6 am...just in time to nap and head to our 9 am classes! haha. totally worth it. another amazing weekend. i am so blessed.

Just Livin' the Dream

star wars or power rangers...we couldn't decide


The HUGE crowd at Zapatero


me, Catherine, and Erin at the soccer match


planetarium and science museum


my roomie alix, me, and steven playing around

This weekend i was lucky enough to have an extremely "culture" filled weekend. On Friday a group of us wandered down the Rio to find the area of arts and sciences. the architecture of these structures is CRAZY. it is all iridescent white mosaic tiles that cover all of the building! We walked about 6 miles back and forth that day. It was the first day of nice weather in a while so it was well needed!

On Saturday morning a group of us woke up and went over to the bull fighting arena to see the president of Spain speak in a political rally. Spain is having their presidential elections on March 9th, and there is a decently heated race going on. So anyways there were probably about 10-15,000 people crammed in this arena. Everyone was in an incredibly jovial mood and were pumped to be celebrating with neighbors and support their candidate. There was a live band, this stomp number, and a few speakers before Zapatero. All three of the speakers were amazing! No notes, just very strong speaking skills, very captivating. It was really cool that I understood basically everything that was going on as well. Everything that I didn't understand I asked this nice older man next to me, and he was really helpful and explained the political process in Spain and who the different important people were on the stage.

The entry was simple, just flow in...no tickets, no bag checks....nothing. People were picnicking, chatting, and dancing. It was great, probably the best show of politics and the possibilities of a government I have every seen...Probably naive of me...but I am ok with that. haha. O INTA kids... got to love it.

If that wasnt enough for one day, that night i went to a Valencia FC game. Apparently they dont sell beer with alcohol at the stadium. That was a big difference from american spectating. The game was a whole lot of fun. I bought a jersey after school one day and wore it. My building for classes is one block away from the stadium so I get to see if everyday. It was awesome to be in the stadium. They tied 1-1. The stadium wasnt packed. I am really tempted to drop the money for the Barce game during Fallas...time will tell. It was a blast though!

So i had my first round of testing this week. It went decently. I didnt study as much as I would have at home for tests back in real school, but I felt decently prepared. We will see how that pans out.

The weather has been amazing! The past three days I have spent my siestas on the roof in my swim suit tanning =) be jealous!

BARÇA

This weekend we took a group excursion to Barcelona. We left bright and early on Saturday morning, 7 am. The bus ride was about 4 hours and some change. The whole there we all slept for the most part. We arrived at our hotel, which was amazing at about noon. We dropped off our bags and continued on back to the bus for a bus tour of the city.

Our first stop was at Park Güell . This park was out of this world. Güell Park was built from 1900 to 1914 and the architect of the Park was this guy Antoni Gaudí. He belonged to the modernism art movement and is incredibly famous especially within Barcelona for his works around the city. His style is hard to describe because he has his own sculpting style which is evident in all of his works around the city. Note the photos. haha. My favorite part about the park were the mosaics all around...benches, walls, ceilings, sculptures...you name it. the park was so colorful and full of people. it was an incredibly vibrant place.

After Güell, we continued on to see things on the bus such as the Sagrada Familia, another one of Gaudís works, governmental builiding, plazas, barrios, and different museums that we could visit. After the tour we went and ate...haha this was a good time. it was a pizza buffet and everyone freaked out and ate loads as the food at Col-legi Major is getting pretty old quickly.

We were then released to do whatever we wanted. I went with a group to the Segrada Familia. This cathedral has been in construction for 70 years and various guide books claim that it will be complete anywhere from 202o to 208o...The outer works of the cathedral were started by Gaudí, and have his sculpting style. I feel pointless trying to describe what the outer workings of the cathedral look like because they are so enormous and mind boggling. again, note photos. we used the metro to get there and back which was an adventure in and of itself, a group of about 20 of us went...we roll deep.

that evening we went shopping down the main calles and went out to dinner at an italian restaurant. we didnt get back from dinner til like 12 and then we got ready to go out and headed out for an evening down town...this is where i saw that barcelona was nothing like madrid or valencia at night...it was a little sketch...the night ended early at about 3.

the next morning i got up and took the metro with some friends to Barcelona FC Camp Nou, the stadium for the city's team. it was awesome. the team store was a good time as well. we took loads of pictures. then we went on to the olympic stadium...we covered a good bit of area in the morning before we left back from home. the bus ride was nice and yet again, i slept most of the way. siestas have become way to habitual for me haha.

so it was a good weekend, interesting to see another city and understand how diverse spain is.

a shirt i saw sums it up well... "Barcelona is not Spain"

25%

so i have been gone about 3 weeks now. that is sad to think i am already a forth of the way done with my trip!

so this week was based pretty much around school...sadly and shockingly. haha everyone is getting sick, probably because we have been going so hard for the past few weeks. i have some sore throat, cough, drainage business...but nothing too intense.

this week i went to the stadium for the valencian soccer team. we just walked around the inside when it was empty. it was HUGE! it was really amazing to see something that size empty. we will be going to a game in 2 weeks. it promises to be a good time.

me stephanie and nick spent a lot of time this past week planning out spring break. we had to search around for hostels and hotels, which took a bit longer than i had originally thought. i think we are pretty set now for the week. we will be on the move a good bit but i am extremely excited to be pseudo back packing for a week or so.

it is so tempting to travel around with all the cheap flights i am finding, but the problem is class...boo. most cheap flights leave on thursdays and return on saturdays so that makes it a little difficult to get anywhere for a decent price. i guess i will just be traveling through spain as much as possible on the weekends, but it seems as though trains and buses are just as expensive as flights here. another shocker.

today we attempted to visit another nearby town...it was a bust and the town really had nothing going on. so we got back on the train and came back to valencia. we are really blessed to be living in such an amazing city. today when we got off the train we went to the bull fighting ring stadium and they were having this huge medieval festival. we spent about an hour bumming around in there and then went to get some food at this sandwich place that we frequent.

pretty calm week...this coming week i have a paper due and two presentations...what a bummer, but next weekend we have a group excursion to Barcelona. sadly i will miss the first game for the girls team here...o well what can you do.

back to planning mini excursions! adios!