Since these past few days have been a whirlwhind I thought I'd take this break and write about what I've been up to!
Thursday June 10:
We woke up early on Thursday and all went to the Prado Museum. It was amazing, absolutely amazing. When we got the museum we had two tour guides and they split us up into a spanish-speaking group and an english-speaking group. I was in the spainsh one and I was pretty surprised that I could still understand most of what the tour guide was talking about. We saw the works of three major Spanish artists : Goya, Velazquez, and Murillo. The tour took awhile and then we were released for lunch. Matt and I decided to stay behind in the museum since we were already in there and look around some more. I'm glad we did because we got to see this amazing cloister that the museum had and a lot more art. Once we left, we went on a mission to find something to eat and ended up choosing a Thai restaurant. It was delicious and really filling, which was great because we were starving at that point.
After lunch we met back up with the group at the Reina Sofia (a fantastic modern art museum in downtown Madrid). We had a tour there as well where we looked at the works of Picasso, El Greco, and Dali. We got to see one of El Greco's most famous works of art: La Guernica. The tour was great because we got to hear alot of history about Spain while looking at the art. Matt and I stayed behind after that tour as well, and one of the girls named Tara stayed with us. We poked around some more and then headed back towards the hotel. The walk was supposed to take 15 minutes, but 40 minutes later we finally made it back. We were exhausted at that point so I went and took a nap and then got up for dinner around 9.
We went to dinner at a restaurant that we just happened upon while we were walking. Tara, my roommate Chelsea, Matt and I all ordered separate dishes and got told off by the waiter because he informed us that that's not how tapas dinners worked in Spain. :) Once dinner was over we headed to a huge nightclub in Madrid called Teatro Kapital. The club is a 7 story building that was originally a theater that is now an insane party spot for young people in Madrid. Each story of the building has a different "theme" sort of. The first floor was huge and was just a big dance floor that played techno music. The second floor was a Rap and R&B floor with fancy mood lighting and white drapes hanging everywhere. The third floor was just a bar that overlooked the second floor. The fourth floor was a Bacardi lounge area. The fifth was closed when we were there, and the sixth and seventh floors were chill floors with couches and stuff to sit on and relax. By some chance there was a club promoter outside when we got there and she gave us free passes to get into the club since it was still early in the evening. We waited there for the other people from our group to meet us and the spent the night out with one another.
Friday June 11:
We got up extremely early and headed out for Toledo. The ride only took about 45 minutes and I slept for almost all of it. Driving into Toledo was amazing. The city is extremely old and all of the buildings look as if it was still historical Spain. Toledo is surrounded on three sides by a huge wall and on the fourth by a river. We took a bus tour as soon as we got there around the outisde of the city to get a good look from all the different angles. After the bus tour we did a walking tour through some of the churches/synagogues in the city. The churches were beautiful and it was a just a quick introduction to some of the history of Spain and Toldeo in particular. We had lunch in the city and then headed to the outskirts to our hotel for a little down time and a group meeting.
After the meeting I looked up some restaurants on the internet and Tara, Matt, a friend Dana, and I all headed into the city by cab to explore and find something to eat. We ended up eating at a vegetarian restaurant that I had looked up online, and it was amazing. It's probably the best food that I've eaten in Spain so far. I had fresh pesto pasta and it was delicious. Everyone said that they really liked their food and we went back to the hotel very full and content.
Saturday June 12:
Bus ride from Toledo to Barcelona. This literally took 8. It was extremely long and uncomfortable because there is absolutely no good way to sleep on a bus. The country side of Spain was interesting, not quite what I was expecting, but cool nonetheless. One interesting thing that I saw was that there are a lot of windmills out in the country. They are those huge white ones, but I saw a lot of them as we were driving. Spain is a very energy/environmentally conscious country. Electricity, water, and utilities are very expensive here.
Once in Barcelona our host families picked us up at our meeting place and brought us home. My host mother is very nice, but I think she's pretty disappointed in my spanish speaking. She actually told me that she wasn't very prepared to speak english to me because ISA had told her that I could speak spanish well. Ouch. However, I'm here to learn so I guess I'll just start talking more and more and hopefully get the hang of it again. In my house there is also her daughter, who is 15 and very nice as well. She helped me set up my WiFi so that I could write to you guys!
We had gazpacho for dinner and some tuna. It was good, but not my favorite thing I've ever tried. After dinner the daughter went to a friends house and so did the mom, so it was kind of odd because I was here in the apartment all by myself. I'm not sure if I like not having a roommate, because it means not having anyone to explore with. Tomorrow I'm going to try to go get a new card for my phone so that I can call other students in the group and actually meet up with people.
As for the house itself, it's amazing. The building is extremely old, but the apartment has a really nice charm to it. It has a nice patio outside where my host mom said I could have breakfast or sit and study. My room is nice. It's slightly small, but it has a desk and a bed and a wardrobe and I feel cozy in it.
Tomorrow my plan is to go explore the city and find my way around. Hopefully all goes well and it is nice and sunny.
Until next time,
Sarah
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