I love 'MERICA.

Holaaaaaa!!! :)

SO as you can see from the title of this blog, I was/still kinda am missing the best country in the world, which we all know is the United States of AMERICA. Well obviously Monday was 4th of July and considering that means nothing to the Spaniards, I was reppin' for 'Merica. I had my American flag shirt (that I bought here) and wore it LOUDLY and PROUDLY because I love being American!!! Anywho, after wearing my American gear to class, I had to come back and work on some papers for one of my classes. However, Abby, Ali, Taylor and I decided that we were going to go shopping, so they met us at our Metro stop. We were going to go explore and shop, but we ran into a very appetizing sign: daiquiris. We decided to go in and get one.. Well afterwards we decided to get some Sangria, so 3 of us split a pitcher.. After that it was just a lost cause. Taylor went back, and Abby, Ali and I continued on to this tavern by our place. They didn't have Sangria so I got a couple glasses of wine, keeping it classy as per usual. Abby and Ali got Tinto de Verano (wine and pop) and did a shot of this Black Vodka, it actually was pretty good! While we were at the tavern we called the guys and told them to meet us at Sol and we'd go out for 4th of July! So we headed to Sol and went to this bar that we learned about in my food and culture class, pretty sure I should have gotten extra credit for it, but whateves.. I obviously ordered Sangria there :) They were playing AMERICAN music, and it was awesome. We didn't stay out till 6 am like the locals :( But overall a great night! Here's Abby, Ali and I at the bar:

Welp, the next day we had art class sooo we had to drag ourselves there, and all we did was review.. and then review some more.. For it being an art class about works of art in the Prado Museum we sure learned a lot about the history of Spain. Yes they go together, but our teacher didn't even connect them. If I knew it was going to be a history class I would have taken the other one, BUT enough of that. After class, we came back to the psycho cleaning lady, Loli. We were pretty excited for lunch because we were hoping for Paella and we were starving, what did we have you ask? The same gross, bone, mystery meat, soggy potatoes, disgusting soup thing that she tried to serve us the first week we were here!!!!!! GROSS!!!!! You bet we skipped out that and ran to Burger King. Yes more fast food. Lo siento, but I was not feeling anything Spanish after seeing and tasting that nasty thing again. When we got to BK there was a ridiculous line, and as we're watching the BK screen with BK advertisements we see it say this:

Yes that says "Gracias America." You know what BK in Spain, YOU'RE WELCOME! And thank you America for creating fast food chains like BK and placing them within 4 blocks of the place I'm staying in Spain, you really are the best country, always looking out for me :) Well after my amazing meal, we went back to Puris and I unfortunately had to work on my papers since yesterday we uhhh got distracted. Fortunately I finished the papers!! I tried to start making a study guide for my exam on Thursday.. Did not work out as planned haha

Wednesday we had Art class, obvi. It was yet more review about history and useless information. After class I came back and worked on a study guide and took a nice siesta! Always important to siesta before studying, right? Well after the siesta, Abby and I tried to study our best, on and off for awhile.... Let's just say we stayed up late, but managed to find out that Facebook now has video chat, soo yeah.. Thanks for that distraction John! I ended up staying up until 4 and then had to get up at like 7:30 because a bunch of us decided to go to Nebrija early to study.

So after we crammed and got super anxious for the exam, we finally had to take it. It was as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I gave it my best try so we'll see what grade I get. After the exam, we had a going-away dinner with our teachers, Gabriela, and Dr. Ruiz at a restaurant in Retiro Park. It was pretty delicious! Plus there was Sangria so you bet we took advantage of that!! I tried Gazpacho for the first time!!

It was pretty interesting, it was tomato and vegetable soup, but cold. Mom you'd probably like it! Anyways I ordered the "Carribean" Hamburger for dinner. It would have been really good, except I spotted a few pieces of raw meat, so I chose to not get E. Coli, and plus I was really full from the bread, sangria, gazpacho, and the spaghetti that Hope gave me. We also got dessert, it was some hazelnut cake thing, that was tasty, but I was way too full to eat it :( Afterwards, Abby, Ali, Gabriela and I went shopping!!! I love shopping!! I got some pretty cute clothes :) I will be wearing them this weekend, obvi. Believe it or not, it's my last full night in Madrid!!! We leave for Granada tomorrow at 8 AM, yes AM. We'll be there until Sunday and won't get back until Sunday night, and my flight is at 9:30 AM on Monday.

Tonight's game plan: Botellon (pregame) and then head to the opening of this place called Open Air, it's some outdoor lounge near Retiro Park, and it doesn't open until 12:30. Should be a lot of fun :) Well time to pack for Granada and get ready for tonight!

See you guys in LESS THAN ONE WEEK!! :) Love you!!

Did we really just get kicked out??

Lo siento! I've been super busy this week and haven't had time to blog!

WARNING: This is another long post.

Not much happened on Monday and Tuesday, other than me trying to get all of my purse stuff taken care of. I had to call the Barcelona Police Station and make a statement and then had to go to the Madrid police station to pick it up. Thank god for Gabriela's help, because she set everything up and helped me with everything I needed to do. Art class was pretty boring, and we all got our exams back... The Spanish grading scale is different, but our teacher graded them pretty hard. I did pretty decent, I got a 75, which is a B on the Spanish scale, so I'll take it! I've also been busy this week working on my extra credit paper for that art class because I want an A (obvi!). Anywho I had my food and culture class twice this week, and the first day we went around to a bunch of places. Keep in mind it was 100 degrees out that day and we were walking around the whole time, it was brutal! People weren't joking when they said Madrid gets hot!! One of the places we went to for class was a convent that sold cookies and whatnot. It's kind of like a lazy Susan and you never see them, BUT the cookies were delicious, pretty sure they use holy water in them haha :) For the second food and culture class we went to some museum with prehistoric stuff, we're not really sure, whoopssss! We got out of class early, soo it was sweet!

On Wednesday night after class and whatnot we went to our usual Wednesday hangout- Euro shot night at O'Neills! Abby and I each bought a bottle of 2.50 Euro white wine, best decision! It was pretty good, I mean it was 2.50, so I'll take it! Before we went to the bar, our friend Ali, Abby and I went to our shady park and drank our classy wine. A bunch of us were at O'Neills and had a great time, as per usual :) We decided to make it an early night and catch the metro home, but Ali's roommates didn't come out, so we decided to just have her sleepover. Puri had no idea hahah She snuck out in the morning at like 7:30 to go back to her place (45 minute metro ride for her) because we had class at the Prado Museum at 12:30 that day... Here's a picture of me and my friend Laura at O'Neills:

Since Abby and I were missing the greatest country in the world, we decided to hit up McDonald's for breakfast before heading to the Prado haha It was amazing. I love 'Merica! Prado was pretty boring, as usual. Incase you can't tell, I'm really quite over the school part of study abroad, I'd like to only do the abroad part, por fa!

Anyways, we had class later that day for Ana's class (the museum thing), BUT it was our friend's Ariel's birthday SO we obvi had to go out for it even though we, for some reason that nobody understands, had class again at the Prado on Friday. For Ariel's birthday we decided to go to this place called Chapandaz, which is a cave bar! Well before we met up with everyone Abby and I drank another bottle of our 2.50 Euro wine on the way there, which was good yet again! Immediately we knew what drink we would be ordering- A 30 Euro fish bowl drink, that if I remember correctly was well worth the money :) This thing was literally 4-liters and just so ridiculous!! We were there for a decent amount of time, when all of the sudden we see one of our friends, who may or may not have been blacked out, getting escorted out of the bar for trying to pee somewhere that wasn't the bathroom hahah Here's a picture of me and my friend Rachel with our ginormous drink:

Eventually we all left Chapandaz, and decided to go to some bars in Sol.. This is where the night gets even sketchier: We somehow catch the Metro to Sol and get off and end up at this bar called Burboun Cafe, which I have ended up at before! I don't know exactly where it is, but I know it's an awesome bar!! It was free sangria and beer for girls, and 5 euro for guys. Although the next day we found out that one of our friends thought he was the only one getting drinks all night. He thought he had some special cup that was getting him free drinks all night hahahah Anyways after Bourbon Cafe, we got some pizza and crepes, and somehow our friends credit card got stolen!! Spain is really coming after us!! Not exactly sure how, but I called the police for my friend and got them to come meet us, and then she told them everything that happened.. After that we decided to just go back, but again Ali's roommates were somewhere else, so Ali ended up crashing at our place again hahah She ditched us again in the morning, since we had class the next day.. Here's me and some of the girls at the cave bar:

Friday's Prado class was even worse than Thursday's! Everyone was hungover and running on like a maximum of 4 hours of sleep haha we were a good looking crowd! Since the grad student on this trip, Josh was planning on having a party on Saturday, we decided to make Friday casual and a couple of us ended up going to see Transformers 3 in 3-D!!! In ENGLISH hahah Of course, the projector was messed up so it took them like 20-25 minutes to fix the projector. Oh and they have carmel popcorn at the movie theaters here, easily best idea to buy a huge tub of it!!

Unfortunately on Saturday we had an excursion to Acala (not even sure if that's the name). We had to meet at 8:30 but it was only a 30-minute bus ride. A bunch of people just decided not to go...so jealous of those people!!! This place was pretty darn boring. Not only was it boring, but we had like 3 and a 1/2 hours of free time, during siesta time, in a town that has nothing. Needless to say, we didn't do much except play our friends' ridiculous riddle/mind games.. After sitting around doing nothing (instead we could have been doing any of our three papers due this week), we went and toured some university.. I think it was the university Cervantes (Spanish writer) went to, BUT I'm not really sure because it was way too hot, and we all just wanted to leave. Finally we got back on the bus around 5:30 or 6 and headed back to civilization! By the time we got back, I just finished writing one of my papers and then had to start getting ready to go out that night. Here's me in front of the plaza:

The plan was to: go to Josh's and pregame, go to the Ice Bar and then go to Joy and stay out until the Metro opens back up (6AM) since it was pretty much our last night in Madrid since we have homework and an exam to study for this week. BUT anyways we ended up drinking too long at Josh's because by the time we got to the Ice Bar it was gunna close in 15 minutes, so it wouldn't have been worth the 15 Euro to get in. Abby and I took this picture in the lobby of the ice bar, it was as close as we could get to getting in!

SO we headed to Joy, a discoteca. It was 15 Euro to get in, but you at least got a free drink with it.. Joy was awesome!! There were two floors, and they were playing American music, there were dancers, plenty of bars to go to! It was just overall awesome!! Being under the influence, some of my friends tried to get on stage with the dancers, but were kicked off the stage haha This was like at the beginning of the night.. Now nobody is sure of why this next part happened, but it did. Around like 4:30 we all were escorted out of the club. We kept asking why and they wouldn't give us a reason. They were just hating on us Americans or something.. Since we were planning on staying out until 6, but nobody wanted to pay cover charges anywhere we just ended up getting delicious pizza and chilling in Sol until the Metro opened! It wasn't the ideal situation, but it was still fun :) Finally when the Metro opened we all went home and passed out. It was overall a really good night though! :) I know this isn't gunna be the best picture, but hopefully you can imagine from the picture what an epic time Joy was!!

Sunday- Not sure if you all remember, but on Sunday's there is this gigantic market that goes on that sells everything called El Rastro! Abby and I went earlier in the trip, but us and a couple people decided we were gunna go to Rastro and then to this restaurant for extra credit in our food and culture class. WELL I was quite tired, so I didn't end up going to Rastro bright and early with everyone, I chose to sleep for an extra hour or two, shower and then I went and met up with them and we all went to the restaurant and took pictures for extra credit. After we got back, we ate lunch and then I wrote one of my papers and took an hour siesta because like 25 of us went to a bullfight today!! At the ring two blocks from our apartment! How was it?? Ummm people weren't kidding when they said it was gruesome.. I was horrified watching the first one die, but I don't know why it just started getting easier to watch them.. We were also front row!! We were in the splash zone.. haha Just kidding, that'd be gross if they even had that.. Here's the inside of the ring (keep in mine I didn' zoom at all):

Now this next picture is zoomed, obvi!

It was definitely an experience and I'm glad I went, but I don't think I'd want to go to another one.. I think you guys are all caught up to speed now :)

Oh and because I'm American, and I LOVE America, I will be sporting my new American flag shirt in honor of the 4th of July!! 'MERICA!!!

Miss you guys so so much!!! I'll be home in one week!... ONE WEEK?!?! See you soon! I'll try to keep this week more updated!

Love you all :)

Good idea or BEST idea?!

WELL incase you guys haven't already heard, I went to Barcelona this weekend, and most definitely experienced way more than I wanted. We experienced the best and the worst of Barcelona in 3 days.

So where do I begin? Let's start with getting ready to leave for the bus on Wednesday night. Well about an hour before we had to leave, I still hadn't packed yet, and Abby hadn't even gotten ready a little. All of the sudden I hear her go "Oh shit!!" She thought she had like 2 hours to get ready, not one hahah I've never seen anyone do so many things in one hour! I ended up making her sandwiches because she had no time to spare. Anyways we rushed to the train station and were still there about a half hour early because you can get on the bus a half hour before.. Yup, the bus ride was long... 8 hours long.. There were a bunch of people from Michigan State on our bus, there was about as many of them as there were of us, and there were probably close to 20 of us!

Finally at like 7:30 in the morning we got to Barcelonaaaaa!!! Since it was really early we decided to just stop at a cafe and get some food to try to kill a little bit of time before we headed to try to check into the hostel. So after a delicious pastry and orange juice, we walked to the hostel. Since it was like 8:30-9 in the morning we couldn't check-in right away, but they let us store our bags there so we could go out and do stuff. The lady at the hostel's name was Hannah (this will be important later on in the blog), and she gave us maps and told us where everything was and pretty much gave us the scoop on Barca. Well after our info sesh on Barca, we all got our swimsuits on and headed to meet everyone at the beach!! 7 of us were in one hostel and the rest were in another hostel. So we get to the beach and we knew the other group was already at the beach and we thought we agreed on meeting at one side of the beach, BUT apparently not haha They were on the complete other side!! So we hiked across the beach, and finally met up with them. The water was so nice!! Here's a picture of Abby, Taylor and I at the beach the first day:

We stayed at the beach for a few hours and then we all went back to our hostels and siesta-ed for like 3 hours, it was much needed! When we got up, we all got ready, and the showers and everything were really clean in the hostel! Cleaner than Puri's haha Anywho once we were ready we tried to take cabs to this one restaurant.. didn't really work out so well.. Not only did we have to split up in cabs, but some didn't get dropped off at the same place.. We had to wait and give them directions, but we decided to just walk down to the restaurant. As we're walking Ali was holding Abby's iPhone and we were all listening to music, and all of the sudden I turn around and Ali and Abby have the look like "What the hell just happened???!!" and I just see two guys sprinting down this shady alley. The STOLE her iPhone!!! Everyone around us didn't flinch or anything, because they aren't even phased by people getting robbed since apparently Barcelona is huge for pick-pocketing and whatnot! Well as she should have been, Abby was freaking out and we ended up going to a nearby hotel and using their internet to swipe her phone clean and whatever else we could! Finally after we get some of that done, we decide to get some tapas for dinner since we were starving. I got like sausage and some salad, they were pretty good :) I also got sangira (surprising, I know!), but it was nothing compared to Sienna's Sangria! Since Thursday was Festival de San Juan, there was supposed to be a big party on the beach and whatnot. It was pretty insane, wasn't exactly how I pictured it, but nonetheless crazy. They were all shooting off fireworks like 5 feet from people and people weren't even moving! There were even little kids shooting off fireworks.. Anyways we were there for a little while and then went back to the hostel, not much exciting stuff happened that night....

SO Friday morning. We get up, shower and whatnot, and we decided that it was going to be a sightseeing day. First stop: La Sagrada Familia! This church has been under construction for 90 years!!! They're supposed to finish in about 10 years, so it'll have taken 100 years to finish it!! We ended up doing the audio tour for it since the guided tours were over for the day.. La Sagrada Familia was absolutely goregous!!! We managed to spend 3 hours inside of it!!! I could not get over it, and the audio tour was awesome and pointed out so many things I would have never noticed or known about, well worth the 4 Euro :) Here's a picture inside La Sagrada Familia:

Here's a gorgeous candid photo of me inside Sagrada with the sweet headphones (Antoosh this is proof I was there!!):

SO after La Sagrada Familia we were all starving and we decided to go get food, but ran into some souvenir shops first :) AKA- Ray I got you your birthday present! We somehow stumbled into some restaurant that had pizza, but was run by Chinese people so it was obviously real Italian food haha.. we probably should have turned away then, but we didn't. The pizza wasn't absolutely terrible, but I've definitely had better, and at that point I would have eaten anything! haha Well after dinner we were going to head to another touristy stop, but decided we were just going to do a sightseeing tour bus the next day (which we never ended up doing haha) and ended up just going back to the hostel for a siesta :) After our lovely siesta, we all got ready and started drinking at the hostel.. We met some of the people there and then decided to go meet up with everyone at this bar called Chupitos (shots in Spanish), BUT we hadn't eaten and we stumbled upon this little cafe with delicious pasta and pizza that tasted like white castle!!! We were in heaven!! Once we scarfed down some food, we went to the bar.. And on the way ran into some bachelor party and took pictures with them inside a photo booth, I have a copy so I can show you once I'm home :) The bar was crazy though, it was packed and there were sooo many shots, like lists and lists of them and they were all 2 Euro each!! I ended up doing this shot called "Boy scout" where they put the alcohol in the shot glass (obvi), give you a marshmallow on the stick, pour alcohol on the bar and light the bar alcohol on fire while you roast your 'mallow and then you stick the 'mallow in the shot and drink it... SO GOOD!!! Wish I would have taken another!! I ended up taking another shot there, but I can explain that in person if you want.. Oh and there was no AC, and like one fan, we were dying!! Here's a picture of the part of the boy scout shot:

SO after our shots we leave the bar and run into this guy selling light up rings and sunglasses... We obviously had to buy them!!! Abby, John and I all got the sick rings and Ali got the awesome sunglasses! BEST idea. After that pretty much half the group left because they wanted to catch the Metro (lame), but me and a few others stayed out and were walking along the beach and whatnot. We weren't over by the clubs, but we heard music coming from this club at the hotel, so we walk over there, but you needed a room key to get in, so instead we just walked and chilled at the hotel bar. We're cheap and the drinks were expensive so we just played tic-tac-toe haha Half of us decided to go to the top floor, the 25th floor. The view was awesome!!! BUT we notice there's an up button on the top floor, intriguing, no? Oh and we can hear music coming from upstairs, sounded like a rooftop party! So we try to use elevator and it says you need some key or something to get to the 26th floor.. We couldn't get up and decided to go back down to the lobby... While most of the group went outside, Ali and I notice there's a hostess and a line to the elevator that goes to some restaurant (on the 26th floor), Ali starts telling the hostess that our friend Hannah is up there and we don't have our keys, and to check the list cuz we're on there hahaha (the only Hannah we know was the hostel lady Hannah, and she most definitely wasn't at the hotel haha)The lady said we could go up!!!! So I went outside to get the rest of the group, and then that's when she said we weren't dressed up enough. The lesson I learned? To just leave the rest of them and head up to probably the sickest party on the 26th floor haha Pretty much after that we just went back to the hostel and passed out!

SATURDAY: We got up early (thanks for the wake-up call Jack) and we met up with the entire group at the cable cars. It was like 10 Euros to get up and down, but it was a pretty sweet view! There was a castle up top and it was cool overall :) Although San Sebastian's view was sooo much better. Here's a picture of Abby and I on the castle somewhere overlooking something haha

After the cable cars we got lunch (hamburgers, fries, and a coke <--- I love America!) and then went to the beach to fry :) It was pretty nice out! and the water was perfect!!!! We ended up staying there for a couple hours instead of doing more sightseeing, but it was a lot of fun :) Here's Abby and I at the beach!:

Once we went got back from the beach, we seista-ed as per usual and then made ourselves dinner!! 12 Euros total for 7 girls for pasta, cesear salad, cheese, and two bottles of fine, not too shabby!! Dinner was delicious and afterwards we just started drinking at the hostel. BEST idea. The people staying at the other hostel came to ours and we just drank for a little before we decided to head to the bars. We took the Metro to a stop we thought had the bar we were looking for, not so much, but we stopped in a random bar, people drank and then we decided to hit up the clubs! Not sure exactly how this all went down, but we walked right up to the entrance of the club and got right in, no waiting, and didn't have to pay the cover charge, apparently someone made friends with people at the front of the line hahah It was awesome!! The club was a ton of fun :) BUT after. Some of us decided to go to the beach since it was right there and we all sat down and somehow I set my purse down next to me, and by the time I looked back over.. it was STOLEN. I didn't hear a single thing or even see the person. Nobody did. My purse had like everything in it. Luckily I had my real passport in the locker at the hostel. But I'm even more lucky that Ray picked up his phone and helped me while I was completely bawling on the phone to him. Thank you Ray!!! Anyways after calling Piccell, the credit card companies and my mom obviously, I finally went to bed. I'll give more deets on my next blog about what I had to do after it was stolen.

I woke up, showered, and we left for the bus... longest bus ride!! 8 hours!!! When we got back it was around 8:00, but we didn't eat dinner until later, and then just went right to bed.

Minus the whole being robbed, Barcelona was really cool!! BUT I don't think I'd go back, who knows what they'd steal next time!

Barcelona, please be nicer to us Americans. Gracias.

And if you read this whole thing, I'm impressed! You must really like me :)
Love you all!!! :)

Studying in Spain?!?!

FINALLY I have a little time to blog!!

Well as you all know I got to skype with my family on Sunday for Father's Day!! I'm so so happy that I got to see everyone and talk to everyone!!! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!! :)

Not that much has been going on here actually, we had some problems with Puri again.. Everything's fine now so no worries :) Well the only thing different about this week is that we've been getting cafe con leche (coffee with milk) every morning and then splitting a pastry. The coffee here is seriously soo good!! Here's a picture of our coffee and our pastry.. a doughnut haha

It's delishhhhh! But anyways on Monday I had art class and our professor reminded us that unfortunately we had an exam on Wednesday. This professor is so hard to follow because she's always going out of order, but anywho we had a presentation in my food and culture on Tuesday so after class on Monday we decided to just work on that.. It was kind of supposed to be more of an impromtu speech, but Abby and I were a little nervous so we ended up like writing out what we were going to say.. Well since we were having problems with Puri, Gabriela (the girl who works with MLSA and at Nebrija) took Abby and I to this amazing Mediteranean restaurant called Bazaar. We got some salad, and I tried her fish dish (pretty tasty!!) and I got some grilled meats and thai noodles, AND then we got liquid tiramisu for dessert (Katie you'd love it!!), and of course wine with our meal! It was sooo good!!! :) Pretty much once we got back from dinner we did nothing haha

On Tuesday, after our usual coffee and pastry we had class, and then came home for lunch with crazy Lolli... It was paella (without fish) and it was really good! It's mine and Abby's favorite dish, so we were beyond happy, especially after the stuff I had over the weekend haha We took an hour siesta, and then we had to go to our food and culture class and give our presentation.. It was so relaxed, I wish I didn't write it out, AND there were also tons of pastries that were all soo good!! Oh and our presentation was on SANGRIA!!! Shocker, I know haha Anyways after class, a few of us went to McDonalds and used their free WiFi to study for our stupid art exam.. That was pretty much my entire night, just cramming for the exam!! It was so hard to study for because 1) my notes are in Spanish 2) I space out in class 3) most of my notes are just words I don't know 4) The order we learn stuff in makes no sense.. Needless to say I learned a little, but not enough.

SO this morning, after staying up late, we got up early to go to Nebrija to study.. Literally ran into like 5 people from our class.. We get there and like a few more people showed up, thank god too!! It made reviewing much easier because they knew some information that I did not, oops!! Well we finally take the exam, it was pretty hard for me. It was short answer and you had to pick 5 out of like 8 to answer.. Not exactly sure how I did, but I guess I'll find out later!! After class, we went to the bus station and printed our tickets for BARCELONA!!! We leave tonight at 11:30.. After we got our tickets we came back and ate lunch (Bean soup, wasn't the best she's made, but I can deal!). I didn't have much time because there was a visit to the Royal Palace at 5.. The Royal Palace was pretty sweet, but I definitely had higher expectations, butt (ha) I'm still glad I went :) The inside of some of the rooms were just a little obnoxious because it was like each kind was trying to outdo the other.. definitely didn't work haha Also we weren't allowed to take pictures... super lame. Here's a picture of outside the palace:

I think I like the outside better haha but seriously.. Anywho I leave for Barcelona in 3 hours!!! I need to shower, pack, eat dinner and head to the station! It's going to be such an awesome trip!! There's like at least 20 of us going.. Watch out Barca!!!

Love you guys and miss you all!!! I'm sure I'll have a bunch to tell you after this weekend :)

Oh and btw tomorrow is the Festival of San Juan, so there's going to be fireworks and it's just going to be insane!! (Crazy, but SAFE insane! Our guy friends are coming with too, so don't worry so much!)

Donde esta el tigre?

So I actually did go to bed early on Friday night! Unfortunately it was so damn hot I kept waking up, but hey it's more sleep than I had been getting! I had to get up at like 6:30 to get ready for our excursion to Toro and Zamora. Turns out that the Metro stop that we were meeting at was a lot closer than I thought so I managed to be there 45 minutes before, whoops! Better early than late though :) Luckily a kid from Drake (studying at Nebrija for the summer) showed up a little after I got there so I didn't have to wait the whole time by myself. Finally we get on the bus, and it was a three-hour bus ride so at one point the literally all but like 5 people on the bus were sleeping, it was hilarious.

Once we got to Zamora they gave us a half hour to get some breakfast. I had this delicious pastry!! Still can't get used to not having real breakfast here. All they have for breakfast here is coffee and maybe a pastry or fruit or something not filling. (Mom be sure to have breakfast food when I get back, por fa! haha) After our "breakfast" we got split into groups, but there was still like 8 of us from Purdue in our group. As per usual, we got distracted and ended up finding this street that had this sweet view:

Zamora was a cute little town, and a lot different from Segovia. The first place we went to in Zamora was to a castle that once you climbed up to the top overlooked the whole city, it was awesome.

We pretty much had 5 minutes to explore in the castle, so we decided to take like 15 or 20 and then we look down and the tour guide from Nebrija was trying to flag us in haha Oh and the stairs in the castles were made for children. There is no way any normal person's feet could fit on the steps. I was walking like sideways down the stairs, pretty surprised I didn't tumble down haha Anywho after the castle we made our way to a church... The churches here are all cool, but I mean once you've seen one or two, you've seen them all.. We weren't sure if we could take pictures so I just snapped a few photos without the flash so they didn't turn out as good. Plus this church wasn't as cool as the one in Madrid.

So finally after the church it was lunch time!! We went to some tapas bar, I got a ham and cheese sandwich. The guy literally cut the meat right off the pig leg (or whatever part) in front of me. I mean I'm all for meat, but I don't really enjoy watching it being prepared and whatnot. Either way it was pretty tasty! We stumbled upon a store, and I ended up buying two bandeaus because they were cheap! Well because it was siesta time, there was like nothing open. So we ended up going to some little restaurant by where we had to meet and got some Tinto de Verano (Wine and pop). I usually prefer Sangria, but I heard the tinto was awesome and it was! Tasted just like Sangria and we all know I love my Sangria haha :)

We all piled back onto the bus and drove about 30 minutes to Toro for our tour of a winery :) It was pretty cool to see, but there was just so many people in our group that it was kind of annoying.. We got to sample their white wine at then end and it was good! I was thinking about buying a bottle, but ended up not.. On the way back to Madrid, a girl's wine bottle fell and shatter on the bus, but she bought two and at least only one broke!! Good thing I wore gym shoes on this excursion because there was a lot of glass on the ground, and I didn't want another San Sebastian incident! Here's a picture of me and Brittany outside the winery:

Well by the time we got back it was like 9 so I didn't make it back to the apartment until like 9:30.. A bunch of people were planning on going to this tapas bar called El Tigre at like 12 and then we were going to go to a discoteca, but people wanted to botellon before. I came home, ate, showered, got ready and botellon-ed with some of the guys before heading to El Tigre..

SOO we were the way to El Tigre, but nobody knew exactly where it was. We were just guessing, and finally I'm like let's just ask where it is.. We pretty much went in a huge circle haha BUT we made it there.. by like 12:45 haha We were a little late, but it's Spain time so it's all good. When we got there I ordered a vodka and fanta lemon... He comes back with this class filled with so much vodka and a fanta on the side!! El Tigre sure knows how to make drinks :) Oh and because it was a tapas bar we got free tapas with our drinks, even better!! After we finish our ridiculous drinks we headed out to search for a place to go drink. We actually ended up at O'Neills (the Wednesday Euro shot place) and ordered drinks there.. After we decided we wanted a discoteca so we could dance! "I just wanna danceeee" (<--Dane Cook). Somehow we ended back at the place that gave out free sangria from earlier in the week.. It was awesome!! We were there for like the rest of the night, but then at 5:15 we headed to get some churros con chocolate (because we're locals and that's what they do here haha). By the time we were done eating, the Metro was open again, yayy!! Needless to say, I passed out as soon as I got back!

Slept till 2:30 today :)

Plan for the rest of the day: try to look through my notes for my art class (we have an exam on Wednesday), and skype with the fam!! CANNOT WAIT :)

Happy Father's Day to my family!! :)

I'm pretty much a local, nbd.

Feel like I haven't blogged in forever, lo siento! So let me give you the scoop on what's going on here in crazy Madrid!

Wednesday. Euro Shots at O'Neills. As per usual O'Neills was awesome! There were Euro shots, what was I supposed to do? It was Abby's birthday, but we had class the next day so we didn't want to drink too much. When we got there it was pretty dead, but it was only like 11ish so it was early. We got some drinks and just hung out there for awhile, but unfortunately because the stupid Metro closes at 1:30, people started leaving at like 12:45-1ish. A few of us girls stayed behind and just drank some more. We decided to leave around like 2, but we were starvinnnnn Marvinnn! Soo we went on the hunt for some pizza, and we were successful :) I got bacon pizza (Ray you would have loved it, obvi). It was the best pizza. We took a taxi back, and when we came back I stayed up for another hour or so, eating and skyping :) Here's a picture of me, Josh and Kate (a girl from Ireland I met last week and who's awesome):

Thursday. Arte del Prado. Well I can at least say that this week's Prado class went wayyyy better than last week's when I was hungover beyond belief. Class at the Prado is at 12:30 instead of 11:30 which is always a plus after Euro shots. We actually ended up getting out of class early! Unfortunately that meant more time with crazy Loli ("cleaning" lady). Abby and I went back after the Prado and Abby was in a hurry to catch a flight and didn't think she'd be eating lunch there. Well since we got out early and Abby saw that it was actually food we'd like she said she'd have some and of course Loli mutters something in Spanish about how we need to tell her when we're eating there. I understand that, BUT she made a massive amount of food so it was better she ate with me. Anywho after lunch Abby headed to the airport , and I immediately went for a siesta because 1) I was tired and 2) I didn't want to talk to Loli.. Turned out to be four-hour siesta, whoopssss! Once I was finally up I was starving and it was like 8 already and of course Puri wasn't here so I couldn't even ask to eat dinner then. After skyping with my mamaaa, and waiting for awhile Puri comes home at like 10ish. At least dinner was delicious :) Cheeseburger and green beans with onions and bacon, so yummy!

A bunch of people were meeting to go to a bunch of tapas bars and normal bars, so I got ready quickly and headed to meet them all. Once I got there we headed to this one tapas bar (keep in mind there's like 15 of us), but everyone had just eaten dinner so nobody ordered tapas, people just ordered drinks. SO. My friend Hope and I wanted a vodka and orange juice. We found out the hard way that this tapas bar doesn't have vodka. We tried to order vodka and orange juice, and he asked if orange Fanta was okay and I said yeah. We get our drinks.. No vodka, apparently he didn't understand us and he doesn't even have vodka. haha oops! Well we drank our delicious Fantas and everyone else finished their drinks and then we headed to another bar. This bar was smaller, but pretty cool. When you walked downstairs there was sand and they had TVs down there playing some weird stuff, but the music was good, as were the drinks :) Halfway through my drink, half the group leaves because they wanted to catch the Metro. Lame, but there was still a bunch of us left! Me, Josh, David, Michael, Erin, Brittani, Megan, Josh (grad student) and Josh's friend Fernandooooo. It's just a fun name to say, just try saying it and you'll agree! haha Anywho, it was better that half the people left because then it was easier to go bar hopping. Once we finished our drinks we went were walking to another bar when one of the promoters told us about a deal we couldn't resist. Girls: Free entry and unlimited sangria/beer for the next hour or two. Guys: 5 Euros, entry, unlimited sangria/beer for the next hour or two. We walk in and the place was awesome. One bar for beer, the other for Sangria. We immediately got drinks and we stayed there for awhile just drinking, and dancing before we headed to the next bar. We ended up going to three more bars that night. All of them were awesome!! All of the sudden the last bar we were at was like closing or something, and we were a little confused because we thought it was early.. It was like 5:15am, so at that point we figured we might as well stay out for the next 45 minutes and catch the Metro home. Fernando is from Madrid, (but is a grad student at Purdue) so he took us to get churros con chocolate. Best idea. So delishhh! We hung out there for awhile and then we all took the Metro home! So overall pretty successful night :)

Friday. Food and culture class. Unfortunately I only got like two hours of sleep, because we had a tour of El Congreso at 12:30. It was most definitely not fun waking up early, but well worth it! El Congreso was pretty cool, but we couldn't take pictures which sucked. BUT Erin snuck a few photos while we were there! After the tour I came back home and took a nap for like an hour and then ate some lunch and headed to my food and culture class. Where did we go for our class today? A chocolateria :) We got to pick whatever we wanted off the menu, I wanted to get this dark chocolate moussee thing, but of course they were out of it haha I ended up getting the strawberry mousse, and it was so good! I'd definitely go back there :)

Tonight I am definitely going to bed early since I have to get up early to go on our excursion to Toro and Zamora. (3 hour bus ride, booo) We're supposed to be touring a winery there though, and I've heard the wine is awesome :)

Love you guys! Sorry there's not many pictures, I'll be sure to take a lot tomorrow on my trip and post them!

Un smoothie, POR FA.

Even though some people here refuse to believe me when I tell them that people here use "por fa" instead of "por favor" I will continue to use it no matter what because I like it and it sounds cuter!

Anywho, not much happened yesterday.. We had art class, which turned out to be way more interesting than usual because we didn't really talk about art haha We did more of a history lecture, so I was actually interested! After class though we wanted some Sangria and tried to go to Sienna, our fav Sangria place, but it was closed. We were almost going to call Jeka (our friend who works there) and beg him to open up, but we manned up and went to another place. Terrible idea, the sangria wasn't very good, but you live and you learn I guess! haha And Sangria is a very important lesson in life hah :) After our lunch we acted like locals and got some ice cream, because all the Spaniards love ice cream!! There's an ice cream shop every two feet. (Anthony you'd be in heaven!). Once we had some delish ice cream we went to our second class where we kind of got to walk around the Botanical Gardens, and then to some other place (can't remember the name, whoopsss!). It wasn't anything too exciting.

We didn't go out yesterday, just kind of hung around the house, but I ended up going to Cafe y Te and getting a smoothie. Soooo good! :) I was the only one in there, it was like 11 haha But it was well worth the 3 block trip! hah

Today is actually Abby's birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABBY!!!! :) We're all about the blog so I'm sure she'll see this! hah For her birthday we went to around Retiro to Sienna (the restaurant we tried to go to yesterday) and got some delicious Sangria and bruschetta :) Our favorite waiter was there, and he gave us a little discount which is always good! We were going to go to this museum visit, but the Sangria got the best of us, whoopsieessss! It was fun anyways, what did we do instead you ask? We went to a tattoo parlor and Abby and Ali got tattoos!!!! They both turned out so cute, and they are both so happy they got them! Although Ali says hers hurts a little because she got it on her ribcage..

Some delicious sangria from Sienna!!: 

Now we are getting ready to really celebrate Abby's birthday at O'Neills.. Euro shots!! Let's hope Thursday morning goes better than last Thursday's hahaha

Love you all! Let you know how the night went :) Adios!

Creepy six-toed Sally- aka Ursula- aka our hostel lady

Where do I begin?? Thursday night seems like forever ago!

First thing that happened, I forgot my phone (Thanks Mom! hahah). It ended up being alright, and we were at the bus stop an hour early to meet up with the other girls and make sure we were at the right stop. Six of us went to San Sebastian: Abby, Kara, Ariel, Hope, Taylor and myself of course :) The bus ride was like 6 hours long and we left at 12:30am Thursday/Friday so we arrived at like 6:30am on Friday. The bus driver was crazayyy! For any of you that have seen Harry Potter (which if you haven't, sucks), he was driving like the bus that changes sizes and everything. Just ridiculous driving, glad it was dark out so I couldn't see how close to the edge we were haha We stopped 3 times on the way to San Sebastian and since there was no bathroom on the bus, Ariel and I got off at the first stop to go, not bringing our purses since everyone else was there to watch it. BUT of course you had to pay to use it!! Luckily the girls in front of us didn't shut the door all the way so we could use it, BUT there was no toilet paper. Really wish I had that Charmin to-go roll with me, Mom!! Anyways we got back on the bus and finally made it to San Sebastian at 6:30 and we didn't really know what to do, but decided to just call our hostel to see if we could come check-in. He told us check-in until like 11 or 12, so we made our way to this little cafe/bar thing, and ordered some delicious coffees and pastries, but because it was so early, there was a bunch of drunk people there because they were just heading home from the bars.. Unfortunately we ran into drunk French people. Even more annoying than just regular drunk people haha After we sat there for like an hourish we decided to walk down a little and switched to another cafe. We somehow ended up getting free wi-fi there, so we were there for like another hour and a half, before we decided to just go to the hostel and see if we could at least store our bags there. We take the bus there and once we get off we ask at least 5 people if they knew where the street was and nobody really knew, so we guessed and we guessed correctly! :) We made it to the hostel, and had to wake the owner up yet again to let us in. For some reason he expected us to be 6 Italian boys based on the last name of the girl who booked it so he was very confused as to who we were. The owners name: Skip. Our nickname for him: Skidmark Skip. He apparently had some poo stain on the back of the jeans and we could not stop laughing about it (once we got into our rooms of course!!). Our rooms were ready so we got to go in and they were really nice, there was 2 people to a room- private rooms, bathrooms, keys. It was pretty legit, so we decided to nap for 2 hours since it's Spain and nothing is open until at least like 10 or 11.

After a much needed and perfect nap we got up and decided to go exploring! Bad news: it was raining. Good news: I had an umbrella. Bad news: 3 people didn't. After listening to Skidmark Skip that the beach was "only a half hour walk" we headed out when it was drizzling to walk to the beach. It started raining harder and we had most definitely walked for like 20 minutes and barely got down the hill by the hostel and that is not even close to the beach. Skip obviously is crazy. We stopped and bought umbrellas and ponchos (which we unfortunately didn't get to use our sweet ponchos), but then decided to just get lunch since we were starvinnnnnng. The place we ate at was good: Ham and cheese sandwich and a coke, delicious. We decided to say screw walking for God knows how long and hopped on the bus and made it to the beach in like 15 minutes on the bus. Since it was raining we went to the Aquarium (<-- Abby do you need help pronouncing this?? hahaha) which was only 8 Euros for students! It was really cool inside, it was more a museum/aquarium, but overall awesome! Minus some annoying little kid who must have been scared of the fish. If your kid is scared of fish why bring him to the aquarium? Annoying. The view from the Aquarium and outside it were amazing!! It was dark out, but at least it had stopped raining so we were able to snap a few decent photos!! (Of the background, not of us considering we took a 6-hour bus ride, 2 hour nap and drank coffee haha) Here's a picture of all of us around where the aquarium is:

We were at the Aquarium for awhile and then just walked around the streets of San Sebastian because it had stopped raining :)

After exploring we headed back to Skidmark's hostel to shower, order some 'za, get ready and drink before we went out (to save money of course!). Finally we make it out to the bars, or should I say bar since we never made it past on place. This bar was pretty crazy we met so many people and we were speaking tons of Spanglish considering they speak a different language there, but know usually Spanish or English (or both). We made plenty of friends, and then decided to head to the discoteca at like 3 with all our new amigos. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. We may or may not have been walking through a construction zone (a little to incoherent to notice), but all of the sudden I have a piece of glass in my toe!! I don't know how it happened or what, but I somehow got it out of my toe and then it started gushing blood. It's around 3ish in the morning, in San Sebastian, nothings open, I'm crying, being hysterical, there's drunk people, people I don't know well enough to be crying in front of, luckily one of the girls has some kleenex/tissue thing and is trying to stop the blood, BUT it's not working. Thank god we made friends earlier because he speaks the language there, spanish and english so he was saying how he knew where there was an emergency doctors office, so we headed that way. However considering we had no idea if we should trust him we were asking people along the way if we were headed to the right place, which we were, one lady told me I was lucky that we had such a nice guy to help us haha So we finally get to the doctors office, and they would only let me and this guy in. He does all the talking and they take me back into the room, and clean up my toe and do some stuff (?) Not really sure, it was a bit hazy, but in the end I was bandaged up, no stitches, and didn't have to pay! After I headed back to the hostel and just passed out..

Sooooo we wake up in the morning, and 4 of us have to go to another hostel because Skid doesn't have any openings for Saturday night. First thing we do: head to the new hostel with the address, name, phone number in hand. Seems like everything you'd need right? Wrong again. We get to where we think the place is and we ask a bunch of people if we are in the right spot and nobody has ever heard of this hostel before!! We call the number and get no answer. We didn't really know what to do, but one person suggested to go the tourist information center. We did and we ask them about this hostel, turns out that hostel isn't in their official hostel book so they can't help us. We ended up sitting on a bench outside the information center with all our bags while two girls run to McDonalds to use their wi-fi to make sure we have the right number. All of the sudden while we are sitting there, some lady comes up (talking in Spanish) and asks us if we need a hostel because some people that were staying there had trouble with the arrangements (or something like that, she was talking soo fast!). We tell her we have a hostel, but we're just having trouble getting a hold of them. We end up telling her the name of the hostel we're supposed to stay at and she's like "Oh yeah yeah, I've heard of that! I don't know where it is, but I have the number at my place (of the hostel we booked). Come look at my hostel. Come look. I have the number." Now this may not seem thaaat sketchy, but listen to how she looks. She's got this fake, possibly a wig black hair, sunglasses, and THEN she's got these peep-toed shoes on- except they don't fit her, like a couple toes fit in and then her one pinky toe is completely sticking out!! It was this nasty toe, not even inside the shoe, that pretty much just dragged when she walked hahaha It was gross!! Not sure what happened, but we ended up following this lady to her hostel where she proceeds to show us around, and then looks up this number of the hostel we booked and calls them. She does all the talking really really fast (shady) and then she gives us the number so we bolted out of there. We call the number, didn't tell them where we were, and he says okay I'll be there in a few. This guy literally pops out in 2 minutes, and tells us that his hostel is being painted so he started taking us to this new one. All of the sudden we realize he's talking us back to the crazy lady's hostel!!!! The hostel was dirty, there were creepy old guys, people smoking in the kitchen and it was all so shady. For some reason we paid her for the night and were like what the hell just happened?? All we knew was that we did not want to stay there, but we ended up leaving our bags there and headed to the beach.

But oh wait I wasn't allowed to go the beach because of my toe. So since I thought we would be beaching it all weekend, I didn't bring closed toed shoes so I had to buy a pair. Keep in mind I have no phone, and San Sebastian is really expensive. While the girls head to the beach I go on the hunt for shoes. In total I was gone for at least like 3 or 4 hours, don't know how it happened but I was. I went to a bunch of stores and finally found a decent pair for the cheapest I could find. Then I decide that to go to one of the 50 billion Farmacias around San Sebastian to have them change the bandage on my toe since I'm not really sure what kind of note is under it haha I walk into the first one and they speak a little English so I spoke Spanglish with them since I don't know many medical terms in Spanish, or many words in Spanish in general haha So I'm telling them what happened and I ask them to just help me change the bandage and what not. There's two girls, probably like 25ish and really don't know what they're doing. Once they take the bandage off they decide to tell me that they think I should go the doctor's office only a few blocks away because I might need stitches. So I start to freak out a bit because I had needles, blood, and doctor's offices, but I'm like okay I'll go. I get directions and don't really trust the girls so I stopped at like 3 Farmacias on the way just to make sure I was headed the right way. Do you know where I end up at? The same doctors office from the night before. Nobody spoke a word of English there so I explained to them my whole situation and they told me it'd be 10 Euros (don't know how I got away with not paying the night before, but hey whateve, 10 Euros to make sure I don't get an infection, I'll take it!). I wait there and finally go in and the lady was so nice (her name was Patricia btw), and she told me that the night before whatever the lady put on my toe was instead of stitches, pretty much liquid stitches. I was so relieved! She told me I had to put this stuff on twice a day and couldn't go swimming :( But she said I could go to the beach with my new shoes, so yayyyyy :) I finally make it to the beach and we decide to head up the mountain to get the most gorgeous view of San Sebastian. Totally worth the trip!!!! SOO beautiful! We were there for awhile and then ended up going back and getting ready for dinner and possibly a night out. We went back to Skip's hostel to shower there since toe-lady's bathroom was gross. Here's a picture of us at the top of the mountain!

Finally we're all ready and we go into town and search for a place to eat. We find a place that looks good, which it turned out to be :) After one of the girls wanted to go the bars, so me and Abby were like yeah we'll go with you since the other 3 really wanted to go back and sleep. Terrible idea. We literally walk around the corner and there's just so many guys, more like wolves, staring at us and making inappropriate gestures. We didn't go more than half a block before we said screw this and went and joined the other 3 girls. Oh and none of us stayed a toe-lady's hostel because we were too freaked out by all the weirdo guys staying there and whatnot. We all snuck into Skip's place and crashed there. I slept like a baby, and was safe!

In the morning we had to sneak out of Skip's so we didn't get charged, and managed to do that successfully :) All we did was run back to toe-lady's hostel change for the beach and then leave our bags there because she let us keep our stuff there till like 2:30. Oh and by the way, there was a key in our lock when we got there in the morning.... Shady shit. We bolted to McDonalds haah We missed America :( Used their wi-fi, ate, and then went to the beach. It was a little overcast, but I was determined to get color since everyone fried yesterday and I got no sun... Needless to say I was successful! Maybe a little too successful, but hey I was like a ghost I was so pale!! Now I'm a lobster hahah :) We were there for a few hours, me of course with my shoes on. Take a look at how ridiculous I look:

But hey I got color :) After the beach, we picked up our bags as fast as we could from the shady toe-lady and went to eat before we had to head to the bus. We ate at this pizzeria, which was soo good!!! I'm always in for some good pizza :) Last thing that happened before we left: We were all trying to catch the bus and were like just there in time so we were all piling on while trying to dig for money. Apparently one of the girls went to a bench kinda by the bus to look for change.. The bus left.. and all the sudden we're like oh shit!! It was okay though because the next bus came 5 minutes later and we all made it to our official bus back to Madrid. The bus ride was like 5 and a half- 6 hours, but went by kind of quick, we were just happy to all be alive after our hostel incident!!!

San Sebastian is such a beautiful place, and I'm so happy we all went! The weekend had every possible emotion you could think of, and we all had a great time. I'd go back in a second! As long as there was a legit hostel to stay at haha I mean I cut my toe on class, met six-toed Sally, got hounded by men, had a hostel hostile situation occur, forgot my phone, and I still love San Sebastian, so I'd say that qualifies as a good weekend :) Take a look at this picture I took! The pictures don't do this place justice!!

And here's a picture of me at the beach :)

PS- Sorry this was so long, but I'm glad you like me enough to read the whole thing!! haha love you guys :)

Off for the weekend :)

I'm headed to San Sebastian this weekend :) I'll blog when I get back because I won't have my computer. You all have the right to be jealous, because it's going to be beautiful!! It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but we will still have an awesome time!! :) Here's a picture of when I'll be:

Be jealous! I love you all! Talk to you after my weekend vaca :)

Rain rain go away.. please DON'T come another day!!

So obvi from my title it was raining today :( However on the brightside, I wore my new pants that I bought at El Rastro on Sunday!! I'm pretty much a local now haha These pants are pretty ridiculous, but sooo comfortable. They're floral parachute/MC hammer pants, but they look better on than hanging and once you've seen them a bunch of times they start to grow on you :)

Abby and I had our Art class this morning, so I proudly Metro-ed and walked my way to class in my parachute pants and we ended up being there super early, but better early than late! Class was a little confusing because Abby and I swear we heard her saw that we would be watching a clip of a movie, but then we never did... Who knows what else we've been misunderstanding haha We'll make it work though :)

When we got back from class (she let us out a half hour early!!) we were starving, as per usual, but we asked for lunch at 2:30 so we had to wait a half hour, but it was quite tasty for a change :) It was chicken and potatoes and onions, and of course bread (Abby's always snacking on bread! And now we snack on nutella and bread together, we have a stash of it in our room). We finally had time to nap today in between classes!! WOOO, I love a good siesta! Although it was really short, it was much needed. Once we woke up we had to leave for our second class, which was interesting. We went to a market, and then to a restaurant. The market was ridiculous, just so much meat, fish, fruits.. Side note: The peaches, cherries, and oranges here are the best!!! :) .. Here's a picture of some of the market:

When we were looking around at everything, all the people working were like showing us different things to entertain us pretty much. We were standing around this guy's fish thing and then all of the sudden he pulls of this fish head and moves it and says "Hola!" hahaha It was so funny!! We have a really good group of people so we always have a good time :)

After class, we went shopping!!!! H&M is huge here, everyone goes there, and there's like 50 billion stores in Madrid (at least that many haha). Anywho, I bought some super cute clothes there that I can't wait to wear! We stopped at another store and I bought an American flag shirt there haha 'MERICA!! Can't wait to wear it proudly! Now I have 2 America shirts here to rep! After a long day of shopping and class we came back and had some dinner. Overall, a successful day :)

Tomorrow: Art class, Retiro Park, Sangria, 1 Euro Beer/Shots with a bunch of friends :)

Love you all! Miss you guys a ton!!

Real Madrid!!

Didn't get a chance to blog yesterday, but not too much happened anyway, but I'll still fill you in :)

Saturday night Abby and I decided that we would go to El Rastro, which is the huge market where you can buy pretty much anything, from scarves (TONS of them!), clothes, souvenirs, jerseys, kitchen stuff, painting, and soo much more!! So the next day (Sunday) we went and it was crazy! There's so many people and it is just ridiculous, but awesome! You get everything there so much cheaper than buying it in stores. It's every Sunday and we decided to go yesterday just incase we didn't get another free Sunday or something.. Abby and I definitely got a lot for our money there! The main thing we wanted to find: a Real Madrid jersey for later that night.. After shopping and buying other things for about an hour and a half we finally found knock-off jerseys for like 12 Euros. Mine is pretty obnoxious, and I love it! I'll have to show you it once I'm home :) I most definitely bought some souvenirs for a few special people, so get excited :) We were pretty much exhausted after shopping all day, and because we had to get up early again.. I'm so over getting up early! At least it's always worth it!

Once we got back from El Rastro, we hung out for a little bit and then had to get ready for later because we were going to a Real Madrid game! Although it wasn't actually the Real Madrid, it was retired players from Madrid playing a team from Germany for a charity event.. So now I can say I did some charity work during my time in Spain haha :) It was only 10 Euros for the ticket, and the seats were pretty decent.. It wasn't a very intense game, but still really cool to go to :) Here's a picture of the stadium:

We ended up leaving the game a little early, and went to get some food and a drink for one of the girls birthdays on the trip. Where did we end up going??.... Friday's hahah It wasn't my choice, but can I just say the food there was so expensive! But it was very delicious :) Plus I was finally able to order a drink there which was quite tasty!

I was super tired yesterday which is why I didn't get a chance to blog. Guess all the lack of sleep is finally catching up to me!

Well anywho, today not very much happened. It's raining here unfortunately :( We went to our Art of the Prado class this morning, which felt way longer than 2 hours and then we came back and planned our trip to San Sebastian!! The bus and hostels are officially booked!!! :) We leave Thursday night at 12:30 and arrive at around 7am Friday morning! There's 6 of us going: Me, Abby, Kara, Hope, Ariel and Taylor! It's going to be awesome!! :) Can't wait!!! I've heard it's beautiful!

Tonight we're going to go to Sol and just walk around and stuff :) so long as it stops raining!!

Adios :)

A day in Segovia :)

Today did not start off very well considering I was going to get up at 6:15 since we had to meet with the rest of the Purdue students at 8:30am. I managed to oversleep and thank god Abby set an alarm at 7! I jumped out of bed and ran to the shower and we ended up leaving without breakfast because we didn't have time, and we couldn't even grab something to go because Puri has hardly any food in here.. Well any normal food, or any food we could have possibly taken for an on-the-go snack. Somehow we got to the Metro like a half hour early and decided to go searching for a store/restaurant for food. Let me just tell you that NO stores are open at 8:00am on a Saturday in Spain, not even Starbucks!!! I mean for realz? Anywho we had to buy water and crackers from the vending machine because we weren't sure if we were going to be eating right when we got to Segovia..

We had to split into two groups, and they told us all about the history of Segovia. It's such a beautiful city though!! Side note: I tripped minimum of 20 times to do because of all the cobblestone (i think that's what it is called) and uneveness hahah We went to a Medieval Castle which was so awesome!!!! It was just massive, but we couldn't sit on any chairs, or anything so naturally I wanted to! I didn't end up doing it, but it was very tempting! Here is the entire Purdue group and that's the castle in the background:

The bus ride was only like an hour to Segovia, and as soon as we got there we had like 20 minutes or so to grab a pastry and coffee if we wanted to, but there was a limited selection of places and by the time we got up to the counter all they had were prepackaged muffin things, but it was delicious so I can't complain :)


Here's a picture of a few of us:

For lunch we wanted something cheap, and ended up going to San Luis' Hamburgueseria.. so delicious!! I got this massive hot dog and it was a great choice :) After lunch we got to walk around for a bit, and look at some gypsy souvenir shops, which I bought a few little things :) There was a band playing there too and they were good! I just wanted to stay there and watch them while drinking some sangria, but unfortunately we had to be back to the buses by 4 :(

Once we got to the buses we all assumed we were going back so we were all getting comfy on the bus when after like 5 minutes of driving we pull into some parking lot.. We all piled out of the bus, and they gave us all a free magnet from Segovia :) We took group pictures and then went to another church. It was interesting inside, and Segovia's just so pretty that it made getting off the bus worthwhile! Apparently at this church when you're outside of it you're supposed to look for skeleton bones becuase of ... (spaced out and kinda missed why hahaha oppsiesssss!!)... But anywho, 3 people found little skeleton bones!!!!!!!! It was crazy!! That was the end of our day at Segovia! Unfortunately we didn't get to explore very much :( Wouldn't mind going back there again :)

The bus ride was quick and so was the Metro ride.. We ended up stopping at a supermarket on the way back from the Metro cuz we needed a food survival kit: water, coke-cola, Nutella, bread, chips, voldka, and orange juice.. Yeah that'll work!! Dinner was actually pretty tasty tonight :) Let's hope it stays that way!!!

Here's most of our group from Purdue in Segovia!! :)

Tomorrow: The whole group hanging out at Josh's (grad student who is helping with the trip) and then going to a soccer game to see Real Madrid!

KAPITAL!!

Soo as you'll find out later in this blog post I didn't get home until the morning so I couldn't blog yesterday so today's is going to be a combo of yesterday and today's adventures :)

Well yesterday I had my art class, but it was from 12:30-2:30 at the Prado Museum. Abby and I know absolutely no art terms in English, let alone Spanish so we already get confused easily. When we got to the museum we were there early and really needed some pop so we saw McDonalds and thought it'd be easy enough to get some from there.. nope, wrong! We couldn't even figure out how the line was working, and it was 1.90 Euros. So we waited in like for a few minutes and just gave up and bought pop outside for 1.20 Euros.. Anyways while we were waiting outside the Prado Museum there was a guy selling certain things (can't say exactly what because I know Lauren's reading this! hehe) and Abby and I both bought some stuff from there! :)) Once we walked into the museum they gave us these headphones and stuff and our teacher a microphone so that we could all hear her. Abby and I were very confused on what was going on in class because our professor was using words we'd never heard before, but anyways we gave it our best and managed to get through it and actually learn something :)

After class we had went back to our place to eat lunch before our later class.. Worst decision ever!! If you want the full detail just ask, BUT keep in mind this is what she tried to serve us for lunch:

Also you should know that while we were eating breakfast that morning there was a bag of chopped up meats and a ton of blood in the bag sitting on the kitchen counter right across from where we eat dinner... GROSS!!! So anywho, after looking upon that Abby and I bolted for the door to get some AMERICAN food!! and what better place than Burger King! :) How was the food? BEST MEAL!

Anyways after our American lunch we headed to our food and culture class, which is always fun. We went to Plaza Mayor for our first stop which was pretty sweet. There are so many crazy people there, one was dressed up as Elvis, a few Mickey Mouses and Minnie too of course :) I'll take pictures of the super obnoxious ones next time and then I'll post them (obvi!). After Plaza Mayor we went to El Museo de Jamon, which is like a ham store, not an actual museum of ham, altough there's so many different types hanging in there that it could be! This is all the types of ham and cheese Ana (our professor) bought us:

It was all tasty, and after we walked around Madrid looking at the different banks and all the beautiful buildings!! We ended up at this fountain and she said "Let's just walk over there and we'll finish up talking about ham and then we'll be done" I gave her this look like "Walk?? Ay ay ay!" Ana's awesome though, so she was cracking up!

When we finally finished class we had to hurry back to our place so that we could buy alcohol, shower again, and get ready for Kapital! (Incase you haven't been keeping up with my blog, which I'm sure you have been, Kapital is this 7-story bar that is insane!) We got off at our Metro station and were determined to find this supermarket we stumbled upon early in the week.. After asking like 3 people and walking for like 20 minutes we gave up and bought alcohol at some little snack shop. BUT I was still determined to find shoes so Abby went back to the apartment and I searched.. After getting VERY confused and definitely lost at one point I found not only the shoe store but the supermarket as well!!! I made sure I knew how to get back, but if I don't know how to get there I can always get into my map haha :) that's a friends reference, b-t-dubs.

Once we're at the apartment we got ready as fast as well could, scarfed down dinner (tortilla and hot dogs) we headed to Retiro Park to meet everyone and drink before going to the bar... Great idea, terrible timing.. Short story: the park closes at around 12:30 or 1:30, which we didn't know.. Got stuck in there cuz they closed the gates without warning.. Called the police and waited for them to come let us out cuz the Park is HUGE and we did not feel like walking 2 miles to the other exit.. Our next stop was KAPITAL. Free entry and a free drink. 7 floors. Awesome people. American music. Crazy lights. SOO much fun!! Everything was awesome, except for the fact that I didn't know there was a bathroom on every floor so I kept going to the 2nd floor to go to the bathroom before I realized there was one on every floor.. WHOOPS! We stayed out until the Metro opened in the morning, which is 6am, because it unfortunately closes at 1:30, so we decided to be like locals and stay out all night!! And we did it! BUT we had to get up at 10:00am, so 3 hours of sleep was not enough, but Kapital was worth it :) Here's a picture of some of us:

Well with 3 hours of sleep and my feet killing me from my (cute) heels, we headed to El Teatro Real (The Royal Theater) for a tour.. Not much to say except that if I wanted to learn about the art in the theater I'd ask.. Way too long, and not worth it but it was a beautiful day! Abby and I were feeling extra-American today and didn't want to think about what we food lunch might consist of so we stopped at Foster's Hollywood Restaurant. SO American. Loved it! After our lunch we headed back to our place and ended up just skyping all day. However we booked our tickets to BARCELONA!! We'll be there from June 22nd-26th! Pretty much everyone from the Purdue trip is coming :) AND we're thinking about heading to San Sebastian next weekend. Main reason: la playa (beach) Hopefully we'll book it tomorrow!!! :)

Love you all! :)

Btw- HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN!!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU AND WISH I COULD HAVE CELEBRATED WITH YOU!!! I'll make it up with a super Spanish present!! :)