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!