so I know I have a lot to be thankful for, but right now, on the top of my list are Fiesta days/ Puentes in Madrid and la Tortilla Espanola. Spain loves to partayyyy apparently because there are TONS of holidays here. Many of which, at least this semester, fall on Tuesdays. This means that Monday is a "puente" (bridge) which in turn means that I have 2 day weeks (no class on Friday obviiii).
Last week we had a fiesta on Monday (dia de todos los santos), and this week we had one on Tuesday (patron saint of Madrid), so I have been busy (mainly with travel, though classes are actually starting to make me feel like a real student these days). So here is a little bit of my extended weekend in review:
Thursday- my computer got a massive virus and needed to be taken to the doctor (PC City) for a little slumber party. Luckily it is clean now (apparently it was REALLY REALLY sucio... probably thanks to me trying to watch Glee online...) though all of my keys are in Spanish (like the symbols are all mixed up/not what my english keyboard tells me they are), and the language of all websites is spanish and programs are spanish etc. But i supposed this is helping my cultural imersion...
Friday- class trip to El Escorial with our infamous tourguide, Pablo (Pabs). Most long-winded tourgide in history, which is unfortunate because he is really smart and some things he says are really interesting, but he has NO IDEA how to cut tours short/ how to not talk about every single artifact that we pass by/how to read people. at all.
Saturday- went down to Andalucia (southern Spain) with Allison: first we stopped in Cordoba to see La Mesquita which was so amazing and definitely exceeded my expectations. Then we went on to Granada that night which was really fun. We didn't tour Granada (going down over Thanksgiving with my parents) but we went to dinner and went out afterwards tapas hopping which was entertaining. Only downside: finishing half a bottle of wine and then drinking 4 canas was PROBABLY not the best thing for an early morning trip to the mountainside... Also, I learned that I, in fact, am not good at drinking beer (have a tendency to spill and drink slowly), while Allison is a pro... must be a midwest thing? (re: Pretty Good at Drinking Beer)
Sunday- went up to the mountains to hike through the white towns. 2 hour bus ride up was the worst bus ride of my life by far. When I say I was clutching to a plastic bag for dear life as we wound up through the mountains at 70mph in a smelly bus, i'm not exaggerating. LUCKILY for us, nothing happened and after about 10 minutes of sitting silently outside when we reached our destination trying not to hurl, we were successful. Furthermore, after we bought fleeces (definitely worth the 14E to stave off the chilly mountain air) and had a tortilla espanola to settle our stomachs. The Tortilla Espanola is perfect for hangovers, settling stomachs, and to put on a bocadillo for a quick and portable lunch. Can't wait to bring these back to BabyB (my house next year). It's a serious love affair. I probably average about 1 every other day (don't judge).
Monday- went to Ronda (old town in Andalucia with lots of Moorish influence), which was quaint and cute but not tons to do there. Among the things we did: see a really cool/huge old bridge; Climb down 60m of stairs into a gorge where we proceeded to take like 2 pictures, and then there was nothing else to do (damn you tourist traps), so we had to climb back up the 60m of stairs.. in casi pitch blackness... dicey. annddd we ate some italian food (typical on our weekend trips). Then I had to wait for my train back to Madrid for like 3 hours in the train station (really overbudgeted time needed in Ronda, but oh well). Came back to my senoras and my lovely fixed comuter, which one of my senoras (Paloma) picked up for me.
Tuesday- ugh real student day, had to do work and prepare for an Econ presentation on Thursday... crazy!!
sooo now I get to prepare myself for an intense 2-day week before going on a class field trip with Pabs to Extremadura (the least visited region of Spain.... great).
Summary: Work load is starting to increase, but this gives me more structure and I feel like a productive human now. Also, I had a great weekend, made even better by the fact that my computer is fixed and Fall is beautiful here!
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