Madrugada

Free time so new blog post!
I just had lunch with my host parents and my host mom's nephew. It was pretty good, although I mostly just listen and only speak when spoken to haha, and the nephew (can't remember his name! ahh!) called me out on it. i'm just shy, and i can't really jump into a conversation when I only understand 3/4 of the words. Although we did talk about driving across the United States, something that everyone present, myself included, wants to do. The nephew wants to visit Virginia and West Virginia, but I managed to convince him that he probably didn't really want to go to West Virginia. I don't know how to say "hicks" in spanish but hopefully i conveyed that meaning. We also talked about public transportation in Spain and America, and I couldn't really explain why it's normal for everyone to take the metro but not the bus in New York. Why is that, exactly?
So, Thursday is the day of Saint Joseph, which means, Spanish Father's Day! Because Joseph is the father of Jesus.. Which means- no school no work no nothing! Everything was closed, even the post offices. So instead of my usual three day weekend, I had a four day weekend. Needless to say I could have been a little more productive, but I went out and slept a lot and read a bunch and other stuff. We went to some interesting night places at least, explored and what not. There is a great Irish bar near my house that i went to on st. patrick's day. We had an exam the day after, so we just went for one guinness after class at six, when they were putting up the decorations for the big party that was to come in the evening. We went back there this weekend and I noticed they had hard cider so obviously i could not pass that up. Last night we went to a little bar that was 60's themed, and they had all these little toys in boxes displayed around the room, and they were projecting some movie from the 60's on a wall. I was watching it and I realized that it was set in Brighton. Pretty cool.
The most productive thing I have done this weekend is book my flights for Semana Santa, and the first two nights in Arles. Ay it is so hard to plan trips, especially if you don't want to spend a lot of money, and especially if you are going lots of different places. We have to book like five more hostels for the rest of the trip. The imagined iterinary is as follows: arrive in Marseille, take the train to Arles, stay two nights in Arles, go to Aix-En=Provence, stay one night there, go to Nice, spend two nights there, take the train into Italy, spend two nights in Cinque Terra, and then train to Florence and spend two nights there, and then fly to Valencia for cheap and spend one night there and then take a bus or a train back to Madrid. I'm hoping for a relaxing vacation, and that all the traveling won't tire me out. I can't wait though, provence is somewhere i've always wanted to go. instead, i have been to the same exact places in france two times. not that i am complaining by any means. but i'm glad to go to a new place! i love love france. I have been practicing what little french i remember, hopefully it will be functionary for our trip.
Mom and Dad are coming tomorrow! Of course, they get to go to Sevilla and leave me in Madrid, but they come back this weekend and Aunt Beth is coming too! I am looking forward to it.
And, I leave you with the beauty of Extremadura.

Atisbo

I have been reading all day for hours straight, so I have decided to take a recreational break until dinner, which should be soon. Since i don't feel like reading to pass some free time, I chose to write. I have a lot of George Orwell to read for Tuesday, but not 1984 or Animal Farm things. We are reading his non-fiction travel account of Northern England and his descriptions of mining country. It's pretty intense but reads quickly because it's pretty interesting. I knew mining was horrible and whatnot, but his descriptions go way into detail and it sounds like impossibily difficult work. Once the miners go down the shaft, they had to basically fold themselves in half and squat-walk for three miles in the heat to even get to the place where they had to mine the coal. Apparently George Orwell was 6'2" and he said it was next to impossible for him to even go a mile, and then he was sore for a week after.

I had a lovely excellent fun week with Chris last week. I almost felt like I was on vacation myself in some other city; it was so weird to live in the same city but in a different place. Our hostel was in Sol, which is the middle of the city and close to virtually everything that is worth seeing, so we were able to walk everywhere and explore more in-depth than I had been able to previously. We did some touristy things like the Palacio Real and the Prado. The Palacio Real was really beautiful, and we went on a Tuesday afternoon and there were five other people in the whole palace! It was great! I think Versailles still is the end all royal palace, but this one comes close in my opinion. It was good to visit the Prado without school, because then we could see the paintings that we actually want to see instead of spending two hours just looking at Velazquez and Goya (not that they are bad to look at, but i have seen them all, twice). Also it was just generally a nice experience to feel like a tourist in my own "home." I don't usually go out to eat a lot, but that was the only option this week so I was excited to go eat Mexican food and Thai and other ethnic things. After walking around for hours trying to decide on tapas restaurants, I have decided that tapas really are not my favorite thing. They are basically all the same, and are all kinda mediocre. I like tortilla española, and patatas bravas, but really the rest are all kind of meh. This was an unfortunate conclusion because I still have two and a half months of living in tapas country. But like I said, I don't go out to eat much. We did have pretty good tostas, which are basically little meals on toast, that we shared like tapas.

Things have been pretty busy for me, Barcelona, busy week at school, Extremadura, Chris.. Then this week with all this reading for Tuesday, and I'm re-taking my grammar test tomorrow, and then we have an art history test on Wednesday.. But after Wednesday I think i finally should have some time to do nothing. Friday is Father's Day here and it is a really big deal and they don't have work that day, or the day before. I could travel, but I really need a restful weekend. Tonight I think I'm booking my spring break plans: Provence and Italy. I have always wanted to go to both of those places, I hope that we are able to plan it!

Also, David Sedaris is coming to Skidmore this month. AHHHHHHHHHHH WTF WHY DOES HE COME WHEN I AM IN SPAIN I AM SO UPSET

Volver

This blog is kind of like all the diaries I have started and eventually the entries taper off.. But I have been busy! I went to Barcelona last weekend and this weekend I just got back from a province called Extremadura, and they both were great trips. I had been to Barcelona before when I was in London, but it is definitely a city I don't mind going to more than once. I went with Amanda and Jessica and we stayed in a really cool hostel in the middle of the city and we woke up each morning and looked in the guide book and picked what we wanted to do, and then did everything. It was such an efficient and enjoyable trip for that reason; we weren't frantically wandering around trying to stumble upon things. The best part of Barcelona: The Bagel Shop. When we saw that in the guidebook we all freaked out. The bagels were really good and we actually went there twice (tried to go three times in total haha) and it was good to have familiar food. And we did all the sights, Sagrada Familia, beach, Park Güell, La Rambla, etc.. Amanda had a friend from Barcelona that we met up with and practiced spanish, and jessica had a friend from high school that was studying there too so we had a social weekend one might say.. Anyway, Barcelona was good.
Extremadura is in the south and goes up to the Portugal border. It's basically beautiful farm country. For me, the highlight was Saturday. It was gorgeous warm sunny weather and we went to this nature preserve in the middle of nowhere and hiked around and had a lovely lovely time, and then we went to another city and got to see really extensive Roman ruins that were really super cool. It was the city that the main character from Gladiator is from in the movie. And then at night we went to Guadalupe and stayed in a monastery, that was really neat.
Perhaps i will elaborate a bit more later, but right now I am exhausted and cannot write anymore.
Chris arrives tomorrow! Just in time for the real spring weather too, it's supposed to be 70 this week!