A few last treasures...

I found more photos that I haven't shared!! So here's the Spanish tapas/combo plate feast my dad and I ate the last night we were in Madrid before our flight...

Patatas bravas (potatoes with "spicy" sauce), fried chorizo, french fries, fried egg, bread, and beer with lemon Fanta–so many of my favorite things!!

Here's the suitcase stack my champ of a dad took to the airport...

Blurry photo, but you get the idea. It's a lot of stuff.

And here's my new collection of thimbles from all the places I've been in Spain:

Madrid, Toledo, Salamanca (x2), Segovia, Córdoba, Granada (x2), Lisboa, Roma, and Barcelona (x2). Not pictured: the hotel bottle of shampoo I emptied out then filled with Sahara sand. Plus I'm missing a thimble from Bilbao.

And here is the view from my new apartment in Denver, which I am all moved into now!

I had my first day of classes today, and I'm so happy to actually understand the syllabus, and to be back in classes on subjects that I enjoy. Not that musicology wasn't the greatest adventure ever… but I like hospitality management much better!

Adios!

Family Visit: Part 1

12.22-23: Madrid

Oh, my jet-lagged family. Nothing like trying to find a coffee shop in the middle of the overpacked center of Madrid because people are so tired they can barely stand. After visiting the Cathedral and deciding the Palacio Real was too expensive for tours, my brother literally fell asleep at the table when we stopped for coffee near the Plaza Mayor. Jet lag? Jet lag. At least he didn't snore that time.

On Saturday, Jake was still in Madrid as well, so he and Cordis could at least keep each other entertained with football talk (of which I understand nothing, since I've been away from the sports news for so long!) and the new game they made up just for Spain–scarf spotting. Jake absolutely refuses to get a scarf… Cordis wanted to buy one while we were waiting in the train station when we left Madrid.

Trying Mom's scarf on...

Sunday was museum day. Lucky for us, museums are free on Sundays! We visited the Museo del Prado and the Reina Sofia for free. Win. Win win win. So I showed my parents La Guernica by Picasso, Las Meninas by Velazquez, Goya's dark period, the family portrait of Carlos IV's family where they painted in a faceless woman for Carlos V's wife (he hadn't married yet), religious paintings by El Greco, and we looked at a lot more art than I'd seen on our big group tours. Quite the day of paintings, but I guess four months in Europe makes you a lot better at surviving the art museums!

Prado Museum... may have gotten in trouble for this photo. Oops.

12.24-27 Salamanca

On the morning of Christmas Eve, we embarked on the train to Salamanca! Our hotel was right next to the Catedral Vieja, and the room Cordis and I were in had the best view of it. It made me so happy.

Merry Christmas!

On Christmas Eve, basically everything was closed, as could be expected in a largely-catholic country that takes a daily nap time break. It was like a ghost town. We managed to find a place that sold empanadas for lunch, and ate them in the Plaza Mayor.

I took Cordis scarf-shopping (since we didn't find one in the train station…) and we found a reasonably-priced one at H&M on Calle Toro. I'd like to just put this into the universe–I got my brother to go shopping at a store he'd normally avoid like the plague, a place that sells skinny colorful jeans for dudes. I feel that should be stated for the record. We did find a pretty spiffy scarf though, he looks very European (and enjoys saying so at every opportunity).

European Munchkin

Dinner was at a cafeteria I've walked past every day, so I finally got to see what the food was like! The Cafeteria Casino is delicious, just so you all know. We all got food we were quite pleased with, and since we eat really early by Spanish standards (we tend to be the first people in the restaurant after it opens…), we were able to get out of their hair before it was obnoxiously late for the employees to go home to their own Christmas festivities.

Christmas involved a lot of sitting around, walking around aimlessly, and sitting around some more. We bought snacks at the supermarket before, so we had a feast of pistachios, chocolate, and "gourmet" potato chips. And Fanta Limón, the drink I will miss so much when I go home! But more places were open for dinner at night (for the Spanish, Christmas Eve is very family-oriented, while on Christmas Day it seemed to be more acceptable to go out), so we found a place from Mom's guidebooks on Rúa Mayor, where we had fantastic food! I got some kind of mystery cut of pork, I still don't know what the menu item translates to, but it was delicious.

The next day we finally got to have our tourist day, soooo we did everything! We went to my favorite coffeeshop, the famous Mandala, for breakfast, where I discovered that my favorite coffee comes in a large size instead of the little baby one I usually order. Too bad I won't get to take advantage of that… but who needs that much caffeine anyway?

We explored the Cathedral and I showed my parents the human arm that's in one of the chapels along the sides. Main attraction. Still don't know why it's there.

After that, we went to the automotive museum, and I'm so sad Jake was too sick (and I was too busy) to make it to this, because he would've loved it. 100 cars, 60 motorcycles, and a whole lot of old stuff. The greatest delight for anyone who loves both history and cars. Like my dad!

Next, the Cathedral towers. Unfortunately, it was super foggy, meaning my family didn't get to see the amazing view from the top that I was hoping for. Plus they're restoring the bell tower, so there's scaffolding up all over the place. At least it's pretty enough that all this didn't totally ruin the experience! I love the top of these towers.

And then, they got to meet María! This was a little more difficult than when Jake met her, because my family speaks about 20 words of Spanish all together. But body language and gestures will get you halfway there! And I got to eat María's tortilla one last time (she makes the best tortilla!).

Both my mamas!!

And last but not least, we went to the building of the old Universidad. Sofia from ISA was a much better tour guide than I, but I remembered a fair amount of her stories from the tour I took before! Plus, my dad loves reading museum descriptions, even I learned some things.

Boyfriend Visit!!

Madrid

So a very tired Corinne picked up a very tired Jake at the airport on Saturday morning, and we managed to find our hotel in the city without too much trouble!
From there, we decided to explore the city, given that we had very little time in Madrid. We went to see the Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, and the Cathedral of Madrid. Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor were insanely crowded, given that it was Saturday during the holiday shopping season. The Plaza Mayor also had a Christmas market set up, where they were selling everything from Nativity scene characters (they have really complex nativity scenes here…) to bubble guns. Because of this, it seemed like roughly half the population of Madrid was in this square. Extremely overwhelming.



To get away from the epic mass of people, we went to visit the Catedral de Madrid, and to see the Palacio Real. Unfortunately, the Palacio Real was closed for tours by the time we got there, but we did get to see the cathedral, one of my favorite parts of the city!



On our way back to the hotel after the cathedral, we spotted a Wyoming Cowboys sticker on one of the cars!!

That night was a bit of a trip. First, we both slept only two hours and felt like it was the whole night, and then I kept waking up every two hours… because I'd gotten food poisoning from either the terrible sandwich I ate earlier or the raspberries I'd bought afterwards to make up for the terrible sandwich. In any case, poor Jake's first night in Spain involved taking care of his sick girlfriend. Slightly unfortunate!

Toledo

Toledo unfortunately began with a missed train and a very grumpy Corinne. Not a good deal for Jake. Plus, I was still sick and Jake was jet-lagged. Not good conditions to travel in, not at all! I literally have no pictures of this day… Sorry team. I was pretty miserable. But we at least got to see some cool landmarks in Toledo, and had a pretty decent lunch in the city.

Salamanca

Sunday night we headed back to Salamanca, since I still had classes and finals during the week. I wasn't sure where to go for dinner after our bus finally got to town (I barely eat out because María cooks so well!), so we went to get kebabs at a restaurant called Isatis, where my friends and I go a lot when we're out in Salamanca. It's basically a gyro, for those of you who are wondering. But it's simple and only 4 euros, so we were happy.
It was also at this point that Jake started feeling sick… and we eventually decided (based on the ever-reliable internet) that he had strep throat. But because Jake's insurance doesn't carry internationally, we tried to get by on over-the-counter medicines for a few days. On Thursday we finally bit the bullet and went to the doctor's office, and she gave us an antibiotic for strep throat, after we'd navigated the maze of the Spanish medical system.
Before that though, he spent most of the days sleeping–which was a slight blessing for me because I still had finals to do (one of which was a surprise my professor dropped on me on Monday! SO much fun!). And I was a frazzled mess trying to get it all done, so at least Jake wasn't impatiently waiting for me to finish… Even if that did mean he was sick. Plus, he's now the only person from home who's seen where I have classes–that's cool, right?
We did make it to the big things in Salamanca though. The old university facade, the cathedrals (and towers), and the plaza of course. He also got to meet María, which was quite the experience! She's just so full of energy and he was still feeling sick… nothing like that mix of energy levels to make a visit interesting!

Segovia

OK, this is actually a good part of the trip, I promise! Jake was finally not sick, I was done with my finals and didn't have food poisoning, no one missed a train, and we got good food! There was a short chunk of time at the beginning where there was a chance of Jake getting sick on the bus… that's what I get for forgetting my boyfriend gets carsick. But we made it there without incident, and the hotel was right next to the bus station!
We made to all the big tourist spots in Segovia, those being the Alcazar, the aqueduct, and the plaza mayor. It's a small town. But I think this one was Jake's favorite.
The aqueduct was pretty simple–walk down the street and find the giant stone thing. Woo!





The Alcazar was really cool to see again. I didn't quite remember everything I'd learned on my tour (it was in October, after all) but I remembered just enough to make it a little more interesting! If y'all remember my previous post on Segovia, there's a painting in the palace of Isabella leaving the church after her coronation in Segovia, and in this mural no one actually has eyes, which makes it a little creepy. When Jake and I saw this painting, it was sunset and the castle was essentially empty, which made it a whole lot creepier. Two rooms later, in the king's bedroom, we saw a girl who looked just like Isabella from the painting, with similar hair and wardrobe. We're pretty sure we saw Isabella's ghost. (She did turn out to be a real person… but it was a freaky moment!)

In any case, the place was pretty great. We climbed the tower, which was a lot easier this time, I think because the weather wasn't swelteringly hot outside!
Plus, I got to have a little square of ponche segoviano in the Plaza Mayor again. I still don't know what's in this dessert, but I'm pretty sure it's magic. And possibly a whole pound of butter and sugar… But if you come back from study abroad rich and skinny, you did it wrong. So I'm going to eat my ponche!

Ponche Segoviano in a bakery

Plaza Mayor lights

For dinner, we found a pretty good traditional-Spanish place, and got a pretty great meal. The town was all decorated for Christmas too, it was so pretty!

Madrid (again)

Saturday morning we headed back to Madrid to meet up with my familia! Our day with them was kind of a repeat of Jake's first day in Madrid… but with better food at least! For dinner we went to a place recommended by the hotel where we had some super classy food that Jake and I never would've had if we'd been on our own. Yay for family vacations!

And on Sunday morning, Jake went off on the Metro to catch his flight, and I began my family vacation!

The adventure so far: turning Spanish fashion into a scarf-spotting game. #madrid #sillyboys

via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/TkvFSVIVbE/

3 Días en Córdoba: Sunday

Sunday morning began with breakfast at El Olivo. Orange juice and tostada again, this time with jelly.
(PS–look at Friday & Saturday too, Saturday has the best photos by far)

Next, we went to the Museo de la Inquisición, which was essentially a torture museum with rusty metal artifacts that were once used in all sorts of gruesome ways. 

Probably a little too happy for someone in the stocks...

We also wandered the town some more, then ate lunch in another Spanish cafe. After lunch, we went to a sandwich place Kristi ate at when she was in Córdoba two years ago, ordered sandwiches to go, and then went to pick up our backpacks from the hostel so we could get on the train back to Madrid.

Kristi's name in Aarabic

Puente Romano again

 Lamps in a souvenir shop

On the Renfe train

And this exists at the train station in Madrid… there's an accompanying one with its eyes closed too

Train station in Madrid

I finally arrived home when it was almost midnight, and realized I did not have my keys anywhere accessible. Turns out they were in my makeup bag, I just didn't know it at the time. Luckily, the Spanish keep very different hours than those of the US, so María was still up when I rang the doorbell!

And then I uploaded and sorted through 400 photos of this city and went to bed at an obnoxiously late hour. Oops.

Week 1: Map

A Very Long Adventure

So today began with a breakfast buffet... that my roomie and I did not really get to enjoy because we'd misunderstood the times. We were supposed to be downstairs and ready go go by 9:30, not downstairs for breakfast at 9:30. So I chugged my peach juice, stuffed the rest of it in a napkin, and we dashed out to the bus!

Mmmmm breakfast foods

The bus took us to el Museo del Prado, a lovely little art museum. And by little I mean giant, but that's not the point. We took a tour, focusing on El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya. So I got to see a lot of religious pictures, courtesy of El Greco. And Las Meninas, from Velazquez, and a portrait of the family of Carlos IV, including his wife who got pregnant 24 times, courtesy of Goya. Don't worry though, she only had 14 of them. Only.

I couldn't really take pictures in the museum, so I only have one of a street performer who dressed up like Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter from Alice. He pretty much just sat there, pretending to drink tea, but he was very, very made up. It was pretty cool.

Museo Prado, Sidewalks, Reina Sofia, birds, Reina Sofia

After Museo del Prado, we duckling-trotted on over to el Museo de la Reina Sofia (see photos of sidewalk adventures...), then they turned us loose for 15 minutes to find snacks. I found a lemon Fanta (did you know that was a flavor??) and sat on a bench in the plaza by the museum with a few other kids. One of them had gotten potato chips, and was giving the crumbs to the birdies, which began inciting mini bird riots. Good entertainment, they're just so cute.

More art en la Reina Sofia! Modern this time though. Picasso and Dalí. We saw La Guernica, which I definitely could not take a picture of, and a lot of interesting surrealism paintings from Dalí. Not the clocks though, they did not have the clocks.  

The Reina Sofía was the end of the planned activities, so six of us went wandering the streets, and stumbled upon this pizzeria called Diablovetta (I think), which turned out to be really yummy. Also 5/6 girls in the group went to either high school or college in Colorado. And the DU people are really outnumbering the group, because ISA is one of our partner programs. It's kind of silly. There were only 2 of us at the lunch but I think there's roughly 8 of us, plus 2 CU people and one CC girl. Craziness. 

After lunch, myself, my roomie and another girl decided to go wander (sorta). We were on a mission to find some shopping locations, so we started off for Punta del Sol. We'd given our map to a girl who was taking the subway home alone, so we were not exactly equipped for this adventure. It was a lot of fun to explore the city though. We ran into the Plaza Mayor on our way there, so you guys get to see me for the first time in these photos! It's beautiful. The crazy thing about it is that you're bustling around this crowded, tall city, and all of a sudden you find this pocket of open space, and it's so pretty.

Palacio y Catedral

After the Plaza Mayor, we finally found the Punta del Sol, so I bought my token souvenir thimble (I was shocked they actually had them) and we stopped in a McDonald's to use the restroom. McDonald's is nice here. Two floors, nice decorations, etc. Why don't we get nice McDonald's??

Anyway, then we wandered to the Palacio Real (Royal Palace). Which is basically the largest horizontal building I've ever seen ever. What do they do with all that space?? We wandered along that for a while, then turned a corner and ran into another plaza between the Palacio Real and the Catedral de Madrid. Gorgeous, both of them. That's where I took the two photos on the bottom of this collage. The white one is the Palacio, the blue/grey one is the Catedral.

Fotos de la catedral

We decided to go explore the Catedral, since chances were good it wasn't too expensive. At first we saw a sign that said you could go to the top of the cupola, but it turns out that it was closed as of 14:30, and it was now almost 17:00. So we just went into the main cathedral room instead. Here's photos. It was very colorful for a church, I didn't expect such bright colors, especially the ones in the stained-glass windows and the ceiling!

We also toured the crypt of the church, which was slightly creepy but mostly cool. There were even some graves that had been laid within the last year, we didn't realize that people could still be buried there! 

We then decided to take the Metro home, since we were eons away from our hotel. We made it through that process mostly fine (buying tickets was an adventure) but then we got out of the station... and had no idea where our hotel was. So we walked for another 30 minutes, but obviously found it since I'm posting this!

Overall, a very busy but very fun day, I'm having a great time!

Quick Post

Here's some photos from the bus tour we had yesterday afternoon, when we were all dead on our feet. I'm glad they gave us activities to do though, because I feel much better today. Just got tired in the morning when it was supposed to be roughly 3 AM. Bigger post about today's adventures coming up, I just want these photos to be up too!

I'm heeeere!

And I am writing this from what I really would like to call my miniature hotel room. Even the elevator was miniature-sized. Me & my roommate were the first ones to get our room assignments, and seriously, we walked into the elevator and got real friendly real quick, there was no personal space with our suitcases in there. And the whole hotel is like that, except, oddly enough, the body wash. It's like a built-in dispenser. Which is genius, because then A) hotels wouldn't have to use SO MUCH plastic when they have to replace all the mini bottles that people steal, and B) you can actually wash up without spending half of the shower just tapping the stupid bottle on your hand to get a little dollop of soap on your hand. Genius! It's a cute little place though, and showering did wonders for my jet lag exhaustion problem.
My flights went super well too. Everything was on time, I found the right gates, I met up with two girls from my program in Philadelphia, and then was able to sit next to one of them on my final flight to Madrid! And I got to watch almost two movies on the super fancy touch-screen video screen on my seat. Seriously, if you haven't been on an international flight in a while, you should do it just to see the technology on those things, it's crazy!
When we landed, myself & Kristi (I'm throwing random names out here, just take them as introductions) just followed Jenna around like little ducklings because she was here last spring and knows her way around much better than we do. My luggage arrived just fine, and then we went out to the meeting place and realized, it's only 8:00. Our pickup wasn't due until 10:00, and even then we had to stay until 11:00 because that's how long they said they'd be at the airport for. So we sat on the stone floor of the Madrid airport for literally 3 hours, I'm not even kidding. But we did get to meet everyone and even talk to a few other people in other ISA programs who were waiting for their pickups as well. And, since there were about 9 of us at the airport and 4 of us were from DU, plus one more from CU Boulder, there were plenty of comments about how everyone in the ISA programs is from Colorado. Oops. It's nice though, I had some familiar faces to sit with at the airport.
Just finished going to lunch with some people from my program at this place called VIPS. It took us forever and a day to find it, but we did! Really good food, muy fresca. Seriously though, the food looked just like it did in the photos, and the photos looked fantastic! Someone wanted to find a supermarket, but they were closed for la siesta, so that threw a wrench in our plans! We just came back to the hotel instead.
Also, here's some photos from the flight! Chau!