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!

Today's Plan

is to go from here to here to here. Be right back, gotta go lose 24 hours of my life to TSA!

 But actually, this is super exciting and I can't wait. I mean, for starters, I'm going on a flight that includes a meal without paying anything extra. If that's not exciting, I'm not sure what is.
Plus there's that thing about how I will wake up in Spain on August 30, and I am so stoked! I'll update you all when I get the chance, but until then, I miss you all already! 

One Week!

Who's excited??

Home Sweet Homestay

I have housing info! Here's some brief details! Myself and another girl from Tennessee are staying with a 60-year-old woman named María. According to the info I got from my program, "former students have rated her as excellent in every way." I'm calling that a plus! I'll be staying in an area which is a 15-20 minute walk from the universidad.

That's my exciting news, now I really am ready to head off! Just a few more boxes to check off in the next 21 (eek!) days!

Happy August!

Less than a month until I leaveeee.... pardon me while I go freeeeak out. Just a little.

Also, I signed up for the Morocco trip today too. Ladies & gentlemen, may I introduce Fez, which I cannot talk about without thinking of That 70's Show. EEEE! (This is my excited face)