Hola mundo! Well, I´ve been pretty bad at this but here are some of the things i´ve been up to:
Last week I spent my first lunch with my professor eating in a restaurant where I am a REAL client of the place. We now know the owner and 3 of the waiters and the food is delicious. It´s the Argentinian restaurant and it has really good steak (apparently), but I´ve only had fish, chicken, and tortilla (eggs). Speaking of food, we had our last pizza dinner as a group and I tried the hawaiian pizza that also has mandarin oranges in it... a little bit different in Spain.
Saw Guernica (Picasso´s painting) in the Reina Sofia, a huge museum of modern art, which isn´t really my thing, but Guernica was pretty neat. Today we saw Miró who really shouldn´t be famous. I´m pretty sure I could put some black lines, a blue spot, and some black circles in a painting and i wouldn´t be famous...
Saw my first movie in the cultural center near my house and watched a movie about swimming with my family in my parent´s bed, but it was alright and not as strange as it sounds. Also spent some time with my little sister skaeboarding in the street and might have a fracture in my elbow right now... I´ll go to the hospital tomorrow and get back to you all about that one.
This weekend was pretty exciting. Rikka who´s studying in Granada came to visit Madrid and we showed her around and went to Segovia on Saturday to see Alcázar which was the inpiration for the castle in Disneyland in California... it was pretty amazing. I promise I´ll get pictures up before the new year... It was also a holiday on Friday complete with the army marching through a plaza and government things to celebrate Cristopher Columbus, I think. I´m just glad there weren´t any carbombs. Needless to say, I hardly left my house.
That was a lot of info, but I hope it keeps the 3 people that read this busy until I can write again. I hope everyone is enjoying beautiful falls wherever you are (not falls like from a skateboard into the street but more like autumns)!
10.15.2007
10.11.2007
Vamos a la playa... and la alhambra
Finally here´s my update on my weekend to the south last weekend. last thursday night after our art class i hopped on a bus with 3 friends (Tim, Abbey, and Becky for those of you who know Carls) for 5 hours to Granada. Of course, we couldn´t just drive all the way there so we stopped in a weird town in the middle of nowhere to use the bathroom and have a snack and there i saw my first WANTED ad for ETA members. We really wanted to steal it off the wall but figured it wouldn´t be such a good idea although it would go marvelously with my growing collection of wall decorations, including the phone number of my pal Paco. We arrived in Granada around 12:30am and took a taxi to the apartment of the woman that a friend studying in granada (rikka) lived with for a month because she graciously offered 4 beds to us and her apartment to use because she lives alone in a huge apartment and is 29years old and and architect. well that´s not the reason, but yeah.
Friday we slept really late and went up the mountain (literally) to the alhambra for our designated entrance time. IT IS AMAZING. for anyone who is ever in spain, you absolutely must go. it was the former palace of the moors when they were in power and constructed as a "paradise" on earth, so it´s pretty beautiful. many amazing pictures but i´m way slow at getting those up, so it may not happen until i get back to maine.
spent some time with Rikka in a tea place and exploring the very north-african-like traditions of the south of spain. including FREE TAPAS (which are also the size of a meal) which is the tradition in andalucía.
Took the bus to Almería on the southern coast on saturday afternoon and another bus to the small beach-town of San Jose... beautiful. our hostel was 12€ and had everything we needed (beds and beautiful terraces outside). had a dinner on the beach in the dark of bread, cream cheese, and nectarines and went to the beach, Playa de Genoveses, on Sunday. 2km walk through the town and desert to get there where there was a herd of sheep and their shepherd and many nudies (hey, it´s europe!). spent 6 hours there swimming, reading, and walking and it was wonderfully relaxing. an amazing beach with not so many people and in a national or natural park. a great way to spend the weekend. the 8 hour busride back to madrid was a bit of a chore, but it was overall a great weekend and a nice escape from the city lifestyle.
p.s. everyone should try the lebanese (i think?) food called chawarma. it´s in a pita and has chicken and veggies and a sauce and is amazing.
Friday we slept really late and went up the mountain (literally) to the alhambra for our designated entrance time. IT IS AMAZING. for anyone who is ever in spain, you absolutely must go. it was the former palace of the moors when they were in power and constructed as a "paradise" on earth, so it´s pretty beautiful. many amazing pictures but i´m way slow at getting those up, so it may not happen until i get back to maine.
spent some time with Rikka in a tea place and exploring the very north-african-like traditions of the south of spain. including FREE TAPAS (which are also the size of a meal) which is the tradition in andalucía.
Took the bus to Almería on the southern coast on saturday afternoon and another bus to the small beach-town of San Jose... beautiful. our hostel was 12€ and had everything we needed (beds and beautiful terraces outside). had a dinner on the beach in the dark of bread, cream cheese, and nectarines and went to the beach, Playa de Genoveses, on Sunday. 2km walk through the town and desert to get there where there was a herd of sheep and their shepherd and many nudies (hey, it´s europe!). spent 6 hours there swimming, reading, and walking and it was wonderfully relaxing. an amazing beach with not so many people and in a national or natural park. a great way to spend the weekend. the 8 hour busride back to madrid was a bit of a chore, but it was overall a great weekend and a nice escape from the city lifestyle.
p.s. everyone should try the lebanese (i think?) food called chawarma. it´s in a pita and has chicken and veggies and a sauce and is amazing.
10.08.2007
"I love when Carleton pays" and "sketchy old men"
Ooookay, so I have some updating to do. It´s been awhile...
So the week after the noche en blanco was the European Mixed Curling Championships in the Palacio de Hielo right in my neighborhood, so i brought a whole group of clueless americans to the palacio to watch 2 hours of curling goodness... ireland (my team) lost, as did Spain (my other team), but wow! what an opportunity!
The next day, Friday, the entire group of us Carleton kiddos along with 2 of our professors went to Toledo (40 minutes away) to explore the labyrinth of the old city, see the cathedral which is amazing and huge, but kind of expensive, and see a bunch of El Greco´s paintings. The best part was the hotel because Carleton paid (well we actually did, but it makes me feel better to think that it´s not actually from the $200,000 that was formerly mine that Carleton will have by the end of 2010) and there was free breakfast and it was a nice hotel. also saw a sinagogue and a huge hospital from a while back which were both pretty amazing.
Last week was full of classes and sketchy waiters (well... only one). Went to Principe Pio for a cheaper than normal manu del dia and had two wonderful camareros, one young and one old. the young one helped us to understand the type of bean in one of the dishes by taking us to the window of a store down the street that has them. at the end of our lunch, we waved goodbye to the younger one as he left for his own lunch or the end of his shift. meanwhile the older one asked us about where we live in teh city and as we left gave us the standard besitos on both cheeks. of course, i was the last in the line to exit the vecinity and he asked me if i wanted the phone number. i, thinking he meant for the restaurant and not understanding why i would ever need it, said sure, being very nice. he whipped out his little notebook and wrote "Paco movil ########". oh and did i mention that he´s about 75 years old and has a lazy eye? so that was the highlight of my week by far... and it´ll be a great addition to my wall decorating back in carleton.
Tuesday we went to El Escorial, a palace/monastery about an hour from Madrid and ate ice cream there.
Wednesday we encountered a place that we want to "become clients of" and humberto huergo always tells us we must do and they have argentinian food and delicious postres and wonderful camareros that don´t try to give me their number and we met the dueño there too (the guys who owns the place). we will be returning to that one, unlike to paco.
Thursday after our class in el prado with javier Tim, Becky, Abbey and I took off for the south in a bus... i will write more about that one another time. the library´s about to kick me out because i always steal their internet.
So the week after the noche en blanco was the European Mixed Curling Championships in the Palacio de Hielo right in my neighborhood, so i brought a whole group of clueless americans to the palacio to watch 2 hours of curling goodness... ireland (my team) lost, as did Spain (my other team), but wow! what an opportunity!
The next day, Friday, the entire group of us Carleton kiddos along with 2 of our professors went to Toledo (40 minutes away) to explore the labyrinth of the old city, see the cathedral which is amazing and huge, but kind of expensive, and see a bunch of El Greco´s paintings. The best part was the hotel because Carleton paid (well we actually did, but it makes me feel better to think that it´s not actually from the $200,000 that was formerly mine that Carleton will have by the end of 2010) and there was free breakfast and it was a nice hotel. also saw a sinagogue and a huge hospital from a while back which were both pretty amazing.
Last week was full of classes and sketchy waiters (well... only one). Went to Principe Pio for a cheaper than normal manu del dia and had two wonderful camareros, one young and one old. the young one helped us to understand the type of bean in one of the dishes by taking us to the window of a store down the street that has them. at the end of our lunch, we waved goodbye to the younger one as he left for his own lunch or the end of his shift. meanwhile the older one asked us about where we live in teh city and as we left gave us the standard besitos on both cheeks. of course, i was the last in the line to exit the vecinity and he asked me if i wanted the phone number. i, thinking he meant for the restaurant and not understanding why i would ever need it, said sure, being very nice. he whipped out his little notebook and wrote "Paco movil ########". oh and did i mention that he´s about 75 years old and has a lazy eye? so that was the highlight of my week by far... and it´ll be a great addition to my wall decorating back in carleton.
Tuesday we went to El Escorial, a palace/monastery about an hour from Madrid and ate ice cream there.
Wednesday we encountered a place that we want to "become clients of" and humberto huergo always tells us we must do and they have argentinian food and delicious postres and wonderful camareros that don´t try to give me their number and we met the dueño there too (the guys who owns the place). we will be returning to that one, unlike to paco.
Thursday after our class in el prado with javier Tim, Becky, Abbey and I took off for the south in a bus... i will write more about that one another time. the library´s about to kick me out because i always steal their internet.
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