Granada

So my friends (Jay and Eric) and I decided on Thursday night that we would plan a trip to Granada this weekend. We booked our hostel for Friday and Saturday night and then went out for the evening. We stayed out pretty late on Thursday so Friday morning's busride was very rough. I didn't sleep as much as my friends and those turns up and around the mountains definitely got to me. The ride down was a total of about 5 hours. Granada is a city in the south of Spain, famous for a few things. The main attraction of the city is the Alhambra, which is a giant palace/fortress built up on the side of a mountain. Another famous attribute of the city is that it is THE city for tapas (small plates of food that accompany a drink in Spain). There are tapas in basically every city in Spain, but in Granada they give you large tapas. We arrived on Friday around 5ish to our hostel which was located in the Arab part of town. It was back up a couple streets that were filled with Arab vendors, selling everything from purses, flags, tea, lamps, hookahs and anything else you could associate with the Arab world. Our hostel was called Oasis-Granada and it was very cool. The people that worked there were very nice and me met a couple of people from our room (one of which was this mexican guy who taught us all kinds of things about mexican life/spanish-speaking life). So after we arrived at our hostel, we walked all around the area looking at different tapas bars and sampling differing kinds. At one place near our hostel, with every beer we received a whole sandwich and a plate of fries. At a chinese place, we got two rounds of drinks with tapas of 2 things of noodles, dumplings, spring rolls and chicken wings. We took naps later that evening and just kind of hung out, walking around the city. My friend Eric introduced us to shawarmas (a type of Middle Eastern sandwich wrap filled with meat and veggies). They were so good. Later on Friday night we went to a Middle Eastern place called the "Shawarma King" and the king himself (this crazy Arab dude that was big, had a massive beard and an even bigger personality) was the one that sat us. We ordered some tea and some crepes and they were very good (although he overpriced us like crazy). One of the craziest/funniest things that has ever happened to me happened when we told him we were from America. He went "Oh my God!" and started like joke hitting me and pretending to choke me and like bopped me on the head. Afterwards, we all just looked at each other and laughed so hard. I was attacked by the king. We went to bed pretty late and unfortunately had to wake up early on Saturday morning for the walk up to the Alhambra. We were there for an 8:30 tour and it was absolutely freezing. We didn't realize that the temperature in the morning would drop down to the 40s. We had on light jackets and couldn't feel our toes or hands for a good 4 hours. It was so amazing, though. The palace was huge and the Arabic architecture was some of the most incredible I have ever seen. We also had the tour guide headset things and they were an amazing idea because we got to learn so much about the history of the fortress/structures that made up the Alhambra. We then went back to the hostel for a bit to take a nap and then we went on a walking tour sponsored by our hostel. They set up a tour through the hostel that went up the mountain and around to look at the caves of the gypsies and hippies. Granada is all about living in caves. Many people live in caves that can actually be very nice (obviously not the squaters caves where the gypsies live). Our tour guide said he lived in a cave for a year (until he found a giant centipede in his bed). Needless to say, I wouldn't do it. On Saturday, we probably walked more than 5 miles in total, up and down hills mostly. We were all a little sore in our legs after that. When the tour was over, we went to more tapas bars, where we had some bagel sandwiches with some fried steak in them and another place that had a variety of fried fish as their tapas. We then went back to the hostel and napped before going out for the night. We hung out in the hostel bar for a little bit and then ended up going to a cave bar/club. It was very, very cool. They had built a club into some caves. The dance floor was on the side of a mountain and the walls were all glass so that we could have an awesome view of the Alhambra. We were there until very late/early in the morning and only got a few hours of sleep before we had to catch a bus to the bus station to come back to Madrid. Our bus to Madrid left at 10:00AM and we got back to Madrid about 3:15. Luckily, on this trip I slept for most of it. We were all starving and dead tired when we got back to the city. I just sat around the rest of the day watching tv shows and waiting to start my busy week of work. This weekend though I am traveling. On Thursday, I am going to Toledo to do some shopping and take Sam out to lunch and then on Friday-Sunday 9 of us are going to Portugal. I am not sure if I am running this half-marathon or not yet. I have been sick for a while so I haven't had any good running lately. I still have 3 days to sign up so we will wait and see.

Luke

Thanksgiving in Spain

So I will be attempting to write two blog posts today. One of the posts (this one) is about our Thanksgiving dinner/night in Spain and the other one is about this past weekend in Granada. Last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, our program sponsored a dinner for us at a local restaurant. Funny enough, the restaurant was Tony Roma's. We all got pretty dressed up because it was "Thanksgiving" and made our way downtown. One of the very few American restaurants in Madrid. We each had a plate of appetizers that consisted of a chicken wing, chicken tender, crispy wontons, jalapeno popper and a mozzarella stick (along with honey mustard and ranch). I don't like ranch but I was very excited to have honey mustard again. It was awesome. Then we had the choice between salad or smoked salmon. (I had the salmon and it was delicious) We then had our actual Thanksgiving style course with turkey covered with a kind of bbq sauce that wasn't half bad. For dessert I had a brownie covered with ice cream and chocolate sauce. By the end, we were so full. It definitely wasn't the best Thanksgiving meal I have ever had, because my mom makes the best in the world, but it was enough to tide me over until I get home for Christmas. After the dinner we decided that we would go to a bar and do something a little American to keep up with tradition so we found a bar nearby and ordered a couple buckets of beers. We hung out for a while at the bar, talking a lot about how good the food would be back home and how we are all excited to get back there. It was a fun night.

Luke

Aranjuez-Chinchón

I am getting more sick by the day, unfortunately. It's more annoying than it is bad. I don't feel 100%, that is true, but it still can't keep me down. Yesterday we went on our last program-sponsored day-trip to two places: Aranjuez and Chinchón. There were a lot fewer of us than normal because this was a trip that they planned only a few weeks ago and not as many people signed up. We still had a really good group though. Our first stop was in Aranjuez, a small little town about half an hour away. The real purpose as to why anybody would go there is the royal palace that is there. We went on a tour throughout the palace which was pretty amazing. There was also a museum after the tour that had a lot of artifacts from the kings and queens of Spain throughout the last couple of years. They had a lot of the clothing of all the royals. There was one whole room dedicated to the wedding dresses of the queens and princesses. (The girls liked that part the most) After we left the palace, we got back on the bus for about another 45 min to a town called Chinchón. Chinchón is a very cool little town famous for a couple of things. The Plaza Mayor in the center of town also acts as a bullfighting ring. The church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción has an early painting of Goya. Next to the church is a theatre house of Lope de Vega. The best part is the restaurant where we ate. It is called Meson Cuevas del Vino. It is a very interesting restaurant where they have these massive casks of wine under the restaurant. It was super cool. Lunch was absolutely amazing. We had maybe 20 different tapas that made up our meal. A couple examples were olives, peppers, cheese, chicken, fish, chorizo, bread with ham and tomato and desserts. Everybody, of course, passed out on the bus on the way home. I decided to stay in last night and watch some tv before getting a nice 11 hour sleep. I am still sick though so let's see where it goes from here. This week=more work, a project, Thanksgiving dinner for our program and then our trip down south. I am excited.

Luke

Sick in Spain

So I am a little sick. My throat hurts, my noise is running and I am tired allllll the time. Is that getting me down? Of course not. Do you know me? I am keeping my spirits up because I am living in Madrid, Spain and I have no reason to be upset or down about anything. Even sickness. I woke up this morning about 20 minutes before class (class is a 15 minute walk away) so I am "bumming" it. I threw on wool socks, sweatpants, shirt, sweatshirt and a hat (because my hair was craaaaazy). The thing is, it is so comfortable. I love it. I had time between class to hang out so I came home, made some tea and decided to write a quick blog entry. Class is still going very well. I had a quiz today in my grammer class (dominated it) and I have a few projects due in the next couple of weeks. This weekend I am going on a day trip with our program to a town called Chinchón. We don't know much about it, but they are taking us to a restaurant that looks divine. It is inside a winery and is only costing each of us 10 euro for the whole day. The rest of the weekend we are hanging out in Madrid. I will be sleeping a lot and trying to get as healthy as I can. By the way, random input-something very upsetting happened when we arrived in France. We found out that they don't stamp your visa when you entering another country inside the EU. I wanted to have all those stamps after this year. Oh well. I know where I went. Well, I will keep you informed about this day trip this weekend and will have pictures from that later. I would write more, but it is time for class again. These are some pictures from our trip to the Congress a while ago.

Luke

5 more weeks

Today marks the countdown of 5 weeks left in Spain. 5 weeks? I feel like that is not a whole lot of time. There is still so much I want to do and see. I still love it here just as much as the first day. I definitely miss a lot of things from back home. I especially miss my family and friends. Friends from home and friends from school. I miss my house and my bed. I am so excited for when I get home because we will have more family in our house for Jordan's graduation. I really miss cheap McDonald's. I STILL have not eaten at McDonald's in Europe. I am holding strong. This has been a pretty good week. Classes went well and we had a holiday on Wednesday. It was nice only having class on Mon-Tues and then Thursday. We went out a couple of nights so far this weekend but now I am just trying to find time to relax. I have been watching a lot of The Office and laying around. I have been a little productive though, sending some important emails. I do what I can. I am still in the process of making more travel plans for the next couple of weeks. Thanksgiving weekend some friends and I are touring the south of Spain and the first week in December some of us are going to Portugal. Besides those two trips, I am not sure where else I am going or when. The problem is that everything is so darn expensive. It's ok, I am not out of money yet! Well I am going to get some kebab and watch a movie. Living the dream. I also put up a picture of some of us on Halloween (we all went with togas because we are lazy) and then a picture of Sam, Gabby and I outside the Louvre.

Luke

Bienvenu à Paris

Finally, some real world traveling. I spent this past weekend in wonderful Paris, France. I went with Sam and some of her friends from the program. We left early on Friday morning (so early that we had to stay the night in the airport). Trying to sleep in the airport is one of the worst things in the world. It was cold, then hot and 100% uncomfortable. Our flight left at 635 and we landed in France at 830ish. We were in some random airport that we had to take an hour and 40 minute bus ride until we were in the actual city. We all slept either in the airport, on the plane or on the bus. Once we arrived at the city, we went to our hostel to drop off our bags. We couldn't check in yet but they had places for us to store our belongings. Our hostel was located right up the street from Moulin Rouge. (We didn't go to it) We first went to Notre Dame (with the Notre Dame kids. Kind of funny.) We walked all around the cathedral and took lots of pictures. It is about to celebrate its 850th birthday. Crazy! We ate some lunch afterwards and then walked around for a bit before checking in at our hostel. While the rest of our group took a nap, Sam, her friend Dallas and I went to go meet up with some other people from their program to go look through a park and a famous cemetary. Afterwards we went on a night cruise through the city which was very cool. We got to see so much of the area around the Eiffel Tower. We went back to our rooms that night and slept so hard. We were all exhausted. We were up early on Saturday and took the train to Versailles. Versailles is amazing. It is a huge palace with so much to see. The best part was that everything was free. We got free access to the palace, the gardens, the Trianon and Marie Antoinette's hamlet. We spent the whole day there. We didn't get back to Paris until maybe 7:30. We ate dinner at a little Italian place and then went to the other girls' apartment (that they rented) and we all watched Beauty and the Beast. It seemed like an appropriate movie to watch while we were in France. It was a very fun and relaxing night. On Sunday, we went back to the Eiffel Tower (that way we could take pictures during the day). Afterwards we walked to the Arc de Triomphe, took a few pictures and then Sam and I hopped on the metro to the Louvre. We met up with one of our friends who was visiting Europe for a few weeks. We were so excited to meet her in Paris. We all then met up and went to check out the Louvre for a bit. We went to see the Mona Lisa (kind of a let-down but necessary I guess). Shortly after the Louvre, we said our goodbyes to our friend and then started the journey to the airport. We had to go to the hostel to get our bags, take a couple of metros and then jog to the bus. We made it in time and everything went well. Our flight left at 10:20 and I eventually arrived at my apartment by 1:30-2. My overall impression of Paris was as follows..I loved it. It was absolutely amazing in my eyes. I am not a huge fan of the language; I think Spanish and Italian sounds a lot better. The weather might have had a very big impact as to why I loved it. There was an actual fall season. The weather was around the 50's and the leaves were falling and filling the streets. We were very lucky because it was supposed to rain all weekend and it didn't rain one time. My favorite part was the food. I made sure I did all the essentials. I had french onion soup (there known as onion soup), french bread (they gave us bread at every meal),croque monsieur, escargot and, of course, crepes! Crepes are possibly the best thing that France has ever done. The best crepe-with Nutella and banana. I ate so many. They still haunt my dreams. The people weren't mean at all either. We only had encounters with friendly people. I would love to return to this country one day. Now it's back to school. I am not sure if I am traveling this weekend but if anything else exciting comes up in the next couple of days, I will let you all know.

Luke

Break is over

Well I will start out with the very upsetting news..Friday morning Sam and I were supposed to leave for London. It was a very early flight and we ended up missing our flight. The alarm didn't go off on my phone and by the time I woke up, it was too late. What made it even worse was that there were no other flights for the rest of the weekend. My roommate also missed his flight and ended up paying $400 for another one. There was no chance that I was going to do that. It was very unfortunate and we were both very very upset about missing the trip. We did our best to salvage the weekend and turned it into a relaxation fest. We spent most of the break laying around watching tv shows and eating out for a couple of meals. It was very nice. Also, it turns out that her friends are going to London later and my friends are going to London later too so we should be able to go after all.

Midterms went well. I studied a lot harder than I thought I would but I am sure that it is going to pay off. Hopefully we will get our tests back this week and we can see how we all did. This break was very nice. We had no class from Friday until Wednesday. They cancelled class on Monday because there was a national holiday on Tuesday and it would mess up our break if we had Monday class. Last night was Halloween and the whole day leading up to it did not feel like the holiday at all. Spain doesn't really worry too much about Halloween, yet they do like to dress up and go to the clubs for big Halloween parties. That is what we did too. We only thought to dress up at the last minute so we ended up wearing togas made from sheets. It was a great idea. Everybody loved it. We had a lot of fun and stayed out until 4. Today I am relaxing and working on homework. This weekend I am going to Paris and I am not making the mistake of missing an alarm. I believe that we are sleeping in the airport..We will see. I can't wait to travel outside of the country, especially because I missed this last opportunity. We will see how everything works out.

Luke