Trip to Madrid (Day 3 & 4)

Woke up again around 9:30 and got ready to go! We headed to a new breakfast spot and had churros and Cola Coa. This morning we decided to add in a special kind of churros that was simply a fatter, longer churro, that is only found in Madrid.

After breakfast we wondered on over the the Capitol of the Capitol. There we also saw the Alcala Gate and some other nice statues and fountians such as the fountian of Neptune and the statue of Sancho Panza. So that was cool! 

The Capitol

Statue of Sancho Panza

Street Walkin'

Also, when walking up the street near the Capitol building we passed Spanish actor Eduardo Gomez Manzano. But that man looked fierce and in a hurry so we just kept on walking. However I have only been in Spain for what not even a month and I am already seeing famous people!? I'll take it!

Lunch time! We ate at a little place buried deep in the side streets and alleys and it was a pretty standard meal. I had spaghetti and meat sauce, chicken, and papas fritas (which are basically just rectangularly cut potatoes and are served with every meal). For dessert I had a piece of almond cake and it was GREAT! It was served cold. Honestly, I think all desserts should be served cold! Pie, cake, cupcakes, tarts COLD I tell you!

Then we hiked on over the La Puerta de Sol which is the equivalent of Times Square in the "this is where the ball drops on new years" way, except for the fact that in Spain instead of a ball dropping they have a huge really important clock that, when it strikes midnight on new years THOUSANDS of people gather there and eat 12 grapes, one for every month of the year, for good luck in the upcoming year.

Then guess what time it was? Siesta time! Fast forward to AFTER siesta. We walked to this little shop near La Puerta de Sol that is kinda famous in Madrid. Its called Gaimo Espadrilles, and there they sell these shoes that are hand made and AWESOME! When you get to this shop you look into the display window and pick out what type and design you want. Then when its your turn to approach the very special counter you tell them your shoe and size and you try them on blah, blah, blah. Well I got these bad boys! I feel so cultured! Oh and they weren't even expensive! They were €10.95 which is the equivalent of $14.77. Not bad at all, especially considering they were HAND MADE!

After the rest of the fam finally made their grueling desicion of what shoes to get (I just got the first ones I saw and love them to bits!) we headed on over to the Royal Palace. It was a really nice and elaborate palace and I am sorry I don't have any pictures of the inside because photography was not allowed, but just imagine lots of porcelain and palacey things and you get the gist of it.

After that experience we passed by the opera house of Madrid (Nicole and Mari, I think we are all thinking the same thing right now ;)), and it was MASSIVE! We didn't go inside, but the outside itself was incredible! We kept walking and came to a restaurant where we sat and had something to drink, in my case water. Once we were all hydrated and stuff we went off to find another restaurant to eat at. Not quite sure why we didn't just eat at that one, but we didn't. I think we were looking for some specific one, which we never found, and ended up eating at a little pub type place.

Ana and Roman order us some food and we ate. What we ate I did not know until after eating it, which I guess is just our unspoken agreement here. We had, chicken wings in a really good Spanish sauce, croquetas (this time cheese and ham), and cow... Intestines. That was quite literally a lot to swallow. It was tentacle like and not something I plan on eating again any time soon.

Once we were finished eating we headed home. Stopping for ice cream (this time I had THE best chocolate of my entire life with little chocolate bits mixed in)! When we got to the apartment we watched The Voice (La Voz in español). Halfway through I decided it was time for bed. Night!

(Day 4)

We woke, we washed, we dressed, we packed. We then went to THE bakery of Madrid La Mallorquina. This time we ordered cool stuff because we were at THE bakery of Madrid (duh)! I had Mungi (I think that's what its called) which was basically the pastry we call elephant ears, glazed and with some kind of fruity creamy filling on top. It was the perfect last meal of Madrid.

Then we headed back to the apartment, gathered our bags and hit the subway (metro) to get to the car and start the trek home.

About an hour into our trip we stopped for lunch. I had chicken (I know that sounds lame, but the chicken here is amazing! Plus its the only thing I can guarantee I wont regret ordering!). I also tried everyone else's food! I had the kidney of a cow, rabbit, and steak, all of which were pretty good! Then for dessert I had Arroz con Leche for the second time this weekend! It was amazing, again.

Finally we reached home and here I am telling you about it! Madrid was awesome and I certainly hope I will be seeing it again soon!

A Trip to Madrid (Day 2)

Our bright and shiny faces were woken up at a generous 9:30 on Sunday morning. We showered and got ready to go and headed out for desayuno (breakfast). We ate outside at a little cafe and had churros which we dipped into our Cola Cao (hot chocolate). I discovered that its even better to dip your churro in your drink then sugar. Just a helpful little hint if you ever find yourself in Spain and don't know how to eat your churro! Oh! Helpful hint number two! Don't order water with your breakfast! People WILL think you are crazy!

Next we did some walking through the street venders of Madrid. There were many, many different stands consisting of authentic WWI /WWII gear (fun fact: most of this authentic gear was German), jewelry, denim (jackets, vests, shirts, and Levi cutoffs all VERY popular here), bags, underwear and other typical street vender stuff. We wandered into these little side plazas behind the stands as well, and found them to be very pretty and quaint. These plazas were usually made up of antique shops, Ana Maria's favorite! I will admit I am not one for antique shops but there were some pretty cool things in  those shops, such as colorful dining room tables and elaborate chandeliers. We also happened upon a two real fur rugs one made of cow skin and the other zebra skin.

Once we finally reached the end of these street venders we went to lunch. We had snails, which we actually had to PULL the snail out of the shell, yuck! I only had one, and it wasn't that bad but the texture, again, really got me.

(Fun fact: I had actually eaten snail before in Aruba and hated it, so if your not a snail person you should know that not all snails are cooked equal!). We also ate some potatoes in some sauce that is apparently typical of Spain, but Emma said this particular sauce sucked, which I was a bit relieved to discover, because it wasn't very good. I also tried tuna, served practically rare, in the form that looks like freaking eels, soaked in olive juice. Did NOT like that at all. At all.



We did some more roaming, stopping at a little pub place were we had some paella. I like the rice part of paella, but I think I got too adventurous with the food to fast because I took a big piece of something that I wasn't sure what it was. It ended up being fish, which wasn't bad, but this fish was pretty bony and I ended up swallowing a mouth full of fish and bone.





















Then we headed back to the apartment, stopping for ice cream (ice cream is ten thousand times better here! I got mint chocolate chip), for a little siesta. Once siesta hour was complete we went off to Retiro Park, a park with a man made pond with boats that you can rent and row. Since the maximum was four people per boat Ana Maria and Roman took one boat and us kids took another. We weren't half bad! I should also mention that you are not permitted to swim in this particular pond, but when we were there, there was a bit of a protest. This big group of teens /early twenties chanted some chant that I didn't understand, jumped into the pond, got out, sang happy birthday, chanted and danced a bit and then left, in that order. It was a pretty interesting site to see!



Once our arms were tired and time was up in the boats we headed to land to walk around this park a little more. There was a very impressive, empty glass house there and some pretty cool street acts including piano playing puppets, and break dancers. Then we headed off to dinner at that really popular restaurant we were too impatient to wait for the day before.

It was pretty good! We had croquetas which are very popular here. They are basically mozzarella sticks but inside their can be a assortment of foods including cheese, chicken, ham, you name it! I am pretty sure these ones were just chicken, but I am not positive. We also had fried fish, not sure what kind of fish, that was very good, but very salty. I seriously thought the entire ocean was in my mouth! It was intense.

After dinner we headed to a ham shop. Yup, lots of ham everywhere! We had some very good ham. I don't know what else to tell ya about that place. There was a lot of ham.

On our way home we got some more ice cream! This time I had strawberry cheesecake! Writing this makes me realize how many times a day we eat here. It sounds like a lot, but at the end of the day we only end up eating as much as the typical American, just less at each time.

Finally we reached home, exhausted! We watched the end of The Proposal which was playing on TV, then slept.

A Trip to Madrid (Day 1)

Street view of Madrid.

This weekend my host family and I took a 6 hour road trip to Madrid. Now let me just tell you the trek there was nice, but no piece of cake!

We all woke up at 5:40 AM on Saturday morning to hop into the car for a relatively long trip. We were groggy and tired and poor Ana had a bad cold / cough thing going on. Once we were all in the car we drove... for two minutes until we reached town were we stopped for a lovely little breakfast of croissants and hot chocolate (well the Spanish equivalent of hot chocolate which is called Cola Cao).

Once we were fed we all hopped back into the car for the real deal. Being that it was all of 6 AM (practically the middle of the night here in Spain) us kids took a nice long (on and off) nap for the majority of the car ride. In between sets of naps we played various games on the iPad and some pretty intense games of Go Fish.

Side bar! When looking out the window on this 6 hour trek from one side of Spain to the other you see many different types of terrain. There is a good amount of desert. There is the occasional set of really tall rocks (I wouldn't exactly consider them mountains). There are some plains and some cool little places where houses are actually built into the really impressively sized rocks. Last, but certainly not least are the windmill farms! There are about two between Barcelona and Madrid and there are hundreds of windmills in each!

Anyway, we stopped at a little rest stop at the half way mark and it was very cool! It wasn't the kind of rest stop like we have on the highway with a McDonalds or Dunkin' Doughnuts, it was more like a whats that place called? Nice n Easy or something? Well anyway, this place had a little wrap around counter with tortillas (which are basically omelets) with many different things in them! I had a tortilla con jamon y queso (I'll let you figure that one out) and it was delish!

Fast forward to arriving in Madrid! Once we got to the city we headed straight to where we stayed, which was basically an apartment. When you walked in the main door there was a little hallway that led to the stairs and the inner part of the stairs was hollow so you could see the roof, which was just one big window, and the doors to the other apartments!

Then we hit the streets! We went to a restaurant to each some tapas. Unknowingly I ate the stomach of a chicken, or maybe it was the intestines... same thing, and rice cooked in pig blood. I did not like the stomach, intestines thing, but the blood rice was not too bad! In addition I had some fried eggplant which is really good, and some other little foods I can't remember, but they were good! Then I had Arroz con Leche, which is really, whipped milk with rice and sugar. And let me tell you, the portion size issue that American's stereo typically have of European food, not actually an issue! The bowl that this stuff was in was like a bucket!!! Other proportions of other foods are just as similar to that of the U.S.

Then we went to some museum with lots of art and a really pretty garden with the ever famous Spanish tiles embedded in benches and stuff around the fountains. Next we went out into the world to do a little bit of shopping. We stopped at a variety of clothes stores and then we hit up some very cool Vintage shops that Mari would have loved! I mean this street that we were on was ONLY vintage shops! In these shops I learned that after my current Aero sweatshirts or sports sweatshirts / jackets get a little aged i can just bring those suckers to these stores because that was actually the most common merchandise! Sweatshirts and various sports jackets.

We walked the street of Madrid's equivalent to Time Square, which is a street right off of Puerta del Sol, and saw some pretty cool street performers. When we were walking this specific street all of a sudden TONS of motorcycles started driving by. We are pretty sure they were trying to set a world record for most motorcycles to cross the country or something like that. How cool would it be to live to say I saw a world record broken in Madrid? Very cool, that's how cool.

Dinner was suppose to be eaten at this very good Spanish restaurant that is very popular, so popular in fact, that we couldn't get a table on Saturday night so we got take out (or take away as what they say here) instead. We had fried Calamari subs in our nice little apartment building. Apparently these sandwiches are world acclaimed and it was pretty good, until I got to that point where I couldn't handle the texture anymore and got slightly nauseous.  After dinner I was pooped and called it a night, sleeping in one of the two bedrooms in a single bed rooming with Emma, cause we didn't want Ana's coughy germs (which we ended up getting anyway).

What's it like part two!

      So here things are a lot more laid back and "loosey - goosey" if you will. At school there is no dress code. None I tell you, and it shows. Girls where those really short and tight belly shirts, really short shorts, and I mean short, but hey, its not strange, its just different. The people here dress very fashion forward. With those loose pants that Mari loves to wear and bandeau's under see through tops. Basically the same thing you would see in America, but people are more fearless with the way they dress here.

      My school starts at 8:10 and ends at 2:50 here. When at school I have six classes a day and a break between every two. Since 2:50 is about lunch time here, we eat when we get home. However, it is very, very common to bring a snack (most commonly a sandwich made of nice fresh bread, salami type meet, and olive oil) and eat during one of the breaks.

      School has been no walk in the park let me tell you. I have made a few friends that help me out with the language barrier, but it is hard to balance out quick explanations and them only wanting to speak English with me. I am also the first exchange student to go to my school, so I don't think the teachers know exactly what to do with me yet. For example, today in class a teacher made me read in Catalan. Ya, a language I had never ever heard before coming here. But that was something easy enough to laugh off, and I don't think he will be calling on me again anytime soon.

      School is also definitely the place where the homesickness comes in. I miss having my friends around me and talking about things that are fun rather than solely for my school survival. However, I keep reminding myself not to take school this year too seriously because my grades don't carry over and as long as I am passing, I am good to go. I also hope my teachers don't make me take the same exams as the rest of the students right away because I hear that's what past Spain exchange students did and it made their transition easier.

     Today also marks a record. A record of the longest time I have ever spent away from my family. I know you may be thinking that 15 days isn't a very big deal considering I am going to be here for another 283 (roughly) more, but I have to take this experience step by step, and some how having a count down / track record of my days here and away from home helps. 

    I know it will get better and I by no means want to make it sound like I am miserable here because I am not! I LOVE LOVE LOVE my host family and soccer has been awesome! Especially because the sports communities here are complete and utter family, and they welcome new comers in like they are long lost siblings. My family also has an awesome trip to Madrid planned for this weekend, and I get to see my fellow AFSer friends in Barcelona in 9 days, yes another count down, and see how they are doing. Let me tell you it will be nothing but comforting to here other peoples mishaps and ways to coop with homesickness and know I am not going through this alone. 

      It will get better, it will! I just have to be patient and optomistic and live everyday to the fullest because before I know it, it may be over and I do NOT want to regret a single moment of it! 

     Love you all! Miss you lots! Keep in touch! BYE!

P.S. I must mention how ridiculous the dogs here are! They are everywhere, and they bark nonstop during the night! But I am totally embracing it with open arms! It's not strange, it's just different!

P.P.S. Today also marks the one month anniversary of starting this blog so that's also something!

   

Trip to Barcelona

          Went to Barcelona this weekend and here are the sights I saw!

Entering Barcelona

Same building up close!

One of the strangest buildings I
have ever seen in a city! Covered
in plants!

And its many vehicles!

The streets!

                  

A bit of Gaudi...

And some water features, very common in Barcelona.

Some other stuff...

Christopher Columbus from afar

Christopher Columbus up close

 The Olympic Stadium

And the many, many views!

School and Stuff

This is my school, Institut Josep Lluis Sert.

School: 

          Yesterday was my first day of school. Although my first day only lasted from 9:15 to 11:15 that didn't make it any less nerve racking! Ana Maria drove me to school and walked in with me so I wouldn't be completely on my own. Once we entered the school gate the secretary informed us that we were too early and that I would have to wait to look around. At that point my nerves jumped to an all time high! How was I going to manage a whole new school, not knowing where my classrooms were with a whole bunch of strangers milling the halls!?! And then to top that off Ana Maria mentioned that she had to go to work!

          It was then I think that the secretary realized exactly how nervous I was and she disappeared for a second and returned with two teachers. One was the new English teacher (who did not talk to me in English) who needed showing around, and the other a teacher of I don't know what who knew the building well enough to show us around. So we walked around the campus, pointing out different rooms and different teachers we met along the way. We found my classroom and then we found my teacher. I can't remember her name either (I had a lot more on my mind than learning names!), but she was very nice and spoke English very well because believe it or not she spent a year living in Catskill, NY! 

          So she and I walked up from the teachers room where we met and into my new classroom. She opened the door and I found a seat with two open chairs beside me. To my relief two girls sat next to me rather quickly so I didn't look so out of place. Then we went through the typical first day procedure, attendance, handing out schedules, reading rules and regulations (I'm pretty sure there is no dress code here which is nice. I don't understand the point in a dress code anyway.), and handing out books. Damn, I have a lot of books.
         
         The rest of the school day was pretty much light socialization and handing out of new papers. The girls sitting next to me introduced themselves and I'm pretty sure I made an idiot of myself by replying with my name while they were asking something else, but  hey live and learn. Oh, did I mention that after attendance was taken my teacher decided to do the classic, "We have a new student here named Emily. Emily has come to us all the way from New York in the United States" bit that was totally mortifying!

          Anyway, the school day ended and I made my 15 minute journey home all by myself without getting lost once, and let me tell you, those books were so heavy that by the time I reached my door my arms were shaking uncontrollably! But I was home, and I had survived my first day of school. My next challenge was going out and about the town all by myself. 

And Stuff:

          So around 1:00 I set out to explore the town for myself. And it was perfectly fine! I'll keep this part short and just show you pictures of the things I saw.

PALM TREES!!!

This is the castle of "Castelldefels"!

                                                       That's all for now folks!