Las Meninas

It's been a crazy week, probably because we're just getting into the swing of things. So sorry if this is a loooonng post.

Well since it was our first real weekend (full weekend not jetlagged) in Madrid, we partied like Madrileños do it, let's just leave it at that. And I had my first churos and chocolate! YUMMY!

Sunday night was also the AFC and NFC championship games. There's a bar here that played the entire game even though it was Sunday and they were supposed to close at 2am. Don't forget, I'm 6 hrs ahead so that means the Giants game started at midnight. I think all but 3 of us live in the NYC/NJ area so for the most part are Giants fans, so it's been kind of crazy. Obviously because I hate the Patriots I am a Giants fan, plus it's really fun to say in Spanish (and the only one that has more of a translation), "los Gigantes." Next week it looks like the superbowl is going to start at 2am... that'll be interesting.

Tuesdays I don't have class so this past Tuesday I decided I would just take the metro to a random stop across town and just get out and walk around. I did this and got really really lost, but it was cool nonetheless. I walked around for about 3 hrs and here's a bunch of observations I have about Spain and it's people.

• everyone walks EVERYWHERE, even old people which is adorable when they walk together, like two old men or two old ladies or old couples
• everyone walks everywhere but takes the escalator over stairs, its weird
• dogs walk without leashes and they are really well behaved, however they do not want anything to do with humans
• street signs are not clear or directional like north, south, etc

There was more but I can't think of it now. Anyways that was a fun way to explore the city.

Wednesday was the 2nd game of Barca/Madrid. A bunch of us went out to a pub to watch the game to get the "real Madrid futbol experience." It really was a great game, but they ended up losing.

Yay Madrid! at least at first. 

My roommate Alexis and our friend Christian

Thursday was probably my favorite day of the week. For my art history class we went to El Prado Museum. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's like THE museum in Madrid. Like the Louvre of Spain. We primarily went in to look at the paintings of Goya, which was awesome because that's who I've studied the most out of all my Spanish art years. Surprisingly everything I've studied about his paintings I remembered and it was amazing to see all his work in person. His painting "The 3rd of May" was the painting I wrote a paper on in high school. Seeing it in person was amazing. The best part of the day however was when I found out "Las Meninas" by Velazquez was in the Prado. Even though it wasn't part of our lesson plan my professor took us over to see it. I never thought I would really care about art until I stepped into that room and saw that painting. Another guy in my class who had studied Spanish art as well and me just stared at it. We couldn't believe that we were actually standing in front of Las Meninas. I never thought I'd care that much about art. But it's just incredible, I don't know how many times I've seen that painting in class, I could analyze that thing from top to bottom, and to actually see it in person. I didn't know what to say.

Las Meninas

By the time we were done we were starving so I didn't get a chance to walk through the rest of the collection. However, this will be a place I will spend an entire day in the near future.

Friday, we went to El Escorial. El Escorial is  a GIANT monastery and summer palace to the ancient royal families. It's about an hour outside of Madrid so a couple of us took a train out there for the day to walk around. There were a lot of art and architecture exhibits that were fun to explore, but really the main attraction was the palace. It was just gorgeous and enormous!!

El Escorial

There was a lot of exploring this week of the city and lots of fun! Next week Alexis and I are off to London at the end of the week. We have almost all of our trips planned: London next week, Dublin for St. Patricks day, Helsinki in the end of March beginning of April, and looking at planning a southern Spain (Cordoba, Sevilla, and Granada) trip at the end of February? Gotta make the most of this!

I really just want to sit on the throne....

I have been in Madrid for 1 week today. It´s crazy because I feel like I´ve been here for so long, but at the same time I feel like time is slipping away (even though I have 4 months). This week we started classes. I am taking a poetry, grammar, colloquial Spanish, and art history class, all in Spanish. The poems class sucks, but it would in English too, but that's a class I need to take so unfortunately I will have to stick with it. All the other classes are pretty good and the professors are great! We only have class on Mondays and Wednesdays but those are usually long days. I think I'm going to start an internship soon where I go to a school and help teach English to K-12 kids.

The rest of this week has been pretty slow. For some reason Madrid makes me very tired. It could be because walk EVERYWHERE or I eat like half a loaf of bread a day and have just carb overloaded. Possibilities. I could literally sleep forever and I've been very lazy this week. I have been running in the park around the corner from me which has been nice. People don't run on the streets here which is kind of weird but there's parks all over. They all are dog parks. Tons of people have dogs here and all of the dogs are very well trained. Most of the time they will walk without a leash, its rather odd. The dogs don't really seem interested in people though. They won't come over to you or chase after you but they're not afraid of you either. I've had to hurdle many small dogs while running because they just leisurely walk in front of you.

Last night was the Barcelona v. Madrid game. For people who may not know this, that game is like the superbowl for Spain. Literally no one is on the streets, everyone is watching it. We stayed home to watch it with our host brothers, Cote and Christian and their two friends. Just as a side note, we had hotdogs (boiled maybe? not really sure) with guacamole and tomatoes, you should all try it, it was really good (besides the not grilled hotdogs part). Anyways, Alexis and I are Madrid fans (I guess only because we live here and Ronaldo is rather good looking). My family is all Barca fans because Cote used to play on a semi pro team for Barcelona when he was younger, so although they live in Madrid they are huge Barca fans. That was a very interesting game to watch. I learned "men and their sports" holds true anywhere in the world. I could not understand barely anything they were going back and forth about. They talked so fast and used so much Spanish slang that I was lost. But they atmosphere was still fun. They all gave Alexis and I a hard time about liking Madrid, until Ronaldo scored the first goal. Then they shut up, only until Barca scored 2 unanswered goals and won :(

El Palacio Real

La Basilica

El Palacio Real from the other side

Today we went to the Palacio Real or Royal Palace. For my art class we have 1 day of class and then spend the other day touring various museums or other parts of the city to see what we have been learning in class. I'm really glad I'm taking that class because we basically go on guided tours with the best professor ever to places in the city I may or may not have the chance to visit. The Palace is incredible and I guess is the largest in Europe. Its is rococo architecture so the insides a bit guady and tacky but the majesty of it is incredible. Across from the Palace is a basilica which was actually built in the 20th century but more or less reflects the architecture of the Palace.

We're staying home this weekend so I'm looking forward to exploring the city a little more and of course do some shopping :)  just kidding dad!! maybe :)

This is not America

So this was our first weekend in Madrid. Friday we had some more orientation stuff and got to pick our classes. For all of you who keep asking, yes I am taking all my classes in Spanish. I have to take 4 classes so I just signed up for a bunch and will decide which ones I'm taking tomorrow on our first day.

My roommate Alexis!

Friday night a bunch of us decided to go out. My roommate Alexis and I first went to one of our host brothers apartment to met him and his friends. They really didn't speak English so I definitely got to practice my Spanish talking to them. That went interesting. So far the Spanish has gone pretty well and I can get by but I definitely need a lot more practice in conversation. After Christian's we went to met the others in the program at this bar called Dubliners. For some reason I've noticed the Spaniards really like Irish pubs. Dubliners is clearly some place that Americans and other foreigners go to when they are in Madrid as most of the bartenders spoke English. It was packed, as were the streets. Madrid is a very busy city at night. Spaniards enjoy being out really late and the streets are always packed. Dubliners was fun but we knew we had to get up early so we didn't stay out to late. 

Saturday morning we left for Toledo. Toledo is a very historic city and is a mix of Christian, Muslim, and Hebrew culture. Everything there has such history. We visited the Santa Maria Cathedral and a few other museums. On our free time there a couple of us walked around and wandered into the actual village of Toledo where everyone lives. We all were just in awe of this town. There's nothing like that in America. We were walking where people had walked hundreds of years ago, you don't get that in the US.

la catedral

Toledo

Later that day, Real Madrid was playing so my roommate Alexis and another guy in our group went to another Irish pub to watch the game. Real won 2-1. 

This morning I decided to explore the area around where I live. We live in an apartment in a residential area of the city. I found a park literally right around the corner from our apartment. There were a lot of families and dog walkers and runners! It definitely looks like a place I'll be running. 

It's so weird that classes actually start tomorrow. Like I'm here to actually work. We'll see how that goes. 

Madrid... 24 hours

Hola todos!

I have been in Madrid for about 1 full day but am already loving it. After being on a plane or in an airport for over 12 hours, I finally landed in Madrid at 8:00am (Madrid time- so that's 2:00am Buffalo time). Unfortunately I had to wait for the group flight which arrived a couple hours later. Jet lag did not start to set in until we were making our way into the city to meet our host families around noon (once again Madrid time- 6:00am Buffalo time) seeing as I had only slept for about an hour in 24 hours.

My host family: my host mother's name is Lidia. She is probably one of the nicest people I have ever met. Her husband's name is Alberto and her one son who lives next door is Cote. I guess she has a couple other kids but I haven't met them yet. Living with a host mom was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made. She waits on us literally all the time. We have 3 meals a day and we are not really even allowed in the kitchen. She does it all, AND our laundry, AND the cleaning. I can get used to this.

Last night we were supposed to have orientation but of course my roommate and I were late and missed it so we wandered around by ourselves. She's been here since September so she gave me her own tour. Then we were supposed to go out with the group but our 2 hour nap turned into 10hr and slept right through that. So as of now I haven't seen a whole lot of Madrid. But we did tour a little this morning and I'm slowly learning my way around as well as the metro system. People walk everywhere here! That's one thing I've enjoyed since I've been here is the ability to walk or take the metro everywhere.

And I LOVE siesta... which I'm about to do now. Nap time in the afternoon. The US should really consider taking this up. We have plans to go out tonight and a trip to Toledo tomorrow before classes start on Monday so it looks like this will be a good weekend!