Weekend in Madrid!

Well I just got back from my first trip to Madrid!  We left bright and early Friday morning with the all the students from the Fundacion.  First thing we did was take a long bus tour of the city so we could see the main sights.  Afterwards we went to the Palacio Real which is the former palace of the King and Queen of Spain.  Unfortunately they wouldn't let us take any pictures inside but it was absolutely amazing.  The art and decorations were incredible. 

After the Palacio Real we went to lunch at el museo de jamon (ham museum) where we ate chicken...why i have no idea.  Afterwards we went on the long adventure of trying to find our hostel and finally found it after a lot of wandering around random streets in Madrid.  The hostel ended up being great and we met a lot of great people from all around the world.  For the rest of the day we wandered around and went shopping and just took in the sights of Madrid.  That night we went to El Capital which is a gigantic club in Madrid with seven stories!  Every story played different music including the roof.  There was a girl in our hostel from Slovenia that went out with us and it was a super fun time! The next day we went out for Thai food and then headed for El Retiro, which is a huge park in Madrid which was similar to Central Park.

We spent most of the day hanging out there and seeing all the sights.  Saturday night we did a pub crawl that started at our friend's hostel and went to three bars and then ended up at a discoteca.  For 10 euros we were led to each place and got a free drink at each bar.  It ended up being a super fun night but we didn't get to bed until about 6 am and had to be checked out of our hostel by 11 on Sunday so needless to say we were very exhausted.  We spent most of the day just sitting at a couple cafes relaxing and talking since we were tired and had all our luggage with us.  We had a traditional dinner of paella and spanish tortilla and then headed for the bullfight.  The bullfight was something I felt like I should do just because I'm in Spain and it's a big cultural thing but I didn't enjoy it very much.  It was cool seeing the bullfight arena and I don't regret going but seeing bulls die slow painful deaths wasn't very fun :( 

The trip was super fun but by Sunday night I was definitely ready to go back to Toledo.  It definitely helps when you come home to clean sheets, clean folded clothes and a huge home cooked meal with my new favorite desert.  Got to love my host mom :)  I just booked a ticket to Barcelona for this weekend so another update to come soon!

El Fin de Semana

My host sister and I at the Discoteca

Well I'm just finishing up my first weekend in Spain and let me tell you this...the Spanish know how to party.  Thursday night there was a welcome party for the students of the fundacion at the bar next door, Enebro.  Every drink you ordered you got to roll dice and if you got a higher number than the bartender your drink was free!  Plus almost all bars here give you free food (tapas) with your drinks so I ended up paying for one drink and getting several drinks and lots of food for free.  We ended up going to a couple other bars in Toledo and it ended up being a super fun night!  Friday morning we had our tour of Toledo.  We took a bus around the city and then had a guided tour of the oldest part of Toledo where a lot of the important landmarks were.  After the tour everyone was feeling very tired and hung over so we decided to be the stereotypical Americans and go to McDonald's.

I must say it was the best quarto de libre (quarter pounder) i've ever had!  Saturday night we took the bus out to Buenavista which is another suburb of Toledo and after a lot of wandering around found the discotecas!  Basically there is this huge park and parking lot where everyone brings their own alcohol and drinks before they go to the clubs.  There are five discotecas right in a row that all play different types of music and cater to different ages and they're all open until about 6 or 7 in the morning!  We had so much fun and I randomly ran into my host sister! She was super nice and bought me and all my friends chiptos (shots).  She gave me a ride home and we didn't end up getting home until about 6 in the morning.

Needless to say I slept most of the day Saturday.  Saturday night I went to a block party for my friend Katherine's block.  It was really nice to meet her host parents and talk with all of her neighbors. Today for lunch my host mom made Paella which is a traditional dish of Spain.  It was basically rice with vegetables, mussels, clams, and shrimp.  It was very good but they use whole shrimp which weirds me out a little bit.  I forced myself to eat a lot today because she keeps telling me every day that I don't eat enough...which is strange because in the U.S. everyone always tells me that I eat a lot.  You'd think Spanish people would all be fat judging by how much they eat but everything is much healthier than it is the United States.
          I'm becoming a lot more comfortable living with my family but there a few things that are hard to get used to.
 1.  Lights-Electricity is very expensive here so the lights are off all the time.  When I first got here and my light would be on in my room during the day my host mom would come turn it off!  If you leave your room to go to the bathroom, you turn off the light.  Even in the lobby of my apartment the lights stay of unless you turn on a switch that turns them on temporarily so you can get to your apartment.  Even in public restrooms if you're on the toilet for more than 20 seconds the lights turn off and there's a switch in your stall to turn them back on!
2.  Shoes- Shoes or slippers are worn in the house at all times.  You never walk around in bare feet.
3.  Meals-  Breakfast is eaten at the normal time but lunch usually isn't until around 2 and is the biggest meal of the day.  My family doesn't usually eat dinner until about 11pm and it is a much smaller meal than lunch.
4.  Besos-  Everyone you meet you give them two kisses, one on each cheek.  They also do this every time someone leaves or comes home.  If someone introduces themselves to you, you give them dos besos.  I don't know how I feel about kissing random strangers but i'm sure like everything else i'll get used to it.

One thing that was not hard to get used to...my seven books for school cost 80 euros.  That's about $100 for seven books.  Clearly I'm not in America anymore!  

First days in Spain!

So I’m finally in Spain and I’s been muy bien so far! It was great to be on the group flight with all of the other students because it allowed us to all get to know each other before we even got there. We were picked up at the airport by our program director Jose Luis, and took a bus to Toledo. Toledo’s streets are so tiny that we had to stop outside the city and walk the rest of the way in. Only smaller cars can fit through the streets so and when a car comes through the street you’re walking on everyone has to cram against the wall so they can get by!
When we arrived at the fundación we had our first Spanish meal which was actually consisted of mostly American foods. They probably knew we were experiencing enough changes for one day. The fundación is where all our classes are and where the students not staying with families live. Then those of us staying in homestays got to meet our families. My host parents are María and Juan and they were super sweet. Talking to them was difficult because my Spanish is really rusty and they talk really fast but we managed. The last thing she said to me is that tomorrow I won’t be so nervous…I’ll take her word for it. That night we had our welcome party with a huge fancy meal consisting of all traditional Spanish foods in the courtyard at the fundación. After dinner there was a mariachi band. Unfortunately one of the band member s decided to pull me out of the crowd to dance with him in front of everyone which was pretty embarrassing but oh well.

Afterwards some of the girls convinced them to go out to the bars with us so we had our own personal mariachi band for the night! Everything at the bars is super cheap. Beers are about 1 euro and a glass of wine is usually 2 euro. We met up with the group of Puerto Ricans in our program and they definitely know how to party! It ended up being a super fun night so I’m glad I didn’t go sleep like I really wanted to.

The next morning we had our placement testing for our classes which was harder than I thought it would be but didn’t end up affecting my classes so I was happy. After that my host mom and brother came and picked me up to go to their house. They live in an apartment just outside of old Toledo. The apartment is nice and it has a pool so I was happy! Our first dinner consisted of chicken, French fries, and bread…not very Spanish but still good. I’m wondering if this is what they normally eat or If they purposely made American food.
Today was our first day of classes! My host sister rode the bus to the fundación with me so I didn’t get lost (thank god). Classes seem pretty good so far but it’s definitely challenging since all the professors are native Spanish speakers so they talk super fast. Unfortunately me and two other students I was with got VERY lost on the way home from school and ended up wandering around Polígano for about 2 hours before I called my host mom. I had to have her talk to a random man on the street to tell her where we were so she could come pick us up. We then walked both of my friends home, one of which lived at least 2 miles away.  She was super nice about it though and kept saying “es un chiste” as in it’s a joke like it’s funny to look back on. I just had dinner (at the usual time of 11pm) with her and Juan, my host dad. This time we had fish which is a little more Spanish. I’ts weird though because at the fundacion and with my family they always have salad and bread but never with dressing or butter. I guess that’s for us gordo Americanos.

I have lots of pictures up on facebook so check them out!