Unfortunately I have abandoned my blog for waay too long, more than 2 months! I'm actually currently living in Barcelona for the month of July, teaching English at a summer school for children here. So it's impossible to catch up on everything that happened in the last part of my time in Madrid, but I've decided to just write a long list of memorable events during the second half of my time there..eventually I'll catch up to the present!

Visit by Hayley and Lisa!!: Two of my best friends from San Diego decided to visit me in Madrid on the same weekend! I don't even remember the last time the three of us were together in the States! We did a ton of touristy things, got a taste of the night life, and had a great time catching up. Hayley studied abroad in Israel this semester while Lisa was studying in Nantes.

Valencia: Weekend in Valencia with 7 friends from the program, we rented a cheap apartment on the beach and enjoyed the getaway from the rain and bustle of Madrid. Wandering around the city, and trying the original and yummy Horchata and Paella!! Paella comes from Valencia, and the local version has rabbit and chicken. The beach was quiet and nice, but a bit windy. We saw the really neat Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias in the city which is a museum complex that looks like its from outer space. (See above picture)

Toledo: As part of my class on medieval cities, I took a visit to Toledo. It was a bit of an adventure because I missed my ride with my professor..(I had to take a bus after there were no more trains and had to find the class after my phone ran out of battery) In the end I got there and it was all good, but I definitely learned my lesson of leaving earlier! The city was amazing, a medieval mix of Christian, Jewish and Muslim cultures. The streets are narrow and windy with history at every turn..has some of the few remaining medieval synagogues in Spain. I definitely want to go back! Saw some of the famous El Greco paintings like Count of Ornaz. El Greco lived in Toledo. It was cool to see the city with my class, the only one I have with Spanish students. Though most of the time they weren't too friendly and outgoing, I think they finally warmed up to the exchange students (and got a kick out of my adventures arriving).

Real Madrid Game!!: After waiting in line for way too long and spending more money than I could afford I went to a Real Madrid game with my two soccer aficionado friends Kim and Amy. They were troopers and got us amazing seats close to the field, and where we could also see the tv screen from the press box! The game was against Athletic Bilbao, and was one of the determining games for the Liga..(would have be the game to make them win the Liga but Villareal won there game) The energy was amazing and the stadium is impressive..something like 70,000 people packed in a sold out game! Sergio Ramos and Iker Casillas are amazing and proved to be huge stars in the EuroCup to help Spain win in the finals!

Paris, Relatives, Nantes,: Went to Paris and Nantes for a long weekend in the beginning of May. I stayed with my friend Katlyn who is working there for this semester. She has a nice apartment at Plaza de Italy and picked me up at the metro. We walked from her place by the Latin quarter and Sorbone, St Michel, picnicked at the Luxembourg park, Shakespeare bookstore, Notre Dame. I somehow remembered where my relative Benou's husband Yves works at a travel agency and found him there..(I couldn't reach them when calling earlier) and they invited me over for a really nice family dinner. I even managed to go the Musee D' Orsay before. Next day went to visit my elderly relative Pisti in a small village outside of Paris and they took me to a nice lunch at a cute town in the countryside called something like Ile d'Adam. That night I took a train toward Nantes to meet Lisa..and had another adventure when I missed the stop (got off the train and back on it when I thought it was the wrong place for some reason). I ended up at Sant Nazare for the night because there were no trains or buses back to Nantes that evening..the people at the motel by the train station took pity on me and gave me a cheaper rate for the night and I took the first train out to Nantes. I spent a great day in Nantes with Lisa on Sunday! We did a lot of walking, hiked along the river at beautiful nature reserve and ate delicious crepes and pastries. We visited the local farmers' market in the morning which had all the French delicacies one could hope for! I said a sad goodbye in the morning and trained back to Paris to see Corinna (who had visited me in Madrid!). She was awesome and showed me around the Mare, Montmart, and her neighborhood in the fancy part of town. Picnic in Place de Voges, hike up to Sacre Cour and dinner with my relatives Mari Rachel and Hadrien. I stayed there the night and got back to Madrid the following morning!

Marrakech, Morocco: For the second long weekend in May I went to Morocco! I flew on my own because my friends had earlier flights so was a little nervous about getting there, but all was well. I made friends with some Spaniards on the plane and split the cab to the main square by our hostel..The square (though touristy) had everything from snake charming, monkeys, belly dancing, henna, fortune telling, fresh orange juice, dried fruit, and huge food stands. We stayed in a hostel in the depths of the souks (markets), accessible only through a sketchy series of narrow covered passages. But the hostel was amazing, clean and with friendly staff! With my friends Brianna and Tamara I went on an excursion to waterfalls in the mountains and valleys an hour from Marrakech. On the way we stopped at a Berber house for tea and breakfast (bread and butter cooked and churned in the same house) and a short camel ride. The following day we walked around the Kasbah (castle district) and even saw the old Jewish quarter where 200 families still live. We saw one of the several gardens and palaces of the city and did some more haggling in the souks. On our last night we ventured to the square for dinner from one of the stands and had a great meal of couscous and this sweet/cinnamon/chicken pie. Saw the cool Marrakesh museum on our last day before leaving the exotic city...my first trip to Africa!

San Isidro: San Isidro is the patron saint of Madrid so there were fiestas all weekend, including an awesome light and water show over the pond in the Parque Retiro..with images played over a screen of water and fireworks in the background. Of course a massive botellon in La Latina, and continued exhibits for the 2 of May weekend too.

Week of Madrid catch-up: After finishing finals and getting over the stress of job searching and interviewing I stayed an extra week with my fiend Kelly. My host family bid me a not particularly warm goodbye and dropped me off at her place in Getafe. I spent the week doing all the "Madrid things" I hadn't gotten a chance to do before, like go on the teleferico gondola over Casa de Campo park, see more exhibits for the 2nd of May, do a last visit of the Prado, walk around Moncloa and go to the Cave Bar (where we met a whole regiment of Royal Guards!), learn how to make paella and tortilla española from Kim's amazing host mom, visit the TeleMadrid studio of my old host mom, go to a feria de tapas, etc. It was nice to not be in a rush and get to appreciate everything that had been around me for the last 5 months. Over the weekend, my friend took me to Aranjuez, a small town outside of Madrid that has the royal family's summer palace. We had a nice dinner in the pueblo of Chinchon, which has a really cool plaza mayor that has a plaza de toros in the middle of it. (A popular Nike comercial was filmed there with some kids playing soccer). A sad goodbye at the end of the week, and off to Budapest to visit my family for 3 weeks before heading back to Barcelona to start work!

Madrid, Segovia, Ballet and Fútbol!

Once again, I have much to catch up on since Semana Santa ages ago! After getting back from Salamanca I spent most of the weekend in Madrid recovering from a nasty cold, and enjoying having the house to myself. The family didn't get back from their own trip until Sunday afternoon so the house was pretty quiet without my usual 7 a.m. wakeup call of "Mammaaa, Paaapaaa" by either the 2 or 5 year-old siblings. After a bit of a wait in the rain, I did get to go to the Prado for the first time on that Saturday, and it was great to finally see all the Velazquez and Goya paintings I've been studying for a while in art history classes. I'm a bit of an art history dork, but Las Meninas was amazing, and Goya's majas are incredible. I got to see all of Goya except the 2nd and 3rd of May, because they just finished restoring them and have a special exhibit that opened this week. With the fam back on Sunday, I actually was able to have a meal with all of them at once (shocking!) and it was nice to catch up on the week. I'm not always around on Sunday afternoons to eat with them, but I think I should make an effort to because usually they have an aunt or grandparent over so it's good company (and better food of course). Later on I checked out Plaza España and finally saw the Egyptian temple right by it, that seems randomly placed in the middle of a pool in the neighboring plaza. At night it was lit up with some eerie lighting, but Kim and I got to see a cool view of the Palace and Casa de Campo park too.

With not much work done on spring break, it was a hectic week to get back to school..and hard to head back to the campus in Getafe. On Thursday I did have a nice lunch with Natalia, at a place they recently introduced to Madrid from Barcelona..which is a fresh salad bar. It's so hard to find places here that serve veggies and salad (rather than the usual Spanish meal that constitutes some combination of bread, ham, egg, potato, sausage, and oil). That night a Spanish friend took me to some trendy bars by Alonso Martinez and Malasaña, and we ended up at this really cool underground, hippy (but pretty smoky) rocker bar called the Via Láctea that had been around since my host dad's bar hopping days. Apparently it was the hang out place during La Movida, and it still has most of the same movie and concert posters around. On Friday I met up with Natalia and some of her friends to go to a rock concert of a friend's band at a small venue outside the city center. It was really fun to get out of the usual environment, listen to some local music and see a part of the city I would have never known about if I looked on my own. The music was alternative rock/indie, but the cover band before played popular Spanish songs so I got a taste of the music style here. On Sunday, after a good meal (outside in the backyard!! the weather is amazing) with the fam, I got to hang out with an old friend from high school who was visiting Spain with her mom. It was strange to play the role of tour guide for the afternoon, since I still feel I'm getting to know the city myself. But I did show them some parts of the city they hadn't seen and we topped off the afternoon by walking around La Latina.

Monday afternoon when coming home I got to see the infanta (princess) driving off from her house, followed by the flashes of paparazzi on motorcycles and cars! It was so surreal, and a reminder of how lucky I am to be here living in Madrid. I still feel some days it hasn't quite hit me that I am here living my study abroad life. I guess I won't fully understand it until I get back, but I'm still always amazed looking around the city and eavesdropping Spanish conversations on the street or metro that I am actually living my Madrid experience.

After a long schoolweek, I met up with a friend for stroll around the park by my house, and that night went to an Erasmus event. It started out slow, but after running into people we had met last time ended up at Cafe Madrid, which holds Thursday intercambio nights with people from all over the world. I actually randomly met people there who had gone to my rival Mt. Carmel High School in San Diego! It's amazing how small of a world it is! I liked the atmosphere of Cafe Madrid, and hope to go back to get some more Spanish convo in. We hung out with a really friendly girl from Valencia, who I hope to run into while I'm there soon. The night did end on a bad note though, when Kim and I started on our way home and saw two guys running off in one direction. We looked over and saw a guy sprawled out on the floor, muttering and rubbing his head. Sadly our reaction times weren't fast enough but when we got to the guy it turns out he had been mugged and pushed against the wall. It turns out that he was a drunk French tourist about our age, so we got translation help from people from the intercambio..It definitely put a dampener on the evening, as I had never really felt unsafe before in Madrid. It definitely reminded me I need to be on guard! Until now, most of the time when walking home around my neighborhood or other areas of the city late at night, the only people on the street, who aren't there to go out, are street cleaners doing the daily wash of the sidewalks. It's no wonder Madrid is so clean! It seems like every night there is a massive city cleanup. Friday art class brought me back to the Prado for some more Ribera, Murillo and Velázquez and homeworking in the afternoon. The reward: a great evening performance of Swan Lake by the visiting Moscow ballet company! I went with some good friends and had a great time getting dressed up and seeing a performance in the city. The dancing and costumes were beautiful, and it's no wonder Swan Lake is one of the most famous ballets.



On Saturday I did a nice day trip with Janice to Segovia. It's a small town about an hour and a half by train, known for it's huge Roman aqueduct still intact and built without mortar! The town also has a beautiful Alcazar, with a real moat, that actually was inspiration for the castle in Disneyland/Sleeping Beauty. We breezed through the city's history museum, built in the old Jewish quarter, and headed back to Madrid. (I didn't dare try the Segovia specialty of some pork dish that might have involved seeing it cooked whole on a spit). After more homeworking Sunday, I got to go to an Atletico Madrid game, for my first Spanish soccer experience!! Within Madrid there are two rival soccer teams: Atletico Madrid, apparently "the people's team;" and Real Madrid, which better funded and is supposedly more elitist. I've been told it's like Manchester United and Man City? Well my amigo Mateo, a hardcore Atletico fan, took Janice and I to the game against the not-so-great team Almeria. The stadium is huge and part of it actually goes over the freeway! The energy was high with people dressed up with jerseys and scarfs and flags, etc chanting and singing all around. We had seats high up but I still had a great time. It was a ridiculously high scoring game..Atletico won 6-3! Within the first 10 minutes there had already been 2 goals, and a red card. At one point the Ultras, the crazy right wing fans sitting at the section across the way, even started a small fire in the stands. It wasn't the best quality soccer I have seen, but an amazing experience. I really hope I get to go to a Real Madrid game to compare before I decide where my loyalties lie. On the way home, as Janice was passed out on the backseat from running a half-marathon that morning, Mateo gave us a driving tour around the city to see Plaza San Francisco, the other Santiago Berbaneu stadium and a view of the financial district with the Picasso Tower and 2 leaning skyscrapers. Overall it was an amazing action-packed weekend!

Spring Break, Semana Santa style

Get ready for the marathon spring break post! Sorry it's so long, hope you can make it through..

After a hectic weekend in Barcelona, I had a lot of school work to catch up on, and preparations for spring break..Natalia also decided over coffee that we needed to go out dancing before we left for break. Before meeting up, Thursday night I went out for tapas (jamon with paprika, and some kind of toast with melted cheese and jamon..) and then drinks at a Hawaiian themed bar on Plaza Santana with a Spanish friend. From Sol, Natalia and her friend Cuca, and my friend Kim and I headed to Palacio for good night of dancing. Kim and I had to head out early because our flight left the next day, but we had fun trying to find American "giris" for Natalia :)

I finished the last of my packing in the morning and stuffed all the canned food and goodies my señora prepared for me in my bag, but at the airport the zipper broke. I had to get the bag plastic wrapped at the airport so it wouldn't burst..and had to travel with it like that and all the stares for the whole trip. We flew into Lisbon and took a bus to the base of the Barrio Chiado. The city is set on several hills and has beautiful views of the bay everywhere you look. The streets are steep and narrow, and the buildings have cute iron balconies. It has a feel of a Greek, Mediteranean, Italian city all mixed, with a unique charm of its own. I think I liked Lisbon best of all the stops on the trip. We hiked up to the hostel, which was one of the best I've stayed at. The staff was super friendly and helpful, it was clean and bright, and the other guests were pretty nice. A walking tour around part of the city started with coffee at an old cafe frequented by famous authors, and then to the top of an old lookout elevator tower with great views of the city. We wandered around one of the main shopping streets to Plaza de Comercio, which was across the street from the water and had a cool arch leading from the city. After traveling and dinner, we were ready to crash early at the hostel.


The next morning we hiked up through the oldest part of the city, the Alfama district, to a flea market there, and then up to the remains of an old Moorish fortress. The Alfama district is full of steep, tiny windy streets and small churches. The fortress only had a few original walls and the rest were reconstructed, but it was still a cool view of city. We could see the Lisbon version of the SF Golden Gate Bridge, which looked like it be the same one spanning from the city to Marin. I definitely got a little homesick for Berkeley! We walked down from the fortress back to Plaza de Comercio, and took the train toward Belem, a suburb of the city of Lisbon a few kilometers away. On the waterfront there is an amazing monastery San Jeronimo which is where the sailors camped out before heading out for their sea voyages. Next to the small church there is an amazing cloister with a courtyard with Gothic arches and columns.

From the monastery we walked along the water and took in the view of the Torre de Belem, which was only 5 stories, but apparently the closest Lisbon has to a national monument. We met up with the rest of the group to devour delicious custard pastries at a famous Belem pastry shop. After some home cooked hostel goodness (aka some of my canned food stash from my señora) we headed out to the Barrio Alta close by. Full of small bars and narrow streets, the party spills out onto the street. Most places don't really have room inside, so people get their drink and just stand and talk with friends in the street. The party in the street vibe reminded me of a much toned down version of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It was a great atmosphere, and my friend Kim and I ended up with some new hostel friends from Italy and Argentina speaking a combination of Italian, Portuguese, English and Spain over caipirinhas and wine at a tapas place with tables set up in the middle of the street.

The next morning some of the group headed south, while Kim and I took a train to Sintra, a small village with summer palaces and castle ruins 45 minutes away. We toured the Palacio Nacional of Sintra, which had an odd mix of Moorish and Baroque? styles and random themed ceiling and decorations, like of birds or ships. After sampling the local travesseiros pastries at the quaint village we headed up the hill toward the ruins of the Moorish castle. 15 minutes into the hike we realized that the incline and distance on the map was a bit deceiving...so we tried our luck hitchhiking by flagging down cars heading up the way. Soon enough 2 guys heading up to the castle offered us a ride, and luckily they were from Spain and we didn't have to fumble with our awful Portuguese. Even by car it was a good 10 minute ride uphill, but the view from the castle of the green valley and ocean was worth it. From Sintra, we took the wrong bus, but ended up in Cascais, a cute beach town with great views and a citadel at the top of the hill. As we were heading back to the train station we ran into our 2 hitchhiking friends..and I finally had a chance to try out the line "Hombre, ¡tu por aqui!" from lengua, though I've got to practice since it came out a bit half-assed. Back in Lisbon the night ended with a delicious meal of Portuguese steak.

From Lisbon I took a 4 hour bus ride to the southern coast of Portugal, to a touristy beach village called Lagos. I met my friends at the beautiful beach, after checking into the hostel we were staying at..called the Rising Cock. (Run by a Portuguese older couple, the logo is a rooster and the place is decorated with the look of an American frat house) The place was a bit too obnoxious and overrun by American spring breakers for my taste, but perfect for celebrating St. Patrick's Day for a night. My señora told me last minute that I should go to another less touristy town on the coast called Tavira instead, but with only a night and reservations already booked I stuck with the original plan. After a short beach walk in the morning a group of 4 of us boarded the bus to Sevilla. The trip was a bit painful, with a stop at almost every coastal Portuguese village on the way..and we finally got to Sevilla at night.


I was staying at a different hostel than my friends because it had already been booked so we parted ways..except that I didn't realize how complicated it would be to get to the place. During Semana Santa, Sevilla is the city most famous in Spain for its religious processions that overrun the entire city. Streets are blocked off and rows of chair and bleachers are set up along the sidewalks, with room in the middle for the processions of floats, musicians, and most intense of all, barefoot and masked candle-bearing participants with pointy hats and robes that Americans now usually associate with the KKK. A huge group of people, hidden by a curtain, carried floats of Jesus and the Virgin, and when they came by the crowd would suddenly become silent. Of course my hostel was located on a small side street with the only entrance from a street blocked off by a procession. With my 2 big bags, I squeezed my way through the crowd to some parallel streets with some directions from sympathetic policemen. But on the last leg, I had no choice but to wait for a pause in the drumming, incense and endless rows of masked figures and try to make my way through against the procession..Needless to say it was a bit of a scary experience to have to make it with an oncoming crowd of hooded figures with candles, but I finally got to my destination! Once I put my bags down it was interesting to watch the procession, and when I met up with my friends later, I showed them where they ended by the Plaza Nueva and cathedral area. Back at the hostel (which was more like a hotel!), I could still smell the incense from my room. The hostel had a diverse group of travelers from all over the world, from Australia to Germany, who had come to check out the daily processions of Semana Santa.


The next day I headed out early and toured the Alcazar, the palace with mixed Moorish and Christian styles and decorative Islamic ornamentation and courtyards. It was similar to the Alhambra in Granada, but not as fancy. But the vast gardens were beautiful. I met up with the girls at the huge cathedral across the way, one of the biggest in Spain, and we saw Columbus' tomb and climbed up the bell tower for a view of the city. Unfortunately it started to rain, but we braved the weather and wove through the Barrio Santa Cruz to the horseshoe-shaped colonnade of the Plaza de España. After gathering our 2 Lagos straggler friends we wove back through Santa Cruz, which used to be the old Jewish ghetto. After tapas I parted ways to make sure I could get my bags at the hostel before the craziness of the procession began. Just getting lost and wandering along the small windy streets with houses with beautiful iron balconies was nice. By the time I got there, it turned out that they were canceled due to rain, so I explored the riverfront, Plaza de Torros and Torre de Oro. With Sevillan pastries and bags in hand, I made my way over to the bus station with a new hostel friend, and said goodbye to the beautiful city. I wish I had more time to spend there, but Salamanca awaited!

I took the night bus to Salamanca, which is east of Madrid. After the 7 hour ride from the southern region of Andalucia, I arrived at 4:30 a.m. in the freezing cold and walked to the apartment of a Salamanca student Kim and I had found through couch surfing. She had arrived earlier, and confirmed our host Alfonso wasn't sketchy. Since he was still out she let me in, and I was soon out cold. I met him the next day before setting out for the town, and though hungover, he was friendly and ready to help us out with our Spanish slang vocab. Kim and I had coffee at a sunny cafe on the Plaza Mayor, which might be even better than the one in Madrid. There was a constant bustle with families and tourists taking a walk through the square. We walked around the medieval town famous for one of the oldest universities in Europe, founded in 1218! On the facade of the oldest building, we tried to find the hidden carved frog, which according to legend is supposed to award passing grades to all the students who find it. The city center also had the Casa de Canchas, and 2 huge cathedrals that I had seen lit up the night before from the bus. Over the river, we could get a good view from the Roman bridge. After a siesta, we went out for dinner at a good tapas place before walking around and heading back from exhaustion and cold! Alfonso showed us around more the next day and told us some Salmanca lore over coffee. After cruising one last time through Plaza Mayor, we trudged to the train station and made our way back home to Madrid!

It was such an action-packed week with a lot of bus and train time that I ended up getting a bad cold by the end, but it was great and I headed back with such a variety of experiences from wonderful places across Portugal and Spain. I'm glad I got a chance to explore so many places within Spain, because it's such a diverse country with so many beautiful areas to explore. I would love to head back to Portugal again to explore more, but for now, I'm enjoying the chance to recover and catch up in Madrid over the weekend before school starts up again Tuesday. Thanks for your patience if you made it this far! Here's a clip of Salamanca...

Mucho Madrid y Barcelona....

Time has flown since my last post so I hope I can remember everything...
I've been trying to improve my Spanish by hanging out with locals more, and started off the week (two weeks ago) with a nice lunch on campus with my intercambio Natalia. Wednesday night I went with some people from my program to an exchange night at a bookstore by Tribunal. The night is hosted by a UC student studying at Carlos III and is meant to promote conversation among people learning English and Spanish. Most of the people there were late 20's, early 30's but it was still a good chance to practice conversation. Thursday night I had a fun night and went out to dinner with a Spanish friend at a really nice but inexpensive restaurant by Gran Via, had tasty mohitos in Chueca and went dancing in a pretty pijo (slang term for something like yuppy) club close to were we live by Salamanca. We got back in time for me to get some sleep and meet at the Royal Palace with my art class the next day. The palace has a beautiful large courtyard, and is opposite from the cathedral and next to nice gardens. Inside, the walls are full of Baroque decorations, frescos, paintings, wallpaper and sculpture. The throne room has seats where the monarchs stand in front of but don't actually sit on, and the ceilings are decorated with images from all the Spanish provinces. The palace even has its own pharmacy where the royal doctors prepared the meds! Next to the palace is the armory, and ruins of a Moorish fortress that stood on the site.

From the palace I used some downtime to walk through the beautiful Plaza Mayor, where they happened to be filming a movie at the time. But I didn't have too much time before I had to leave for the airport for Barcelona! Unfortunately on the way, the metro to the airport broke down, and I almost had a panic attack when our train started going backwards slowly and lurching in the tunnel..Luckily they fixed the problem in time and I made it to my flight.

After a short hour long flight to Barcelona, I met 3 friends at Las Ramblas, the tree lined paseo full of shops and monuments. In the center there are a bunch of stands and tourist traps, but it goes down all the way to the large column with the statue of Columbus at the top, on the edge of the harbor. After heading back to drop off bags at our faraway hostel, we met up with common friends from Berkeley studying in Barcelona. We had dinner at a tapas bar, and after wandering looking for some specific bar, went to a pub called the Oveja Negra. It had a cool atmosphere, but was full of tourists. The next morning, we took the metro to Casa Mila (in the picture above), the amazing apartment building designed by the Barcelona master architect Gaudi. The building apparently doesn't have a straight wall in the building, and is made of volumous forms and seaweed looking balconies. The roof has crazy shapes and mosaics, and you can look down into the inner courtyard that lets light into the apartments. You can see an impressive view of the city from the roof. Part of the tour took us to one of the apartments inside, which has natural light coming into every room, and has curved shapes on the doors, windows, etc. The design was just really cool and thought out! From the Casa Mila, we walked to the Manzana de Discordia, or block of discord, where there were several other Modernist buildings designed by rival architects. Even the lampposts lining the streets had cool curvy shapes and seats under them. Further on, we walked to see the huge Sagrada Familia church left unfinished by Gaudi. From far away it looks like a sandcastle made by dripping wet sand on the beach. It was left unfinished because Gaudi died before the construction was complete, and cranes and scafolding all around the building still show signs of the long years of construction left ahead. The building has a strange mix of styles and looks different from any other church I've seen. The tops of the spires have colorful fruit or wheat shapes, and the incredibly elaborate facade has religious figures telling various biblical stories. The most elaborate and interesting part was the facade that Gaudi had left finished.

From the Sagrada Familia, we met up with our other Madrid friend Janice and walked up the Park Guel, the Allison-in-Wonderland-looking park designed by Gaudi. The huge park is on a hill overlooking the water and the rest of the city. When you enter, there are steps that somehow reminded me of the Spanish Steps in Rome (but only in their shape). At the top, there is huge hall of colorful columns and more sculptures with colorful mosaics. In the sun, tourists and locals alike could sit and enjoy the beautiful view, and hike around the hidden trails and fantastic Gaudi structures. In the afternoon we walked through the Barrio Gotti, or Gothic district. We saw the steps were the Catholic Monarchs supposedly received Columbus on his return from the Americas, took a peak in the cathedral (though it was still half covered by scaffolding). After sampling some delicious local pastries, we continued on our way to another main plaza in the district with the city's government buildings. On the square an orchestra was playing traditional Catalan tunes, and groups of older Catalanians? formed spontaneously circles to dance around the square. It was a great show of the proud Catalan spirit. From there, we saw an even more magnificent church Santa Ana (I think that's the name), on the way to coffee and a ride back to the hostel. Dinner was on the Plaza Real at a delicious and very popular local restaurant. I called an old high school and Berkeley friend also studying in Barcelona, and he met up with us to show us some bars in the area. We met at the "tree bar" next to the city's wax museum. It was a bar decorated to look like a spooky forest, and had a cool vibe. From there we went to a chupita (shot) bar..and had a shot of "Harry Potter" and "Finding Nemo", complete with sparks and M & Ms to search for, respectively. But we knew it was time to leave when 90% of the bar was filled with obnoxious Americans. Our friend Janice called us to find her at discoteca she was at to celebrate her friend's birthday. After a long metro ride and finding the hotel the Villarreal soccer team was staying at before playing Barca the next day, we met up with Janice. A little negotiating with the bouncer later, we were dancing the night away...



The next morning we packed up, ate a hearty breakfast and metroed to the bus station next to Barcelona's version of the Arc de Triomphe. We took the bus an hour to the Ryanair airport, and were soon back in Madrid to catch up on homework and sleep in the afternoon. Overall I still like Madrid better, though walking around and taking in all the amazing architecture and beach views of the city were amazing. The city had a more relaxed, less Madrid bustle to it. It was definitely much more touristy, especially full with Americans. I felt like I hardly heard Spanish the entire weekend, though I did here a lot of Catalan that I don't understand! Well, I think I made the right choice to study in Marid but I hope to have more time to explore Barcelona again!

Retiro, Picasso, and Palacio

It looks like I have to play catch up from all that has happened since Granada and Cordoba, because I've been too busy slacking, going to school, and traveling to write. After the weekend in Andalucia, I was happy to spend the week and weekend in Madrid. Thursday night I went with some friends to check out the hangout of Erasmus, which is basically the European exchange students network here, at a bar they are at every Thursday (free beer if you have your card). It was nice to talk to more Carlos III students, Spaniards and other Europeans alike, and hopefully have a few more faces to identify while walking around campus. After Erasmus, we went to a discoteca called Palacio, which is literally an old palace converted into a dance club every Thursday night. It had a cool atmosphere inside, with palatial wall paintings and decor intact, while house and hiphop blared from different music themed rooms. Somehow time flew as we were dancing and we ended up having to wait for the metro to reopen at 6 to get home...Apparently getting home at daylight hours is normal here, but I definitely felt strange coming home while people were on their way to work on the metro (and as my family was leaving for school and work! The daughter saw me sneaking upstairs and asked "donde dormiste?" or where did I sleep ha) Not much later I had to meet my art class at the Archeological Museum close to Plaza Colon, for our weekly museum visit! We got to see the reproduction of the prehistoric cave paintings of Altamira, and artifacts and crown jewels from the Visigoth kings, Romans, Gothic Period, and a little later. Unfortunately the coolest part of the museum with old Iberian sculpture was closed for remodeling :(


Later in the weekend, I went to work out at the Parque Retiro with my friend Janice..and got to listen to a live band practicing and playing for us in the background! In our pretty outrageous running clothes we walked to the Reina Sofia museum, which is free on Saturday afternoons, and went to check out the Picasso exhibit. In line, someone I know from Berkeley who is studying abroad now in Paris came over to tap me on the shoulder! It's a pretty small world because she happened to be visiting Madrid for the weekend and saw me in line..This time around I didn't get to see the permanent collection, because the Picasso exhibit was huge! Most of the material was from the Paris Picasso Museum, and took up four different sections of the museum here. Of course the most amazing and moving piece was the Guernica. It was much bigger than I had imagined, and even more emotionally powerful. It kind of sucked that there were a lot of people standing close to the front so it hard to see the full painting in clear view, but amazing nonetheless!! Saturday night we went to an area around Plaza Santa Ana and Calle Huertas, which has a lot of authentic and varied tapas places and bars. Most of Sunday was spent catching up on work and relaxing, as I had the house to myself (my family kindly left me at home when they went to lunch at the grandparents house). I ended the weekend with a nice run around Retiro. It's amazing that you can always go a different route and discover different niches of the park..

Cordoba and Granada galore

Sorry I couldn't figure out how to rotate this picture, its the mezquita in Cordoba!

After the first week of classes, all the students from the UC program took an organized weekend trip to Andalucia, in the south of Spain. We visited Cordoba on Friday, and then went to Granada and the Alhambra on Saturday and Sunday. We took a bus from Madrid to Cordoba (roughly 4 hours) and our hotel in the city was literally 10 feet from the entrance to the city's gem, the mezquita. Before the mezquita I wandered with some friends, and somehow we managed to stray so far that we had to literally run back to the hotel to make it on time! The mezquita was originally a mosque built on the ruins of a Roman and then Visigoth basilica by the Moors who lived in the city from around 800 to around 1270 (The last Moor stronghold was in Granada until the Catholic Spanish Kings Ferdinand and Isabel reconquered it in 1492 to expel the Muslims and Jews). After the Moors left, the Catholics converted the mosque to a cathedral, but left the majority of the original columns and structure of the mosque. Inside the view is amazing: hundreds of columns with red and white brick arches span the huge interior. The arches originally had alternating brick and stone to allow for more flexibility in the event of an earthquake. From the entrance, with the dark lighting, its impossible to even see how far back the rows of columns go. Our tour guide showed us the different parts of the mosque/cathedral and explained which parts were added by which monarchs. In the more modern part of town I finally got a real pair of Spanish boots (and Euro trash sunglasses :) and ate some Andaluz specialties for dinner..some kind of battered fried pork stuffed with ham, of course. Later that night we went as a group to see a flamenco show! It was the first time I had seen flamenco live, and it was a great experience. There were 2 guitarists, 1 drummer and 2 singers and about eight dancers throughout the evening. For each dance they came out in different beautiful costumes.

The next day after breakfast a friend and I walked a few streets to the old Jewish quarter to see one of the only remaining old synagogues in Spain. It was a one room synagogue decorated in Moorish style. We then took the bus to Granada, and after some free time, took a walking tour through the city. We saw several of the famous town squares and the cathedral and chapel where the Catholic Monarchs Isabel and Ferdinand are buried (and Juana the Loca). We got the chance to do a little shopping before dinner, and walked through one of the city's old bazaars. After a massive feast for dinner in the hotel the group enjoyed good Spanish wine in the hotel and set out to explore Granada nightlife. I eventually split off with two girlfriends to find smaller local places, and were rewarded by the chance to speak Spanish all night with locals.

The next day we set out to the Alhambra, the massive Moor fortress and palace with amazing courtyards, fountains and gardens. The courtyards have pools and fountains fed by water run down by gravity from the mountains and are purposely quiet for a calming and cooling effect in the hot palace. The cupolas, walls and arches are all covered with amazingly elaborate Muslim ornamentation, but unfortunately the famous fountain of lion sculptures was still being restored so wasn't on display. Carlos V also had a renaissance style palace with a massive circular open courtyard in the middle next to the Moorish structure. The entire complex has beautiful gardens and an amazing view looking down at the city of Granada. The whole Alhambra is hard to put down in words...

After a quick lunch, our bus set off for the roughly 5 hour ride back to Madrid!

Getting to know the city, and university

It's been too long since my last post, so hopefully I will remember all that has happened in these last two weeks! The picture is of the kitchen and dining area of the house I'm staying at in Madrid.

Classes started finally, so I'm starting to settle into a routine. I'm taking language, Spanish economics, Latin American literature , professional Spanish class, and Spanish art classes with American students, and a "mini-curso" seminar on medieval cities with Spanish students. It's definitely a bit of a challenge to take classes in Spanish in other subjects other than literature, but the teachers are used to teaching foreign students so most of the professors use vocabulary that's dumbed down. There is a pretty big range in language abilities in some of the classes, because our placement tests were mainly for our language class. I am enjoying the language class the most actually, because we are learning colloquial expressions, and typical phrases that are much less formal than what we all learned in the classroom back in the States. There are many differences in the way Spaniards speak in comparison to in Latin America, so I'm learning a lot everyday and realizing how silly I sound using the formal language I've been taught before. Spaniards are a very close-knit people, with very forward and sometimes shameless manners..and if someone uses the more formal language or the wrong word, it can be interpreted as cold or unfriendly!

The challenge is that the majority of my classes are with American students, so I will have to really try hard to interact with the Spaniards. On campus they are seemingly always in big groups and don't go out of their way to meet us. Unlike at Berkeley where people seem to be more independent, it's rare to see a Spaniard eating, walking around campus, etc by themselves. I did sign up for the student activities membership and the Erasmus organization (for other European students studying abroad here) so hopefully that will be a good way to meet people. Last week I also met my "intercambio" Natalia, a Spanish student who signed up for an exchange with a foreign student. We met up under the clock at Sol, one of the main squares in Madrid (and the point zero to measure distances to Madrid) and got the typical Spanish snack of chocolate and churros at the famous San Gines cafe close by. We ended up talking for 2 hours, 1 in Spanish and 1 in English, and she was really sweet! I think there is an exchange night twice a week at a cafe, and also a weekly Erasmus hangout at a bar in Madrid. Otherwise the best place thus far to hangout with Spaniards has been going out and finding less touristy places with locals, like close to Alonzo Martinez, Plaza Santa Ana and Chueca. Though the pain is getting back home at night because the metro closes around 1. You usually have to wait a while for the night bus and even if I get off at the closest stop I still have to walk a while to get home.