Buenas tarde. Estos son mis viajes!!

fail. i woke up at 1pm today. (don't judge me!) i've only been getting 5-6 hours of sleep for the past few days.

my weekend was packed with late nights and day trips (to el escorial and toledo), but i gotta get some homework in.

just thought i would make you guys jealous. hehee

my plans for the semester:
2/5-2/7 SAN SEBASTIAN/BILBAO
2/12-2/14 CADIZ/SEVILLA (for Carnival.. =D)
2/19 SEGOVIA
2/26-2/28 ANDALUCIA (Granada y Cordoba)
3/5-2/7 BARCELONA (w/ vflo and tiff!!!)
3/19 VALENCIA (for Las Fallas)
3/26 -4-5 ITALIA!!!
4/16-4/18 MOROCCO
5/2-5/22 MI FAMILIA (vacationnn and no more school)

aka i should be coming home with SIX hard rock cafe pins (and no money):
SPAIN: Malaga, Madrid, Barcelona
ITALY: Venice, Rome
PORTUGAL: Lisbon

NIEVE

that means SNOWWWWW!!

It snowed about an inch last night! So i´m wearing thermals underneath my jeans. Let me tell you, skinny jeans and thermals are not a good mix. =)

that alone deserved it´s own post.

El Parque del Retiro y El Rastro

Since i have yet to update about my weekend, here it goes.. (i´ll add pictures when i get home)

On Saturday, I went to PARQUE DEL RETIRO. It´s a huge park kind of close to my apartment. It´s known as ¨el pulmon de la ciudad.¨ People go there to relax and escape within the city, sort of like Central Park. It´s really beautiful and we only saw about a quarter of it, so I definitely plan on going back.

My only warning about the park, like always, is to hold onto your purse and beware of gypsies. One woman was handing out ¨flowers,¨ that looked like weeds, like they were presents. However, when we tried to give them back, she wouldn´t take them and demanded money instead. It was a pretty sad looking plant... Good thing, I was lucky enough to walk  away before she handed me. Others in my program, not so lucky.

Our adventures are always tiring, so we either take naps and go out later.. or don´t go out at all. Saturday night, we made it out to a cave bar called LAS CUEVAS DE SESAMO. Basically, we waited for 30 minutes to sit at a really small table and stools to drink a pitcher of sangria. The room was filled with smoke and it was clear that you can only squeeze a certain amount of people per table. Nevertheless, the bar was underground and featured a live piano player, so it was one of the cool places to be. We went home ¨early,¨ which means i ended up sleeping at around 3am, which is why you find me on-line around 6pm sometimes.

On Sunday, I went to the flea market called EL RASTRO. It gets super crowded, but for some things it´s worth the fight. Small souvenirs and stuff. Apparently, it´s an even more common place for pick-pockets. Locals have gotten their purses/phones/wallets stolen.. After I took a shopped my heart out and went home to rest, I headed back out to EL MUSEO DEL PRADO. Art is definitely not my specialty, but I did get a chance to see some famous Goya paintings and also my favorite Velasquez, Las Meninas. I probably need to go back and see a little more, but I will say Las Meninas was hugeeeeeee. For some reason, I always looked at the little girl in awe, but when I saw it up close, the first thing I noticed were the two.. uh.. not-so-cute girls in the front.

do you recognize these?

GOYA - SATURNO (scary... but famous, of course...)

GOYA - EL TRES DE MAYO

 BOSCH - GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS (ap euro, anyone?)

VELASQUEZ - LAS MENINAS (see them in the corner? lol)

Interesting..

hahaha so i was going to blog bc i had an hour and a half til class, but i decided to plan my 3 months of travel.

morocco, maybe?

don't worry mom and dad, i will ask you about it soon. =)

also, i have found these to be pretty accurate if you ever feel inclined to visit spain. especially number 8, which is my biggest concern.

MISCONCEPTIONS

today we walked into the restaurant excited to eat indian food to find out that the owners were just too lazy to take the old menus down... walked around looking for mexican.. no use. surprisingly, there was a chinese restaurant... but we just went for kebabs. ethnic food, where are you?

and for dinner, she made pasta =) and gave me hot sauce. i went a little crazy and had to add more noodles... go figure.

My first encounter with graffiti (or ARTE!)

(jamon. loll do you see it?)

so as we took a walking tour/adventure around the city, we came upon EL PARQUE RASTRO. i thought the graffitti was pretty awesome and my camera takes amazing pictures, so there you go. (still haven't figured out how to use the settings, but it's okay, the quality is the best)

i've also been having my fun experimenting with the food here. i realllllly like ham chips and today, i found ketchup-flavored potato chips with cut outs of smiley faces in them.. we just walked and ate everywhere. we sorta had a field day with desserts today too...

i've spent most of my money on food. that confirms i'm a fatty. oh well, only in spain once

ALSO, what should have been the highlight of the day, but they wouldn't let me take pictures inside.. was EL PALACIO REAL. it's where some of the spanish royalty used to live. (if i had paid another $10, i would prob be able to tell you who lived there, but i took a self guided tour instead). The decor was breathtaking.. so i'm planning my trip to france already to see the palace of versailles! anyway, here it is:

Getting adjusted.. sorta..

As i typed ¨sorta¨ it came out as <8sorta<9´.. freakin´ spanish keyboards. There´s a button for ñ and ç tho, which is pretty cool.

Anyway, i´m on campus right now and i´m listening to all the teachers give little blurbs about their classes, but the classes i´m interested in aren´t giving their presentations for another 20 minutes, so i thought i should update.

Yesterday we had our orientation and got a tour of the school, University of Madrid, Carlos III. I´ll play tourist and take a bunch of pictures later, but all the girls with me love to take pictures (as much, if not more) than i do. so i had my first experience with tapas and i think, so far, i like dim sum better.. lol bc tapas has a lot of fried foods (calamari, shrimp, ham) and cheese/ham/fish on a piece of bread. the ham is really good here though! it´s called jamon crudo and its basically proscuitto and i´m getting used to eating it all the time. Lays even makes a chip with the flavor of jamon crudo. At our orientation, they walked around serving us beer and wine. Needless to say, I´ve been taking advantage.

At night, I went to my first tapas bar with the guys that i´m staying with and their other friends from MIT. The bar was really crowded and everyone just stands around, huddled in groups. I had some tinto de verano, which is a cheaper, less sweet version of sangria. The best part is when you order a drink.. sometimes the tapas are included! well, at ELTIGRE, they were. and my huge cup of vino (aka tinto de verano) was 3euros (including the fatty potato balls, chorizo, etc.)

The one thing I learned last night.. was people like to publicly makeout. frequently. hahahaha on the subway, in the bar, on the corner.

¡what happens in spain, stays in spain!

(lol, but really, nothing has happened)

iSangria!

so i mostly wanted to post some pictures of the food!

cafe con leche

aguja de ternera (not sure what that means) - but, it was beef

paella mixta!

my first cup of sangria

I'm hungryyyy..

lol so it's about 2:30 pm here and i still haven't eaten lunch. my senora is the sweetest lady ever and i think she's making some sort of stew with salmon for dinner? lunch? i don't know, but she knows i haven't eaten. i'm a little intimidated bc i can't understand everything she says, but i hope she feeds me soon.

i recently finished unpacking my stuff into my room and i like it. it's small-ish but i really don't need much room and i have two closets.. for like 2 weeks worth of clothes. right now, there are two other guys here staying in the room next to me. i guess our programs overlap so they're here for a few more days. maybe i'll spend some more time with them this weekend?

anyway, i woke up early to sightsee with my roommate from the hotel and now i'm kinda tired and want to siesta.... but i don't want anyone to judge me. hahaha so i'm forcing myself to stay awake. i'll add some pictures soon! and edit my post from yesterday.. since i thankfully, bought a converter this morning that works for my laptop. yeeee.

Madrid

so i can happily say i made it and i'm relieved. it's gonna be an amazing semester and i know you're jealous. =)

anywayyyy, the first thing that went right was my luggage weighed EXACTLY 50 lbs and i didn't get charged for it. (so i saved $20 there) and my flight was about 4 hours to dallas and from dallas it was 9 hours to madrid. i had a 6 hour layover in dallas where i just slept with my luggage wrapped around me.

OKAY. FAIL. my converter isn't working aka my battery is really dead.

so update tomorrow when i meet my family!!!!

thanks for those of you who saw me before i left and on skype. add me!

Work in Progress

(more to come)

but i have packed half of my suitcase...

=(

btw, if you think i don't have your school mailing address and you want a postcard.. let me know asap.

and download skype and add me! simplynicoley