Capítulo Veinticuatro: I Constantly Thank God for Esteban

"I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose."
- Woody Allen

"El Dia de Gracias" is this Thursday! It's simply too bad that I am not in the United States to celebrate it...

On a brighter note, though, I just got back from a celebration at the CIEE Office for Thanksgiving; it was a really nice treat, actually. Everyone brought their own dish to share with everyone. It's been a while since we as a program have gotten together, so it was nice to socialize with people I don't see very often anymore. It was also the last time we would get together, and thinking about that, it makes me kind of sad...more on the festivity. One of our program advisors bought a huge (and expensive) ham to the meal. Let me be clear that the ham people in the US envision is not the same as it is here, and anyone who's walked by Una Tienda de Jamon knows what I am talking about. This thing is almost like a giant, cooked pigs leg, and you can still see the hoof on it when you get it. Yeah, it sounds disgusting, but it tasted delicious! There's also a very particular way that it must be cut, which was demonstrated to us. Like I said, a really, really nice celebration. Safe to say I am very, very full (which is the sign of a successful Thanksgiving meal).

So, Robby and mine's trip to Granada. I'm jealous of Granada's day-time temperature (night time's another story), but I guess I can't complain about Madrid's because it's still better than Illinois'. The trip as a whole was really good, even though it was definitely tiring. For one thing, our hostal was located very close to Alhambra, literally one minute away, a palace that is located on top of a giant hill. So, we get into the city and we're trying to locate our hostal. We turn onto the appropriate street. It's a hill, though not really any worse than some of the hills in Madrid. Once we reach of the top of that hill, we reached the actual hill of death (I've decided to name it "La Colina del Diablo" after one of the short stories I read in class). No joke, this was one of the steepest hills I've ever climbed, and carrying all of our stuff while climbing it definitely didn't help. We walked down that hill later, and even that was hard to do! It was kind of annoying, because the scenery was gorgeous. It was in the midst of a forest, and there were tiny streams of running water next to the trail. And fall colors were taking over the leaves.

If you are a cross country runner or a biker, I'd recommend that you get in shape by running up that. Actually I don't.

So after climbing for a while, we finally make it to our hostal. It was actually a pretty nice place. The receptionist was a pretty cool guy, and we didn't have to worry about any other roommates that might come in late and awaken us. Unfortunately, it was an absolutely tiny bathroom. I mean, the closet in my apartment was bigger than that was...it was kind of pathetic, really. Also, I wouldn't have by any means considered those beds comfortable, and even the slightest movement would cause the beds to squeek. It's fair to say that neither one of us got much sleep throughout the whole weekend. But it was a hostal, so what can you do?

After we got checked in, we met up with Sandra and Emily, two friends from IWU who were studying there for the semester. They took us to get some food, to this place to get what is called a Shwerka (I know I spelled that wrong). It's kind of like a gyro, only with a lot more stuff on it. It's one of the closest things to American food I've tasted in Spain. Both of us fell in love with those, and we actually went there each day we were in Granada. It was cheap, too!

After restoring our energy with food, Sandra and Emily showed us around a little bit. They took us to a 'hang-out' place where people just chilled, and there was a great view of Alhambra y El Palacio de Carlos V (which we would visit the next day). We got to see the lights for both buildings turn on, and we got some good pictures! After that, we explored the city for a little bit, then went to an Intercambio for IES, their study abroad program. We got to meet a bunch of their friends from the program, and we got MORE free food! If anyone thinks that my eating habits are going to change after living in Spain for a semester, you're probably sorely mistaken. =)

It took a little bit of nagging, but Sandra convinced both of us to go play some futbol (yes, soccer) with some Spaniards. I think we were both kind of nervous for it at first, especially since neither one of us were exactly good at soccer nor had we played any major physical sports for a long time, but it turned out to be an excellent game! The Spaniards were very chill and were pretty patient with us. I always forget how physical futbol can really be; I accidentally hit Sandra in the nose during the game! And to think that jugadores do that intentionally in games sometimes...anyway, it ended in a tie by the time we had to get off the court to let someone else use it. But it was really fun, and the perfect thing to do in the cool night.

We had originally planned to go out with Sandra and her friend Claire that night, but due to exhaustion and a communication error, we ended up just staying in for the night, which in the long run was probably the better idea since we wanted to get up really early to go to Alhambra in the morning. And this time, we actually went through with our plan to get up early and got up around 7:20 to get some breakfast and go to it! I was so proud of us!

Just as an FYI, Alhambra is the most visited sight in Spain, and it's pretty understandable why that is with it's extremely impressive Islamic architecture. Not to mention the place is huge! People who had visited Granada before us had mentioned that their cameras died before they were able to finish it, so we made sure our cameras were fully charged before we dove in. We ourselves spent over three hours exploring. The place really is quite amazing. It's kind of like a cathedral in the sense that there were a lot of little details that went into the architecture and other art, but the fortress was significantly more massive. We got to walk through the fortress itself as well as the Palacio de Carlos V, which we really couldn't explore without spending more than we wanted to (most of it was un museo). But the fortress definitely made up for that! It had a lot fountains and reflecting pools, and a fantastic view of the city! We got to go up a couple of the towers and walk along the wall. The other really cool thing we got to go through in Alhambra was El Generalife, which is pretty much its gardens. For the record, the pronunciation is not like the English 'General Life' even though it seems to be spelled that way. But those were some impressive gardens! Even more fountains and pools, and gorgeous plants. There were roses scattered all over the place, among other flowers. The shape of some of the trees and bushes, and the arches of some of them, were really neat to look at. My favorite part of El Generalife though was definitely las escaleras de agua -- the railings had running water down them, and for some reason, this was just really neat to me. Kind of reminded me of a Water Dungeon in a Zelda game.

After exhausting ourselves in Alhambra, we got ourselves some food (Shwerkas again), and then quickly hit up La Catedral de Granada. If I had to be honest, this cathedral wasn't as impressive as the others. I wonder if it's because I've seen so many at this point that they're all startint o look the same, but it just wasn't as mind blowing as Segovia o Burgos. Still, on the plus side, they let us take pictures, which I can't say for some of the others...*coughTOLEDOcough*

We were pretty beat at this point, even though it was only around 1 in the afternoon. Our friends were busy with school work or other things, so we decided to drag ourselves back up that hill and go back to the hostal and relax as we waited for them. There was actually a pool on the roof of our hostal, and we figured we could just sit around the pool, maybe even go in if the water temperature permitted it (air temperature was pretty good). Of course, the pool was absolute ICE. I stuck my feet in and was just shocked on how cold it was; my feet were sore and could probably have used a little bit of ice anyway, but this was ridiculous. My feet weren't even adjusting to the temperature. So instead of doing that, we grabbed some chairs and just laid out for an hour and a half.

We met up with Emily afterwards and went to La Capilla, a royal chapel where Isabel de Castilla y Fernando de Aragon were buried. It was pretty much a typical Spanish church, only you could see caskets of the two royalties listed above, so I guess it was a little bit unique in that regard. Afterwards, we headed to one of the parks, Los Jardines de Lorca, that was in the southern (or according to the map -- more on this in a little bit) part of Spain. The gardens were pretty neat, though nothing too out of the ordinary. It did have, however, La Casa - Museo Frederico Garcia Lorca, who was a famous Spanish poetist/dramatist and theater director that was killed right at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. For lack of anything better to do, we took a tour of the small house. I have to admit, that was one of the most awkward tours I've ever been on. The tour guide kept looking at us (yes, we're Americans, no need to stare), and there was one guy who kept asking us if we spoke Spanish and if we understood what was going on. He seemed really 'proud' that we were so young and taking in such 'heavy material' -- I'm sure he thought we were younger than what we actually are. He was particularly fond of Robby, too, as he kept trying to talk to him. The house was neat to explore, since it had a bunch of old drawings and writings from the people who lived there, and a really old piano! Still, just a really weird tour...

We get out of the park and decide that it was dinner time. Unfortunately, we managed to get a little bit lost...the map was kind of strange (and I'd looked at maps of Granada on Google Images, and there was not one consistent layout; for example, one map had Alhambra at the Northeast part of the city, another had it in the south, etc...so it just got really confusing), and we ran into a few unhelpful people. Eventually, we reached the street that we were looking for. We got a cheap dinner (Burger King for the win), took a BUS back up that dreadful hill, and turned in early.

We got up fairly early to again get breakfast and to check out. We were able to leave our stuff at Sandra's place so we weren't walking around with it all day. Sandra came and hung out with us for a while, taking us to other parts of the city so we could get some more pictures of some cool stuff. She eventually had to retreat back to her apartment for a little bit to get a little bit of work done. Robby and I entertained ourselves by getting more food (Shwerkas yet again!) and exploring a park while playing cards. I taught him how to play Spit, which is pretty much a combination of Speed and Solitaire (sort of). This is a game that can last a while since the tides can turn so easily, and it's really hard to win. Our first game lasted a good hour and a half!

After Sandra was done with homework, we finished the trip up with some good, ol' Granada tapas...which actually were kind of a rip off. They were really cheap, but the portions were really small. And by small, we got one of everything we ordered: we both got 'croquetas', which means we got one fairly large croqueta; and I also got chorizo, which was one sausage link. Yeah, it was pretty sad, and it didn't even taste that good. Thankfully, it was cheap.

I really like noticing the differences between all the big Spanish cities, like Barcelona, Madrid, and now Granada. This city had a bit more of a 'Caribbean' feal to it, and even the accent was a little bit like Latin America -- they don't pronounce the s if it's at the end of the word, and sometimes they just don't pronounce the last letter in general. Size wise, it's probably a little smaller than Barcelona, and a lot smaller than Madrid, which I kind of liked. I think Granada is pretty much how Emily described it: There are a lot of great, small things to do, but it takes time to find them. Obviously, one weekend isn't going to let us find everything. Still, I had a great time in Granada, and it was fun to visit some fellow Titans!

While I haven't been taking trips, I've been super busy. The end is nigh for classes, so I'm trying to finish up my last few assignments and study for finals. I spent eight hours at La Carlos III studying and doing things for classes! Tomorrow's looking to be another busy day at school, but tomorrow is also Anti-Karaoke! We all had way too much fun last time to not go again this month!

It's not be entirely fair to be so judgmental of the other Spanish cities, but I am really glad I studied in Madrid. The city just has a great feel to it, a city-feel, but a comfortable one, too. And I like the way people speak here, nice and clear. Madrid took me out of my comfort zone in many ways, but it's taught me a lot of different things, like it's improved my language and it's taught me to be more social and confident by presenting me with many different things to do. I don't think I'd be able to handle Barcelona because of the Catalan language, and I'm not sure if Granada would have been the best fit for me, either, since it doesn't exactly present everything to you on a plate like Madrid has. I haven't regretted for a moment studying here, and I am really glad for this opportunity. And for the chance to travel!

Speaking of traveling, Robby and I discussed how these last few trips, these last few hang-outs and moments in Europe are going to make it even harder to say good-bye. We've both had a really great semester here in Spain; we've met some amazing people and have had some of the most memorable times of our lives. It's going to be sad to leave it all, but hey, this may not be good-bye; it might just be a 'see you later.' And in many ways, both of us are looking forward to coming home soon.

Weird to think about what little time we have left, though...

I will post pictures of both Barcelona and Granada (and probably London at this point) after finals are done! I will be in London this weekend, so expect an update shortly after! Sorry for such few posts this month!

Hope you all have a great Dia de Gracias! Be thankful! Kthx.

Hasta luego.

~ LSquared

Capítulo Veintitrés: The Darkest Hour Never Comes in the Night

"The Future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Cold. Lots of work. Stress. That can only mean finals are approaching. They're the first week of December, so they come a little bit earlier than they do at Wesleyan, but we do get a nice month off! That's pretty much what I've been telling myself, not that classes are overwhelming or are not entirely enjoyable, but I tend to freak out a little bit once this time comes. I'm trying to get ahead and start getting all my finals stuff done early. As of right now, I'm only doing an okay job at that. It's easy to tell that motivation can be very hard in Spain sometimes.

This is probably going to be a fairly boring post, as I haven't been up to much lately other than preparing for finals and a few trips.

The weekend was nice, though. Most of it was spent relaxing -- Friday was my super productive day, having finished the majority fo my short story final (just need to finish it and do my write-up, and also get it checked). Other than at night where I went to go visit Trinity for a little bit, I pretty much sat in my room and tried to get some work done. Given the results, I say I faired alright in that department, at least for Friday. I really need to get my butt into gear in the next two weeks.

Saturday, we took a small and cheap trip to El Escorial, a small city not too far from here that has La Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the fallen). We really only did two things that day, and that was visit el monastario and the Valley. The Monastary was quite impressive! It was similar to many of the other palacios and churches I've been to, but it kind of had a unique feel to it because of all the art that had it had. It was as if it was another art museum, with a royal feel to it 00 it had so many paintings that were literally everywhere, on the walls, canvas, etc. The construction was almost as nice as any Palacio I've seen. And what is it with Spain and amazing ceilings? How do they manage to get such beautiful works all the way up there?! Seriously. Las Catedrales (e iglesias), los Palacios, y ahora el monastario have shown me such amazing ceilings. I continue to be amazed at the Spanish art. The monastary had a huge library, too, and apparently it has one of the largest collections of older books. I think what was most impressive though was la basilica, where religious activities would take place. It wasn't exactly like a catedral since it lacked the sophisticated architecture and sculptures (and stained glass windows), but it was beautiful in its own way, with once again some amazing artwork on the ceilings. The art under the dome was particularly interesting, in the sense of...how do you get that up there?! Once again wasn't able to take pictures inside, but it was definitely worth seeing! We didn't even get to explore the gardens del monastario, because we had to catch a bus up to the valley!

So, after running out of the Monastario, we took a bus up the small mountain to La Valle de los Caidos. There is absolutely no way that any picture of this place could do it justice, and I'm not necessarily talking in regards to beauty (it was gorgeous, though), but simply the size. The monument was enormous! You don't realize just how small you are compared to it until you see it and stand next to it. The cross on top of the mountain is 152.4 meters tall (tallest one in the world). Inside the shrine, in other words inside the mountain beneat the cross, is really neat -- to think that all this could be constructed inside a mountain. These people must have been dwarves or something (who if you don't know, live and build their societies within caves), or we could just say that Francisco Franco was a psycho. It had some really cool sculptures and tapistry (all very, very religious). The crypt was a bit eery, very well constructed, but eery, for obvious reasons. We didn't see anything grotesque, but thousands and thousands of victims lie there, so it did kind of have a silent tone to it. We saw where Franco was buried, too. But they were awfully strict about taking pictures in there. They seriously had this one woman literally patrolling everywhere! Her eyes were almost everywhere at once. I was actually quite impressed, even though I obviously wanted to snap a few shots.

So other than that little excursion, I haven't been doing anything too exciting. I've got a trip to Granada coming up this weekend, and with the weather strangely turning nicer (and Granada supposedly have fantastic weather right now), it should be a nice trip. Maybe I'll even get to go swimming!

I've gotten my housing situation for IWU settled already. I don't know how we lucked out in this, but Chenna, Hannah, Abbie and I managed to grab a quad in Harriett. Magically opened up for us just in the nick of time. I'm really excited for this living arrangement! It's the nicest dorm on campus, and a good half of our suite from Dodds will be reuniting!

My English is getting really, really bad. When I'm writing/typing anything in English, there's about a million typos I have to go back and fix because of incorrect spelling, mixing it with Spanish occassional (I'm doing okay at that, though), and I'm confusing myself by trying to remember simple English rules. Like 'to, two, and too'! And 'there, their, and they're'! I can't even do that anymore! It's sometimes frustrating, because I'm usually pretty good about my grammar.

Probably won't update until after Granada, unless something uber cool happens! But I'll most likely be in my corner, studying and writing away...ha!

Hasta Luego!

~ LSquared

Capítulo Veintidós: Death of Seasons

"Hace muchos muchos años, en un país muy lejano y triste existió una enorme montaña de piedra negra y áspera. Al caer la tarde en la cima de esa montaña, florecía todas las noches una rosa que otorgaba la inmortalidad; sin embargo nadie se atrevía acercarse a ella, pues sus numerosas espinas estaban envenenadas. Entre los hombres solo se hablaba del miedo a la muerte y al dolor, pero nunca de la promesa de la inmortalidad. Todas las tardes la rosa se marchitaba sin poder otorgar sus dones a persona alguna, olvidada y perdida en la cima de la montaña de piedra fría, sola hasta el fin de los tiempos."
- El Laberinto del Fauno

It's still cold. It's windy. The leaves are turning colors. Fall has finally arrived here. And what, it's already almost the middle of November. Well, when it comes to cooler weather and seasons, better late than never really!

Come to think of it, it actually isn't that cold here in Madrid, but the cold, windy breeze of the sea along with fall temperatures hit Barcelona the weekend we decided to go. While it made it slightly colder, it didn't ruin the trip by any means, though. In fact, it was overall a really nice trip!

So, I guess I'll just start from the beginning.

The trip consisted of five of us: Trinity, Robby, Kaitlyn, David (who booked late so ended up not staying in the same hostal as us), and myself. We left last Friday night, taking a bus (it was cheaper than a plane). It was an eight hour ride, which for me isn't terrible since I have to take an eight hour commute to school whenever I go back to Tennessee. The bus was pretty comfy, actually, a nice, fairly big coach bus. My only complaint would that there were a handful of people who didn't entirely respect common courtesy, aka they should have put their phones on vibrate, and should not be blasting music to the point where I can hear their music through my headphones. You'd think someone would go deaf by listening to the music that loud.

We arrived at the hostal around 3:15 in the morning. We stayed in a dorm of eight people, with our own security lockers. Actually, this hostal was really nice. They served a (Spanish) breakfast in the morning, the staff was really helpful, and it was pretty clean. Our roommates were pretty cool, too. The two girls that were there when we arrived were helpful and taught us how to use those really strange lockers (but hey, they worked well). We'd meet our other two roommates later, one who actually joined us for dinner one night. None of them were Spaniards, either, which I guess was and was not surprising.

Our original plan was to get up early and get an early start on exploring the many places of Barcelona. Well...getting in at 3 in the morning and not sleeping too much on the bus makes it hard to get up early. Original plan of awakening time: 8:30. Actual time of awakening: 9:15. That really isn't too bad of a sleep in, but we were all pretty lazy; I think both Robby and I set our alarms to get up, and we both may or may not have ignored them...oops. We eventually rolled out of bed and got downstairs in time for breakfast. Then we headed out to adventure!

We didn't exactly have a prepared itinerary, but we all had an idea of what we wanted to see. We walked by the Columbus Monument (this guy is popular here...yeesh), which was uh, pretty tall. Really neat, though, because the little statue on the top had him pointing to the Mediterranean. After that, the first place we hit up was La Catedral de Barcelona -- we'd wanted to get there pretty early because you could take an elevator up the tower and stand on top of the cathedral. Like the others, the cathedral was gorgeous on the inside and out. Even though the cathedral was undergoing some renovations, it was still amazing to see. I wasn't quite as impressed with it as some of the other ones, but the added bonus was that we got to go up the tower, and it was neat to see the view from the top. It gave us a much closer view of the towers, and what they looked like up close. It's still unbelievable how much detail was put into these structures. And to get that much detail up that high...incredible. At the same time, you can definitely understand how building these were extremely dangerous, having to do all that work from such a height. Crazy.

Saturday's weather (during the day) was actually pretty nice, but still too cold to swim. That didn't stop us from going to the beach, which was our next destination. We walked out towards the harbor, and finally found the beach. We probably spent a small chunk of time just playing around in the sand and walking around the water. Not to mention it was a nice sight -- the fairly clear sky, the blue waters, the pretty land in the background. After a pretty long photo shoot and exploration, we pulled ourselves away from the beach and decided to get some lunch. We went to a reasonably priced place called TapazTapaz. It was pretty much all tapas (obviously), which was good though, because it made it cheaper and you could order a bunch of smaller plates to get just the right amount of food.

After stuffing our face, we had wanted to head back towards the beach to see if we could catch a Gandala (I am almost certain I spelled that wrong) ride over the city. Unfortunately, the winds definitely kicked in then, and so they shut it down for the day. So instead of going above the city, we decided to travel below and try out Barcelona's metro system. We didn't have to use it very much (only a few times) which was nice to save a bit of money, but it was nice to get to places that were a little bit more out of the way, as well as getting back to the bus station the next day. We obviously didn't use it enough to be able to tell how it was compared to the Madrid one, but the cars were a little bit bigger. I don't know. I like Madrid's just because the voices that announce the locations is better (more clear, and much more amusing to hear), and the stations are cleaner.

We took the metro out to the place that I had wanted to see: El Parque Guell. And I'm really glad that we did. It had a very different style to it, kind of like...candyland to be honest. Lots of the buildings looked like they were made of gingerbread, and had little gummy candy attached to them. The stretch of the land was enormous! You would need a couple of days to expore the entire place. We got to stand on the roof of the building you see upon entering, but the best part of it was us finding the path that took us to the top and gave us an overview of the entire city. It was around sunset, time, too, which means the scene was near perfect (oh, if only it had been a tad bit warmer and not so windy...). Seeing the sun fall behind the horizon of the huge city, as well as the lights of the sun hitting the sea...just amazing. We really stumbled upon this by accident, but what a fortunate accident it was! After taking a bunch of pictures, nearly getting blown away by the wind, and starting to freeze, we left the top and just walked around the park for a little bit longer, until we finally decided to leave. This concluded the day's adventure, which involved a whole lot of walking (I will be an expert speed walker when I return to the US). We went back to the hostal and played cards for a while. We also studied. Yes, that's right. We studied on our trip to Barcelona. It couldn't be helped. We had a test coming up on Monday that our professor didn't tell us about until we had already made the plans to go to Barcelona. But give us some credit! We studied even on vacation!

Next morning, we again planned for an early start...and again failed to stay on the wake-up schedule. There's no such thing as a regular sleeping schedule in Spain. Anywhere. Anyway, after we finally got moving (got up, showered, breakfast), we began our last day in Barcelona and really wanted to make it count. We had heard of this Hop-On, Hop-Off bus tour from one of the staff members in the hostal and decided to do that. Basically, it took us to a lot of the cool places in the city, and we were allowed to get on and off whenever we wanted to explore. And we got a discount on it because of the hostal we were staying at. This was most definitely worth it, and was one of the highlights of the trip. It saved us from having to walk everywhere, and took us to a couple of places that we would never have thought of going. On the bus, we saw Olympic Harbor, and drove by some really fancy buildings! It was a bit harder to get pictures on a moving vehicle, but we made it work. Unfortunately, it was a bit colder that day, so sitting on the top of the bus was a bit chilling at times, but we kept each other warm, and we had all dressed ready to face the weather.

We took the first bus line to Plaza Mayor at the center of the city. There were a couple of cool fountains there, but I am pretty sure the highlight of it were the massive amounts of pigeons. There was a stand that gave you bird seeds to feed them, from your hand or just throwing the seeds around. Personally, I didn't want a pigeon landing on me, so I just observed. None of us actually invested in feeding the birds, but Trinity sure had a good time chasing them around! She just ran into the flock of pigeons, roaring and scaring them endlessly. It was amusing, and we got some pretty good pictures of her doing that. Heck, there was one point where it seemed like the pigeons were going to attack us!

After retiring from pigeon chasing, we grabbed the next bus to the highlight of the city: La Sagrada Familia, a church that began its construction in the late 19th century, and is still not complete, and is not expected to be done until sometime between 2026 and 2050. The main planner, constructor of the church, Gaudi (who is a genius with all the different elements he put into the construction and architecture) passed away long before he finished the entire layout, so that didn't help matters, but people have still continued to work on it, and modern day technology will probably help it move along. I think lots of people would assume that it would be just like a Cathedral, and have the same feel to it. Yes, in many ways it was cathedral-esque, but I have to say that this is by far one of the coolest things I've seen since being in Europe. It was incredible. From the outside, it reminded me of a castle that would be at the bottom of Atlantis (looked kind of like coral, really cool coral). So tall, so pointy, and all the different themes it's built on. Gaudi loved la naturaleza, so there are lots of nature and animals in the archtecture (for example, the pillars are on the back of a giant turtle). And of course, there was some amazing religious art, but it was different from what we've seen in other cathedrals -- it was almost like Cubism art (or sculpturing) since a lot of it seemed square, but I know that's not the type of art it was. Really cool to observe, though. On the inside, it was clearly a work-in-progress, lots of construction materials, and it was pretty empty of your typical church items. Some of the stained glass windows were up, though, and those were gorgeous. And the ceilings! The ceilings were great. They kind of looked like a comic book "KABOOM!" kind of thing, only much more realistic and much more religiously significant. They also had an elevator that went up one of the towers, but once again, wind interfered. Still, I wasn't at all disappointed with what I was able to see. Like I said, by far one of the most amazing things I've seen in Europe. And I can't wait to see what it looks like when it's done!

We caught another bus to try and get to El Palacio de Barcelona. It was significantly farther out than we expected, and I can't say that it was entirely worth it (though the good thing was that it was free). Los jardines afuera del palacio son muy preciosos (it had more Gaudi art, including the Hercules fountain, one of his first works), but I'm pretty sure they didn't preserve most the inside. It had a bunch of displays of old clothes and furnishment, but really that's all there was. It didn't have the pretty construction that El Palacio de Aranjuez o El Palacio Real de Madrid had. So overall, I wasn't too impressed, but it was still nice to see for being free.

So at this point, it's about 5:00 PM. We hadn't eaten anything since breakfast that morning (around 9:30), so needless to say, we were starving. With our Bus Tour stuff, we were given a small packet of coupons, and there were a few restaurants that had sales going on. We wanted something easy and fairly cheap and fast...so logically, we went after fast food. And McDonald's happen to have this magnificent sale of 2 Big Macs for 5 Euro...we were so hungry that even those of us who didn't like McDonald's went running in! We each ordered two Big Macs each, and I have to say, that was the most satisfying meal ever. All of us absolutely devoured those big macs within minutes. We made a nice pyramid of our Big Mac boxes upon finishing, just to show off probably the most unhealthy yet delicious meal we've ever had.

It was getting pretty late at this point, and we decided that we'd catch the last Bus Tour around the city at 7. In the mean time, we did a little bit of souvenir shopping, trying to find little things for our families. After a little shopping, we caught the last bus, took one final look around, then decided it was time to conclude the trip (we were cold and pretty tired). We found a small cafe, sat down, and played cards for a little bit until it was time to catch the bus back to Madrid. On the bus, most of us passed out right away; I studied for a little while, though. We got back pretty early on Monday.

Versus Madrid, Barcelona was extremely different in a few ways. If I had to be perfectly honest, Barcelona's a bit prettier than Madrid; it's got a few highlights that, such as La Sagrada Familia, that Madrid doesn't have, and overall some of the buildings just look a whole lot cooler, much more unique. Still, I am really glad I decided to study in Madrid instead of Barcelona. For one thing, the main language there is Catalan, not Spanish (or in the case of Madrid, Castellano). Catalan is pretty much a mix of French and Spanish, and I had a hard time understanding some words and phrases there. And there was a lot of English there, too, like I felt like I hardly heard Spanish at all. It probably would have been nice to grow up in Barcelona, because they you'd practically be trilingual (learning Catalan, Spanish, and English), but coming in there later makes it a big harder. Also, Barcelona's a pretty big 'going out' city, which we noticed right when we got there. As we were walking to our hostal, we encountered quite a few drunks (more than what you'd see on Madrid's streets) and big crowds. I've enjoyed the nightlife, but I don't think I could do it to the extent that Barcelona does; gotta have some me time, you know?

But Barcelona was a great trip! I had good time with friends and seeing some new and breathtaking things.

The rest of the week's been pretty laid back. We're down to the wire in classes, but I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm even confident about my last exam that made me study in Barcelona! I've started getting ready for finals as well, writing papers and doing a bit of research. This weekend's probably going to consist of me getting my stuff together for all that.

My first tutoring session was last week, too, and it went well! My host's sister is really nice, and I'm sure she understands English better than she thinks she does. I have to say, though, that I never want to teach elementary English. Also, it was kind of tough, because I kind of had to pronounce the English words with a Spanish accent so she'd understand which word I was trying to say. Some of those English words are hard to turn into a Spanish accent! English in general is really hard to learn, especially English from the US, since we have a lot of slang terms and do a lot of play on words. I like English for that reason, but I do think Spanish is a much smoother, and even better sounding language.

I registered for classes at IWU next semester, and while the process was frustrating, it all worked out in the end since I got into everything I wanted to. So next semester, I'll be taking Special Topics in Hispanic Studies (400-level *gulp* Spanish literature course), History of Latin America, Shakespeare's Tragedies and Romances, Marketing: Principles and Management, and finally, my wonderful gym class Personal Fitness (which my brother is also in -- oh it's going to be a fun morning). My Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be tough, since I'll have four classes (including gym) on both of those days, but as of right now, I have no classes on Friday!

Alright, I realize that my blog posts have slipped, but I did warn everyone that that would happen since my schedule would be a little busier. I'll try to update more frequently, but you're just going to have to forgive me when I don't update as frequently as I did in September, especially now that it's finals time.

And now, back to work.

Hasta luego.

~LSquared

Capítulo Veintiuno: Tell me all That you've Thrown Away

"Never eat raspberries."

- Grandpa Phil, Hey Arnold!

It was very bad for YouTube to allow Hey Arnold to be posted on its website; I love that show, and now that it's easily accesible, I fear that that's all I will watch. It should be worth noting, though, that that show should NOT have been for kids. There are so many adult themes, like alcoholism and obsessions, that are (not-so) subtly placed in there. Of course, this is why I love that show; makes it twice as funny.

Speaking of things that are not appropriate for kids, how about Disney's version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"? Up until a couple of days ago, I hadn't seen it since 6th grade (and I remember not being too attentive when I saw it last). While I obviously couldn't quote this one like other Disney movies, there were very distinct parts of it that I could remember, because there were scenes that were just terrifying or addressed much more mature issues. Now that I'm older, I'm able to catch all of those issues that I could not distinguish as a kid, and I must say, even as a 21 year old, it's still scary -- burning people alive, lust, religious hypocrisy, social rejection, the list goes on. What makes this film really terrifying though, is the antagonist. Most Disney villains are either laughable (because they're so bad or cheesy), or admirable (because they have a moment or two that make being a bad guy look cool), but the antagonist of this film is one that you hate literally from beginning to end; the guy's a complete monster. I haven't seen a whole lot of films that has a villain that I absolutely despise (the best example is probably Capitan Vidal de "El Laberinto del Fauno", and the latest Joker's up there, too), but Frollo one probably takes the cake. It's a ridiculously dark film as a whole, especially for Disney, and it definitely should have been a PG-rated film. I haven't read the novel by Victor Hugo, but I know it's twisted, I know it's dark, I know it's a downer, and now I really want to read it just to see how much worse it could be (and I'm expecting a lot). Still, watching it again, I REALLY liked it. The music (not necessarily the sing-alongs) is absolutely amazing, and even though the story's watered down, it flows together really nicely. Also, it isn't a typical 'Disney hero' with a typical 'Disney hero' ending -- Quasimodo is such a respectable character.

...okay, I think I am done ranting now.

I think I mentioned in the last post about how we were going to try Anti-Karaoke since we had had a successfull night with Karaoke the week before. That plan still went through -- Kaitlyn, Trinity and I went out to it on Wednesday, and it turned out to be one of the best nights I've had so far. To restate, Anti-Karaoke is basically one giant rockshow, where the audience members get to sing the songs, which are mainly of the rock, alternative, metal, and 80s Classics genres. So you have your Nirvana, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Madonna, The Offspring, Ozzie Osbourne, the list goes on (over 500 songs). All the songs were in English, too, though it's safe to say that some people probably tried to sing them in Spanish (I mean, most of the crowd was Spaniards...) and some that didn't know the words at all. In fact, there was one guy who absolutely butchered "Somebody Told Me" by The Killers; he didn't even try to read the lyrics book, or use the same syllables or sounds! Actually, it was pretty amusing. Anyway, since it was close to Halloween time, there were a good number of people dressed up -- we ourselves came with masquerade masks. But yeah, the whole night was pretty much like a giant rock concert, maybe even a moshpit, and it was awesome. There were some really good performances, too! My personal favorite was the guy that was dressed like a Ghostbuster, and sang "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand. Well sung, and very energetic performance; I was jumping and head nodding/banging the entire time! Well, I did that a lot of the time I was there, but this I particularly enjoyed this act.

And yes, all three of us gave performances, which was half the fun of the night. Trinity did "Heartbreaker" by Pat Benatar, and she did fantastic. She looked like she was having so much fun up there, and she knew all the words to the song already. And besides, how can you not rock out and love Pat Benatar? Seriously. Kaitlyn did "Fame" from...well, Fame. I don't know too much about it (I know it's a musical movie now), but she did really well. She gave a really girly yet dazzling performance (probably helps that she's a theater major), and she also sang well! As for me, I went for a much heavier (erm, metal) song: the popular "Chop Suey" by System of a Down. Alright, I'm by no means a talented singer (actually, I'm pretty terrible), but I was arguably the crowd favorite of the night. I think the reason I was so well liked was because I was the first one to go all out and do a really heavy song, so yes, there was jumping, there was hair-whipping, there was headbanging, there was a little bit of screaming. On top of that, I highly doubt anyone expected me to do that; it probably went like this: "Aw, look at that cute young girl go up there; she's probably going to do Madonna or something...no wait, she's doing...WHAT!? OH MY GOD, AWESOME!" I put a lot of energy in my performance, and the crowd responded well, jumping around like crazy and singing along. Yeah, I'm sure I looked like a lunatic, but it was amazing, and I got so many compliments that night. There were even people who wanted to take pictures with me (Kaitlyn and Trinity got a good share, too), or even perform with me. I have to admit, I liked being a rockstar that night.

Oh, I only wish I'd remembered my camera that night. That's okay, because Anti-Karaoke comes to Madrid once a month, the last Wednesday of every month, so we'll definitely be going back!

So after that outstanding night, the weekend was fairly chill. It was nice, though nothing too overly exciting. We stayed in on both Thursday and Friday and just kind of relaxed. On Thursday, we watched the Spanish film "El Espinazo Del Diablo (The Devil's Backbone)" which is by "Hellboy" and "El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth)" director Guillermo Del Toro. I'd heard it was a chilling ghost story, creepy yet interestingly mysterious (so in other words, really good), but frankly, I was disappointed. I wasn't scared at all during the movie, and the storyline was a bit dry and unoriginal; I guess I was expecting a bit too much out of it. It was the movie that actually inspired Pan's, but Pan's is better on every level, though I think that Pan's gets a boost because it mixes the elements of fantasy and reality. We had to watch it in Spanish without subtitles, and there were definitely some points where it was hard to pick up what they were saying (there was one scene where it was as if the guy was trying to break the record for 'syllables per second'), but we were able to follow it. It's good practice to watch Spanish films. Then we watched the documentary "Jesus Camp" which I'd seen before, but still stands as one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen. Friday was much the same. We probably had another "American food" day and made more Velvetta cheese sauce. Trinity and I had a miniature Hey Arnold marathon, and then at night (Robby'd joined us), we ended up watching three movies (God, we're just so exciting, aren't we?): "Red Eye" (an entertaining thriller despite being very predictable and unbelieavable), "Panic Room" (I've seen this one many times and think it's extremely underrated -- they do some cool stuff with the camera), and "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" (God knows how long it's been since I've seen a Jurassic Park flick, but they're pretty fun, though I tend to just stick with the first one).

Then Halloween day. You'd think we'd do something special for Halloween, but the holiday's nowhere near as big here, especialy in terms of the younger children and Trick-or-Treating, but there were still a bunch of people out in costume. Before the night fell, we went to a park that was a good ways outside the city (12 metro stops...but hey, at least we didn't have to pay for transportation). It was a bit bigger than Los Jardines Botanicos en Madrid, and just as pretty, but good Lord we had a hard time finding it. The map of Madrid didn't extend that far out, and the directions which Trinity wrote down were...off, or at least we couldn't find the road. We probably wandered around in circles for a good hour before finding it. Luckily, entrance was free, and there were some cool things to see, like the Temple (though not really) of Dionaysus, and a labyrinth (which sadly we could not enter due to construction). During the night, we went out to a discoteca (free entrance for that, too) and spent the night dancing there. They played some good music for a while, and it was fun overall, but I'd say the night overall was on the strange side -- there were some really weird people there, and it was crowded as hell after a while, which made it a bit uncomfortable.

And Sunday was everyone's favorite "Get your homework done" day!

So it was an awesome rockshow and a good weekend overall. Next weekend is Barcelona, which I am very, very excited about! It's supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities in Spain.

Oh yeah, I managed to pick up a small tutoring job! La hermana de mi anfitriona is taking English classes, and wants to improve by having conversations with someone. It's only once a week for an hour, so it's not like it's taking up much time. They want to pay me a little bit for it, too, which given the short amount of time it is, I think that's a bit too generous. Still, I guess it would be nice to pick up a tiny bit of spending cash. Plus, this will help both of us -- I can practice more Spanish, and she can practice English!

I've only got a little over a month left of classes. They're still going pretty well, though Lengua is proving to be tougher than expected -- the professor, while she is a really good professor, is a tough-as-nails grader and will find even the smallest error and mark off for it. We finally got our exams from a month ago back, and only a small group of students did well. Thankfully, the Spanish grading system is a bit more generous, so ultimately, I think I faired alright, but seeing all those marks on your exam is like...wow. I haven't had an exam in any other class; only smaller writing assignments. I'm doing really well in my Cine class, and History I'm doing alright, too. Both of those classes have a final exam that's worth a large portion of the whole grade, though, and I'm not entirely sure what to make of those yet. I'll probably start studying for those early. Cuento is going pretty well; my whole grade is based around a single short story that I write, taking all the elements that we've learned and making your own. I'm actually very excited about it! I already know what I want to write about; it's a matter of how I want it narrated that's giving me trouble. Still, I've already started writing, so we'll see where it goes. And yes, I am writing it in Spanish. I was contemplating on whether I wanted to write it in English first, then translate it, but I want a challenge.

Weather's turned a bit cooler again this week, but it's still pretty nice, unlike the coldness that I've heard Illinois is struggling through.

In the US, basketball season is underway, and I've been keeping my eye on it. The Bulls seemed to have a nice opener against the consistent Spurs, but have dropped the other two against Boston and Miami. I wasn't expecting them to beat Boston, especially with Rasheed Wallace in their lineup now, but Miami hasn't really done anything to improve; D.Wade's unstoppable. Oh God, speaking of Boston, Rajon Rondo's little stunt with Chris Paul really makes me angry. "I have a championship, and you don't and never will!" First of all, are you that low class that you have to make personal attacks like that? That's ridiculous. It's very immature and unnecessary to be taunting someone on that level. Shows how much of an ass he is. It really frustrates me to see athletes, especially pros who should know better, perform such poor sportsmanship. Second, just because Rondo has a championship does not mean he's a great player. He's quick and good at taking the ball to the basket, but he's a cheap defender, doesn't have a great outside shot, and most importantly, is by no means a leader. Not to mention he's playing with three all stars; of course you're going to look good playing next to them, and of course, they're going to help you get better! Chris Paul didn't have any all-stars playing next to him, and still doesn't, and look what he's become! He's one of the best point-guards in the game today; he's a superb passer and a great defender. If Rondo and Paul switched places, Rondo would not be the same. He is not someone that's going to lead a team to the finals, let alone the playoffs, and he hasn't even earned all-star status. Paul single-handedly carries his team; he is the star of that franchise, and has been doing a damn good job the last few years on making them successful and reviving New Orleans sports. Yeah, I think Rondo is a punk that needs to stop running his mouth, because he is not that good. Oh yeah, he should not have gotten that $55 million extension either. Isn't' it ridiculous how much athletes get paid?

...this blog is turning into a "Laura Rants About Pointless Stuff" kind of thing. But at least I still tell you what I've been up to. Te he.

Probably won't update until I get back from Barcelona. Until then!

Hasta luego!

~ LSquared