On Thursday night, we met up with our friends at a tapas restaurant in Chueca and then took them out to a birthday party for one of the kids on our program which was at Shanghai. We had a lot of fun, but it wasn’t such a super late night since everyone was tired from traveling. Regardless, it was so much fun to see everyone and we had a great time.

On Friday we woke up and picked up salads nearby to head to Retiro for a picnic with everyone. The weather is gorgeous (still wearing shorts!!), so we had so much fun sitting in the beautiful park eating our lunches all together. We took everyone boating on the lake and then headed over to the Prado. The turistas headed over to the more famous Spanish painters (which we had already seen), so Lil, Linds and I rented headphones and saw some of the museum we hadn’t seen yet. This time we saw some of the Italian painters and also Murillo and more Rubens.  Here are some pics from Retiro:

After Retiro, we headed back to take a little rest before dinner. We decided to split up for dinner since not many restaurants will accommodate a group of 14! We headed to the sister restaurant of El Lando (if you can’t tell by now we have really developed a love for that restaurant), called el Viejo. It was a bit more of an expensive dinner, but it was so worth it since our buddies got to eat amazing, authentic Spanish food.

This wouldn’t even be a blog post without someone losing their wallet. Unfortunately, Ferber went to get her wallet to pay and realized it was missing. It really stinks how prevalent the pickpocketing is here, but she was really calm about it and called her parents, blah blah. We all chipped in an extra 3 euros to pay for her dinner- and we headed out the door of the restaurant around midnight for a fun night of discotecs, etc.  I even got to meet up with Jonah, my friend from camp, which was so nice!! So many reunions this weekend.

Slept in on Saturday and headed over to the open market. It was our first time here, and it was so great! Not quite as impressive as the one in Barcelona, but definitely beautiful and fun. We then met up with the group at the Palacio Real. They took a tour (we didn’t- we’ve already been twice!) and then we all got a nice lunch in Plaza Mayor followed by some gelato. Linds and I then took Emily and Ferbie back to our homestay so they could see where we lived!! They loved it, thought it was so cute, and even liked my murphy bed.

We went to a mexican restaurant for dinner and then spent the night at Chanpandaz, the cave bar. It was Halloween, so many people were dressed up….but it’s not nearly as big of a deal here as it is at home.  I didn’t see any John&Kate plus 8′s which I was sad about because I think that wig is so funny.

Saying goodbye wasn’t even that sad, because we are seeing almost everyone again on Thursday when we arrive in Amsterdam!! All in all, it was a wonderful weekend and so great to be able to show all of our friends our new city.

We took the Ave train to get there, which is even faster than the Acela! We got there in just under two hours.  We got there, checked into our hotel (hotel Selu) and met the group to go to the Casa Sefardi… which is a museum about the sephardic jews.  There were a lot of Jewish people who lived in Cordoba during Muslim rule, and they were all Sephardic (the term sephardic comes from Jews who left Spain).  Anyways, this was the first time we got to see some history of our peeps. It was pretty cool to see sedar plates and passover hagadahs from the 10th century. I really enjoyed it. Here is a sedar plate in the museum:

After that, we had some free time to eat.  We had a nice lunch and walked around to inspect all of the cheap jewelry that was sold in every single shop. We got a scoop of gelato and met back up to visit the Cordoba Synagogue, which was constructed in 1314!! It was really unbelievable- it was so well preserved, and although there was nothing really in there to look at it was cool to see hebrew on the walls. We learned that there are only FORTY jews in all of Cordoba right now. Here is a picture of the synagogue:

We had to give some other religions the time of day too, so, we visited the great mosque of Cordoba. This is definitely the biggest attraction of the whole place- the mosque is gorgeous and even has a beautiful Cathedral inside of it since it was reconstructed after the Christians re-took the peninsula. It is incredibly ornate and beautiful and by far the coolest thing we saw all trip.

We went back to the hotel, showered, had dinner, and met up with the group for a Flamenco show. I was really excited to see Flamenco, but I was un-impressed. The dancing was fairly boring and the singing almost put me to sleep. Maybe it wasn’t the best Flamenco show there is, but needless to say we left at intermission and headed for bed.

The next day, we visited a Cordoba History museum and Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos- which is a fort constructed by Alfonso XI in 1328 where the first Christian kings lived.  Adjacent to the building were BEAUTIFUL gardens- literally one of the most beautiful I have seen ever. Afterwards, we had free time until we left at 7pm (so basically spent 5 hours sitting around eating gelato since everything was closed on Saturdays..)

Cordoba was beautiful and the weather was so warm and sunny, however the trip definitely should have been done in one day. We had way too much down time, but I guess it is too hard to travel there and back in 24 hours. Anyways, I had a nice time, especially since we were learning about all of this in class.

We got back on Saturday at 9pm went home to shower and eat, and then went out for a little bit. Sunday was our favorite devil Danny’s 4th birthday party, so all of the familia came over again. Whenever Maria’s fam is over it is a crazy day- food and drinks everywhere, little children stepping on me, and Pinky running around trying to steal food.  We mostly hung out with our host brother, Rodger. Speaking of Rodger- the other day at lunch Patri played a prank on me and went into Rodger’s room and left him a note (in English so he thought it was really me) saying “I love you, Love Melanie” !!! She is a nut job, and I call her Patri la Loca. Anyways, I think Rodger has figured out that it was her who wrote the note….but still the whole family was joking around asking where the ‘novios’ were. OY VEY

Ok- that’s it for now! Adios!

This might have been the worst test I have ever had to study for- like I told Mom & Dad it’s hard to study for a test when everyone has the same name.  Literally every figure on our test was either Juan, Felipe, Carlos or Isabella. How am I supposed to remember the difference between Felipe III, Felipe IV, Carlos V, Alfonso X, etc?  It was pretty difficult to remember which Alfonso took over Toledo and which Felipe married a Portuguese princess.  The only thing that was easy to remember was that Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492- and I have Mrs. Neimark and the third grade to thank for that! Anyways, it wasn’t fun to actually have to do work for once but I survived and felt that the test went pretty well. But now it is time to get back to my easy life of exploration.

In other news, Maria has changed my bedding which is great. Now I don’t have to look at that creepy silk screened image of a cat every night before I go to bed.

Anyways, Lily is never a big fan of her birthday (and claims there has never been a birthday where she hasn’t cried), so Lindsey and I tried extra hard to make it special for her.  At midnight we met her outside her house with stupid gifts and flowers in tow. On Tuesday, (her actual birthday), we convinced our fav spanish teacher Vivienne to let us have a mini fiesta in class and we brought croissants and cookies and even cerveza! Here is a picture of Lily from Spanish class (with the funny birthday hat we got her and flowers from her parents:)

That night, we went back to El Lando (the restaurant Lily’s parents took us to) for a birthday dinner. It was me, Lindsey, Lily, Lindsay Goldberg and then Nicky, Jason, Alex and Dan.  We had such a great dinner- more food than you can imagine. It ended up being a really fun way to celebrate her birthday- and even the owner of the restaurant got into the celebration (but this may or may not be since he had a blatant crush on Lindsey). Lily’s mom had asked me to pick up a cake for her, so we had delicious cake at the end.  We didn’t end up leaving the restaurant until 2am!!! It was definitely a dinner to remember.

Last night we went out for a belated-birthday celebration since we were done with our midterm. We went to chapandaz and penelope and had a pretty fun night. Here are some pictures from dinner at El Lando:

We had a great time! It’s strange that it’s thursday once again- the weeks are going by so fast. Tomorrow we leave for an overnight trip to Cordoba with school, so I’m pretty excited for that. I’ll blog about it when I get home! Love you all!

On Friday, we went to El Escorial (some pictures above), which is a royal palace built by Felipe II about 30 miles outside of Madrid.  We took a bus at 9am and were there by about 10am.  El Escorial was used as a royal palace and monastery during the 16th and 17th centuries, but ever since Palacio Real was built in Madrid, it has become a tourist sight as well as a current monastery and school.  We took a one hour tour (all in Spanish!) and saw a big part of the building (although it is HUGE).  The first part we saw were Felipe II’s living quarters, and the part of the building he had designed.  He apparently was very simple and so the building was not ostentatious at all, very plain. We saw a lot of cool portraits of the royal families we had been studying, and the views were AMAZING. Here is a pic of the view from one of the windows:

We then saw more of the building that had been re-done by Felipe II’s sons, Felipe III and Felipe IV. This part was much more glamorous and beautiful- tons of marble and gold.  This is also the sight of the burials of all the Spanish kings, so we saw more marble tombs of dead royalty than you can imagine.  It was kind of creepy to think that their disintegrated bodies were 3 feet away from us. We also saw the library which was stunning.

We then hopped back on the bus and drove about 15 minutes to the monument for Francisco Franco. We haven’t learned about him in our history class yet but obviously I know the gist of his story.  Anyways, the monument is huge….you can see the gigantic cross situated in the mountains from miles away.  The grave itself is inside of a fully functioning church in the midst of this monument. Outside is a huge patio with breathtaking views. We walked through here and then got to take some pictures outside. Here are some pics:

Lindsey has moved into her parents hotel for the week, so I have been all alone in the casa. I miss her lots and it’s kind of sad to eat dinner by myself but me and Maria have had some quality bonding time. The food situation is still pretty ridiculous- she basically makes this huge vat of cold pasta and serves it to me with every meal, and then enjoys watching me pick at my food and makes fun of me.

Anyways, Renee and Allen met Lindsey at our institute after our class on Wednesday night. We showed them the institute and then walked them to our house to meet Maria.  It got a little complicated, though, since we GOT STUCK IN THE ELEVATOR.  Our elevators are SO tiny and old, they’re the kind where you open the doors manually.  We literally stepped in the elevator, it started going up, and then it stopped in between the first two floors.  We called the alarm system, and I had to try to explain, in Spanish, what had happened. Thank god I remembered the word for elevator. I was literally sweating bullets, not to mention I was still in my gym clothes and sweaty from the gym.  Anyways, we called Maria as well and in about 20 minutes someone came and rescued us, but it was a pretty funny way to introduce Lindsey’s parents to our new home and senora.

After that fiasco, I showered quickly since we had 9:30pm dinner reservations. Lily and I took the metro to the restaurant, La Mordida (Mexican food with amazing guacamole) to meet the group.  It was us, Lindsey’s fam, and three boys from Penn: Nicky, Alex and Jason.  Dinner was amazing, feeling full is such a rarity that I treasure any time I can gorge myself with food.  We had lots of nachos, chicken fajitas, and margaritas.  Renee then ordered tequilla shots for the entire table, and as if one wasn’t enough, she had us do TWO! It was pretty embarassing for all of us to be out-drank by Lindsey’s mom. Even Allen did one, which was hilarious.  After dinner, we dropped poor Mr. Gilbert off, and headed over to our favorite spot, El Tigre, with Renee in tow.  I told Renee she was hilarious and that I think mom would die if she ever came out with us, to which she responded, “No way, Barbara can rally!!!” Mom- you better get ready!! We had a few drinks at El Tigre and said goodnight to Renee before we headed to a new club called Budah Bar. It was lots of fun!

Here are some pictures from dinner:

I woke up exhausted this morning- the getting home at 5am is starting to ware me down.  Anyways, I was really excited because at 4:30pm we were meeting our history class at the Prado.  Our teacher (also the head of the program), Ray Green, met us at the entrance and gave us all tickets to get inside, even the Gilberts, which was so nice.  I absolutely LOVED the Prado- which is very strange for me because I have never been such a fan of museums.  I think being here has made me start to appreciate art a little bit more since there is so much incredible artwork here.  I have also started to find something soothing about walking around the museums and taking in all of the artwork.   The museum is so gigantic- so today Ray said we were going to focus on the Spanish painters and especially artwork that corresponds to what we have been learning in class. He was great in explaining the various paintings, and some of it was truly fascinating. It was like our own personal private tour! We mainly saw artwork by Rubens, Ribera, Greco, Murillo, and of course Goya and Valezquez.  We saw some of the most famous paintings in the world, like Las Meninas by Velazquez and The Naked Maja by Goya.  A lot of the artwork by Valezquez and Goya are portraits of royal families because they were both hired to work for the monarchy at the time.  It was really cool to see portraits of some of the people we have been learning about in class and see the incredible art work that came out of the periods we are studying. I really, really enjoyed it and am looking forward to going back as many times as I can to see the whole place.  I have also still not step foot in the Thyssen or Reina Sofia, which are the other two big museums, so I have a lot of art-inspection on my plate!

Here is a picture of our class, with Ray (on the right) outside of the Prado:

It was a great day and it felt good to finally see the ever so famous Prado. I am going to bed really early tonight because we need to meet at school at 9a.m. for our half day trip to El Escorial. Check back tomorrow for details and pics of El Escorial.

Having the Gilberts here has made me so excited for when you guys come to visit, I really can’t wait to see everyone and show you my life here.  I may live the easy life but I still do miss you lots and lots!

I woke up early on Monday morning and headed to the gym. It was probably one of the most beautiful days we have had thus far- high 70s and really sunny, not a cloud in the sky. I came back, showered, and awaited what was sure to be a delicious, gourmet meal. I was right, as always, and enjoyed my huge bowl of alphabet soup.

Since both Lily and Lindsey were with their families, I had the day to myself. I didn’t know exactly what to do, so I put in my iPod, took the metro to Chueca, and began walking around. I walked from Chueca all the way to Plaza del Sol, walked down the busy shopping street, Gran Vía, and into Plaza Mayor.  I was getting a little tired of walking with no purpose, so I decided to walk to the Prado and check out your hotel. It was my first time seeing paseo de prado (the walkway connecting the three art museums of the city), and it was absolutely gorgeous! We are going to the Prado with our class on Thursday so I am getting really excited for that. Your hotel is right in the middle of all of this hubub- it’s in a great location, and I even went inside to check out the lobby and hotel restaurant, which all looked great!! I had SO much time to kill that I even asked the front desk if they can fit two cots in one room (in case I wanted to sleep at the hotel one night…). I put my ipod back in, headed to parque de retiro (which is right by your hotel also), and walked around a little more before taking a cat nap in the grass. I looked down at my watch and couldn’t believe I had just spent 6 hours with my own thoughts, and decided it was time to go home.  It ended up being a really great afternoon- it was nice to have some alone time and explore the city on my own.

I went home to catch up on desperate housewives and brothers&sisters (my life hasn’t changed that much), and then showered to go meet Lily, Lindsey, Lindsey’s sister, and Lily’s parents for Lily’s early birthday dinner.  We went to a restaurant called El Lando, which was sooooooo good. We walked in and saw pictures all over the wall of these famous people with the owners- Tom Cruise, Eva Mendez, Zac Effron, Vanessa Hudgens, Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake….you name it! That’s when I knew it must be a great restaurant. When we arrived at the table there was already bread with tomatoes waiting for us on the table. We ordered family style and got so many different things- chicken, fish, shrimp, asparagus (which I had one of and actually liked!), the house specialty (fried potatoes with fried eggs….sooooo good), lambchops, etc.  There was so much food and it was all so good. Then we got this french toast-esque thing for dessert which was even more amazing. Let me tell you, feeling full felt GREAT. Lily’s parents were so nice and even though I had met them once briefly in L.A., it was great to get to know them. They are wonderful people! Here are some pictures from dinner:

I have had quite the day! After a nice dinner at KitchenStories in plaza del sol last night, we went out to the discotecs for our third night in a row, but called it an early night (early here = 3:30 am) so that we could wake up early and go to El Rastro (picture above), a huge outdoor flea market that happens here every Sunday.  So, Linds and I reluctantly rolled out of bed at 10:30a.m., and headed over to meet Melissa (lindsey’s sissy) at her hotel. Lily’s parents are here too, but only for 2 nights, so she was with them.  El Rastro was really fun, we roamed the streets and saw all of the different vendors, etc. It was SO crowded you could barely move, but we had  lots of fun, especially because it was 75 and sunny!!I got 2 nice scarves, one for 4 euro and one for 2 euro.

We headed back around 130pm so that we could make the family celebration at our senoras house- it was her son, Miguel Angel’s, 30th birthday.  We knew it was going to be a big ordeal since Maria and Myriam had been cooking for the past two days and a HUGE table was set for 18 people, but we had no idea what to expect.  Everyone began to arrive- Maria’s four kids plus all of their children (her grandkids).  It was a packed house.  The table was COVERED in food- shrimp, bread and cheeses, salads, duck, steak, ham…you name it! And of course tons of wine and beer.  It was SO much fun- everyone was so unbelievably nice and funny, and even Melissa (who speaks less spanish than us) had a blast.

During lunch, Patri, the 12 year old grandaughter that we know well because she is ALWAYS here, passed out little slips of paper asking if you wanted to be involved in the play. We checked yes, and were thrust into the little-red-ridinghood esque performance being developed by Patri and her other cousins. We were then proceeded to be given costumes and instructions before we performed in front of the rest of the family. It was SO funny. Here is a picture of Danny dressed up for his part (a gnome)

Here is a picture of our audience:

This is Danny and his parents (Miguel Angel, who is Maria’s son, and his wife Laura)

My supposed best friend, Lindsey Gilbert, has introduced me to what may just be the best tasting cookies I have ever encountered. Oreo Bañadas. They are white chocolate covered oreos, or in other words, heaven on earth. We now have one box which I have strategically placed high up on a shelf.

This is our nutso teacher for mujer class who left class yesterday to get us an ‘educational surprise’ and came back dressed like that.  She is absolutely nuts, but she wanted to show us what it felt like for the afghan women that we are studying- so some people in the class got to try it on.

Excited for the weekend- we had a great day yesterday. During the day we went to see the plaza de toros (we didn’t see a bullfight, we just looked around the plaza). It was so pretty and the architecture was mudejar (which means something that muslims built for christians), and we are learning about that in our history class which is NEAT. Lindsey and Lily have both been to a bull fight before and it disturbed them a lot so they won’t go see one with me. But, when Robert and Danny come Halloween weekend, they said they would go! We then went to see these supposed beautiful gardens, but after the 30 minute metro ride arrived to figure out they are closed except for on the weekends. Oh well. We rested up, had microwave pizza for dinner (she’s a real cooker that Maria), and went back to El Tigre, one of our favorite bars. This time, though, we discovered that they give free tapas with drinks, so we were incredibly satisfied. We headed over to a discotec called pacha with some of our friends which was the most fun one we have been to yet (Amy, get ready!!).  We didn’t get home until 5:30am but remembered to take off our heels so we didn’t wake Maria and Myriam.

Off to ‘body tonic’ with Lily….we think it’s a weight-aerobics class, but I will report back. Adios!!

Two days ago, I finally joined the gym! I am very happy about this because I was starting to feel a little gross without my usual exercise, and my shins were beginning to fall apart after all of the attempted running. Anyways, the task itself was a little bit confusing since they didn’t accept American Express (the only card I have left), but Lily ended up letting me charge it on her card and mom&dad will pay her parents back.

Anyways, yesterday I went with Lily to her usual spin class, which was inbetween our spanish and history classes.  It was SO much fun! I was also lucky we had just been learning the ‘parts of the body’ vocab in spanish class, so at least I was able to semi-understand what she was saying. Our teacher was most DEFINITELY high on some sort of drugs the entire class- if the 10 inch dreadlocks and ‘hippie world’ t-shirt didn’t give it away, then maybe it was the constant dancing while on the bike and the 20 minute stretching time where we basically did sun salutations to the grateful dead. It was pretty hilarious- but I never knew how much fun exercising to spanish music could be (although she did play a little destiny’s child and jay z).  Anyways, my legs are feeling sore and I am excited to go back again today.

In other news, I got a 98% on my first spanish test, which is probably the funniest news of all.

Today we are going to try to go to the zoo, but a siesta might end up trumping the lions. We will see.

Life continues to be…easy.