My mom and I flew to Madrid from Rome early in the morning. We got to our hotel, took out the Rick Steves, and then hunted down dinner on Calle Cava Baja, a street lined with incredible restaurants. We were super drained from Rome, though, so we turned in early for the night.
We then only had one full day to do things in Madrid. That whole day was spent in El Museo del Prado, which is packed with some of the most famous works of art in the world, and many of my favorite artists (Goya, I love you so).
My mom and I probably spent a good seven hours in the museum and saw pretty much everything. Then we got kicked out at closing. It was my inner art history nerd's dream.
The next day my mom and I caught a train to Sevilla. Random, but Spanish train stations are the most beautiful I have ever seen. They are so clean, and they have cool stores in them, too. I actually enjoyed being in a train station, which has never happened before.
My mom and I got into Sevilla around lunch time, so we got some tapas at a really good restaurant by the big cathedral (third largest in the world, but the largest of the gothic style) where Columbus is buried.
I got this eggplant stuff that was amazing, and a rustic salad. My mom got gazpacho and paella.
We went to see el Real Alcázar, which is this amazing palace with huge gardens.
Mudéjar style.
When the Moors occupied Spain, they were tolerant to all religions and had "convivencia," when Muslims, Jews, and Christians could live together without killing each other. The result was the Mudéjar style of architecture, a mix of Islamic science/art (they united the two perfectly), Roman arches, and gothic arches, too. I think it made for quite the cool blend.
My mom left ( :'( ) the day after, and I had the rest of the day to myself before my program started the day after. It was Sunday, however, and like it is in all of Europe, everything was closed. I just spent the rest of the day reading and watching the first half of the last season of Breaking Bad (which was EPIC btw) on Netflix.
I got up early the next day, packed up my backpack, and walked to Hotel Béquer to meet with the MCP program. We spent about five days in the hotel before meeting our host family so we could get to know each other. There are six Michigan kids, five kids from Cornell, and twenty from Penn, and out of all of them, I only knew two from Michigan before. Everyone is amazing, though, and I love them. We probably couldn't have gotten luckier as far as group chemistry goes.
We all went out for tapas along the river when we had a night free. Sevilla is beautiful at night.
The highest point in the picture is the Giralda tower, the cathedral's campanile. You can walk up there and see the whole city. It's amazing. The coolest part is that you use ramps to climb up instead of stairs, so you don't even get tired.
Our group took a bus tour around Sevilla a bit later in the week. I forget what this place is (I'm sure I'll write about it later), but it's cool, and I managed to get a decent top-of-the-bus picture of it.
We all hung out at the top of our hotel one night para legally tomar copas. You could see the cathedral really well from there. I love how they light it up at night.
My roommate Juhee and I getting photo bombed by these two crazies.
On Friday afternoon that week, Juhee and I moved into our host parent's apartment. This is our amazing view from our room.
I love my host parents already. They're super nice, and my host mom is probably the best cook ever. She makes all these good dishes and gives us SO much food. I'm going to be so fat after this program.
There's so much to do at night in Spain. People stay out super late drinking and clubbing. This is us waiting for a taxi at 3 or 4 am (that's turning in early) in Alameda de Hercules. Taxis are actually really cheap here. A metro ticket ends up costing more than splitting a cab between four people.
One of my favorite dishes, tortilla española (de patatas etc, it has many names).
Already studying before taking our siesta. It was way too hot to do anything during the day but sleep for the first two weeks here. I still have only slept under my sheets once since getting here because it's been so hot. At least it's starting to cool off at night and in the morning now.
Random observations time!:
Spanish people are all beautiful and should all be models. They're genetic masterpieces running around everywhere. Spanish women are to die for especially. But seriously, how do people this beautiful exist?? And can I have their legs, please?
The food here does not lack any salt or olive oil whatsoever.
People are outside all the time getting tapas or drinks and just chillin'. Life needs to be like that in the US.
The Spanish people are so clean, even my Japanese grandmother would approve (you know something's clean if Japanese people say it's clean).
El acento de Andalucía. It's super hard to understand, but hearing French and skipping the "s"s in basically every word has kind of trained my ear for it. When I went back to Madrid with MCP, I felt like I could understand Madrileños perfectly (if you can slightly understand someone from Andalucía, you'll be able to understand everything after that).
There are so many dogs here! None of them are neutered (like in France, too), all are friendly (dogs are different depending on where you go, which I wouldn't have thought of earlier, but it's true). I already have a dog friend here that will get her own blog post.
That's it for now though. I'm basically caught up from months of neglecting the blog (aside from all the stuff that I can't upload due to technological difficulties), and hopefully I'll update regularly from now on!
No comments:
Post a Comment