Spain, Day Thirty-Five

We finally decided to have a touristy day today for the first time since my parents arrived. Our first stop on our list was to check out the royal palace of Spain. This was truly a beautiful place. It's actually fairly new. It was burned down in the late 18th century so, this place isn't quite as old as some other royal headquarters that we have seen across Europe. There were so many elegant rooms to walk through though with exquisite artwork and beautiful ceiling frescos, which my mom thought were very fresh, indeed.

The entrance to the palace from the courtyard.

The main staircase

Mom and me in the park area in front of the palace

After about an hour and a half of touring, we headed onto our next stop, which was actually in one of the subway stops. Madrid had a seemingly cool museum all about its ancient walls, that is in the underground Opera metro location. Seeing as this was the metro stop we were already taking home, we decided it might be a neat place to check out. Well it turns out it was all in Spanish, so my parents didn't get much out of it except maybe the word for wall, which is pared by the way (shouts out to your palabra del dia). We were actually thinking it would be a pretty big museum but it only had two of the really old walls on display and then a projector with a kid's film playing on a loop, again only in Spanish. So not the most educational of visits for us English-speakers but it was still interesting to see nonetheless.

One of the ancient walls of Madrid

Another ancient wall

We finished our touring a lot earlier than expected (something my dad was rather joyous about) so we headed back to the flat to finish packing our suitcases and eat some of the leftovers we had for lunch to clean out our fridge. I managed a pretty solid siesta, logging about three hours of sleep on the couch–whoops!

For our evening plans, we decided we would hit up one last shopping area: Calle Fuencarral. This is actually a really great shopping street and we are kicking ourselves for not checking out the area earlier. Pretty much every store you could ever imagine was on this street, including about six different Zara stores. We decided not to shop since we didn't want to bring our bags with us to dinner, but for any future Madrid travelers, go here first for shopping! We ended up on Gran Via which led us to the Circulo de Bellas Artes, which was a roof-top bar where we enjoyed a few drinks and a lovely view before dinner.

Our view of the city

We landed on an Italian restaurant for our last dinner in Madrid, ordering some chorizo and mushroom pizza for my mom and I to split and a steaming plate of lasagna for my dad. It was a great meal and a wonderful way to top of our adventures in Madrid. It felt weird thinking that it was my last night in Madrid. I am so grateful for the experiences I had here but I am very excited to move on and see what Barcelona has in store for me next week.

Spain, Day Thirty-Four

For the first time since I had gotten to Spain (which is over a month at this point), it rained. And I mean it poured with thunder and lightening and everything! So what do you do when it rains? Well the first thing you do is get caught up on your blogs. But then, you make a frozen pizza and have everyone crowd around your tiny laptop screen and watch Guardians of the Galaxy (this movie has actually become the theme of our trip now so that's pretty cool). But after we finished watching Starlord and the other guardians save the planet Xandar, the rain had finally come to a halt, so we headed out to do some more shopping, naturally. We actually came across a pretty cool luxury shopping mall, which only had about twelve stores in it. There was an upscale pet store inside where I almost bought the fluffiest dog I have ever seen in my life. Sadly, there was no way to get it home though and I think my cat, Bing, would not appreciate this addition to the family, so I had to walk away.

We saw this dude while we were out and thought it looked like a good photo op. This is right outside the Madrid Wax Museum.

After our brief shopping adventure in a very upscale part of Madrid, we headed home to get cleaned up for dinner. We were excited to find a British pub in our neighborhood that was owned by a real Brit! There was no language barrier at all when we tried to order our food; it was so great! I thoroughly enjoy the tapas life here, but I was so excited so have a meat-and-potatoes meal for the first time in over a month. This brings us to today's palabra del dia, which is Inglaterra. This is just how the Spanish refer to "England" in the same way that we call their country Spain, but they call it Espana. I still think its ridiculous that we can't just call countries and cities what they want to be called but I guess nobody asked me.

One of the best meals I've had in Madrid. Don't skip out on Bristolbar if you are ever in the Chueca neighborhood!

Yes, this is me wearing a Queen Elizabeth mask...

After a delicious meal and some good photos, we headed home to start getting packed up and prepare ourselves for our last day in Madrid.

Spain, Day Thirty-Three

After our wine-tasting adventure yesterday, we were pretty exhausted, so we just decided just to take it easy and sleep in a little, and then head over to Puerta del Sol to do some shopping. The best shopping in this area is on the south side, down one of the alleys that flank the giant clock. There are tons of fun boutiques in this area as well as the ever-popular Zara and Mango. I made out with a dress, three tank tops, a fun American flag shirt for the Fourth of July, and a cute new pair of wedges. This area required a lot of Spanish translation on my end and I even learned the shoe-size system for Europe. Apparently I'm a size 41, which seems entirely too big. Things are so different over here.

Once we were done with shopping, we headed over to a restaurant that is just north of the Puerta del Sol called La Casa Labra. We went here on a recommendation by my professor for really good croquettes, and I really loved it. We tried some cod croquettes, which brings me to our palabra del dia. The word for cod is one of my favorite Spanish words simply because it is just fun to say: bacalao (pronounced "ba-ca-low"). The bacalao croquettes were surprisingly good! I was expecting a strong, fish flavor but they almost tasted like there was no flavoring in them at all. Just delicious croquette flavor. We could see the flaky white fish in it though so we know it was there. I would definitely recommend these to try, although my mom says her favorite is the jamon croquettes, so maybe you should just try an assortment if you get the chance.

After lunch we tried one last time to go to the market that my professor showed us after class one day, but it was closed for siesta so we decided it was time to give up hope and just headed back to our flat for our own siesta, which was obviously well-earned after a long day of shopping.

For dinner that evening, we decided to hit up the Mercado de San Miguel one more time for more than just dessert. Here is the progression of our foods of the night:

Dad snagged us a couple of pizzas for round one

For round two, we had an assortment of mozzarella appetizers. Some of them tasted almost like dessert!

The sweet mozzarella didn't stop us from getting real dessert though. My selections of the night were baclava, a giant raspberry macaroon, and a little blackberry pastry. The macaroon was the winner of the night. Please enjoy my contemplative face here as I enjoy the first bite.

By the time dinner was over, I was ready for some stretchy sweat pants, so we headed home early and got a good night's sleep.

Spain, Day Thirty-Two

Today was another adventure day for us. We scheduled a tour through a few wineries that are in the suburbs of Madrid! This was my first time going through any sort of winery before so I was very excited about this new experience. We'll go ahead and get the palabra del dia out of the way early this post because I know you all know it's coming. So we all know the word for wine in Spanish is "vino," but did you know the word for winery is "bodega?" Also, if you know the word for red, which is "rojo," you might assume that red wine is "vino rojo" but its actually "vino tinto," which I think just translates to "tinted wine." So there's a little vocabulary lesson in Spanish for you.

I'm going to be frank, I did not actually learn a whole lot about the process of wine actually being made. They tried to explain it to us, but between their thick Spanish accents and the growing buzz from all the wine I was tasting, I decided just to see it as an opportunity to taste different wines and see which ones I liked. Truthfully, I liked just about all of them, which is shocking considering when I was younger and my parents would let me taste their wine, I would tell them that it tasted like "every other red wine I had ever tasted," which means it was gross. It's funny how your palate can change over time. I never thought I would be a wine person, but now I kind of like it (especially in Sangria!).

So we toured three different wineries, and all before lunch so you know we were feeling pretty good that afternoon. I'm not much of a day drinker, but sipping various wines and eating meat and cheese appetizers that they prepared for us was actually pretty nice. So since I don't have much to say about the wine-making process, I'm going to split my pictures up between all of the different bodegas and just show you what I saw all day.


Bodega #1:  El Regajal

A couple of the wines we tasted. Wine is pretty cheap in Europe!

Dad and me standing in the vineyard

The wine casks. The guy showing us around actually siphoned it straight out of the cask to let us try some.

Bodega #2:  Peral

Just casually chatting with the owner. He only spoke Spanish.

The wine here was super cheap because they have these caves that keep the wine at the perfect temperature, so there is no need to have electricity and pay an unnecessary bill.

Bodega #3:  Consuelo

A couple of the wines we tasted.

The owner of the place showing us the different tools her family used to use to gather and press grapes about 100 years ago.

Our tour guide divvying up the goods. We also had some really good olive oil at this place.

After a long afternoon of taste-testing and making new friends, we crashed pretty hard back at our apartment. I actually was feeling a little too sugared-up from all of the wine so I decided to stay in and relax while my parents went out to dinner across the street. They informed me that they were missing their translator a bit while they were out and had to just point to what they wanted on the menu and smile and nod. It's good to know that I'm finally contributing to this family in some way, haha. Needless to say, I went to sleep pretty early that night and slept in a good bit the next day too.

Spain, Day Thirty-One

Today, we decided to do something a little unconventional for a city vacation: we went hiking. One of the very few awesome things about Madrid is that it has the mountains right up next to the city. So after an hour train ride to the outskirts of the city, we found ourselves in the quiet town of Cercedilla (pronounced like "sir-say-dee-ya"). Once we arrived, we trekked up the hill for about a mile and a half, only to find that the visitor's center with all of the maps for the trails to be closed. Fortunately, they had a bulletin board outside their office with a map of all of the trails and their difficulties. We decided on a one and a half hour trail called "camino del agua" which translates to "water walk" (hooray for palabras del dia and for learning things!).

Dad and me inspecting the trail map

It actually didn't have all that much water along the trail except for during just the first twenty minutes of the walk, where we found some nice creeks and ponds. They served for some good photo op stops but not much else. They weren't very big.

Little creek #1

Little creek #2

The rest of the walk was an uphill rock climb for about twenty minutes and then downhill the rest of the way until we were spit out in the town of Cercedilla. We had planned on getting a drink or something from the town and just check out what small-town life in Spain is like, but we couldn't find anywhere to go. It was all just apartments everywhere. We came across two restaurants, but they were only open Wednesday-Sunday, and it was Tuesday. So we ended up just walking back to the train station that was on the outskirt of the town. Fortunately, there was a little bar open next to the station where we had a beer. My parents struggled with the language barrier a little here since it was a small town, which meant pretty much no English-speakers. When I explained to our bartender that my parents only spoke English, he was excited to use what seemed like it was his only English phrase, "Do you like Spanish?" Thinking back, we think he might have meant Spain, but he could have also meant spinach because his pronunciation was a little off. All in all, we enjoyed our hike and getting some fresh air in the mountains. Here are some photos of our adventure along the trail:

Walking along the trail

Having lunch on a boulder

Couldn't pass up an opportunity to "throw what I know" in the mountains

After another hour-long train ride back to Madrid that was significantly hotter than the first one, we were rather exhausted and decided to siesta back at the apartment for a while and then head over to a restaurant that was just around the corner to get some Italian food for dinner. Although it was certainly not as good as what I had in Rome, my mushroom risotto was still better than what we have back in the U.S. Another exciting point of dinner was dad accidentally catching his breadsticks and then, consequently, the table on fire just for a brief minute, but that's a story for another time.

Spain, Day Thirty

For my first full day with my parents, we decided to begin our day by going to El Rastro flea market. This is a street flea market that only occurs once a week (Sundays from 9 am to 2 pm). I'm not much of a flea market person myself, but I do enjoy finding hidden treasures, and according to Rick Steve's, one in every ten things you find there is supposed to be a treasure. While I'm sure there was some really neat stuff there, we were more annoyed with how crowded the streets were and how everything kind of looked like junk rather than treasure so we did not stay long. Even if we would have wanted something, it was all larger-than-average, trinket-type things as well as some paintings, so we would have had a really difficult time getting everything back to the U.S. The only purchase of the day for us was a pair of sunglasses for my dad, which we are a little unsure if we were supposed to barter on or not, so we may have gotten ripped off. Still, ten euros didn't seem like a bad price for a pair of cheap sunglasses and I'm not sure my Spanish skills are at the level they need to be in order to knock a few euros off the price.

Casually strolling El Rastro in a surprisingly uncrowded area of the market

After our (mis)adventure at the Rastro, we decided it was time for a small snack. Truthfully, it was actually time for lunch but we had a big breakfast that day–which was very un-Spanish-like because their breakfast consists of toast and a piece of fruit–so we just wanted something little and quick. We found ourselves in the lobby of San Gines, the churros and chocolate place I had gone to with Maria a few weeks back. Mom and Dad enjoyed trying the local treat even though I still don't think it's my favorite–it just taste like fried nothingness dipped in chocolate. Even the chocolate is a little too bitter for my taste. I'm glad someone likes it though.

We walked around for a little while longer before heading back to the flat for a siesta and to figure out our plans for the rest of the night, which only consisted of grabbing a beer and tapas from one restaurant just off the Puerta del Sol and then getting some more tapas from another restaurant in the Plaza de Santa Ana called El Lateral. We had an assortment of tapas from this one, which consisted of ham croquettes, mushroom croquettes, a sirloin and brie slider thing, and fried artichokes. This brings me to our palabra del dia. The word for artichoke was actually one I learned that night from a Spanish girl sitting at the table next to us who asked us what we were eating. I described it in Spanish and told her I didn't know the exact word for it, to which she replied was "alcachofa," which is pronounced exactly how it looks. So after a night of stuffing our faces with tapas and learning new words, we decided to head to bed early because we had a very early adventure planned for the next day.

Spain, Day Twenty-Nine

Today was a transitional day for me that began at about 9 in the morning with breakfast and some goodbyes. I had packed all of my stuff up from my host mom's house and was getting ready to head over to my parent's flat for the remainder of my stay in Madrid. My roommate, Maria, decided to come hang out with us for a little while too since her flight out of Madrid wasn't until about midnight anyways. So on this Saturday morning, we gathered our things and said a final goodbye to our host mom–not without taking a selfie before we left though.

In Spanish, selfie just means selfie

Surprisingly, our flat was already cleaned and ready for check-in when we arrived at the new location. The housekeeper let us in and gave us the lowdown of the place. She only spoke Spanish though so I got the full blast of how everything works and had to translate for my parents. That was quick enough though, so after the housekeeper left, we unpacked our things and then headed out to explore the area a little bit. I had actually mapped out a good shopping area for us to check out for this adventure, which led us to the Tiffany and Co. store, where mom and I purchased some charms for our Tiffany travel bracelets. We decided to go with a bear charm because of the bear statue that is in Puerta del Sol because it is a pretty big symbol for the Madrid area and Spain doesn't actually have a specific charm from the Tiffany collection. We had no problem taking the creative liberty to decide on the bear though.

This is my charm. Mom got a similar one but it was a 3D bear instead of flattened.

After shopping was done, we headed over to El Corte Ingles, which had a rooftop restaurant called the Gourmet Experience. I don't know how gourmet it actually was but we tried some interesting things, the weirdest of which being pig's ear, which brings me to our palabra del dia. If you ever want to know how to say pig's ear for whatever reason you encounter, it is said "oreja de cerdo." Honestly, it tastes exactly how you might expect a pig's ear to taste. But yeah, it wasn't my favorite but I'm glad I tried something new. By the time we were finished eating, my jet-lagged parents were pretty sleepy so we decided to head back to the flat and siesta for a little while.

Once we woke up, Maria decided it was time for her to head on over to the airport, so we said our goodbyes and bid her farewell. Then it was off to the grocery for us. One of the things I really like about Europe is that each neighborhood has its own little grocery, which I think is way more convenient than the mega-groceries that we have back in the U.S. Although, my parents had a few difficulties understanding what some of the foods were since the labels were in Spanish, but I was happy I was there to translate for them.

After unpacking our groceries and having a little snack, it was nearing dinner time (for Americans) so we decided to do a little exploring in downtown Madrid before sitting down for our meal. We decided to go to the area I know best: Puerta del Sol. We walked from the bear statue to Plaza Mayor, where we had a few tapas before dinner. My parents discovered they really enjoy the Tortilla de Patatas here, which is a classic Spanish dish.

The famous bear and tree statue.

Dad found his Spanish ancestor at the tapas restaurant in Plaza Mayor

After our tapas appetizer, we headed over to our restaurant, Las Cuevas de Luis Candelas, which was an underground cave restaurant that had lots of bull fighting history in it. After our long and slow dinner, we stopped across the street at the Mercado de San Miguel (obviously my new favorite place) to look around a little and then grab some ice cream. We headed home early so that everyone could get a good night's sleep before our first full day together in Madrid.

We had some live entertainment at dinner!

Spain, Day Twenty-Eight

My last full day at my host mom's house began with a bit of good news. Around 11 a.m., ISA (the company we used for our study abroad program) called to let us know that our luggage (today's palabra del dia: equipaje, pronounced "eh-key-paw-hey") had arrived from Rome! We were actually already on our way out the door when they called so it couldn't have been more perfect timing. So naturally, we raced to the ISA office, where we were already headed to return a book and our Spanish phones, and picked up our long-lost luggage of five days. We had really started sweating considering Maria had to leave the next day and the ISA office was going to be closed then, so this was really the last possibility for us to get our suitcase. So after we ran our errands, we came back to our host mom's to unpack it and then start repacking for our exit the following day. We really spent most of the afternoon tidying everything up and just relaxing. I finished the book I was reading (Outlander by Diana Gabaldon if anyone is curious, and yes I recommend it!), which was perfect timing since I had arranged for my parents to bring me the sequel when they arrived the next day.

After we got everything organized, we had a quick dinner and then decided to head out to the Mercado de San Miguel for some dessert. This market is very similar to the one from my Seville trip, if you can recall that blog post from about two weeks ago (time flies, huh?). There were little kiosks set up all across the building with different themes. Although I spotted a mozzarella stand that had some delicious looking cracker/cheese combos, I headed for the dessert where I had a refreshing glass of sangria and some chocolate mousse pastry thing. A perfect way to top off the wonderful program we had with UK Education Abroad.

Cheers to a great program!

On our way home from San Miguel, we actually ran into some of our roommates at 100 Montaditos (where else? It's everyone's favorite place) and sat down for yet another snack and some small talk. And then even more of a coincidence, the army boys from the previous night at Kapital walked by our table. It was only two guys from the group of nine but they still chatted with us for an hour or two anyways. It was actually a really fun night filled with lots of laughter and even a proposal–be sure to congratulate my roommate Maria on her engagement!

The happy couple (they were just being goofy, this isn't real)

It was really a superb way to finish up my program. I couldn't be more pleased with how the first leg of this trip wrapped up, and am very excited to see how the next part with my parents goes.

Spain, Day Twenty-Seven

Today was very much a relaxing day for me. It was the first official day that I had no obligations for my class any longer and I was free to do as I pleased. I slept in until 10:30, had my usual breakfast of toast with Nutella, and then slept for another hour. My main mission for the day was to get all caught up on my blog posts on here, as well as finish my last homework blog for my class. I also had to complete a survey for the UK Study Abroad website to discuss my time here in Spain in order to receive the credit I earned here (side note: I got an A!). So after I managed to get all that stuff under control, I was pretty exhausted, so I took another nap naturally. Then once I woke up, I started planning out the next leg of my trip, Madrid con mis padres! If you haven't guessed it, that phrase is our palabra del dia. Con = with, mis = my (plural), and padres = parents. So, Madrid with my parents. I have become quite fond of Madrid since I have been spending so much time here, but I unfortunately don't have much to say about its tourist attractions. There just aren't as many sights to see like there are in London, Paris, or Rome. So much to my dad's dismay, I have scheduled shopping trips in various neighborhoods pretty much every day.

After I had made our schedule and gotten it padre approved, I decided I should probably get some fresh air and leave the apartment. It was also right about dinner time, so Maria and I scarfed down a quick dinner at our host mom's apartment and then headed to the streets. Our main attraction for the night was a club called El Kapital. It's actually a pretty Americanized club. It has seven floors, each with its own music theme. My favorite was the main floor, which just had regular American music. It was rather expensive to get in though (€18! But it comes with one free drink). We also managed to make some friends while we were there who go to Citadel in Charleston, SC. All in all, a pretty fun night but I don't know that I'm looking to go out to a club that expensive again. 

Spain, Days Twenty-Five & Twenty-Six

Sorry for another double post, but there really just wasn't much that happened either of these days so I decided to combine them. On Tuesday, we had our second to last day of class where a couple of our classmates gave their student presentations since they were leaving the next day. Then after class, I ventured home for lunch and to begin working on my own presentation. This was actually what I spent most of my day doing since I hadn't started my presentation yet and I was presenting it the next day, but more on that later. Around 8:30, I headed over to the Opera metro station to have dinner nearby at a restaurant called "El Excentrico" with my classmates. We had a four course dinner, which consisted of a round of tapas, some seafood paella, something very similar to pot roast, and then a chocolate hazelnut brownie for dessert. There was also a Flamenco show happening in the basement of the restaurant which we caught glimpses of when we would go downstairs to use the bathroom. I don't know if you've ever watched a Flamenco dancer before but it was REALLY intense. It's certainly not a happy dance. It seemed to embody struggle and hardship. It was very slow, with sudden spurts of rapid movement and lots of stomping and loud movement. I am definitely interested to see more though. My parents and I have planned a Flamenco pub crawl for next week, so hopefully I will have more information on that later. Dinner didn't get over until about 11:30, which meant I got home around midnight, which also meant that I was going to have to stay up super late (or early if you choose to see it that way) to finish up my presentation. Unfortunately, I only got about five hours of sleep that night, which was just enough for me to have a little bit of energy to present and then relax for the rest of the class until I could go home to sleep again.

The next morning came bright and early considering the lack of sleep I received. I was feeling about as prepared as I could be though, and volunteered early to do my final presentation in class. I think I had a pretty interesting presentation, although I'm sure it's not everyone's cup of tea. I decided to go through the history of Spain in its entirety and demonstrate this history through the art that has been produced over the years. I began with ancient times when there were cavemen who painted animals on the walls of the Altamira Cave on the northern coast of Spain, up through the Moorish reign from 711 AD to 1492 which ended when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella conquered the Moors. I touched on the monarchical line which has some pretty interesting connections in other countries such as the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella was Catherine of Aragon, who married King Henry the eighth of England who is infamous for his six wives and creating the Anglican church because the Catholic church wouldn't grant him a divorce. Then I talked about Spain's golden age that was filled with beautiful art, literature, and lots of riches coming in from the New World. I discussed the French occupation in Spain after their golden age petered out, which led to a revolt, independence, and then civil war in the 20th century. Then I wrapped it all up by discussing the Fascist dictator, Franco, who ruled Spain from the end of the civil war in 1939 to 1975, which was the year of his death, after which the monarchy was reinstated and a parliamentary system was put in place. And all of this was in much greater detail and in Spanish. It took about 20 minutes for me to get through my whole presentation which was significantly over the time limit but I suppose it was better to overprepare than to underprepare. This brings me to our palabra del dia. Since I was so prepared, you could say that I was "lista" which means that I was "ready" to take on my presentation. This word also in the masculine form, "listo," is a way that Spaniards describe a man who has a good job, is handsome, and very successful. So be careful how you use it! After I got home from class though, I was pretty exhausted and ready for a nap. I didn't even hear my alarm clock go off and ended up sleeping for almost four hours. So you could say I was pretty tired. I didn't really do much for the rest of the day though. Now that I finally was finished with my class, I decided to get all caught up on my blogs and begin planning what I was going to do next week when my family arrives in Madrid, only a mere three days from now!

Spain, Day Twenty-Four

For my first full day back in Spain, we had another classroom day trip. This one was to Cuenca, Spain, which a very remote town about two hours south east of Madrid that has a population of 3,000 people. Surprisingly enough, this is still a pretty heavy tourist location, despite its size. Our first stop on our excursion was to the Ciudad Encatada, which you may have guessed is going to be our palabra(s) del dia. This phrase breaks down into two words, ciudad meaning city and then encatada which means enchanted. So there you have it, The Enchanted City. It actually wasn't even a city. It was a park. But not like a city park with lots of grass and people lounging and walking with their dogs. It was like a mini-sized geographical park with lots of rock formations. This was actually the highlight of the day for me. The rock formations (about 15 in total) were dispersed on a loop and had been given names based on what they looked like, most of which were animals. My favorite was "The Seal," which is pictured below. Can you see it?

I think the head is supposed to be the big blob at the top and then there is maybe a ball sitting right next to it?

After about an hour in the park, we hopped back on the bus and headed over to the actual city of Cuenca, where we lunched in a nearby park (a grassy one with lots of people) before heading up the mountain to view the ancient part of the city. The neat thing about Cuenca is that is super old and still standing. Most of the buildings ranged from 200-500 years old here and they were all built up on a cliff that was right off the mountain. I bet living there makes for a really great view all the time but I just don't know if I could live in such a small town. There just isn't much to do in that area. There are about forty churches and a few restaurants but I feel like I would get so bored just looking out my window all the time at the nice view. Not for me. Here are some neat pics I took of the nice view though.

I couldn't believe how clear the water in the river was. I think our guide told us that they treat it.

Another pretty spectacular view from the top of the mountain

Since this trip was so far from Madrid, we didn't make it back until about 8 p.m., and needless to say, we were exhausted from hiking all over the mountain all day. We quickly ate dinner and then went to bed early. We certainly needed as much sleep as we could get, since our energy levels were pretty low after an adventurous weekend in Rome and then a really long day trip to Cuenca.

Italy to Spain, Day Twenty-Three

I remember saying on the last night we had in Rome how other than the bad stuff we had to get through in the beginning of the trip, we had a really amazing time and thought it was smooth sailing from there, but apparently I was wrong. So the previous day, I had arranged for a cab to come pick us up at 6 a.m. to take us to the airport since our flight was at 8:45 that morning (side note: today's palabra del dia is "temprano" which means "early". Our flight was too temprano for my taste). Well, if you know me at all, you know that I'm not much of a morning person, so I waited until like 5:40 to roll out of bed and started doing the bare minimum to get ready. The cab company calls me at 5:50 to tell me that the cab is already outside our hostel, so I start freaking out that the cab is going to leave without us and quickly finish getting myself ready, grab my carry on and purse, and run downstairs, leaving Maria to zip up the suit case we were sharing for the weekend. Well, we were told by the hostel owner just to leave our key in the room since the office wouldn't be open for us to return them at the time that we were leaving and I guess Maria forgot to grab our suitcase when she left because she walked out of our room that is a self-locking door without it. She immediately realized once she was out of the room what had happened but it was too late to do anything about it and the hostel owners were nowhere to be found. We did the only thing we could think to do and left the hostel without our bag with the hopes of contacting the hostel owner once we got back to Spain and have him ship it to us.

So this was already a rocky start to the day, but we managed to get through it. We made it safely onto our first flight, which went to our connection in Munich and then onto Madrid. It was a little early this time for beer so instead I sampled some German fare instead. I also made sure to get some German chocolate which came in a cute, collectable tin to bring back home with me.

While in the airport in Munich, I shared a pretzel and some German weiners, as the sign said. It was very good! I definitely want to go back to Germany at some point.

Our second flight had an extremely rocky landing but we made it home in one piece and had brief ride back to the flat from the metro. Once we arrived home, some story-telling commenced when we saw our host mom who wanted to know about all of the adventures we had. It was a little difficult to retell the stories of the pickpocketing and how Maria forgot our suitcase in Italy in Spanish for her, but she got the gist of what we were saying and was very concerned for us.

Fortunately, regarding our suitcase, the hostel owner responded to an email we had sent him while we were waiting in the airport in Rome and said he would be happy to take our suitcase to the post office the next day to ship it to us. So we have been surviving without makeup and some toiletries for a bit, but at least we will hopefully be seeing our belongings in the near future. The rest of the day consisted of sleeping and blogging. But mostly sleeping as you can tell from how late this blog is getting posted. All in all, it was a crazy Roman adventure. I could do without the pickpocketing issue but if I had the choice to go back to Rome, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Italy, Day Twenty-Two

Our second day in "The Eternal City" (that's Rome if you didn't catch on) was wonderful and without crime or worry, which was seemingly becoming the norm for us so we were quite happy. Since we ran out of time yesterday due to the fiasco where we couldn't find each other, we started the day a little earlier than planned and made our first stop the Roman Colosseum. This was seriously one of the coolest places I have ever been in my life. It is just so old! And what went down there is just crazy. It actually wasn't called the Colosseum in the beginning. Originally, it was named the Flavian Amphitheater but obviously due to its "colossal" size, it became the Roman Colosseum. This amphitheater could home 50,000 fans and took less than ten years to build, which is pretty short when you consider its size and the intricacy with which it was built. It is actually still in pretty good shape. Other than a decent portion of the outside wall being gone (mostly because people used it as a quarry to build other things like St. Peter's Cathedral in the Vatican) and the main stage floor missing, the rest of the original building was still in tact with little restoration involved. The original flooring consisted of wooden floor boards that had a layer of sand sprinkled over the top. It's interesting that they called this part the arena because when we hear the word arena, we think of this kind of place, but arena actually means sand in Italian, which is where the name came from. The Colosseum was free and open to the public because it was built to celebrate man's conquest over nature, so it had to be free for the public to partake in this celebration. I don't know what kind of celebration involves killing slaves, animals, and many innocent people about every five minutes on the day of a show but apparently the public seemed to like it. Here are some neat pics that I took while I was there:

This is across the street and I still couldn't even fit the whole thing in my camera frame.

This is the inside. The oval part is the arena. As you can see, the original flooring is gone. All of those little rows that would have been under the floor are actually elevators that the victims/subjects/entertainment were put into for a neater entrance to the stage.

This is a sign on the outside of the building that shows that original name of the Colosseum in Latin.

After our detour to the Colosseum, we began the day's main plans, which involved a trip to the Vatican City. We decided to go see St. Peter's Basilica first, which was one of only two attractions in the Vatican, and upon our arrival, we were greeted with a gigantic line that we stood in for almost two hours just to gain admittance. Granted, it was free to get in so long as you complied with the strict dress code of no shoulders and no knees showing. Fortunately for me, I had downloaded a free Rick Steve's audio tour of this cathedral and he had some general history and fun facts that I could learn about before the actual tour started so I listened to those for about twenty minutes while I waited in line. Apparently the square outside the cathedral used to be a race course where they slaughtered Christians for entertainment. How ironic right? There is also a huge obelisk (which is like a tall statue that kind of looks like the Washington monument for those that don't know) that was originally erected in Egypt over 2000 years ago. It was moved to the Vatican after the pharoahs fell to the Romans. The pope also lives just off of this square. Here is a picture of his apartment:

So the building directly behind the obelisk is the pope's building. His apartment is on the top floor of the building and his bedroom window is all the way to the right on that floor

Once we finally made it inside, we were all blown away by the sheer size of the building. This is the largest cathedral in Europe (if not the whole world?) and it totally lived up to its massive reputation.

Me in front of the Cathedral entrance

The main hall to the cathedral

The main alter area in the basilica

 After our visit in the cathedral, we walked over to the other side of the Vatican to visit the Vatican Museum, which is home to the famous Sistine Chapel. I actually expected the chapel to be a lot bigger than it is. Do not interpret this as it is less impressive because it is absolutely incredible and my favorite art that I've ever seen, but I was just expecting a much larger building. It was probably the size of a Walgreens pharmacy store. Maybe even a little bit smaller. Unfortunately, pictures were prohibited, something they were very strict about. I was yelled at for even having my phone out to listen to my Rick Steve's audio guide. So even though I couldn't take pictures, I found some neat tapestries and maps outside the chapel that were pretty cool that I could take pictures of:

A tapestry depicting Jesus emerging from his tomb after his crucifixion

Another tapestry depicting the murder of Julius Caesar

A map of Italy that was made in the 15th century. Pretty good for not having Google maps if you ask me.

By the end of our museum tour, we were ready for a break and more importantly, some food. We made a pit stop at a local pizza joint right next to the Vatican museum that even had a 20% student discount! Score. I forgot to take a picture of my food this time, but just to clue you in, I split a pizza with my friend Mandie that had salami, sausage, and mushrooms on it (it actually came out with each topping separated on the pizza so there was only sausage on one third, salami on another third, and then mushrooms on the last third which we thought was weird but it was still good) and then I ordered a small plate of tomato bruschetta.

We shopped our way back to the metro station where I purchased a Roma, Italia t-shirt which is super soft and comfortable. I love it. We also made another stop at the Spanish Steps one more time just to see what it looked like in the daylight. It was about the same, and if it is possible, there were even more selfie stick salesmen there. We then went back to our hostel to clean up before dinner and rest our throbbing feet. Literally, my feet were so sore that even while I laid on my bed, not using them at all, I could feel the pain in the soles of my feet. Ouch. We rested for an hour, which was not enough for my poor feet, but I trekked on anyways.

We decided that we wanted to see the Trevi Fountain as our last stop on our Roman tour and then just grab dinner in the area by the fountain. Seriously, that was definitely the cutest area of Rome that we went to. If you ever go to Rome, don't leave out the Trevi Fountain because everything was just amazing over there. The fountain itself was actually under construction and was mostly drained except for a tiny portion where you could throw your coins in if you wanted to make a wish. This brings us to today's palabra del dia. The Spanish word for fountain is "fuente". For some reason, my tendency is to use "fontana" for fountain in Spanish, but that's not even a word so I don't know where I got that from. So this is a good reminder for myself just as it is a learning experience for you.

Making a wish in the Trevi Fountain

We hit up one more pasta restaurant for our grand finale of Italy, where I had the best spaghetti with meatballs of my life. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to go back to my meat-flavored Ragu sauce when I get back to the States; this pasta may have ruined me for all other pastas ever. But definitely don't skip this classic dish if you ever go to Italy because it was just great. We topped off the night with one last gelato and then headed to bed for our early flight the next day.