Hola todos! I knew that this would be an amazing trip and everyone would be curious to know all about it so I figured I would do what my fellow classmates and friends are doing and post a blog along my travels. Thank you to my cousin Hillary for sparking my interest in doing these as well, since she had a blog during her trip across Europe. My writing is nowhere near the level of hers but I hope I can keep you interested in my experiences. Enjoy!
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| My roommate Kandace |
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| Bridgette, Sarah, Caroline, Kandace, and me |
After being up for nineteen hours straight and traveling for seventeen of those hours I finally arrived in Madrid, Spain with a few fellow ISA students. ISA stands for International Studies Abroad, the company working with my university at home and here in Spain for the semester. At the airport we met with the rest of the ISA students coming in on other flights and from there we took four buses to our hotel nacional. A side note for my dad, you thought I brought a lot of stuff with me, you should see some of these girls and all of the things they brought! Not much to my surprise everyone had at least as much luggage as me (two pieces and a backpack) but many had two extra large suitcases a duffle bag and a carry on bag. It’s been pretty interesting watching them lug all of it around! Anyways, at the hotel I met my roommate for the semester, Kandace, and we got settled into our room then ventured out into Madrid for lunch. This was a true test of my spainsh! Kandace has just begun learning Spanish so we are helping each other but where we decided to have lunch the people didn’t know one bit of English. It was an experience but one of many great meals we enjoyed in Madrid. Later we took a bus tour of the city, visited a museum and once again looked for somewhere to eat. Even though exhausted we soon learned that the lifestyle is a bit different than in America. They do have siesta around 2pm with lunch, dinner isn’t held until around 9pm, and the night can go on till fairly late. That first day was pretty rough on us having not slept in over 24 hours and on the go most of the day, however it was pretty amazing to be in such a great city. Madrid is full of life and museums and things to see.
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| El Palacio Real |
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| El Museo Prado |
Day two started early with not much sleep but it was well worth getting up for. We started by visiting the Museo del Prado, which holds many of the great Spain paintings such as Los Barrachos, Las Meninas, La cruxificion, and many others by the famous artists el Greco, Velazquez, and Goya. Next we went to the Palacio Real, which holds so much history for housing the royal family of Spain for so many years. It was an incredible building and blows my mind on the intricacies and richness. Today the king and queen live in a palace on the outskirts of the capital Madrid but will dine and stay there on very special occasions. After that visit and few of us girls decided to grab lunch at a local cafeteria and unfortunately got completely ripped off. After much hostility from the servers and many misunderstandings, we were faced with a bill of 91 euros (around $124). Thank goodness the food was good but I definitely learned my lesson and will never put myself in that position again. We had the rest of the day to do what we wished so many of us took that time to catch up on sleep and then we enjoyed a great night out in Madrid.
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| Over priced lunch in Madrid - Paella & pasta |
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| Beautiful Toledo |
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| Toledo |
Unfortunately we enjoyed our night a little too much and had quite a rough ride into Toledo in the morning. However, the beauty of Toledo was breathtaking. The entire city is very historical and has such an old world feel that you couldn't help but fall in love. There we visited a few museums in the heart of the city and spent time enjoying the city and a great lunch. Tonight most of us are staying at the hotel relaxing and preparing for our eight hour bus trip to Sevilla. Tomorrow is the day we get to Sevilla and finally meet our homestay families. Wish me luck on the bus ride! I will update you once I am settled!
-Val
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| Cathedral in Toledo |
ps. didn't realize how poorly this was written until I caught up on some sleep and reread it, I do apologize and hopefully future posts will be much easier to read! Sorry!
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