irlanda, dia de la accion de gracias y visitantes!

Okay… so yes, I was productive last Tuesday after I wrote my blog and I went and got a haircut – people tell me that they like it but I think that it’s too short. Oh well, it will grow back eventually. I didn’t teach English because the girls had religious ed. classes so I was free all day! Wednesday was a normal Wednesday – class all day but then we went to the Thyssen Museum with my culture class. It is an amazing museum – all the artwork that is in the museum belongs to the Thyssen family. Después del museo, Mateo y yo fuimos a Starbucks, donde hablamos y pasamos tiempo junto. Que cute! Viernes, fui a mi clase en la mañana, volví a mi casa donde comí el almuerzo, y después de mi clase de teatro, fui al aeropuerto para mi viaje a Irlanda. Pasé mucho tiempo en el aeropuerto, donde estudié para mi examen parcial de mi clase de cultura y civilización de España (todos los otros personas que están en mi clases estaban tomando el examen en aquel momento). Cuando volví en Dublín, tomé el autobús al centro de la ciudad, donde anduve por las calles para encontrar Chris. Fuimos al hostal y después comimos la cena. Nos quedamos en el área que se llama Temple Bar, donde hay un bar famoso con el mismo nombre. Cuando fuimos a Temple Bar, bebimos Guiness y escuchamos dos hombres que tocaban las guitarras – sin emabrgo, they played Kris Kros acoustic style. Fue muy interesante. Después de Temple Bar, caminamos a un otro bar, donde pasamos tiempo y hablamos sobre muchas cosas. Volvimos al hostal, dormimos, y nos levantamos a las 9.

Friday morning, instead of me going to Linguistics class, Chris and I ate breakfast (scones and coffee) and walked around Dublin – through Trinity College, some of the streets that were already decorated for Christmas (which we were against because it wasn’t Thanksgiving yet), and then the best part – we went to the Guinness factory! It was really cool seeing how the Guinness is made and all of the history behind it. We tasted their special edition beer and then drank our Guinness in the Gravity Bar – it had a beautiful view of the city. Afterwards, we went to the train station to buy our tickets to Galway, ate lunch, and then joined a group of about 50 – 75 other people that were pissed off because there was no more room on the train. Since we had about another 2 hours until the next train, we went to the bar and continued drinking – wow I love Ireland. Before going to the bar, we started talking to these 3 Irish men that were really upset because they were missing quality drinking hours in Galway. When we arrived in Galway, Chris and I went to his dorm, I met his roommates, and then we went out to dinner. After dinner, we went to a bar to listen to some music, where Chris had me taste Irish cider, and then we went back to his dorm to hang out and watch a movie with him roommates. It was really nice to just chill and relax with friends because it’s not something that we can really do in Madrid because of our living situations. By the end of the night, we were watching the OC and I’m really happy that Devin (one of Chris’ roommates) knew more about what was going on than I did.

Saturday morning, while it was pouring rain, Chris and I decided to go to the Arann Islands. The boat ride was ridiculous – the waves were huge. I probably flew out of my seat 3 or 4 times, and there were a lot of people that were getting sea sick. When we arrived at the island, it was still pouring rain, and therefore, we couldn’t rent bikes. Instead, we took a van tour of the island with a crazy tour guide. He wasn’t crazy in a bad way… he was just a little out there. After biting a quick bite to eat during the tour, Chris and I decided to walk to the top of the mountain in the pouring rain. The walk was a little cold, a little wet, but absolutely gorgeous. When we got to the top, the cliff just ended and the view overlooked the ocean. If I were to try to describe this view, I would say that it is probably what people thought the world looked like when they thought it was flat – they just end. Earlier when we were on the boat, Chris cracked a joke about how I may fly off the mountain. Oh wait – it almost wasn’t a joke. After near death experience number 3 with Chris, he decided that we needed to leave. The tour continued, where we saw more of the island and then we had a much calmer ride back on the boat. When we got back to Dublin, we went to the supermarket to buy some food for dinner and then we went and picked up the “magic potion”, which is sold not only behind the counter, but below the counter as well. During dinner, we watched some TV – Simpsons, English Jackass – and started drinking. When the girls from upstairs came down, we started playing some Asshole and drinking the magic potion. It was so weird drinking heavily before 23 – 23:30 à we were pretty tipsy by about 22. The first bar was fun but we were all fidgety because of the buckfast. After about an hour or 2 at the first bar, we walked through the streets to try to get into a different club for free. We ended up at another bar and when that closed, we followed our drunchies to a doner kebab shop. We ate while sitting on a bridge, which was pretty cool, but when we were leaving, I completed busted my ass. It was pretty funny because when I fell, all the guys turned around and said “OMG – are you okay?” and there I was, laughing hysterically. When we went home, we watched a little more TV and then Chris and I went to go check the score of the BC game on his computer. At about 4 am, I was pretty exhausted so I climbed into bed while I had Chris update me practically every 2 minutes. The morning consisted of waking up at 7:30am, in which I was probably still drunk, saying good-bye to Chris, sleeping the entire train ride and sleeping practically the entire flight. By the time I got on the METRO in Madrid, I finally didn’t feel like absolute crap but I did miss my stop and have to take a longer route home. I ate some dinner and then went and studied with Mat in Starbucks.

Monday fue muy aburrido. Tomé mi examen en la mañana, asistí mis dos clases y fue a Starbucks con Mateo cuando él estudiaba. Después, la cena, la tele, y dormí. Cuando me levanté a martes, estaba lloviendo como en Irlanda. Hice algunos deberes, comí con Angelines, Blanca y Iñaki y miré los Simpsons. Era irónico porque miré el mismo episodio cuando estaba en Irlanda. En la tarde, fui a mi uni para hablar con mi intercambio y asistir un ensayo para mi clase de teatro. Leímos diferente obras y aprendimos un poco sobre como actuar.

Miércoles fue como cada miércoles. Tenía mis 4 clases y mis clases de ingles con las chicas. No quiero hablar sobre mis clases de ingles – no pasó muy bien. Para la cena, comí en nuestro pequeño restaurante favorito, se llama Café del Arte, con Mateo, Hannah, Shannon (la amiga de Hannah) y Michelle. Después de la cena, patiné en el Palacio de Hielo con Amy, John, Victor, Erin, el novio de Erin, Katie y Sam. Fue muy divertido!

Jueves, fui a mi uni, volví a mi casa para almuerzo, y volví a mi uni para mi otra clase. Después de clase, Mat, Michelle y yo nos sentamos y hablamos y usamos el ordenador. Antes de nuestra cena del día de la acción de gracias, hablé con mi tía, mi prima y mi abuela que estaba en Massachussets. Mateo y yo nos reunimos con Hannah y Michelle en la Puerta del Sol y fuimos al restaurante, se llama Cornocopia, para la cena con todos de los otros estudiantes de BC. Sin embargo, necesitamos llamar a Pilar porque estábamos perdidos. Después de la cena, llamé a mis padres y hablé con mis padres, una de mis otras tías, mi hermano y mi otra abuela. Our classy Thanksgiving dinner was followed by Don Simon en Plaza Santa Ana, dancing at a bar in Plaza Santa Ana and more dancing in Palacio Galaveria.

Friday, I painfully woke up for my 10am, then came home and ate lunch with Angelines, Blanca and Miky, where we had an intense conversation about the school systems in Madrid and the US and their tuitions. After lunch, I met up with Dori, her mom, Hannah, Shannon and Shannon’s friend Sara in Retiro where they had rented rowboats. After rowboats, Shannon, Hannah, Sara and I went to go eat because the girls were hungry. Naturally, shopping followed where we all bought new outfits for the night – which may or may not have included hot pink leggings purchased from the kids section for 9 – 10 year olds. Later on in the night, I met up with Hannah, Shannon and Sara, where we had a nice little pre-game with Don and some Up the River – Down the River. So our nice, chill night in Chueca ended up being extremely hardcore. 2 clubs, tequila shots and lots of drinks later, the four of us stumbled into the hotel room and passed out hard.

Saturday morning I woke up and panicked because I thought I slept through my class – good thing it wasn’t even a week day. Hannah, Shannon and Sara went to some sort of flee market but I went home and had lunch with my señora, watched 2 Christmas movies and started studying for one of my mid terms. Saturday night, I met up with the girls after they are dinner and we went and hung out with Santiago, a bar-tending friend of Jess and Hannah. We went out thinking that it was going to be a calm night, but hmm… were we just a little wrong. 1 – Santiago kept giving us free drinks from the birthday party. 2 – We wanted to know what the score was to the BC game so we went to Dubliners, which included purchases of Long Island Iced Teas and buckets of beers. We started talking to this guy who was from NY who went to Miami and whose sister was from BC studying in Athens – weird. We ended up getting a table with them and just talking for the rest of the night. That was until we decided that we wanted food but Sprint was closed – Shannon was angry and stormed her way into the hotel room, followed by Sara waking Shannon up to go get churros. After churros, we made our way back to the hotel and once again, passed out in bed.

Sunday morning was an early wake up call to make sure Shannon made it to her flight on time. After we cleaned up the mess that was our hotel room, we took the metro to Hannah’s residencia and then took the metro to the airport. Sitting at the airport consisted of Hannah and Shannon waiting in line and Sara and I sitting, laughing hysterically at the events of the weekend. After Shannon checked in, we went to the golden arches of McDonald’s where I ordered my first McDonald’s in Spain. I hate to say this but it really hit the spot. Afterwards, Hannah and I took the metro home, I took a half hour power nap then had lunch with the family. I was even productive and started my play that I have to write for theatre. Mass and then just relaxing, watching tv… night!

cordoba y granada!

Finally – caught up! Pues, no quería salir en la noche de miércoles pero no me sentía bien pero Holly estaba aquí y quería verla. Por eso, fuimos a la Casa de la Cerveza con sus amigos y mis amigos y estaba muy divertido. Sin embargo, recibí una quemadura en mi hombre y lo dolía mucho. También, perdí mi móvil porque el se cayó de mi abrigo en el taxi. Lloré mucho jaja. Jueves, fui a mi clase, hablé con Pilar sobre mi móvil perdido, y llamamos el número de objetos perdidos. Encontramos nada. Volví a mi casa para la comida y después volví a la escuela para mi otra clase. No iba a salir en la noche porque necesitaba levantarme muy temprano para nuestra viaje a Cordoba y Granada pero asistí un botellón en Plaza de España con algunos de mis amigos y Holly y sus amigos. Cuando Holly y sus amigos salieron, Mat, Ryan y yo cantamos con algunos chicos españoles cuando Ryan también tocó la guitarra. Fue muy divertido. Cuando volví después del botellón, hablé con Jess por MSN y cuando Grey’s Anatomy terminó, la llamé por teléfono. Nuestra conversación duró más o menos 90 minutos. Depués hablé más con ella por el Internet porque no podía dormir. Cuando perdí mi conexión de Internet, me dormí más o menos 45 minutos cuando me levanté y fui a la Puerta de Alcala para nuestro viaje a Cordoba y Granada. Dormí mucho en el autobús.

Cuando llegamos en Cordoba, comimos y fuimos a la mezquita. Era muy grande y muy bonita. The Arabic artwork is absolutely amazing with all the details – I cannot believe they were able to do such amazing work without the technology that we have today. It was also interesting because in the first part of the mezquita, hay muchas columnas pero todos son diferentes porque durante la construcción de la mezquita, los árabes no tenían mucho dinero y por eso, usaban columnas de otros edificios en el área. Después de nuestro paseo, comí la cena con Mat y Katie en un restaurante de tapas muy delicioso y rico. Después, fuimos a un espectáculo de flamenco y era muy bonita. Si yo tuviera ritmo, querrían aprender como bailar el flamenco. Jaja. After flamenco, we went out with Pilar to a bar where we got a bucket of 20 beers for 20 euros – amazing! Haha

Saturday morning, we woke up early, ate breakfast and hopped on the bus for a ride to the olive oil factory. It was somewhat interesting, but the guy spoke really fast in a dialect that was hard to understand – our advisor even had some trouble. There, I bought some olive oil and then we got back on the bus for Granada. Granada was so different than Cordoba. Cordoba was very quiet, while Granada is a busy city. It was a nice difference, and even more amazing that these amazing Arabic works exist in the middle of this city. The first thing we did when we got there was eat lunch – doner kebab! – and then we had un paseo-visita por el Albaicín, un area lleno de edificios y casas árabes. Afterwards was amazing – Arabic baths and a massage. The baths were pretty much 6 different hot tubs and 1cold tub where we just say and relaxed for about 2 hours. Some people got a massage, which was just as amazing. After the baths, Hannah, Michelle, Katie, Mat and I did a little shopping where we ran into some kid from BC who is studying in Cordoba – small world. That night, we went out to tapas with Pilar and then ate some more doner kebab because we’re fat! J Esa noche, fuimos a un discoteca que se situa en una cueva. Era muy bonita, especialmente porque tiene una vista muy bonita de la Alhambra. Pasamos la noche allí, baliando y cantando, y volvimos al hotel para dormir.

Comimos un desayuno muy grande (jaja) y fuimos a la Capilla Real y la Alhambra. Both were breathtaking. We walked through the gardens, the different castles, saw all the beautiful artwork and learned a lot about the Arabic culture in Granada. After la Alhambra, we got on the bus to avoid traffic on our ride home because it was a puente. I slept a lot on the bus ride home, ate some dinner when I got home, and then went to bed because I was exhausted! Monday, oh how I love my Monday classes. In between classes, I went and got a new phone. After class, I came home, watched some TV, and Mat and I went to go get ice cream but the place was closed. I was really sad because I haven’t eaten it in a while! Oh well.

Last night, I did a lot of catching up with Caroline and Jess, which was nice! And today, I wrote two blog entries and ate lunch! Hopefully, I’ll get some work done and maybe get a haircut!

mis padresss!

10.31.07

So, i’ve pretty much started every blog off the same way – how much I am slacking with writing them. This will obviously not be as detailed because I am writing this about 2 weeks after the fact but hey – it’s better than nothing. Wednesday was a typical Wednesday – class all day. Oh! I bought my tickets to Ireland! Wednesday night, the few of us that were still in Madrid (aka those who had not left yet for their puente) went out to dinner and then to a bar. We’ve all came to one conclusion – Halloween should stay in America. It’s so weird to see people walking around in costumes when only a small population does it – plus, the costumes are a lot more original in the states.

En la mañana de jueves, fui al aeropuerto donde me reuní con mis padres! Fuimos a su hotel y caminamos por el Pardo pero no entramos porque este fin de semana, el Prado fue gratis y las colas fueron muy largas. Después del Prado, anduvimos por el Retiro, uno de mis lugares favoritos en Madrid, y no sentamos y hablamos. Tomamos el Metro a Sol, donde vimos la Puerta del Sol y Plaza Mayor. Mi mama compró muchas cosas en las tiendas pequeñas y mi padre quería matarla. En la tarde, mis padres y yo bebimos vino en Plaza Mayor. Después, volví a mi casa y un poco más tarde, nos reunimos otra vez para la cena.

Viernes, fuimos a Segovia, un viaje que me dio pena porque cuando estaba allá, tenía muchas memorias de mi viaje a España el último verano con Jessica. Sin embargo, a mis padres y yo nos gustaban el viaje, especialmente el catedral, la Alcazar, y las vistas! Cuando estábamos en Segovia, hice reservaciones en un restaurante por el móvil, una cosa que nunca había hecho. Volvimos a Madrid, comimos la cena y hablamos más.

Sábado, fuimos a Toledo, un viaje que no quería tomar porque había ido el último fin de semana. Sin embargo, mis padres habían oído que Toledo era un lugar que necesitaron ver y por eso, tuvimos que ir. Pasamos bien pero fue un día muy largo, lleno de caminando por las colinas con los rodillos malos de mi padre. Mis padres sobrevivieron y esa noche, comimos en el restaurante mexicana favorita de mis amigos y yo. Durante el día, muchos de mis amigos volvieron de sus viajes y por eso, salí con ellos después de la cena con mis padres. Sin embargo, antes de ese, Mateo vino a la Plaza Santa Ana y bebió una cerveza con mis padres y yo. Afterwards, Mat and I met up with the others and went out for a little – I think we ended up at Dreams despite our hate for it – haha. After Dreams, a few of us went to Joy, but then Greg lost his friends and couldn’t call them so we all left and called it a night.

Sunday morning, I woke up, went to Church and stopped at the bakery on the way home to pick up baked goods for lunch with my señora and my parents. Not only were the pastries amazing, but I found what I have been looking for my entire time in Spain – chocolate – banana chupa chups! It was amazing! Then I met up with my parents and took them to my house, where we ate lunch and they met my señora. I was a little nervous because I had to play translator the entire time but my señora whipped out some English that I didn’t know she had and it was a very enjoyable lunch. After lunch, we walked some more, I believe ended up in the Plaza Mayor and then we went hope to nap. Antes de la cena, corrí por el Retiro hasta de la Plaza de Santa Ana, donde se situaba el hotel de mis padres, me duché, y después, fuimos a la cena. Después, caminamos al hotel y hablamos un poco. Estaba un poco triste porque en la mañana, mis padres se fueran. Sin embargo, pasamos muy bien y los veré en más o menos dos meses. Nos dijimos “adios” y después, fui a Dubliners y O’Connell’s con mis amigos, donde miramos futbol americana antes de ir un club.

Lunes, fui a mi primera clase pero mi profesora estaba enferma. Fui al despacho de BC, escribí e-mails, y pasé tiempo con algunos de mis amigos. A las 16, fui a mi clase y creo que me quedé en mi casa esa noche pero no estoy seguro. Martes, Holly y sus amigos llegaron en Madrid pero tenía mis clases de ingles y necesitaba escribir un ensayo y por eso, no podía verla a martes. Sin embargo, hablé con ella y we decided to hang out tomorrow! Yay!