Family's Visit to Spain!!!

Palacio Real Album

Sorry about the lack of posts, I really haven't done much so there was not much to write about, however, my family did visit last weekend and now I have a lot more material to write about!

My family flew into Madrid on Friday morning, which meant I had to wake up before the sun was up to go pick them up at the airport which is about an hours worth of train and metro rides away. Oh well, I got peanut butter and jelly out of it (which is very difficult to find here) so I guess I should not complain too much. Once I met them at the airport we hopped back on to the metro and took it to the hotel that we were staying in for the weekend.

We stayed at a hotel just a short walk from the "Plaza del Sol" which is the very heart of Madrid and is comparable to NYC's Time's Square without all of the advertisements and skyscrapers. Also, from above, the streets branching off from the plaza create the effect of the rising sun, quite cool city planning even centuries ago. After we got to the hotel, everyone decided it would be best to take showers and relax a bit before embarking on our tour of Madrid. We took a free tour (the same company as the one in Dublin) around Madrid and the tour guide was very informative and provided a lot of history of the city and country that I didn't know yet. After the tour, we were all pooped and we decided to get something for dinner and go back to the hotel and sleep...

...no one set an alarm so we all ended up sleeping for 11 hours! I'm pretty sure everyone needed it though, so it wasn't so much of a bad thing. It did take a while for everyone to get ready to leave (about 2.5 hours) therefore we got a late start to the day. We found a pretty decent pizza place for some grub then we headed over to the Palacio Real to take a tour. When we got there we found out there was free entrance for families larger than 5! Needless to say, my dad was pretty happy with that. We spent quite a long time in the Palace and all of us took a bunch of pictures and toured the exhibits and the rooms of the palace, it was quite impressive and apparently it's the biggest in all of Europe because it has 4 levels underground. Check out my pictures on the link at the top of the post!

After the palace, we took the subway over to the Parque de Retiro, Madrid's Central Park but bigger (I think). It was quite a lovely day, so the park was filled with families and sunbathers taking in the glorious day. We spent some time there looking at a few of the wonderful views the park provided before we headed over to the Prado art museum for their free entrance hours. When we go to the museum the line was incredibly long so we decided not to get in it and just wait to see how fast it moved. To our luck, the line moved very quickly and after we saw this we decided to get in line and within 15 minutes we were in one of Europe's best art museums. We meandered around until the allotted time of the free visit was up and saw some stunning masterpieces from French, Spanish, Italian artists and ancient Roman sculptures, among other things. Once we were done visiting the Prado, it was back to the hotel after a long day of sightseeing plus we had an early wake up call to go to the largest flea market in Europe...

...El Rastro awaited us as we woke up early (it still took us quite a bit of time to get ready but nearly as bad as the day before). If you can imagine a place where basically everything you want is in one place (for pretty good prices too) the Rastro is what you are thinking of. We meandered all the booths that lined the street blocked off for foot traffic only on Sundays looking for anything that caught our eyes. I ended up getting a knock off Liverpool soccer jersey and a Holland soccer shirt for 15 euros combined (let's see how long they hold up though). After we finished shopping, the boys decided to go up to the Bernabeu Stadium to see if there were any tickets available for that afternoon's game. We took the metro packed full of fans and started walking towards the stadium after climbing four flights of stairs to ground level. Once we found the ticket window, we were informed that the only tickets remaining for the game were 60 euros and they were not together. So we grabbed a few cokes and just sat outside the stadium watching the mass of people swarm to the stadium and then once the game started there was no one to be seen except for the police. We found a place to watch the first half of the game then decided to take the Metro back early in order to avoid all the crowds and we got back to the hotel and watched Barcelona score 6 goals on an ineffective Malaga team. Dinner was next on the agenda and then we all headed to bed early for our trip to Alcala in the morning.

We took the train to Alcala and met my host mom in the plaza and she took us to a place to have chocolate with churros. Mmmm, I think everyone needs to try chocolate with churros at some point in their life, it's well worth it. After churros, we went over the main university campus and took a tour of the campus. The tour guide spoke only Spanish, so I got to translate what I could understand (most of what she said) to English for my family. Although, we did use an audio guide in English so we could get a better understanding of each place. At noon, my mom, David, and I met my host mom to go over to my host sister's school to talk with the director of English studies about setting up a pen pal program. We went to two different classes where the kids asked my mom and I questions and English. I was very impressed by there level of English and I hope my mom can set up the pen pal program because I think it could be a great experience for her kids and the kids here. Next, we visited a palace/museum building here in Alcala which was quite impressive for its small stature. Once we finished visiting the palace we returned to the hotel in Madrid, ate some dinner, picked up some souvenirs and then I returned to Alcala to finish up my homework and get some sleep before class the next day.

All in all, it was a very fun weekend and I was very glad to see my family. Tomorrow I am going to another football game but this one should be way more exciting than the other two I have been to. It is a World Cup Qualifying match between Spain (FIFA #1) and Turkey (FIFA #11). If you are having problems viewing the photo albums, let me know and I will try to correct the problems.

That's it for now.

-Jamie

Second Day in Madrid

For the second day, I went and visited Madrid. I met at the train station at about 10AM and rode the train and metro to the Puerta de la Sol. First we visited the Parque del Retiro which is like Madrid's version of Central Park but is much better (in my opinion). The park had so much to see and we only saw about half of it. There were street performers all around a lake situated in the middle of the park, fountains and statues could be found in every direction of the park. Just some absolutely brilliant sights. After that, we walked around some more and just took in all the great architecture that Madrid had to offer and looked for a place to eat.

We ended up eating at a restaurant called "La Cocina de Neptuno". I split a plate of chicken fajitas with my friend, they were okay but nothing to special. When we got our bill we were very surprised to see that they charged us for EVERYTHING. They charged us for bread (which we didn't really ask for), extra tortillas, and little butter packets. It was very bizzare but now I know to ask to not get bread next time. After lucnh, we wandered around and looked at a few vendors set up in the plazas and made our way to the Plaza Mayor to meet up with some friends.

We met our friends and deicded to go take in a movie at a local theater with the original version in Enlgish with subtitles in Spanish. We saw Milk, I highly recommend, which is about the gay rights movement in the 70's in San Francisco following the life of Harvey Milk -- the first openly gay person elected to a public office.

After the movie, we just meandered around for a little bit more and started heading towards our Metro stop. When we got to where we were going, we saw a huge mass of people and a lot of Palestinian flags and we realized it was a protest calling for peace in Gaza. Lots of people held up signs with "Paz" (Peace) written on them and others had cut outs of bombs stating "Made in Spain, Launched in Gaza". I had never seen a protest like this with my own eyes so it was very interesting to see how the people in Madrid could gather peacefully to protest the government's involvement in the fighting. There were even people burning an Israeli flag -- intense. You can find pictures of my second day in Madrid HERE and HERE.

Now it's time to sleep and today hopefully I can sleep in! Then watch futbol all day! (and possibly work on some hw)

-Jamie

First trip to Madrid

What a day! We met at the school at 10 AM and then headed over to the train station and hopped on a train to Madrid. While we were waiting on the platform a high speed train came by and it didn't even slow down one bit and whizzed right on through the station. It was crazy! The train ride was about 20-25 minutes to the "Atocha" station then we got tickets for the metro and rode that to the "Plaza de la Puerta del Sol". Too bad public transportation doesn't work that well in most places in the US. Anyways, we took a two hour walking tour with one of our professors and he pointed out some of the interesting things in Madrid. I took almost 60 pictures and they are all online HERE.

After the tour, some people in the group stayed in Madrid while myself and about 9 others returned to Alcala by ourselves. Luckily we got on the right trains and made it back in one piece. We ate lunch at this Irish Bar called "La Pinta Media" (the half pint, I think). Everyone in our group got American food because we were all craving it since all we have eaten in our different houses is Spanish food. Now it is time for a siesta. Hasta luego!

-Jamie

First week of school is over!

My classes are over for the first week! Woo hoo! Tomorrow I am going on a tour of Madrid with the university and I'm very excited to see the capital city of Spain! The tour was originally scheduled for last Sunday (before I was here) but there was a few inches of snow so they rescheduled it which is very good for me because now I can meet some more people and see Madrid! I will be taking a lot of pictures and I will put them up soon. Also, over the weekend I will take some pictures of the apartment I am living in so everyone can see what it looks like.

Yesterday, I went out and bought a dictionary (but of course today I left in my classroom, D'OH, hopefully it's either still in the room or someone turned it in to the office) and went to this bar called "Kingston's Pub", it was a pretty neat pub and they were even playing N*SYNC songs which was kinda weird but it made me feel like I was at home (kinda) here are some pictures (click to make them larger):

Today, during my break in classes I bought a SIM card from Vodafone and I now have a Spanish number! I also ran other errands like getting a passport picture for a student card that I need, purchased a workbook for a class, and then I went to McDonald's (I know gross) to get some American food! After lunch today, I helped Maitane ("my-taaaan-ey", my little host sister) set up her Nintendo DS to work on the internet and now she (or me) can play Mario Kart against my brother! How cool! Then, I took a 3 hour siesta, oh man that was so good.

Now, I am just getting ready for bed so I can wake up and meet at the school at 10AM for the tour. Please comment and let me know how the blog is and what else I should talk about and ask me questions about stuff you want to know!

Frankfurt is Freakin' Freezing

The flight over here wasn't all that bad. There were a few crying babies on board but they didn't cry for too long after take off. I wasn't able to get to sleep for some reason (not because of the babies), so I'm sitting here in the Frankfut airport about to fall asleep. At least I'm not outside where it feels like it is 5 degrees, there is snow covering the ground, and low clouds limit the visibility to -- well not much at all, it keeps changing as I look out this window. Hopefully the clouds will clear up and the precipitation will stay away so I can get to Madrid on time. If you want a post card or something leave your address in the comments or email me at saxplaya (at) gmail (dot) com. That's all for now, more when I get settled in Madrid -- and get Internet.