Toledo, why are you so cold? -- and more.

Last Friday I went to Toledo on a group trip with the University. It seemed like it was going to be a great trip but that was before we got there and discovered the mini blizzard that was covering Toledo that day. We were taking to a viewing point to get a panoramic view of the city but we could barely see the city through the snow. The bus took us down to a plaza in the city and by the time we got down there the weather had improved, but only slightly. We visited a cathedral in they city and some other site but I couldn't really tell you the names because we didn't spend much time there. We came back early due to the weather so I don't have much to say about the trip but you can see my pictures HERE.

Tonight I am going to watch the International Football Friendly (basically an exhibition between two countries) between Spain and England. I'm hoping to go down to a bar and watch the game with some friends and maybe some Spaniards too, we'll see. This weekend I don't have any plans yet but I think I might go visit Madrid some more.

--Jamie

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Toledo revsited album

I revisited Toledo last weekend and it was 100x better than the weekend before. The weather was gorgeous which in turn made the city fantastic. We took a high speed train from Madrid, which took about 30 min for a 55 mile trip (= average speed of 100mph) so that was a cool experience. I hope to take a high speed train somewhere else before I leave just to experience long distance traveling on a train like that. Once we got to Toledo, we climbed up the hill that the city was on and happened to stumble into a FREE musem of artifacts from the period of 1808 to 1814 ( I think that's the right time period). The musem had paintings from the time, royal dishes, navegation tools, and so much more. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any pictures so if you want to know more about it just ask me.

After the musem, we went and had lunch at a pizza place (except the pizza here isn't close to what it is at home, so I got some pasta). Then, we explored the city some more and took picture of the Alcazar, the highest building in Toledo. It was once a royal palace for many different people but now it is being converted into a military musem. We found a nice panoramic view of the mountains, so we decided to soak in the sun for a while. That was a nice change from the cloudy weather we have had since the beginning of the semster.

Next up, we visited a small church that housed a very famous painting by the painter "El Greco". You can read up on him at Wikipedia. We saw this painting, El entierro del conde de Orgaz (the burial of the count of Orgaz). It was quite an amazing painting and I can't even imagine how much work it took to create it. He even painted himself, his son, and Cervantes into the painting. I guess he wanted to have a little fun while he was making the thing.

Overall, this trip was much better than my last trip and I would recomend a visit to anyone.

That's all for now
-Jamie

Granada!

Last weekend, I went to the South of Spain to visit Granada, about a 6 hour bus ride from Madrid, and see the most visited site in Spain -- the Alhambra. We took the overnight bus so we could get to Granada in the morning and have an extra day to visit the city without having to pay for another night at the hostel. The hostel we stayed at was very chill and had a hippie feel to it. It had hammocks in the courtyard and a hookah tent, plus the staff were very helpful and really laid back. There are a few pictures in one of my albums from the weekend of the hostel. Speaking of pictures, I took over 200 pictures in Granada -- I think that is some sort of record for me!

You can see the albums here: First, Second, Third and Fourth.

After we arrived in Granada, we found the local bus to take us to the city center and then from there we took a smaller bus that took us to our hostel. The streets in the hills of Granada are about ten feet wide, now imagine a small bus getting through that, it was only slightly scary. Once we checked in, we found our beds and rested for a while. After our nap, we went out and walked around the city for a little while just to see what there was to do. We shopped for a little bit and then we went back to the hostel to get ready for dinner.

Since we booked out rooms so late in the hostel, I had to sleep in a separate room from the rest of the group which actually worked out pretty well. I got to meet some people who were on a "Semester at Sea" program who had just docked at the city of Cadiz which is about 4 hours away from Granada. They told me they left from the Bahamas and had traveled across the Atlantic and this was the first country they stopped in. That is a ridiculous itinerary but they do get to go travel all over the world, not sure if I'd want to do that though. Anyways, we all got ready for dinner and went out and found a Mexican restaurant. There wasn't any free chips and queso and the food size was small, but besides that it was a good attempt at Mexican food in Spain. We went and visited some tapas bars next and had some wine and a drink called "tinto de verano" which is red wine with lemonade, it's really good. After a few more places we decided to call it a night and get some sleep for our big day tomorrow.

But before I went to bed, I watched the latest Lost episode. WOW. That show is absolutely ridiculous, I won't go into it now but if you are the fan of the show you know what I'm talking about.

The next day we woke up early and headed towards the Cathedral of Granada. This place was absolutely gorgeous -- just check out my pictures, theres really no need for descriptions after seeing them.

After the Cathedral, we found a bus to take us up to the top of the hill where the Alhambra is. Good thing too because it was a very steep hill, even during the bus ride. The Alhambra was orginally built by Moorish rulers in the 1300s then was later taken over by King Ferdinad II of Aragon and Queen Isabel of Castile in 1492. It is a fortress of palaces where each different ruler, Moorish or Christian, built there own to make there mark. Also, right next to the Alhambra is the gardens of Generalife. These two places are magnificent and you should look in my albums for pictures because my words will not do it justice.

After our visit, we had some pastries and then went back to the hostel. Instead of having dinner, we just decided to go to different tapas bars and get tapas when we ordered drinks. We went to about 4 different bars and ended up hanging out with some locals who showed us a few cool places and got us into a club for free. It was an excellent night and we were out till about 4AM -- still 3 hours short of what a regular night for Spaniards is, eek. The bus ride back was uneventful and we ended up in Alcala at about 8:30 PM.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend and I would not mind visiting Granada again when it is warmer and the flowers are blooming. Thats it for now, have a good week everyone.

-Jamie

Finally, an update!

First - I've been absolutely swamped with stuff to do since I last updated thus there haven't been any new updates. But now I have found some time where I can actually relax and not worry about doing my homework!

Last weekend, I went to Avila, Spain, which is about a 2 hour train ride Northwest of Madrid. We left (the group was 18 people, 2 guys and 16 girls -- interesting experience) Alcala at about 830AM and got to Madrid but didn't know where we needed to go in order to catch the connecting train to Avila, so we were confused for a little bit and we missed the early train to Avila and ended up having to wait until 11AM to leave. Nevertheless, we made it to Avila in one piece, the train ride went pretty well and when we arrived we got a rude awakening with a shot of cold mountain air.

I took about 150 pictures and you can see them HERE, HERE, and HERE

In Avila, there is a giant defense wall that surrounds the old city. It is the best kept wall in the world and it has some spectauclar views. We went up on top of the wall and walked around taking pictures. After that, we ate some lunch and drank some wine then headed out to do some more sight seeing. We visited the Cathedral of Saint Teresa which was absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't tell you what she is the saint of or anything but I do know that she is a very important religious figure in Spain. After it got dark, we had some time to kill so the girls shopped while I waited around doing, well nothing. We had some pizza (it was four cheese with blue cheese on it -- ew, I just want some good ol' American pizza) and churros, then went to the train station to wait for our train. Now, here is where the disaster begins.

Our train gets to the platform about 10 minutes late (no problem) and everyone boards, but we sit there for another 10 minutes not moving anywhere before the conductor walks down the isles and tells us that we have to switch trains (okay, lets just get back to Madrid). After we switch trains, we wait another 15 minutes before the train leaves the station! Now, at this point we are about 30 minutes behind schedule and we're cutting it close to catching our train back to Alcala.

So we get to the Charmartin station (which is in the north of Madrid) and we have no idea where the train is to Atocha (in the south of Madrid, station where we connect to Alcala) and we keep asking people and they keep telling us different things. The girls start running (for the record, I never ran in the station) to different platforms until we finally get on the right train. We get to Atocha but we realize that we missed the last train by 20 minutes or so and now we have no idea what to do.

After asking around, we realize we can take the Metro up to the bus station and take a bus back to Madrid. We take a 20 minute metro ride while enduring a bunch of drunk people on the train scaring the girls in our group and make it to the bus station. The group wanders around for 15 minutes trying to figure out where the bus leaves from and finally we catch the bus just as it's pulling up. Luckily we got on the right bus and we ended up getting back to Alcala at about 2AM.

Besides the travel disaster there at the end, it was quite a fun trip! In other news, school has been going pretty well this week, I've given two presentations and written one paper (thus the lack of updates) and I've had plenty of home(busy)work to keep me occupied.

This weekend, I'm going to Granada or Sevilla, my friends and I haven't decided yet. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures (I always do). I hope that everyone is staying warm and enjoying your days off of school!

-Jamie

Second Week

Well, I've made it through the second week of my classes and the workload is starting to pick up. The only thing interesting I did this week was watching the Presidential Inauguration of Obama in a Spanish bar. It was quite interesting because I was in a bar with a bunch of Americans but the speech was dubbed in Spanish (obviously) and the voice of the translator was way to loud to hear anything Obama was saying. So, when I got back home I went online and found a video of the speech. There was quite a bit of coverage of the inauguration here, almost as much as there would be in the States. Most Spaniards seem to be excited about Obama if only for the reason that they just despised Bush. However, I think that the Spaniards (and Europeans) are putting way to much hope in Obama to change the world right away. I don't think they realize how much bureaucracy he will have to get through (in my opinion) just to change some very minor things. But, I don't want to start a political debate, that's just what I see over here.

My classes are going well, I already have presentations and papers due next week, so Sunday looks like a big homework day. Tomorrow, I am going to Avila, Spain. It's about an hour and a half to the Northwest of Madrid. I don't really know much about it except it has a huge wall surrounding the city from the occupation by the Romans. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures and post the link to them on here tomorrow or the next day. That's all for now, take care everyone!

-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!