Photos!

Here are the links to some photos from the last few weeks I was in Spain. I promise I will write a more detailed post summing everything up in the coming days!

Mom and April visit!

Toros!

P.S. My flight back was great and all of my luggage made it home!

M.I.A.

I have been/will be m.i.a. for a while because my mom has been visiting and then April is coming on Thursday. I´ll update about everything that´s been going on later!

P.S. Some of the symbols in this post look funny because I´m typing on a Spanish keyboard. It is not my favorite thing to do.

Mall Round 2

(photo courtesy of madrid.lanetro.com)

Yesterday Kathleen and I went back to the mall and it was open! Hooray! Most of the stores in the mall are the same as the ones you can find in the city center (H&M, Bershka, Desigual, etc), but the reason we had to go to the mall was to go to Primark, which is an Irish or British chain that sells super super cheap clothes. Yes, they will probably fall apart after one season, but oh well. (I know, I know--I'm buying more clothes even though I'm freaking out about whether or not there will be enough room in my suitcases as it is. It's foolish.) After Primark we went to Ikea and we had a good time designing our future living spaces...and trying out every comfy looking chair in the store.

(this was seriously the most comfortable chair I've ever sat in)

(Kathleen can't resist a good sale and was trying to figure out how she could pack this chair if she bought it--she didn't buy it.)

After some more wandering we found ourselves at Carrefour. Normally going to Carrefour would not be a big deal--it's the grocery store down the street that I go to all the time, but what I go to is a Carrefour City. What we went to yesterday was a Carrefour hypermarket, or pretty much the European Super Walmart (except I don't think they had clothes there other than underwear, but then again I was only there to buy toothpaste so I didn't look for them). I've gotten used to everything being relatively small in Spain, so to see a huge store filled with so much stuff (it's a different kind of stuff than El Corte Inglés because it's not like a department store) was really overwhelming, but it was also kind of exciting to have more than two brands of toothpaste to choose from and to be able to find Dove stick deodorant instead of the normal roll on/spray crap that is usually the only thing on the shelves. While I know that malls/hypermarkets are kind of the ultimate symbol of American consumerism (being in a mall in Spain feels just like being in a mall in the U.S), I am bit ashamed to admit that it felt oddly comforting to be at a place in which so much stuff was congregated. It was just so convenient to know that I could find everything in one place! So while I pretend to be more "cultured" now that I've lived in Europe, the truth is that I'm still a typical American in so many ways.

(I just look so happy to be among so much stuff, but I reality I was yelling at Kathleen not to take a picture of me.)
(We thought the digital price indicators were cool.)

Random fact:

Today I learned on Wikipedia that on this day in 1293 Sancho IV, king of Castilla-León, established the Complutense!

Today I also survived my art history exam. Three classes down, one to go!

Ha

Today Kathleen, my roommate, and I decided to go to the mall. I was really excited because we decided to go to the one that's a good 40 minute metro ride away but has an IKEA. We got off the metro in this very strange neighborhood. It was strange because it was just so...I don't know. It just had this very prefabricated feel to it. It didn't look like Madrid at all and instead felt like we were on some sort of movie set. It was also weird because there was practically no one outside on the streets. I told Kathleen like it looked like it was the day after the zombie apocalypse (sans zombies of course...I guess the non-zombies won). Anyway, we trekked over to the mall and I was really weirded out by the fact that there were no cars there. We got in the mall and then realized that only the food court was open--today is Madrid's San Isidro festival. I knew that, but forgot to think that because of it all stores would be closed. So yes, my effort to put off studying for my exams by going to the mall turned out to be an epic fail.

School is officially done. I have one kind-of exam for language on Monday, and then my finals for history on Tuesday, art history on Wednesday and lit. on Monday the 25th. I know that if I actually study I'll be all right, but it's really hard to sit down and do it. It's been especially hard because people that I've gotten to know from other programs are starting to leave now, and it's just hard to focus in the middle of saying goodbye. One of my really good friends is leaving on Sunday...

The two pictures at the top of the post are ones my friend Sonya took of these two mosaics up in Sol. They're recreations of the paintings the 2nd and 3rd of May by Goya. Apparently they made them with over 80,000 pictures sent in by Madrileños! They're really beautiful at night when the lights from the windows illuminate them from behind.

Oh! In other exciting news there was a small fire in the building across the street from my apartment building. I don't think anyone was hurt and the firetruck was only on the street for about 15 minutes, so I don't think it was a bad fire, but I did see smoke!

Segovia

Numbers:
8 days until finals start
20 days until my mom visits
26 days until my friend April visits
38 days until I return to the U.S.

Those numbers look so small compared to the numbers that I started out with...

Yesterday, as one last hurrah before the last week of real school (and thus having to study the next two weekends for finals) my friend Caitlin and I took a little day-and-a-half trip to Segovia. It's only an hour and 15 minutes outside of Madrid, but it was nice to get away because I've been stressed out lately with the papers I've had to write and the tests that I've had to start studying for. You know, it was great to not really have to do anything other than attend class all semester, but now...now, I don't remember how to do work! It's ridiculous.

Segovia was the perfect cure for my anxiety though. It was a really joyful little city. There were multiple puppet shows in the streets, carousels, lots of small children running around and gorgeous views of the landscapes surrounding the city. There were times where I would just look out towards the mountains and I would think, "Wow, this is what I used to picture when I would think about Spain." Picturesque--that's the word I'm looking for. The city was picturesque without being overly precious (for comparison, Salamanca was overly precious). And of course we saw the aqueduct, which is what Segovia is known for. The aqueduct was built by the Romans almost 2000 years ago! It's just an amazing feat of engineering especially when you consider that it was made with no mortar--the bricks are cut so that they just fit. It was really stunning.

The aqueduct is at the top of the post and the Alcázar (this kind of cool-looking castle) is the other picture. Right by the Alcázar we found a good spot to take pictures and we were doing that when this guy gets out of a van parked near-by and says (in English), "Hi...umm, just to let you know i am going to make pee pee over here, so you might want to stand somewhere else." We moved and after a few seconds he was like, "Oh okay, I'm done now. You can come back." Caitlin politely thanked him for the information (I was too busy holding back fits of giggles), but we didn't go back over there.

Click here for more pictures.

Salamanca

A lot of people who study abroad in Spain from UWO go to Salamanca (especially the people who go in the summer) and I had the option of going there for the semester. I love Madrid, but I've heard great things about Salamanca and have occasionally wondered if I should have studied there instead. However, after spending the weekend there, I know I made the right choice to come to Madrid. Salamanca was quaint and pretty with a fair bit of history, but also too small. Had I not gone along on the guided tours I probably could have seen every point of interest in the city in under three hours by myself. I enjoyed visiting it, and the trip was great because I got to hang out from some ISA kids who go to the other school that I like but never see, but by Sunday morning all of us were ready to get back to Madrid.

So anyway, check out the photos and my travel tip is: if you are in Spain visit Salamanca, but don't bother spending more than one night there. (But you should spend at least one night there so you can see the Plaza Mayor at night because it's absolutely stunning!)

P.S. The first few pictures in the album are from Ávila because we stopped there for a few hours before getting to Salamanca.

P.P.S. My mom comes to Spain in 31 days and I'm super excited!