Pardo, Escorial, Salamanca

This past Friday, my school took us on a trip to visit the Pardo and the Monestary of Escorial.  First, a little history.  Spain was ruled under a dictatorship up until 1975 (wow!).  The only reason the totalitarianism ended was because Franco (the dictator) died.  The Pardo is where Franco spent many years of his reign.  The palace was enormous and way too big for any human being.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside the building, except for in one room, but here are a couple. 

After the visit to the Pardo, we headed to the Monestary in Escorial.  The town was beautiful and there was plently of snow on the mountain tops.  The building that we visited is very important to the history of Spain.  It was built where a battle was one against France (i'm not sure which one! sorry!!). The building is massive and many kings and queens have lived in the place.  The most important fact about the Monestary is that all of the previous kings and queens are buried in the way underground of the building in a massive tomb.  A very creepy room that i was not allowed to snag a picture of. But here isa a picture of the outside grounds!

The next morning I had to wake up bright and early at 6:30 in order to catch a bus to Salamanca to visit Jordan!! I went with my two friends and it was very fun! We visited the Casa de las Conchas (house of the shells/ picture below) which Fodors said was great but ended up being a well in the middle of the library (but the wall was cool!) There's a legend in Salamanca (since it is such a big college town) that if you find the frog on this massive university building you will be blessed with good luck academically.  The frog was impossible to find and I needed the help from Jordan but I saw it and am hoping for good luck in the years to come!! The building wall is filled with hundreds of tiny statues and it turns out the frog is on the head of a skull in the very corner of the building.  After we visited the frog, we went back to our hostel (which we shared with 7 other people whom we did not know) to rest for a little bit before heading out into the night.  We went to Plaza Mayor (picture below) to watch the Real Madrid game in an Irish Pub, did some tapa crawling, and ended up going home early because of our lengthy weekend before!

Roommate Reunion!

This weekend I ventured to Madrid to meet my friends/old roomates (Shila, Girl Jordan, and Stacy!). I left Alcala de Henares around 4 (after dealing with a hostel crisis and having to book a new one of the spot) to go meet Jordan at the train station (where she came from Salamanca, which is a city in Spain but very close to Portugal).  We went to the hostel, which ended up being a massive apartment with 6 beds, a couch, kitchen, and two bathrooms all for just 3 girls!  We quickly made our way to the airport to fetch Shila since she does not know Madrid like the back of her hand like I do!! After we waited for about 20 minutes, we greeted her at the baggage claim and headed for the hostel.  After getting a bit lost we managed to make it back and had to get ready quickly becuase my friends from school and some friends we met on another trip to Madrid were going out for tapas before heading into the night.  Tapas were good, I tried bull soup, I didn't have any of the meat but the liquid tasted just like beef stew! After tapas we headed to Kapital for the second time and had a good time there for the night. 
The next morning we had to get up early and check out and move to a new hostel because the two weren't available for two nights in a row.  The new hostel was very small but also quite nice as well.  We rested for a little bit and then headed out on the town.  We wandered around and met up with my friend Stacy and her 9 friends.  We went out to a great lunch! I had salad and some sort of fish! After lunch we went back to the hotel to rest.  When it was time to leave again I decided to show them cultural parts of Madrid.  We went to the terrace of a beautiful theatre and looked at the panaramic view of the city (I also did this with my parents when they came!).  After that I showed them the Palace Hotel (now owned by the Westin).  This hotel was designed by the same man that designed the Titanic and the two share very similar features.  After that we made our way to the Reina Sofia museum of modern art where I showed them the famous Guernica by Picasso and other famous pieces of art.  We were all very hungry and did not have a lot of money so we stopped for kebabs and pizza and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the night.  Saturday night we went to a club called Pacha and spent our time there until 5 am!!! We came back to the hostel and slept until we had to get up for early check out and headed into the city.  We wandered for a bit, exchanged some crowns for euros (for Shila who is studying in Prague), and went to the supermarket called Corte Ingles. There we bought baguettes and cream cheese and more cheese! I had a cream cheese on cheese sandwich.  I'm cheese girl! We sat in a coffee shop for a couple of hours because it was warm.  (It was cold and rainy on Sunday).  When it was time to leave I showed Shila how to get the airport, showed Jordan how to get to the bus station, and made my way back to Alcala by train.
All around successful weekend!!!

Plans!!!

Mommy and daddy left today :( We shared some tears in the hotel lobby then I made my way to school. I miss them already but I will see them soon!!
Today I started talking to my friends about potential weekend trip ideas! We have a lot of mandatory Friday excursions with school that are getting in the way of our free time (which is annoying) but thats ok, culture is good too! I'm heading to Madrid (again) this weekend to visit my good friend Stacy and my roommate Jordan who are coming in town for the weekend and i'm very excited about that.  Now that I know Madrid like the back of my hand it should be fun! I'm going to be the tour guide this weekend (proud Mom?).  We have a couple trips planned this month but we are booking our trip to Barcelona tomorrow for the weekend of March 31! We are also gunna head to Segovia for the day after class in a couple of weeks! We also are going to Sevilla, Venice, and hopefully Interlaken!

ADIOS!

MOMMY AND DADDY ARE HERE!

I woke up at 7 am Thursday morning from excitement because I knew I would be meeting my parents soon.  I haven't gone this long without seeing them my whole life and I needed a little parent fix! I took the train all alone with all of my luggage to Madrid and found the hotel like a true Spaniard.  They were waiting in the lobby with me and my mom wasted no time schlepping us to our first museum, the world renown Prado.  It was beautiful.  After that we hopped on the hop-on-hop-off bus tour where I got a wonderful view of Madrid, while both of my loving parents napped..We got off after the tour ended and I took them to my favorite restaurant in Madrid for some paella and some huevos estrellados (eggs and french fries).  They loved it! After we were full from lunch we decided to hop back on the bus since the baby's had been sleeping the last time, and who would have thought, they slept again... That was enough excitement for one day for the jet lagged folks so we headed back to the hotel so they could get some rest.  We put dad to bed in his own hotel room (fancy huh?), and mom had her second wind and we decided to hit the town. We wanted to go to Javier Bardems' family's restaurant so we hopped in a cab, but once we got there it smelled and it was empty so we decided to take our chances on something else. We wandered into this wine (gay) bar that was delicious and was super busy by 9 o clock.  After we ate it was time to hit the hay.
We woke up around 9 to a call from my dad who slept for 15 hours the night before.  We headed out to breakfast and then to the Reina Sofia museum (modern art), then wandered and found an amazing restaurant where we had fried cheese with strawberry sauce, cheese that looked like a flower, delicious salad, eggplant, and salmon ravioli!  After lunch we shopped a bit and I bought a very cute purse! Then we came back to the hotel and took a much needed Spaniard siesta!!! Now, we are heading out for a tapas tour where we will go to 4 tapas restaurants woo!!
Toledo Tomorrow!!
Adios!