Gran Via y Templo de Debod

 

 

yeah. theyre pretty sweet

M

i've missed being busy

this past weekend has been awesome. I just did a ton of things.


first off, lauras birthday was last week, but she couldn't hang so we met up this Friday. I went to her house after school and we ate there with her mom. I had made a cake (confetti cake I might add) and it was delicious. since laura is my best friend here, I was willing to spend 10 euros on a cake and another 10 on a present. I got her the book 'clockwork angel' in English, and apparently she wanted it, so I guess I am just a great gift giver without even knowing. but anyway, the cake was amazing and I've missed my good 'ol American cakes. so sugary. and the family loved it as well.


speaking of laura, for these past couple weeks I've been going to her house in the mornings and basically dragging her out of her house. the reason for this is because she is forever late. and me, being a very punctual person, hate it. before, I would wait outside her apartment complex, but most of the time I would end up leaving because she was late, and I didn't want to be. but now, I leave 20 minutes earlier, sneak into the complex (not really; I just say good morning to the guard), go to her building, make her buzz open the door, go up the elevator and ring the doorbell, wherein I enter, talk to her father and brother while she gets ready, and continue to basically leave as shes hurrying to finish up and I meet her in the elevator. also add in 'laura hurry up' at least 20 times every day. and we STILL END UP WALKING REALLY REALLY FAST to school. but hey, we're never late, and I love her company, so its all good. as of now, we're planning a Europe trip for the end of june and I am simply ecstatic.

 

heres the beautiful birthday girl

 

 

 

so then on Saturday morning I went to orchestra for the first time. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah i love it. i missed it. I neeeeeed it. but really, it was great. its right in pozuelo, and there happens to be a violinist that lives close so she can give me a ride, so now I dont have to pay to go. so in the beginning, around 10, its just cellos and basses until 1130, then we go buy some breakfast, than at 12 its the whole orchestra (no winds so far, but we'll see). its an orchestra of all ages, so there are older people and i think the youngest is probably 13. but either way, its about my level, so thats great. and they have a bass i can use, but I have to bring my own bow... oddly enough. so on Saturday one of the bassists let me play her bass, so it was seriously so nice. I'v missed it. and we're even playing a piece that i've played before in orchestra (shoutout to mr. patterson, I miss your bad puns). so that rocked.

 

 

 

then i went home for lunch with my moms parents, and then met my friend grace in madrid to see the cuatro torrrrrrrres (it would be better if i could roll my r's). these 4 huge buildings are basically offices, with one hotel, but it was cool to see. I knew in one of them you could go up and take a picture from the top, but I didn't know which, so we went to one and it was closed, and then the next, and then finally the hotel was open. at the top theres a restaurant with a great view, so we went up. there wasn't anyone around, so we kind of just walked into a room and took pictures, then on the way out a waitress walked up and saw we had cameras and I would assume she figured we were foreigners, so she didn't say anything and we just awkwardly walked out. but hey, I got some cool pics.

 

 

here are the cuatro torres from far away

 

and here is from the restaurant window

 

 

and then we went down, and walked to torres KIO. theres a bank and one other building i dont know... but they were cool.

 

 

 

so in the front you see the fountain, and then in the back the buildings and that strange structure that we didn't know what it was.

 

and here on the opposite side of the fountain (im facing the buildings)

 

 

so about then it started sprinking, but I like the rain, so we're like 'whatever' and kept walking. we didnt really know where we were going, just walking (which I love doing). we happened to pass by a few cool places.

 

                                     

 

this is grace. shes pretty cool. I enjoyed her company

 



 

this is Nuevo ministerios. not really sure what it is. probably more offices.

 

and thiiiiis is the Madrid soccer stadium. you have to pay to get a tour and go in, or go to a game, but the outside was cool, too.

 

 

then we went to a museum of natural science, which we liked. it was 3 euros to get in, and it had some cool stuff, including a rock garden and meditarranean garden. howeeeeeeever, that was when it really started pouring, so we didn't go in those. instead, we ran to the train station and headed home.

 

 

before we went in. this was outside the front of the museum.

 

and theeeeeeeeeen, something really cool happened. I was in the train station and i heard English while i was waiting. and this guy comes up to me and asks in Spanish if this train went to aravaca. and i answered yes. so then we got on, and he was with a girl (she was the one I heard speaking English) and I sat next to her and said 'hey, you speak english, where are you from?' and shes like 'hi, im from chicago' and so on and so forth. we talked about me being an exchange student and why she was there (shes a talent advisor, but her husband is Spanish and from sevilla). and then we got to aravaca AND IT TURNS OUT SHE LIVES TWO STREETS DOWN. but she was only here til today. buuut her niece lives here, so I gave her my contact information to give to her niece, and that was that. but its always great meeting new friends.

 

 

 

I never got their names, oddly, but here they are



 

 

so that was saturday. then on sunday (today) i went and met up with my friend audrey and one of her friends to go to a balon mano game (handball, basically soccer with your hands). it was pretty sweet, and there were many attractive guys, which we claimed for ourselves, so that was fun as well. it was actually a really intense game. and it ended up in a tie. but I really enjoyed it.

 

 

 

this is half of the court. it was just a high school game, but it was still pretty cool.

 

 

and that concludes my extremely interesting and fun weekend. so yeah, it was awesome.

 

M



charlottes get together

so today, a few of us exchange students got together to say goodbye to our Australian friend charlotte, who is leaving on sunday.

we met in Sol around 4ish, and then walked to the corte ingles, bought chips and oreos, and walked to retiro (huge park with a lake). charlotte, like me, loves taking pictures, so we got some really good ones in retiro, and I got a few more in the city. anyway, we basically just hung out, so i'll just show you a few of my many pictures.

 

the amazing streets of madrid

 

charlotte

 

at one of the entrances to retiro

 

looking out from the entrance to the plaza de alcala

 

charlotee, kassi, grace and ben

 

me, charlotte, kassi, grace and ben, Rebecca taking the photo

 

the lake and beautiful sunset

 

then it kept getting prettier

 

cant really see it, but theres a lion statue on the left an im sitting there.

 

 

so it was just awesome. im sad that charlotte is leaving, but hopefully one day i'll go to Australia and visit her.

 

so yeah, theres some Madrid for ya

 

M

 

p.s. this is my four month anniversary ahhhhhh, going too fast

Tres Reyes

so the 6th of January is the three kings holiday, basically where you can give gifts if you didn't on Christmas or you can give more if you did. so on the 6th, our neighbor lola came over and she handed out some gifts. she gave me and ana a shirt, and I don't remember what else really happened in the morning, I was pretty tired. but then we all walked to the bar thing that down a couple blocks and met with my moms brother and had some chips and such, then we all went to a Chinese restaurant to meet with  more family and eat. and I loved it. I've missed our monthly visits to the china buffet that we do in Wisconsin. but anyway, after that we came home and I watched some glee, then we went to our grandparents house and ate a lot of roscon, the desert of reyes. basically it a sweet bread, and there was also one with nata (like frosting/cream/sweet thing) in the middle. so that was delicious. so that was cool. then we came home and I was tired so I went to bed.

howeverrrr the day before, there's the thing called 'cabalgata', the big reyes parade. there was one in pozuelo, but a few other exchange students and I went to the huuuuge televised one in Madrid. we got together early to get a spot, but ended up still a few feet from the front. but it was great getting to talk to the other exchangers. so then we went to vips for milkshakes. then went home because my feet where dying. so that was fun day as well. here are some pictures of the parade:

 

the two awesome girls I was squished between because of all the people. grace and charlotte

 

some floats and balloons and such

 

this was a metal elephant and it was actually pretty sweet

 

they threw out candy, but we were all so squished that you could hardly move to catch it or pick it up, so people got creative. they threw out wrapped jelly beans. like one jelly bean in plastic. but I guess they were good jelly beans... also note that it was raining a but. more like misting, but we were still kinda wet.

 

the people on the other side. we were at the end of the parade, so there were this many people all the way down the street, and there were even more people on our side. when we headed out, we had to go through sooo many people

 

train blowing out steam and confetti. poor street workers afterwards...

 

our group. I was taking the picture so...

 

 

*all credit for pictures goes to grace. i stole these from her

 

 

so then today I met up with friends and went rebajas (sales) shopping because the holidays ended. and tomorrow back to school. darn. but im ready to start going back to school and get up on time again. actually no, i'd like to sleep in everyday. that would be sweet.

 

 

so that's that. happy new year!

 

M

krissmuss and new yurs

so its been a while since I've posted, but that's basically because im just getting lazier and don't feel like typing. but here we are, and im going to share my Christmas and New Years experiences.

first off, we got out of school on the 20th, and I wont be going back until the 8th. which is sweet because right now all my American friends are in school. anyway, on that last day of school, we basically did nothing in class, and we got out early, except we couldn't leave school grounds until 1230... not exactly sure why they did that. buuut there was a concert. in the school. so that was sweet. it was just a band made up of some of the students, but they were actually really good. we also took a class picture (although not everyone was in the photo). then later, after the concert, it was our friend luli's birthday, so we went out to eat (pizza) and then hung out.

from left: my Romanian friends (cristina, deni, ale), and marta. shes spanish

but here in spain they have an extra holiday called Reyes, which is 'kings', so the holiday comes from when the three kings came and gave sweet little baby jesus gifts. sooo with that said, many families give gifts on both Christmas and reyes, or some on just one of the days. really depends. my family, however gave gifts on Christmas eve, and then on the 6th, we'll be going over to our neighbor, lola's house, and I'm pretty sure that's the day that they give gifts, so we'll be with them. yeah. you can tell I really have no idea whats going on.

so on the 24th my moms side of the family came over for dinner, and afterwards we opened gifts. well, basically, we all walked downstairs, and everyone opened theirs at the same time. my mom got me this really pretty dress, and I got my sister, ana, a ring. my parents told me not to buy them anything and instead use the money to go on trips or something, so I was really thankful for that, because I heard a lot of people spent a lot of money on gifts. as for dinner it was a lot of seafood. which is normal. and for desert turron and mazapan, both very Christmas-y sweets here in spain.

 

this is my moms dad, and like my favorite old person I know. isn't he cute

then on Christmas day we had my dads side of the family over for lunch. this time, the main meat was robo de toro. a very typical Spanish dish. after, we sang Spanish Christmas songs, and they made me sing part of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer all by myself. argh. but it was still super fun. I also met some new cousins, so that was good.

 

so this is them singing.

 

from left, top row: forget his name, marta, ana, ramon, me, I think alvaro??

bottom row: fer, pilar, abuela (don't actually know her name), forget, ana

 

 

they actually had me go around and learn all their name, which I really enjoyed, but obviously that didnt work out. so then after we had lunch, i went out with my friends to go ice skating. I've never really 'gone out' on Christmas day, so that was odd, but im glad i did. ice skating was so much fun, even though the skates are so badly made that I had to stop early because my feet hurt so bad. but earlier i met up with marta at the train station and we went to majadahonda, but we didn't know which way to go, so we went into a gas station and asked, and the lady said it was 4 km away. sooo we started walking. then eventually we made our friend Jaime come and get us. so we finally got to 'la nevera' meaning 'the fridge', and paid our 11 euros to get in. so to let you all know, I am not a very good ice-skater. so most of the time i was holding my friend maria hand. buut that was to make sure she didn't fall. so basically it was a lot of fun. and in the end, i think she fell like 5 times, and I didnt at all, so i was proud.

 

 

Maria and I, we had a great bonding experience

 

from left: Jaime, maria, marta, espe, me

 

 

so overall, a successful Christmas.

 

then for new years i decided to visit my friend gail, who lived in murcia. I had met gail last summer on a missions trip in louisville, Kentucky. i told her i was going to be in spain next year, and she was like 'oh, im moving to spain next year too!' so it was all cool and we said 'lets try and meet up!' so I made the plans and yeah, I got to see her. so 4.5 hr bus ride later on the 28th of december, i was in murcia. so we drove to her house and i met her family, and they are all awesome. honestly, I felt more part of the family with hers, than with the one I have now. so it was great. and since i was in murcia, I wanted to meet all the exchange students there. i think in the area, there are 7, but only 3 were able to come. so i met them on the 30th and 31st and had a great time. exchange students are seriously the coolest people i know.

 

 

me, Curtis, and kalob.

 

 

I also met andie, but forgot to take a picture with her, so unfortunately you cant see her. but basically we just hung out and watched some glee and walked around Murcia a bit. also on the way home (both days), i took the bus alone, and of course, missed my stop. i swear, I really dont like buses, i'd much rather take the train or metro. but anyway, I had to ask the driver to go back both times, and luckily I understood their accent well enough and they were nice enough to do it, so I got back safe and sound. Gail told me she thought i was really brave, but I guess for me, I take these situations as an adventure and something i can learn from. and i enjoy it. getting lost in murcia was one of the most fun parts. and you now what, I know murcia so much better now. so that was all fun.

 

I also went into murcia with gail and hefzi (her sister, my age) and we saw the few touristy things there are: the cathedral and the river.

 

 

this is the river, although I don't know its name. and in the background, the cathedral. the river was pretty dirty, and there were a ton of ducks, but I liked it.

 

here on the bridge couples would lock locks and throw away the keys, you know, forever sealing their love. the earliest we found was from 2003. I've always liked these.

 

 

and then on new years eve, 3 people came over: a romanian friend, johan, an Ecuadorian friend, oscar, and the guy who plays the guitar, david. i might want to add that this family started a church, so they were all people who went to the church. that's another reason I loved this family: they loved god. we prayed before meals and we worshipped on new years eve. I know that doesn't sound fun to a lot of my friends, but it was awesome. its been a long time since I've really been with fellow christians, and I loved it. as for food, we had barbecue ribs, which were delicicous. yes, dad, I actually liked them. another thing to add is that gails parents were missionaries. so they had lived in morocco for 7 years, and America for a few, and they were born in mexico, so throughout the whole week I got a mix of Mexican, American and Spanish food (and some Moroccan soda), and it was all delicious.

 

a new years eve tradition in spain is to eat 12 grapes in the last 12 seconds for 12 months of good luck in the upcoming year. of course me with my big mouth got them all in. so then we stayed up and played some games (which I also realllllly missed). and at 3am i was laying on the couch and fell asleep, then had to get my tired self upstairs and i fell asleep immediately. then slept until 2pm. which is always fun. then we watched the movie 'the last holiday', where queen latifah hits her head and learns shes gonna die and all that stuff. then I wrote my resolutions for the upcoming year, and that was that.

 







 

from left: johan, oton (gails dad) Oscar, gail behind Oscars head, isa (gails mom) hefzi, and david

 

this is gail.

 

 

so that was basically my trip to murcia. and it was awesome. i made cookies as a gift to them for housing me, and they were actually successful! just sugar cookies, but still really good.

 

and yeah, happy 2014, a reyes post will be coming soon

 

M