Wait... there's no Carnival? (We LOVE Madrid!)

It all started with the bus.. 6 hours to Madrid. It was soo long! But well worth it. :) We took the overnight bus to Madrid from Pamplona, to arrive at 3am in the city. Luckily, our hostel was awesome! With 24hr front desk service, it was an easy check in. We made our beds (we even had our own room!) and crashed. We were all so tired after the lack of sleep from the bus ride. We got up at 9am the next morning, had breakfast, and got to go on a free 3hr walking tour sponsored by our hostel. It was so nice, because we got to see so much of the city. Unfortunately, it was really rainy on Saturday. But, we made the best of it. After the tour, we went to a bar/eatery that was recommended by our tour guide. In Madrid, with a drink you get a free “tapa” (kind of like an appetizer). It was so yummy! After filling our bellies we decided we could continue on with exploring. :) We went to the Reina Sofia Museum, one of the most famous museums in Spain. The collection was... interesting. It was contemporary art, so some of the pieces were really neat while others were just downright weird. You’ll see this in my pictures on Facebook. :) My favorite exhibit was the 9/11 Tribute. It was a room full of the newspaper covers from all around the world the day after it happened. It was so neat to see the world’s reaction to such an immense event. After the Reina Sofia, we went to see a real authentic Flamenco show!!! :D It was so neat. The restaurant was really nice and expensive. We all ended up sharing one tapa because we couldn’t afford anything else! :) But it was so worth it. The show was amazing and the dancers were so good! I admire their abilities, because I could never do it! Following the show, we were beat! We took the metro home to save our feet. :) When we got home, Candy and I took showers, and Candy managed to flood the bathroom! It was absolutely hilarious at the time because we were all so tired. Luckily, we were able to clean it up with a mop with no problem. The hostel was very nice, in that we had our own room to the four of us and our own private bathroom! So it was an easy clean up. Finally, we made it into our beds around 1am. We woke up at 8am the next morning, had breakfast again, and went to the Rastro! It was absolutely amazing. It is the biggest outdoor flea market I have ever seen in my life! The girls and I were able to get cute scarves for super cheap. :) It was great. We spent a couple of hours just walking around the Rastro because it was that big. When we finally finished the Rastro we treated ourselves to Churros con Chocolate. So yummy! But very sweet. It is a Spanish tradition though, so we had to try it! Then, we got to tour the big and beautiful Royal Palace. It was stunning. The amount of gold in every room was unbelievable. The Royal Palace has over 2,000 rooms, of which we could only see about 50. Crazy! You won’t see many pictures of this unfortunately though, because we weren’t allowed to take them. :( By this time, we were starving and stopped for lunch at another bar/eatery in town. I had one of the most delicious burgers of my life! Here in Spain, they make they’re burgers with a fried egg on top. Sounds weird, I know. But it’s so good! On Sundays, the Prado (the most famous art museums in Madrid) is free all day. We took advantage and stood in the LONG line to see the beautiful artwork. After about two hours of admiring, we decided it was time to head back to the hostel. We were soooo tired. Surprisingly, we all stayed under our spending budget for the weekend! :) Yay! At about 11pm, we took the long metro ride back to the airport to wait for our 1am bus. It was another loooong bus ride, with a total lack of sleep. We arrived back in Pamplona at 7am.. only to have classes at 1pm! I got about 3hrs of sleep and started the new day! I have since gotten a little sick.. the whole no sleep thing doesn’t really work for me unfortunately. All in all, it was a FABULOUS weekend. We had soo much fun and got to see so many amazing things. AND!! .. The whole reason we went to Madrid this weekend to begin with was because there was supposed to be a Carnival! Candy’s 2011 guide book and the Madrid website said it was this past weekend.. well, they were wrong! It wasn’t. But it actually turned out better because we never would have gotten to see all that we did, had the Carnival been up and running. So it worked out for the best!! :) God works in mysterious ways!

(BTW.. The Spanish in Madrid is so much easier to understand! Much less of an accent! Interesting..)

We were supposed to go to Morocco this coming weekend.. so cool right!! :) We had the buses, flight, and hotel booked; but, unfortunately with the recent unrest in Africa and many other Muslim countries, the US Embassy in both Madrid and Morocco recommended that we do not travel there. So our plans had to be cancelled. :( We were able to get a full refund for the hotel and the buses (yay!) but not the flight. RyanAir is very stringent with their regulations and does not refund for any reason. But we figured we would rather be out a few dollars than dead or in a dangerous situation! We are all sad to not be going, but happy to have made the right decision. It’s just not safe. We are hoping to do a day trip this coming Saturday to make up for it though, so hopefully I will be able to tell you all about that in my next post! :) And it will also give us some time to catch up on sleep.. which will be nice. We are just so happy and blessed to be traveling at all! :)

Classes have been going well too! I am officially registered in the five that I picked. It took a while, but then again.. it’s Spain time!! The siesta slows everything down. :) Haha. Nothing too interesting with classes though. But I should say, the difference in schooling is SO apparent. Classes here is Spain are so much more laid back and less demanding. I don’t know how they learn anything! In my sociology class we have to write a paper, and the Spanish students were complaining openly in class to the teacher about how much work it is!! Honestly, its not even that bad! Classes in the U.S. are a million times more rigorous and stressful. But, as stressful as they are, I am thankful for them, as I feel like I learn so much more than I would in this education system. There were “senior” students in my class saying that in all their four years, they have not had to write one paper! And that they didn’t know how to do a bibliography.. what?! And just the fact that they were complaining in class baffled me. They were pretty much ganging up on the teacher. It was definitely an experience! :) However, as laid back as the classes are here, they are still hard for us internationals because of the language barrier. But that’s why we’re here! :)

So... I’m having the time of my life!!! :D But I really do miss you all at home! <3