Days 118-124

Friday:

I got up, ate breakfast, did some studying, and then went to get lunch and go shopping with Kira and Katie. We went and got kebabs; they both got meat and I got falafel. Then we made a trip to Sol and Gran Via for some last tourist shops and another Primark trip. It was fun! Even though it started raining a little bit. I went to school and studied for a while, and then Carly, Katie C, and I went to La Hummuseria! We went earlier in the semester, and we had to go back. It was just as good as last time. Good food day, not a lot of studying… Enjoying the last bits of Madrid!

Saturday:

Today, I started packing 😦 It’s bittersweet! I hope everything will fit… Adelaida is washing my last load of laundry, so then I’ll be able to put everything away. Carly and I went to Casa de Campo, which is this really cool, really big park kind of out of the city. It was pretty with so many trees and greenery. There’s a zoo and an amusement park actually in the park. Then we met up with Kira for tacos at Takos al Pastor, and there was a huge line. Everyone had been telling us that we had to go here since the tacos were good and only 1 euro. We were really hungry, so standing in line was kind of frustrating, but once we got our tacos, it was so worth it. They were some of the best tacos I’ve had in my life. And they had Jarritos, so everything was great. Then of course I had to go to school to study for a while.

Tacos…So good.

Sunday:

More lasts today! I went to my last mass at St. Rita’s, and then I picked up some flowers for Adelaida since it’s mother’s day in Spain (maybe all of Europe?). Aditi and I got her flowers and chocolate for a great semester and a happy mother’s day. She really enjoyed them!! Katie and I picked our seats for the flight home, and we’re sitting right in front and back of each other, in aisle seats, yay! It definitely hasn’t hit me yet that I’m leaving this beautiful country in just a few days. Studying for finals is difficult when all I want to do is explore Madrid. Or sleep… Also, for dinner tonight, we got weird hamburgers that I guess were veggie burgers, but they were bright purple. Kinda weird. Not my favorite…

Flowers for Adelaida

Monday:

Circuits exam, bright and early!! 8:30 am! I think it went well. Fingers crossed. I spent the rest of the afternoon studying for my Spanish exam, which was at 3:30 pm, which I think also went well! Well, at least as well as it could have gone. I kept working on packing and cleaning out my room. I have so much stuff… I think it’ll all fit though. Yay! I went and got a drink with three of my ESL students (Antonio, Laura, and Teodora) as a last get together. They were three of the best, the most fun, most interesting students. It was great to sit there and listen to their stories. I can understand so much more than I could four months ago. I’m so torn about going home and wanting to stay in Spain. I don’t know how I’m going to leave this place that I’ve come to call home. It’s going to be hard, that’s for sure.

Tuesday:

Katie and I went back to Toast to get brunch again! It was good so we had to go back. Then I had my theology final. Last final of the semester, whoo!! Meredith, Marissa, and I went to celebrate at Tierra Burrito Bar. It’s so nice out, it was great to just sit and talk and not have the stress of finals anymore!! I laid in bed for a while, the semester has exhausted me. But I did go get churros with some friends from SLU! Last churros at San Gines!!

Brunchin’ again

Wednesday:

I didn’t have anything specific to do, but I decided to check the last things off of my “Things to do in Madrid” list. I got up at still a reasonable time, and Adelaida just laughed when I told her that I was going to explore Madrid again. I went to the rose garden in Parque del Oeste, which was absolutely gorgeous. I walked to Sol afterwards to buy a few last things. I walked by the Palace, and I think there’s a royal parade or ceremony of some kind every few weeks because there were a ton of people there. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to stay and watch (it wasn’t going to start until 12 pm or so). I did see a band playing in the middle of Sol though, which was cool. I also walked around the Tapas Market (but didn’t buy anything). When I come back to Madrid, I’ll have to make sure to go back there since all of the food looked so good. I took the metro back to the apartment and then made my way to the hospital to hang out with Mary for a while. When she was done with her appointment, we went for our last Cien Montaditos with some friends from school (Katie, Sarah, Cassie, and Marisa). After that, I went back to the apartment and hung out for a bit, but I decided I had to go finish the last things on my list. Adelaida laughed again that I was going out one last time to explore Madrid. I had to make the most of my last few hours in Spain. I went to the Real Jardin Botanico near the Prado. It was pretty cool. Then I made my way to Retiro for the last time and went to the rose garden there. So pretty. I liked the Parque del Oeste rose garden better though. It was a day filled with flowers and exploring. Aditi and I had our last meal from Adelaida, and then we went out with some friends for a last sangria. It started pouring, but it was still fun.

Rose garden in Parque del Oeste

Temple of Debod – full circle, came here one of the first nights in Madrid

Band in Sol

Palace – ceremony starting

Real Jardin Botanico

Ducks in Retiro!!

Rosaleda in Retiro

Adelaida ❤ Love you forever

Thursday:

I was up bright and early to make sure I had everything and that it was all packed. I was nervous (per usual with flying) and sad and excited all at the same time. It was a mess of emotions. I got everything together, and then I had to say goodbye to Adelaida. I started crying because she’s what I will miss the most about my experience in Spain. Without Adelaida, my experience would have been so vastly different. I cannot thank her enough for everything she did for me throughout the semester. She teared up, too, and I’m glad that we both had a good relationship. It was hard to leave her because she’s not really on the internet, so there isn’t an easy way to stay in contact with her. I’m forever grateful for my time in her home and heart. It was raining outside, which matched my emotions. It was such a sad moment to know that I was actually leaving Spain for the last time (on this trip at least). Our taxi driver was pretty funny, and he gave me almost a full bag of cough drops because I couldn’t stop coughing on the ride to the airport. There were so many SLU-Madrid students leaving at the same time, so I got to see a lot of familiar faces. I found Katie at security (where she got stopped again…) and then we talked to the security guard and jokingly Katie said she had a bomb… We made it to our terminal, and I got my last Fanta Limon. 😦 Katie got stopped again by security, and then we got onto the flight. Originally, Katie and I were sitting front and back of each other, but we did a three way switch with the girl next to me and two other SLU-Madrid girls so we all got to sit by who we wanted to. We took off and it was pretty emotional. And then there was some turbulence that scared me, so I grabbed onto my armrest really tightly, and Matt just laughed from two rows back at how scared I was. The flight didn’t feel terribly long. I finished Crazy Stupid Love and then watched random TV shows and a little bit of the Lego Movie. The food was pretty good, and I napped a little bit. I also got more Fanta Limon… I’m kind of obsessed. Once we finally got close to Chicago, it got so much more exciting to be home. We even got there early! And we got through baggage claim and customs pretty smoothly. I had to say bye to Katie so she could get to her connecting flight to Minnesota. It was sad to say bye to my travel buddy for the semester!! I met up with my parents, and then went home. It was a crazy whirlwind of a semester, and I can’t believe it’s already over. I’m so thankful for a fantastic experience and the people that helped me throughout the whole process. I have been able to see so much of the world and experience so many things that I normally wouldn’t be able to do. Madrid and Spain will forever be in my heart. I can’t wait to go back some day. Hasta luego, Madrid.

Katie Ray selfie made the blog… 😉

Last Fanta Limon 😦 (jk second to last…)

Days 110-117

Thursday:

Dr. Gasmi cancelled class, which is making me nervous for the final! Office hours, here I come… We had our last theology class, and Father Jim had us meditate and gave us some final life advice. It’s been an interesting class, but very thankful for it! Last Spanish and Ethics classes. I went back to my apartment and just relaxed. I think the semester has just exhausted me. It’s been super fun, but I’m beyond tired at this point.

Friday:

I went with Kira and two of her friends to get sushi and Japanese food for lunch! It was good, and I tried mochi for the first time. Then I took the metro line 4 (brown) because I couldn’t remember if I’d taken it before. So I’ve definitely taken all of the metro lines (1-10) except 8, which I might not do because it’s so far out of the way if you’re not going to the airport. After dinner, Kira and I went to go see Beauty and the Beast! It was so good, and it was so fun to see a movie in Spain. The theater we went to had the movie in English with Spanish subtitles. You miss a lot with the Spanish subtitles… Definitely not as good as the actual movie in English. Also, Cogsworth is Din Don in Spanish, and that still makes me laugh. After that, we went to a bar with her friends. Gotta enjoy my last two weeks in Spain!!

Saturday:

I slept in, but then decided to go to Little Big Café to get lunch and do some work. I ran into Maddy there, and we had lunch together!! We both had eggs benedict; I had mine with avocado and she had hers with salmon. Both of them came with little salads that had pomegranate on them (my favorite!!). I might have to come back because the brunch was so good. Still writing blog posts and simultaneously trying to study… Blog posts are way more fun than studying though.

Sunday:

I got up, went to church, and packed for Barcelona!! Last trip of the semester! I took the Renfe Ave high speed train from Madrid. It was cool to be on a train going 300 km/hour. The woman next to me was nice and complimented my Spanish when I let her borrow my phone charger. I think I only really said “si” and “bueno” to her, but it’s all good. There were also some annoying children on the train that made me rethink ever wanting to have children… And then a random guy decided to lay down on the two seats and put his legs in the air. So confused by people sometimes. Irene’s flight was delayed, so I went and checked into the AirBnb. It was a little apartment where the woman was hanging out with friends in the living room. She had a sewing machine in that room, too, and some of the decorations were a little tacky, but it was cute. All of the people were kind of intimidating, so I just sat in the bedroom until Irene got to Barcelona. We went and got some tapas and sangria for Irene’s first Spanish meal! It started raining, but we just moved our table to be more under the umbrellas, so it was all good. We headed back to the AirBnb to get some sleep before a long day.

Monday:

Our first stop was Park Guell! We were going to try and take the bus, but it never showed up, so we had to take the metro instead. We were still within our time slot, so it all worked out okay. The park was really pretty and interesting to walk around in. All of the tile and intricacies in the architecture were awesome. There were so many people there though. We explored a decent amount of the park, and we climbed up a hill to get a better view of the city skyline. We got some pasta for lunch and then walked to the beach. As we were walking by some restaurants towards the ocean, I saw some girls that I could tell weren’t Spanish, and I realized it was Cassie and Claire and all of their SLU friends. I knew they were in Barcelona, but meeting up didn’t work out, so it was crazy that we just ran into them!! They suggested that we go to the brunch place that they were in line for since they went there twice in the four or so days they were in Barcelona. Irene and I spent time hanging out on the beach because it was actually kind of nice out. There were so many people on the beach asking if we wanted beer, water, mojitos, sangria, massages, or tapestries. It got kind of annoying after a while. We wandered around for a while, found a park, ate some gelato, did some people watching, and then dropped some stuff off at our AirBnb. Then, the highlight of the day, we went to our tour of Sagrada Familia! We had audioguides and got to hear about the history of the building and how the plan is to finish the building in 2026. Crazy that we got to go be a part of something that’s still being built. The basilica was gorgeous, with all of the nature inspired colors and architecture. It was breathtaking. And the sun was still out so all of the stained glass was gorgeous. We also took a trip up to the towers on the Nativity Façade. It was kind of scary to be up that high, but it was also really cool. And that’s not even the highest tower that’s going to be built!! The worst part was having to walk down the spiral staircase, but it was still cool to see everything from the view of the towers. It was really close to closing time, so we only had a few minutes in the museum below the church, but all of the dioramas were super cool. We were tired and didn’t really want a sit down meal, so we just went across the street and got Subway sandwiches. This one pigeon was really persistent in wanting our food while we were sitting and eating in the park. After we ate, we decided to not be lame and went to an Irish pub to get some beers. They played some nice, classic music which was fun. Since we were both so tired, we went back to the apartment to get some rest.

Park Guell!

Classic Barcelona picture

Selfie stick adventures

View from the top of a hill

Arc de Triumpf

La Sagrada Familia!!

In the tower!!

Diorama of the basilica

Tuesday:

Today, we slept in until 9 am or so, and left by 10 am. No one in the apartment was up yet… That’s what happens in Spain… We went to Brunch and Cake by the Sea on Cassie’s recommendation and it lived up to its hype! I had an egg sandwich on a bagel with a side salad and fruit and hummus. So much food, and it was so filling. I also had a glass of orange juice (definitely getting sick… of course, during finals week). Irene got eggs benedict on a waffle with a side salad with fruits and nuts. Her waffle was black, which was so odd, but my hummus was bright yellow, so who knows. It all tasted delicious though!! We went to visit two churches, Santa Maria del Mar and the Barcelona Cathedral. They looked very similar in construction, and I liked Santa Maria del Mar much more. They kicked us out of the cathedral at 12:45 pm, saying it was closed until 1 pm… Kind of odd, not sure why they were closed for 15 minutes. We wandered again, finding a main square with street performers, the main street (La Rambla), a bridge to a shopping area on the ocean, and back to the beach (with more gelato in hand of course). It was colder and windier today, so we didn’t spend a ton of time on the beach. There were also less street vendors out, maybe because it wasn’t a holiday or also because it was colder. We went back to this candle store to buy little cactus/succulent candles, and then we went into another Irish pub because it was called O’Hara’s. We ordered sangria because Irene needed to try another one. The actual Irish people there were definitely judging us. We then went on a hunt for some paella for Irene to try (even though it was 6:30 pm, way too early for Spanish dinner) and luckily found a place! We had Tinto de Verano and some meat paella, which is one of the better paellas I’ve had in Spain. Still partial to Adelaida’s… We got some groceries for breakfast and then just hung out in the AirBnb. It was a good, more “normal” vacation, instead of a study abroad vacation, where you feel like you’re rushed into doing everything in two days and are just entirely exhausted at the end. We were still exhausted, but in all fairness, we came into the trip pretty tired, too.

Yum brunch!!

Santa Maria del Mar!

Cathedral of Barcelona

Cool pirate ship

There were *so* many pigeons

Wednesday:

Irene got up early for her flight back to Ireland, and I slept and left around 9:45 am. I took a Renfe Ave train again, so I went back to the same train station. I got a McDonald’s egg and bacon sandwich. I don’t know why I’ve been craving those; this is the second time I’ve had an egg McMuffin this semester… Not even sure I’ve had any back in the states. I guess I miss my egg sandwiches on bagels or English muffins at home. There were protestors near the boarding area, something about labor laws, and they were being super loud and obnoxious, so that was wonderful. The train ride was fine. I slept on and off instead of studying. Oops. This was my last return trip to Madrid!! Kind of sad. I got back to my apartment, organized my stuff and my room, and then I headed to school to study. The weather is so much nicer in Madrid than it was in Barcelona. Who would’ve thought.

Thursday:

I think this cold is my body telling me that study abroad should be over, and I need to get back to my normal life. Good thing it’s officially one week til I’m home! Katie and I went to Toast Café for brunch and to cram study for ethics. Brunch was so good. (I’ve had brunch 3 out of the past 6 days…what am I doing with my life – good things, obviously…) Katie had eggs, toast, and potatoes, while I had French toast with chocolate. We both had orange juice, and it was all so good. And of course we studied…a little. After telling stories about our weekends since we hadn’t seen each other in five days or something and it felt like forever. How are we going to go home?? We went to school and did some more group studying and then took the exam. I’m officially done with philosophy!! Hooray! Kira, Katie, and I went to go get ice cream, so we got Ben and Jerry’s. I went up to my apartment to grab spoons, and Adelaida only had two plastic spoons and one fork, so I repeated a last year’s “missing things” by eating Ben and Jerry’s with a fork. It was a good way to destress from finals.

Yum brunch

Ice cream!!

Days 100-109

Monday:

Still exhausted from the past ten days of Semana Santa… Trying to get back into the swing of things. All I did today was work on homework that I didn’t finish before break and catch up on everything. I finally feel like I’m catching up, which is great! Today is also officially 100 days of being abroad!! Contrary to popular belief, there were no parties like in kindergarten…darn.

We had a little get together with our ESL classes. It was fun to hang out with them and speak Spanish with all of them for a while. I went with two of them to get a beer right near my apartment afterwards. I had beer with lemon in it, and I actually didn’t hate it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to hang out with them again before I leave. I’m so glad I got to teach ESL this semester. I think this has been one of my best experiences while abroad. Makes me want to teach someday…

Just me and a few of my students 🙂

Tuesday:

Class as normal. Reality is hitting that we’re leaving in twenty-three days!! That’s so crazy.

Wednesday:

Bible study and mass! I stayed at school for a while uploading pictures (sorry for everyone that got spammed on Facebook by 200 pictures from me) from Semana Santa. It was really nice out, so it was good to be outside. I talked to Andres and Elizabeth on the phone for a bit, which was also super nice!! Love hearing from back home.

Thursday:

Dr. Gasmi didn’t show up to lecture today, so I had a lot more time before theology than usual. Supposed to be writing a cover letter, but I’m writing this instead. The students in the music class had a performance today! It was piano, guitar, and singing, and it was really nice. I went with Meredith and some of her friends. I miss playing music. I went out with Kira and some other friends at night. We just went to a few different bars and hung out. It was nice!

Friday:

I slept in a little bit today, before going to Domino’s with Kira and Katie! We got a pizza with mushrooms and bacon and also cheese filled crust. It was pretty good. We worked on ethics for a while, but Katie and I were both exhausted. I got to talk to Angele on FaceTime for the first time this semester!! It was wonderful to talk again, since our times in Wheaton won’t line up in May.

Saturday:

Today, Katie, Kira, Carly, Aditi, Cassie, Sydney, and I went to Avila! We took a bus ride there (the buses were super nice!) and then explored the city for the day. Sydney and Cassie split off from us because they had earlier return tickets to Madrid. We had lunch, which was so much food, and then walked around. The city is surrounded by a huge wall that we climbed up and around. The stairs going up to the wall were really kind of scary, and even worse when people were trying to go up and down at the same time. We also got audioguides for free, so we got to hear about the history of the wall. It was a really pretty view from all different parts of the wall. Carly scared all of us by standing on the wall, but it was fine anyways. We tried “yemas” which look like nice, lemon candies, but they’re actually egg yolk with sugar on it. It was kind of disgusting, but it’s the typical treat of Avila. I wouldn’t eat it again, but I guess it was good to try once. We then went to St. Teresa of Avila’s church and got to see where she was born. JPII visited on the four hundredth year anniversary of her death. Katie and I have been looking for all of the signs that say when JPII visited, because there have been a lot. Pretty important guy. And we visit a lot of churches, so that helps increase our chances. Overall, it was a fun day! Weather was good, good friends, easy bus rides. Pretty successful day. Exhausting though!

Group pic

Me and my audio guide

Hanging with St. Teresa of Avila

Photo bomb by Carly

Diorama of the wall!!!!

There was a girl climbing on it..

St. Teresa of Avila’s birthplace and church

Sunday:

I got up early and went for a one mile run. Big stuff for me! Pretty slow, but it was good. It was nice and brisk outside, and barely anyone was at the park, which was nice for me. I showered, ate breakfast, and then went to mass at St. Rita’s near my house. I won’t miss not being able to say all of the mass responses or sing the songs. I also won’t miss the lack of music during mass, although I will probably miss the masses being forty-five minutes maximum. I also won’t miss the fact that no one forms a line for communion; it’s just a free for all. I met up with Kira and went to El Rastro (the big, crazy market). We got some fruit juice (like the one I had in Valencia), walked around the market, and then went to Cien Montaditos for the first time (for me)! Cien Montaditos is a chain in Spain that has 100 little sandwich options, and on Sunday and Wednesday, they’re all 1 euro. We got two sandwiches each, onion rings, tinto de verano, and these little fried cheese balls that were really trying to be cheese curds, but failed. The cheese things were gouda, so they were served with jelly… Really weird. We then walked around Sol and Plaza Mayor. We got some good churro bites that Cassie told us about, and I bought a Madrid sticker for my laptop. The area was crazy because the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona game is tonight at Santiago Bernabeau. I spent some time in a different park before dinner since it was so nice out. I wore my Ronaldo Portugal jersey in support of Real Madrid; he has the same number on both teams (seven) so it’s close enough. And they lost… Darn.

Monday:

I went to school to work on ethics with Katie. We were treated to some nice overheard conversations in SIH… I got a new Milka bar to try, hazelnuts and caramel. Still like the nuts and caramel one better. I studied for and took my circuits lab exam! Yay! Officially done with circuits lab for the semester!!

Tuesday:

Class as normal. Last theology quiz of the semester! Only one more day of class after today before finals. Crazy how time flew by. I went to the park to run/walk after class and then just worked on studying and writing blog posts (lol catching up on Semana Santa…).

Wednesday:

Last Bible study!! Such a great group to spend my Wednesdays with. Also one of the best experiences I’ve had abroad. So thankful for those lovely women. A few of us went to Cien Montaditos for lunch, which was good but it took so long. They were a mess today. I told the cashier my name was Mary to make it easier… I went with Kira and her Spanish language partner to the flamenco and Latin dance performance! It was so fun to see a bunch of my friends performing something they’ve been practicing for so long. We went to Tierra Burritos afterwards. Pretty good, but I am looking forward to my normal Qdoba and Chipotle burritos.

Flamenco! None of my pictures were very good, but the show was!

Bible study girls ❤ (part of the crew)

Days 95-99 (Semana Santa Part 2)

Wednesday (Semana Santa Day 6):

Today was going to be a relaxing day. It was, relative to the amounts of walking we had been doing… We slept in and didn’t get into Sevilla until 1 pm or so. We met up with Katie’s friends from St. Thomas. They were super nice and showed us some stuff they had seen since they had been there for a few days. We went to a cute little market where we tried octopus… I only had one piece, but Katie tried a lot. I didn’t particularly enjoy it. I had a slushie (granizado), churros and chocolate, and some fruit. Healthy lunch, right? It was really hot outside. We walked around and did some souvenir shopping. After a while, we decided to sit in a park and just hang out because of the heat and how exhausted we all were. The St. Thomas group also had their bags because they were on their way to the airport that night. It was really nice to hang out with them! St. Thomas has some good kids there 🙂 Katie and I spent the rest of the night wandering around Sevilla. We went to the Bull Ring, which was really interesting. It’s a very unique cultural activity. It was fun because the tour was in both English and Spanish. It was fun to see what I could pick up in Spanish before she told us the same thing in English. We did a little bit of shopping. And then we saw my first processions! They’re called pasos (well, actually that’s just the name of the float… – usually Mary or Jesus), and they’re penance processions. Each different parish has their own, and they proceed to the cathedral and then back to their own parish. It’s super cool to see everyone in their outfit, carrying candles. It’s supposed to be a solemn procession, and everyone is quiet when the actual float comes by. The bands are also really cool. There were a few marching bassoons! Who would have thought. It did make it more difficult to get to different places in the city, since people line up from all over along the paso route. We ended up finding food eventually and got a few different tapas. Also, rip, today was when I realized I left my black shorts in Portugal. Regrets, oh well. I guess if that’s my only study abroad regret, then I did pretty well.

Kitchen in the AirBnb

The dog

Our beds

Her mustang lol

Katie’s friends from St. Thomas

Making weird faces per the usual

Torre del Oro

Bull Ring

Me being a nerd about the diorama of the Bull Ring

Paso!!

Marching bassoon lol

P.S. I couldn’t upload the video of the paso, but it’s on Facebook.

Thursday (Semana Santa Day 7):

This morning was probably the craziest part of our week. We had a day trip planned to go to Ronda by bus. Tickets bought and everything. In order to get to the bus station though, we had to take a bus to the center of the city and then walk for a while to get to the other bus station. We thought we knew the first bus schedule, since it was posted next to the bus stop, so we went and sat at the stop and waited. All alone, which was slightly concerning. So we sat and waited. And our available time to get to the other bus station kept decreasing and decreasing. Eventually, a woman came to the stop and told us when the next bus was coming. She also told us the schedule was different because of Semana Santa, and that we should ask the people at the bus station for the new schedule. We knew the bus was coming at around 9:30 am, which meant that we would have about 10 minutes to get to the other bus station. It was supposed to be a seven minute drive, which meant, if we took a taxi and if everything went well, we would get there at 9:57 am, three minutes before the bus left for Ronda. The bus finally came, and we got to the station around 9:49 am, and immediately ran to find a cab. I told him where to go, and of course we kept hitting red lights, and he was not an aggressive driver. We got there, and I ran to find where the bus to Ronda was while Katie paid. The driver finally realized we were in a hurry when Katie just told him to keep the change. Luckily, the bus station was really small, I found the bus, and we sat down at 9:58 am. And the bus didn’t even leave until 10:05 am. Still so stressful, but we made it.

We got to Ronda, and it was way more touristy than I had expected. There were so many people there, and it was also so hot out. Katie tried gazpacho (I didn’t really like it) and I got to try some of her pisto (vegetables with red sauce and eggs). I enjoyed the pisto! And I tried some pasta. We hiked all around, saw some ruins, and saw two really cool bridges. We did some shopping and had some gelato (per the usual). This definitely was lower on my list of favorite cities, although it was still interesting. We had some sandwiches before getting back to Sevilla. The bus ride was really bumpy on the way back, and someone in the back of the bus puked… It was an adventure. We were exhausted though, so we headed back to our AirBnb.

Katie’s sangria and gazpacho

Partially candid pictures

Wouldn’t be a trip with me without some goofy pics

New bridge!

Some succulents!

Arab baths

Old bridge

Friday (Semana Santa Day 8):

Today was another day in Sevilla!! We still didn’t know the bus schedule, so we just hung out at the bus stop for a while again. Luckily, we didn’t have anything specific planned because we were at the bus stop for an hour or so again… We picked up the bus schedule once we got to the station, and it took us a while to figure it out. It was two giant receipts that showed the trips from our stop and back to Sevilla, but buses were running less often because of the holiday. We went to Plaza de Espana, which was gorgeous. There was a huge fountain. It puts Madrid’s little Plaza de Espana to shame. There was a park around it (again, kind of like Retiro) which was pretty. Since it was Good Friday, we were fasting, which is way more difficult when it’s really hot and you’re walking a ton, so we were really hungry for our big meal of the day, and we found a tapas bar that one of Katie’s friends suggested. It was one of the best meals we’d had, and we couldn’t stop raving about it. We had patatas bravas (always good), spinach croquetas, and cod croquetas. It was a perfect meal for the day. We went to the Good Friday celebration at the cathedral, which was interesting. We then saw a few more processions, and we were right up front for one of them!! They had purple hoods, which were really pretty. It was cool to see all of the kids collecting wax from each procession. I’m not sure if the people in the procession are told not to give them wax or if it’s okay, because some of them refused, some seemed annoyed, and others readily gave them wax. We found more tapas for dinner, more pisto and a potato salad. Overall, a successful day!

Plaza de Espana

Boats in Plaza de Espana

Tile!!

Bubbles

Cathedral

Cathedral

The paso where we were in the front row!!

Collecting wax

Brass band – so good. Didn’t get a video though:(

Paso after dinner

More videos of the pasos are on Facebook.

Saturday (Semana Santa Day 9):

Final day trip!! We had a train to Cordoba, and we made it completely on time, which was great. Once we got to Cordoba, we had some torreja (Spanish French toast), which was delicious. It’s served cold, and I think it’s a typical dish during Semana Santa. I really enjoyed it. We also saw two sets of little twins, and they were both adorable. We went to go see the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, and there was a couple behind us that we talked to a little bit (I think they were from the UK…? We never asked.) and we ended up running into them a few times throughout the rest of the day. They were pretty funny every time we ran into them. The Mosque-Cathedral was really interesting to see, even though the tower was closed and there were so many other people there, too. We went across a cool bridge, had lunch (kind of anticlimactic…), saw some market shops, saw a park, and then went to the castle. Luckily we got there before it closed. We had to stand in a pretty long line to get in, but it was really pretty with a bunch of gardens and the towers there were cool to see the rest of the city. We just wandered around the city for a while (with ice cream and freeze pops), and one of the cooler things we saw was a guy making and painting pottery. Katie also found a market stall that had scarves for two euro, and of course I bought three…

We headed back to Sevilla and had more tapas for dinner. We were both so exhausted at this point. Nine days of travel… With excessive amounts of walking. We figured out that we averaged about 25,000 steps per day, which is about 12.5 miles. No wonder we had so many blisters and were exhausted. Although, I did get pretty tan from being outside so often… Katie got burnt 😉 We went to the Easter Vigil mass at the Sevilla Cathedral, which is the third largest by square footage in the world. There weren’t as many people there as I expected. We met a woman from Australia who sat next to us. She ended up leaving early, but it was a long mass. It started at 11 pm and ended at 1:30 am or so. There were two guys in front of us who were just snapchatting the whole thing, which was really frustrating. Otherwise, the ceremony was great. They gave us candles and booklets to follow along. And the bishop spoke slow enough that I could understand what he was saying. There was a baby baptized, but it was scary because what must have been forty family members followed him and his parents, but they were all wearing white robes, so for a second, Katie and I thought that the baptism portion was going to take forever. Thankfully, it didn’t and we got back to our AirBnb by 2 am. We had to get up relatively early to take the train back to Madrid.

Torreja (this might actually be from Sunday…)

Mosque-Cathedral

JPII ❤

Tower that was closed 😦

Across the bridge

Just hanging out on the bridge

In front of the castle

In the tower!!

Gardens

Castle!!

Booklet and candle for mass

Sunday (Semana Santa Day 10):

Last day!! I was so excited that we were going back to Madrid, my home away from home. It had been such a long, full nine days of travel. I honestly don’t think either of us has ever been so exhausted in our lives. We walked from the bus station to the train station, and we walked even slower than Google Maps said we would. And usually, we can beat Google Maps by a few minutes. We stopped for some more torreja and orange juice. I also had to sit with my backpack on because stupid me tied the bottom parts of the straps together and couldn’t get it undone. The woman in the restaurant actually asked if I wanted scissors to get out of it, but I pulled it off over my head once we got to the train station. We also had McDonalds Sausage Egg McMuffins. What a good Easter meal. On the train, I had my first KinderEgg! And I got the worst Smurf Character toy; it was this random guy who isn’t even a Smurf. Once we got back to Madrid, I went to a café to wait for Adelaida to come back since the door was double locked and I couldn’t get in. I spent the rest of the night relaxing and FaceTiming family! It was an exhausting spring break, but I wouldn’t have changed anything about it!! So thankful for the ability to travel through Europe and Spain during this semester, but especially during Holy Week. Especially to be able to experience my faith through another country’s religious traditions.

Days 90-94 (Semana Santa Part 1)

Friday (Semana Santa Day 1):

The beginning of Semana Santa!! So excited. We’ve been looking forward to this trip for so long, planning so much, and now it’s finally here! It doesn’t feel real. Katie and I took a cab to the airport with Stephanie and Katie because we had to leave by 4:45 am to get there for our 6:30 am flight to Lisbon. Crazy early, but way cheaper than a midday flight. Katie got stopped in security…just like Mallorca. I made it through with no problems. Our plane was a really small plane, and we had to get there on the tarmac by bus. I have now realized that small planes scare me even more than big planes. Because of the time change, we landed in Lisbon at 6:45 am. The sunrise was beautiful though.

We got to our AirBnb, where the guy let us drop off our bags early, which was super nice of him. The stairs up to the apartment were some of the steepest three staircases I’ve ever climbed in my life. He showed us where the bus stops were so that we could get back, and then told us it was a twenty minute walk to the center of the city, so Katie and I said, why not, might as well, we’re in no hurry. Turns out, it’s about an hour walk to the city. And this begins our adventure of the day we walked 33,000+ steps. We found a cute little café on the way to the center of the city to get some real breakfast; my 4:30 am breakfast wasn’t going to hold me over to lunch. I got a fruit crepe. We spoke English to everyone. Most people speak English, and very few speak Spanish. It was helpful that we could read the signs, since they were mostly in English and Portuguese. Even the signs that were only in Portuguese look enough like Spanish that we could figure it out. We had a walking tour of Lisbon, and our tour guide’s name was Francisco. He was nice and took the time to talk to all of us in the group. We met a family from Pennsylvania (near where some of Katie’s relatives live!) and the daughter was studying in Salamanca. The walking tour showed us a lot of Lisbon and gave us the history of the city. I honestly can’t remember much of the history or of exactly what we saw, but it was definitely interesting. (It was 17 days ago, and we were exhausted already.) Oh, there was a church without a roof! Kind of random, but cool. We decided to get lunch with Francisco, and he brought us to an authentic Portuguese restaurant. We both got cod, and I wish I had taken a picture of it because the plate was huge. Good thing we were in Portugal on Friday, since they are famous for fish. The cod was really good, and we ate with a couple from Germany who was on the tour as well.

After lunch, we went on another tour with the same company of Belem in Lisbon. Yes, we were silly enough to decide to do two walking tours in one day. Belem was cool, there was a lot of history there, too. We got to meet more interesting people, like a couple from Canada where the man was a police officer. There were also two little girls (from different families) that played together the whole tour. We got to try what are the “best” pasteis de nata in Lisbon (according to Francisco). They’re little pastries that are made with eggs. You put powdered sugar and cinnamon on top. Of course, I spilled the powdered sugar and cinnamon all over my face and myself (this is a recurring theme of me not being able to eat food), but they were yummy! The water fountains in Portugal shot the water straight up, so it was an adventure trying to fill water bottles. Eventually, some random cab driver gave us a straw to use… Super weird, and also really funny to see everyone getting drenched in the water that was spraying everywhere. We got to see the ocean and the Jeronimos Monastery. We took the train back to the city, and we were dying by this point. It was so hot, and we had walked so much. We didn’t really see anywhere we wanted to eat, so we took the bus back to the AirBnb and decided to order a pizza. We ordered Pizza Hut delivery, and it was 7 euros. For the pizza and delivery. For a pizza where each of us got three slices. One of the best pizza deals I’ve ever had, and the pizza was delicious (probably mostly because we were starving and exhausted). I know it didn’t sound like we did a lot of walking, but we did. 33,000 steps worth (about 16 miles). And it was only day one of ten.

Sunrise!

One of the steep staircases

Fruit crepe!

Lisbon

Our tour guide, Francisco

Facebook??

Church with no roof

Belem

Palace

Too excited

Yum!

The crazy water fountain episode

Monastery

No, I’m not really that much taller than Katie

Ended up back in the midwest??

Finally…

Saturday (Semana Santa Day 2):

We got up to take a train to a nearby town called Sintra. In Sintra, we took a bus up to the top of a mountain area (so glad we didn’t walk…) and got to see the Pena Palace. It was so colorful and really pretty. There were some great views of Portugal from the palace as well. We had little banana and Nutella sandwiches we had made in the morning as a snack/lunch. We explored the inside of the palace, and then ventured up to the high cross. It was a far hike, but it was all very pretty. We then got to see two small ponds, where there was a man who had taken a frog out of the pond… It was kind of gross. We then went to the Quinta de Regaleria, where we got a small snack and then walked around. There was a small palace, gardens, a chapel, a tower, bridges, and a cool unfinished well that we got to climb up! The caves and the well were super cool. Really dark (underground, obviously), wet, and crowded, but still fascinating. We were almost as exhausted as yesterday, except we got a full night of sleep, which was so helpful. We had close to 30,000 steps again. We went back to Lisbon and got Chinese food. When in Portugal, right? Kind of some weird food choices for the trip, but it was what we were hungry for. We found a grocery store and got some more food for the next day.

Pena Palace

“Look, there’s the other castle!!”

Look at how excited I was to take a mirror selfie…

“Look like you’re exploring!” – Katie

The man holding the frog…

“Where did Katie go??” – me

Kitchen in the palace

Cruz Alta

This was kinda scary

In the well!!

Yay Chinese food!!

Sunday (Semana Santa Day 3):

Today, we got up and took a bus to Fatima! But to get to the bus station, we had to take a bus from our AirBnb to the city and then a metro to the bus station. We almost missed the bus to the metro stop, but luckily the bus driver saw us running towards the stop, he waited for us. We made it to Fatima, and we went to the main square. We saw everyone getting candles, so we went to find some for ourselves. We both wanted to keep them, but everyone was throwing them (quite literally) into a fire pit, so we followed their example. Evidently, they are meant for prayer intentions (as candles usually are), but instead of being nicely displayed and lit, they were just thrown into the big fire. People brought their own palms, too, of all different sizes and shapes. We found our “normal” palms from a basket on the side of the square. They began with the rosary at the Chapel of the Apparition, and then Palm Sunday mass started. There was a big procession with all of the altar servers, priests, and the bishop. Mass was about two and a half hours, with no chairs and outside. We sat on the ground for a while. We both got a little burnt, and even though we knew what was being said, it was harder to pay attention because neither of us speak any Portuguese. It was a really nice ceremony though, with so many people. The funniest part was when all of the priests came to distribute the Eucharist, they had helpers with umbrellas, to keep them in the shade but also so that everyone knew where they could receive the Eucharist. After mass, we had our little sandwiches, pretzels, fruit, and candy that we packed for lunch. We went into the Sanctuary of Fatima which is larger than the chapel of the apparition, but is still pretty small. It was beautiful, and there were memorials for the three children who Mary appeared to. We then walked to do the Stations of the Cross, which was also beautiful. Good weather (a little hot at this point), but really nice to walk the stations outside in Portugal. There were a few other groups walking them when we were there, too. A random guy asked us where we were from, and after telling him we were from the States, he asked if there were fifty or fifty-one, and we said fifty, to which he responded, “No, I think there are fifty-one.” He was probably just trying to get us to be annoyed (or was really confused) but it was funny nonetheless. We saw a part of the Berlin wall in Fatima, but we couldn’t get good pictures because there was a dad and son sitting in front of it. We went back to Lisbon to have dinner. I had a burger (actually really good) and Katie had a salad. I tried green wine, which was actually pretty good! We had Portuguese wine and cod, we were set on food for the trip!! We walked so much, the blisters on our feet were so painful and so gross. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many blisters in my life.

Sanctuary of Fatima

All of the candles

Procession

Bishop!

Umbrellas for communion

Chapel of the Apparition

Palms

Inside the sanctuary

Berlin wall

Stations!

End of stations!

Green wine

Burger…yum

Monday (Semana Santa Day 4):

We got up pretty early to take an Uber (still scares me, but it was fine) to the airport. We were off to Valencia! We got sandwiches and pasteis de nata on the plane, which was really nice and kind of made me feel better about the tiny plane where you could see the propellers from my seat. Also, people on the plane smelled awful, so that was great… We dropped our bags off at our AirBnb, which was more like a hostel feel because there were seven bedrooms with two bathrooms and a living room. The beds were more comfortable than Lisbon (even though we barely noticed because we were so exhausted). We headed out to walk around and explore Valencia. We walked through their version of Retiro park and ended up at the City of Arts and Sciences. The architecture was all really cool. There was a little pool like thing where kids were in bubbles, kayaks, and water scooters. We decided to rent bikes and bike down to the beach. The beach was super pretty, and there was a guy who made a ginormous sand castle. It was so cool! And then a kid tried to destroy it, but the artist stopped him… It was a really nice day for a bike ride. Gotta keep training for the Tour 😉 We were exhausted (story of Semana Santa), so we went back to the AirBnb to relax for a bit. Then we met up with my friend Julia from WNHS who’s studying in Valencia for dinner. We had Paella Valenciana (which has rabbit in it!!) and agua de Valencia (their typical drink – orange juice, gin, and champagne). Great to see Julia in her city (since she visited me in Madrid)!

Tiny plane 😦

Science – you can see the propellor blades through my phone even though you can’t see them with the naked eye.

Really cool slide at a school

City of Arts and Sciences!

Bubbles…

Selfie with seagulls? Not as good as Rome.

Yay biking!

Sandcastle – so cool

Agua de Valencia!

Tuesday (Semana Santa Day 5):

We had another walking tour today! We got to see a bunch of the history of Valencia, learn about their language (Valenciana), and see the basilica and cathedral. We also went to a really cool market that has two sides: the fish side and the everything else side. The fish side smelled gross (like fish…), but it’s all freshly caught fish that the people sell daily. The other side had so much fruit and vegetables and other random things. Katie and I both got dried fruit for a snack as well as a fruit smoothie/juice thing. We had a bit of an issue with our AirBnb and a lack of communication, so we had to carry our bags for the rest of the day (talk about making us even more exhausted). We walked around a bit more, had some gelato, and then headed off to the airport. Last flight of the trip!! And my last flight until going home!! Katie got me craving fast food, so we had Burger King for dinner. It was another really small plane, and Katie and I were in the back rows. My row didn’t have a window, and I’ve decided that’s even worse for me freaking out on planes. I’m still not over flight anxiety… Even after 10 flights. I mean, I’ve gotten considerably better, but it’s still not enjoyable. When we got to Sevilla, I went to go to the AirBnb (which was kind of out of the way…about 20 minutes away from the city center), and Katie went to meet up with her friends from St. Thomas who are studying in Rome but were hanging out in Sevilla for a few days. The AirBnb, despite being really far away, was really nice. The beds were comfortable, and it was a house as opposed to an apartment. There was a pool in the back and a nice kitchen. They had a dog, which was not my favorite, but he usually kept to himself. The woman didn’t speak any English, but her daughter did, and I speak Spanish well enough that we could communicate. I had a phone interview, which went well besides my phone losing service and dropping the call halfway through. I fell asleep promptly afterwards, and then got up to let Katie in when she got back from hanging out with her friends.

JPII 🙂

Basilica

Fruit juice!

Harley in Valencia!

Outside of the market

Yum

Days 73-89

Tuesday:

I got to sleep in today because circuits lecture got cancelled! Yay! Then, I had a Spanish art presentation, which went well. Pretty average day, but definitely weird to not have class until 12:30 pm.

Wednesday:

Another normal day, just doing homework and hanging out.

Thursday:

Today would have been a pretty average day, but it started snowing. In Madrid. Snow. It was weird snow too; it looked like big clumps of snow. And then there was hail at one point as well. Everyone thought it was crazy. And it kind of was! The weather is behaving a lot like Chicago and Milwaukee… Super nice one day, then snow the next. I thought I was coming to Madrid for nice weather!

Katie and I went to Cherry Pecas for dinner before going to Bocatalk, which is a service group on campus. We made sandwiches and then went into the center of the city to give them out to homeless individuals (or houseless if you prefer…). We talked to a few people, but we didn’t have that many sandwiches just because the weather was so weird. It was a good experience, even though it was cold. To warm up, Katie and I went to get churros and chocolate.

Friday:

I got up bright and early to go meet my family at the airport!! Super exciting to have them all here in my new home. We took a cab to my apartment and then walked around the SLU-Madrid area. We went up to the Faro de Moncloa to see the view of the city and had lunch at a nearby pizza place called Picasso. I had a good time translating for everyone. That’ll keep happening… It’s kinda fun though! We went and found their AirBnb and all took naps. I got up before all of them and did a little bit of homework. We went to get dinner and ended up at a fish restaurant. The food was pretty good but they kept giving us everything in threes… Not sure why, maybe they thought Lucy wasn’t eating.

Saturday:

I met up with my family and took the metro to meet Katie at El Prado to look at all of the famous art. The tile tables were probably my favorite part. Although, I did get to see Las Meninas by Velazquez which we’ve been discussing in my Spanish class. We walked towards Sol and had lunch at Rollerie, where Mom and I shared paella. So good. I took them to Plaza Mayor and of course we had to stop at San Gines for churros and chocolate!! I let them wander around while I went back to my apartment to do some homework. It is called “study” abroad… We ended up at this little local place for dinner, where I was struggling to understand all of the words on the menu, and the waiter let me suffer through the whole meal and then brought us an English menu. It was actually pretty funny but could have been so much easier for me. We got chocolate pancakes with whipped cream and ice cream at a nearby chocolate shop, too.

Hanging out with Katie and the family

Sunday:

I slept over at the AirBnb (which is pretty tiny) on Saturday night so we could go to mass at the Basilica of Saint Francis in the morning. There weren’t that many people at mass, and definitely not a lot of native Spanish speakers. It made for a lot of quiet responses. We went to El Rastro, the crazy and super busy market after mass. Lucy found a super cute backpack, and Mom found a blanket scarf. The obsession with scarves must be hereditary 😉 I introduced them to Spanish tortilla by having them get tortilla sandwiches. So good. So many carbs. We spend the afternoon in Retiro, where Lucy and I decided to go on a boat ride in the little pond/lake thing. That was a disaster because I am awful at rowing boats, and we crashed into at least five people and barely made it a fourth of the way through the pond. Oh well, it was a “cultural experience,” as we’ve been calling everything goofy or weird that happens to us. There was a little jazz group playing near the pond, too! The Crystal Palace and the remnants of the first zoo were also cool in the park. We saw turtles and black swans. We got back to the AirBnb and took naps again (too much walking!). For dinner, we ended up at this small Argentinian pizza place that was fantastic. Probably going to go back there… We don’t go back to restaurants in Milwaukee, but in one week in Madrid, we’re going to go back to one… We had good empanadas, pizza, and a dulce de leche crepe.

Hanging in Retiro

Lol I was struggling

Crystal Palace

Yum pizza

Monday:

Today, we went to the Palace! Cross another thing off of my “touristy Madrid things” list. It was really pretty and cool to see all of the different rooms. The armory was fascinating. All of the armor looked so uncomfortable. The Palace was packed, even at 10:30 am. There were so many tour groups and a few groups of elementary school children running around. We got lunch at Rodilla, which is a chain in Madrid (maybe all of Spain?). I left them to explore more of Madrid while I went back to SLU to do homework, go to lab, and teach ESL. We talked about music today, and I showed them part of “Another Shade of Red” and part of my Wind Ensemble’s performance at the Chicago Symphony Center. They loved seeing me, and one student noticed I had glasses in the video… I even forgot I was wearing my glasses full time then. Only two more weeks with them! I’ve loved teaching them, but I wish we had more time.

Palace

Tuesday:

I had class as normal today. My family went to Toledo! I was a little worried since Lucy is the only one who vaguely understands Spanish, but they survived. After class, I met up with them to go get dinner and then to a flamenco show with my Spanish class!! The show was so cool. It was so interesting to see authentic flamenco. It was interesting that the singing and music is such an important part of the dance. It was also cool for me because you could see the musicians watching the dancer’s feet to stay in time and at the right spot in the music. There were two dancers, a man and a woman. They were both fantastic! The show didn’t start until 10:30 pm, so we didn’t get back to the AirBnb until 12 am or so.

Flamenco show

Mom and I at dinner

Wednesday:

The weather was so much better today! We went shopping to spend time outside. I went to Primark for the first time and to some other stores on Gran Via. For lunch, we went to the “gourmet experience” on the top floor of Corte Ingles. It was a cool view from up top. We walked around Madrid some more and then I had to get a little bit of homework done. For dinner, we went back to the Argentinian pizza place. It was good, so we had to go back! And they gave us chocolates instead of mints after dinner. They asked us if we wanted shots after dinner… This happened a few times this week. Maybe I just haven’t been out to eat enough to notice if this is typical or not. I said bye to my family, since their flight was pretty early Thursday morning, and I had class. It was great to spend a week with them!

Had to take a selfie with the ducks

Thursday:

Class… Theology ended about 45 minutes early, so I had an even longer lunch break! I had to pack and get ready for an early flight to Mallorca.

Friday:

We headed out bright and early for Mallorca! (Also spelled Majorca…) I went with Katie and six of her roommates (Celine, Yulissa, Cassidy, Maddy, Karin, and Amina). Katie, Celine, Yulissa, Cassidy, and I got on our flight at 8:30 am and got to Mallorca around 10 am. I still have flight anxiety, so I didn’t sleep. Maybe I’ll get over that during Semana Santa… We dropped our bags off at the train station, got some lunch, and then explored Palma! We walked around to so many stores, saw the outside of the cathedral, and then looked out at the sea. There was a little market in the main square, and the coolest thing was a wax bowl that you put candles into, and they just light up the wax, and the wax makes all of the smells. You can use scissors in the inside to bring out more of the smell. The lady gave us a sample, and it did smell really nice. Also, the weather was wonderful. I think I got a little bit burnt… We went to the beach too! We met up with the rest of the group and then headed off to our AirBnb. It ended up being a super long bus ride because we kind of missed our stop. Oops. Oh well. We made it to the place, which had a gorgeous view of the sea. A few of us decided to venture out to find a grocery store to get food for dinner. After a fifteen minute or so walk, we found a store and stocked up with a ton of food for 60 euro. We made pasta and pizza (meatless of course!) for dinner. Celine and Maddy made pina coladas after dinner. I ended up getting to sleep in the master bedroom by myself. It was kind of weird because there was a mirror above the bed… Comfortable though, and I didn’t even notice the mirror.

On the plane!

Cathedral

View of the pool from the AirBnb

Dining room area

Master bedroom

Cooking!

Dinner

Yum

We all took a picture in the master bedroom mirror

Saturday:

We had a boat tour scheduled for today! And then it got cancelled because of the wind and the size of the waves. I wish that was an April Fool’s joke, but unfortunately it wasn’t. Luckily, they refunded us, and after a long time of trying to decide what to do, we went to a beach called Cala Llamp. In Mallorca, they use Catalan (also used in Barcelona) and a lot of the signs had German on them, too. Cala Llamp was super pretty. It was a rocky beach area. The water was cold, and it was actually really windy, so I guess it’s good we didn’t go on the boat. We went back to Palma, grabbed some food (I got a falafel sandwich – SO good – I think I forgot to take a picture…) and went to the beach. We were all glad to be on a sandy beach for part of the weekend. I went in the water for a bit, but it was pretty cold. I definitely got a little bit of a tan, yay! It was nice to have a relaxing weekend instead of feeling like we had to see everything in the city or the country. We got some gelato and headed back to the AirBnb. There was a pool outside the apartment complex, and Katie and I decided we had to jump in. How could we pass up a pool?? There were some middle schoolers hanging out around the pool, just being normal, weird middle schoolers. They played “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran three times during the fifteen minutes we were outside. We decided to go out to get a nice Italian dinner as a group. I got pizza, and it was huge! They also gave us some really good bread (kind of like pita) before our meal. We went back to our place and hung out for a while. Still a tiring day, even though we were just at the beach.

Group pic

Candid (kind of)

Haha I accidentally deleted these pics

Group picture!!

Yum

Sunday:

I got up to do some homework pretty early. It was also super windy outside, which woke me up. There were three different groups of us on different flights on Sunday, so we all did our own thing in the morning. Cassidy and Yulissa left first, and the rest of us cleaned up all of the AirBnb, which was kind of chaotic, with all of us there, and we had made a little bit of a mess. We tried to catch a bus, but in typical Katie, Maggie, and Karin fashion, there was a 5K going on, so the bus route was blocked (déjà vu to Granada…). There were some nice police officers that helped us to find a new bus stop that got us to Palma on time. We went to mass at the Mallorca cathedral, which was gorgeous. There were actually so many people at mass. It was nice to have a crowded mass for once. And they had some music, too. All around a good mass. We got burgers for lunch, which were yummy. Katie and I split salad, too (desperate attempts to be healthy…it was good too though). We walked about forty five minutes to Castle Bellever, which was unfortunately closed, but there was a great view of the city and the outside architecture was super cool. Celine, Katie, and I still had a lot of time to kill, so we went to the beach again and then did some shopping. I got more gelato, and then we decided to head back to the airport. We tried to do a little bit of homework (we all know how that worked out…) and then got onto our 9:55 pm flight, which didn’t even board until 10:30 pm. We took a taxi back to our apartments because we were exhausted. Great trip, fun times, but still exhausting.

Cathedral

After climbing up the hill to the castle

Castle!

Stairs down from the castle

Pretty salad

Monday:

I tried to get up relatively on time, but I ended up falling back asleep. I’m honestly kind of exhausted from traveling. And not even close to being done with trips. Speaking of trips, Katie and I went to Little Big Café to plan and buy more tickets for Semana Santa! It’s crazy that break starts this week. It always seemed so far away, and now we’re here.

Lab was a mess; the function generator wasn’t working as an AC source for our op-amps, so it took us probably an hour longer than it should have. It was frustrating since I knew everything the op-amp was supposed to do, but the equipment just wasn’t cooperating.

It was our last real ESL class today! It was kind of sad. I’ve really been enjoying teaching all of them. They make my Mondays so much more fun. And they teach me so much Spanish in the process. We talked about interviews and then just ended up talking about sports and music and life in general. They still laugh about cheese curds and the fact that I want them to visit Chicago and Milwaukee. We do have a party in two weeks, so that’ll be fun to see them all again for the last time.

Tuesday:

Circuits exam… It was probably okay. We’ll see. Classes were pretty typical today. It was nice out! Katie and I went to the international food party for a little bit. It was pretty interesting and tasty. Students brought in food from their country, and the funniest one was seeing an American student making PB&J. Just had to laugh. We tried some desserts, chicken, and a little sandwich.

Wednesday:

I went for a run this morning! Run/walk, whatever you want to call it. It was a little chilly out, but it was good weather to exercise in. There are way less people at the park early in the morning instead of around 7:30 pm. Pretty slow day, just Bible study, mass, and homework. Gotta get everything done before Easter week!!

Thursday:

No circuits lecture, whoo! No class until 12:30 pm. Still kind of a crazy day, trying to get everything ready for Semana Santa. So excited though!!

Days 54-72

It’s been awhile, oops! The less interesting days are going to have a short sentence, but this is an update from a weekend in Madrid and another in Granada… and another in Ireland. The boring days are going to be as short as possible, but still apologies in advance for how long this is. Like really long. Sorry. Props to you if you read it all.

Thursday:

Nothing interesting, just class.

Friday:

I spent my time in Madrid this weekend! It was kind of a gross day outside, really rainy and pretty cold, but I decided to explore anyways. I went and bought some Spanish shoes called espadrilles. They look kind of like Toms, but they’re made in Spain and they’re really comfortable. It’ll be nice to have another pair of shoes for warm weather. I kept walking around and stumbled upon the Sorolla museum, which was his house and has a bunch of his paintings. They were all really pretty, and it was a relatively small museum. My language barrier incident was that when I told the cashier that I was a student to get the discount, he asked how old I was, and the only number I could come up with in Spanish was eighty. I said it, immediately realized I was wrong, and he just looked at me and laughed until I could come up with nineteen. Next, I went to the Museum of Natural Sciences, which was celebrating an anniversary of being started by Pedro F. Davila. The only interesting part was how he started the collection; everything else just made me feel like I was in Bio 1002 again…

My favorite museum was Anden 0, which is the ghost train station of Chamberi. They have a movie about the metro in Madrid and then you can walk around and see all of the old station. And metro line 1 still runs through the station!! One of my goals this semester is to go on all of the main metro lines (1-10). I’ve definitely been on all of them except 8 and I think 1. Eight goes to the airport and is closed for renovations until the middle of April, but I think I’ll be able to take it at least once.

Then I went to the Basilica of St. Francis (Basilica de San Francisco). There was a tour in Spanish of all of the different little chapels and some of the back rooms. I understood most of what the tour guide was saying, which was cool. It was very pretty. Another language barrier incident… I had talked to the cashier and discussed that I was studying abroad and I was from Chicago, and afterwards when I went to buy some postcards, he asked what “sobre” meant while holding an envelope. And translating literally, sobre means about so that’s what I told him. He looked kind of confused and said that he thought it was envelope, and I realized that sobre means envelope too, and obviously that’s what he was asking about because he was holding an envelope. Oh well…

After the basilica, I walked towards Plaza Mayor and stumbled upon Mercado Miguel which is a tapas market. Super crowded, but also really cool. I’ll have to go back. I ended up stopping at a bakery and got my berlinesa… A few days late but trying to celebrate Fat Tuesday anyways! I did some shopping in Plaza Mayor and bought a second blanket scarf…oops…

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Saturday:

Today, I took a trip to El Escorial, which is the historical residence of the King of Spain. It was about an hour bus ride (free with my metro pass!) and super cool. I want to go back to go hiking around the area, but I only went into the monastery. It was really pretty and full of a lot of history. You definitely weren’t supposed to take any pictures, but I got a few. And yelled at by a security guard. Oops. The gardens were really pretty, too. Here’s my third language barrier issue for the weekend (so many…). I ordered sangria and a burger for lunch, and the man asked if I wanted “medio punto,” in which I thought he was referring to my sangria, so I said yes, but I then realized, he meant medium rare for my burger. It was fine, but I think my stomach didn’t like it for the next week or so. Or maybe that’s just my stomach not liking how much meat I eat here (so much more than at home).

I spent the rest of my night walking around Madrid more. That’s one of my favorite things to do, even if there are a ton of people out. It’s always interesting!

El Escorial

Definitely got yelled at right after this

Being a nerd and looking at the Spanish AEDs

Sunday:

I went to mass at a Spanish speaking church for the first time!! I went to a church called St. Rita, which is really close to my apartment. I missed some of the readings and the homily especially, but it was super cool to understand almost everything that was going on in a different language. I’ll definitely go back to a Spanish mass. Maybe with the responses printed out as well.

Monday:

Today started a quite stressful week. I’m not stressed out about school this semester, but I am stressed out about planning trips and making sure the logistics are worked out. Katie and I both said that we didn’t sleep well since our trips weren’t planned. I shared two West Side Story songs with my ESL class today! Maria and Somewhere. They seemed to enjoy them. I love sharing songs with them, and musical songs are usually pretty good for them to listen to.

Tuesday:

Another day of planning, another day of trips. We got most of Granada planned!! Yay! One less thing to worry about. I ended up going to the park to run for some stress relief though. I always run better when I’m worried or stressed about something.

Wednesday:

Bible study is another good way to relax and hang out with some wonderful women at SLU Madrid. Carly joined Katie and me for mass, and Father was late by 15 minutes or so. Of course, we had told Carly that he was always early, and we’d be done by 2:20 pm at the latest, but we still finished by 2:35, so it all worked out!

Thursday:

Nothing much, just class and the continuation of nice weather!

Friday:

Katie and I got up bright and early to catch a bus to Granada! Whoo! It’s about a 5 hour trip total, with one half hour stop. We ended up meeting up with Bella from Australia who I met on the Morocco trip! She was going to hang out in Granada this weekend, too. Once we got to Granada, it was about 1 pm, and it was so hot. We thought walking to our AirBnb would be fine, but we were so tired and hungry and hot. We ended up finding it, but it was up three hills, and these hills were more like mountains. After relaxing for a bit, we went to walk around the area that was on top of the mountain so we wouldn’t have to climb up again. We found the overlook that is pictured in all of the tourist guides of Spain and Granada. The hill our AirBnb was on was directly across from the mountain the Alhambra is on. So cool. Definitely worth the hike. After having lunch and exploring, we went to meet up with Kira, Karin, Marisa, and Mary who came on a later bus. We kind of thought we were taking a faster route, but Katie and I ended up walking a super long way all the way to the bus station. It didn’t help that the bus routes weren’t running very much and we couldn’t take a bus there. I also got a bloody nose while walking there, so that was good. Like Katie said, “blood, sweat, and tears!” I don’t think I cried at that point, but we definitely sweat, and now I was bleeding. After meeting up with everyone at the bus station (and finding a sink…) we went to a bar called La Riviera for tapas and drinks. It was super cheap and the tapas were pretty good, too. I got Sprite and water (my stomach was still kind of upset) along with some tapas for 3 euro.

We then climbed back up to the AirBnb, slowly but surely. Karin and I slept on the two couches in the common room area, while the other four slept in the room with four bunk beds. There were some really loud people outside of the apartment for a long time during the night, which was kind of annoying, but I was exhausted, so I slept well anyways.

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Saturday:

Mary and I got up before the crack of dawn to go get tickets for the Alhambra. We were out of the AirBnb by 6 am, after Katie got up and made us fried eggs. Katie and I had gotten groceries for breakfast the day before (eggs, bread, cereal, juice, and milk) which turned out to be one of the best ideas of the whole trip. Isa (the woman who owns our AirBnb) also made muffins which were delicious. Mary and I went down our mountain and then started the long climb up to the Alhambra. There were so many stairs, and we were exhausted by about halfway up. Once we got to the end of the stairs, the road turned into just a paved path, and there were no more lights. I took out my phone to use as a flashlight, and even though we knew we were going the right way, it was really scary. All of a sudden, we saw lights like police flashlights up near the Alhambra on our right. Mary tried saying hi and hola to them to make sure they knew we weren’t trying to do anything illegal, we just wanted tickets! No one responded, and we were both trying not to freak the other one out, but we were scared. We held onto each other and made it to a lit area and found the line for the tickets. One of the scariest moments of my life. We didn’t let the other girls live that one down. It was cold and early and dark and scary…

We were the third people in line, and we waited for an hour and a half to get all six of our tickets. We’re so glad that we were there early and actually got tickets because the Alhambra was amazing. There was so much nature and beautiful architecture throughout all of the different parts of the Moorish fortress and palace. It was great to see the place that was conquered to unify Spain. My Spanish culture and civilization class is teaching me so much about the things that I go around and see during my adventures. It was so fun to explore and hang out with my friends! After walking around for four hours or so, we went down the hill (which was still exhausting) and found some lunch. I had some good green risotto and sangria of course. This one was really good because it had a bunch of different fruits in it, which we ate afterwards of course. We then wandered around Granada to do some shopping. We decided to go back to the AirBnb to watch the sunset from the overlook, which was everyone’s idea so it was crowded, but still pretty. We went to dinner at a place suggested by Isa, which was a very hippie place, kind of weird but also cool. I had a salmon sandwich and some white wine. We also got a garbanzo bean tapa with our drinks! So nice. We got some chocolate after wandering for a while and went back to go to sleep. Long day, so we were exhausted.

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Sunday:

We got up to pack everything and head down the hill for one last time! We went to mass at the cathedral, which was a little gaudy, but still pretty. There were probably fifty people maximum at mass, which seemed weird for such a large cathedral. We got a quick snack after mass, and then Kira, Mary, and Marisa took a bus back to Madrid while Katie, Karin, and I walked around Granada more. I loved exploring Granada! I wish I could go back!!

The hill…

In front of the basilica

Catcus garden

Some more stairs

Monday:

Just trying to catch up on work and get back into the swing of school. Not sure that really happens though, it’s hard to focus on school when I spend the majority of my time traveling and doing fun things. We listened to Don’t Stop Believin’ in ESL today. They seemed to enjoy it! I’m still loving hanging out with them every week.

Tuesday:

So much is going on. I had a midterm for Spanish today, homework due for circuits, packing for Dublin. But it all got done, and it’ll all be okay!!

Wednesday:

Today’s the day! I got up relatively early to catch the metro to the bus to the airport to go to DUBLIN! I can’t even explain how excited I was to go to Ireland to see Keegan and Irene. I’ve made some great friends here, but I was really missing my Carpenter engineering crew. I was flying Ryanair for the first time, and I forgot that they require a visa check before going through security, and then I couldn’t find the visa check line, but I was there two hours early, so I made it through everything with plenty of time to spare. I lucked out with an aisle seat and watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad that I downloaded on my phone. I think the man next to me was judging me for watching such a violent show… He might have been watching part of it, or his head was just falling from being asleep. I didn’t want to look and make it awkward. I landed in Dublin with no problems and headed off to UCD (University College Dublin). I met Irene’s roommate Alex at their apartment. It’s not terribly big, but it has a kitchen, two bathrooms, and four bedrooms, so it works for the four of them. I put my stuff down and took my two jackets off because it was uncharacteristically warm for Dublin, I was sweating!! I jumped on another bus to head back to the city center for my Guinness storehouse factory. The buses are super nice! More expensive than Madrid, but the seats are padded and they’re double decker and it was great.

Since it was St. Patrick’s Day weekend, there were so many people everywhere. It didn’t help that it seemed like all of Dublin was under construction, so it took a little longer to get to the city. I stopped at a little restaurant to grab a sandwich. I didn’t take a picture, but it was this huge breakfast sandwich (yes it was 4 pm, but I wanted eggs and I was hungry) with eggs, bacon, and sausage. So good. The Guinness storehouse was also really cool. It’s a self-guided tour with a lot of different videos showing how they make their beer. I got to taste a little bit of the beer and smell the four different ingredients before pouring my own pint!! I think I poured the best pint out of my group; they were all really bad at following directions… I took my pint up to the sky lounge, which was packed. It was cool though; you got to see Dublin in all directions. A band from Germany ended up being there and played some pep band tunes. I didn’t really enjoy the Guinness, so I only had a few sips and left the sky deck area. It was almost 6 pm, and I decided to wander the city, which had gotten cold now. Unfortunately, most of the churches and parks were closed for the night. I guess I just got used to things being open really late in Madrid. I also saw a bunch of teenagers/young adults going into what looked like a club at 7:30 pm, and I guess I’m pretty assimilated into Spanish culture, because I was so confused why they would be going out so early!! This was also my first English speaking country since the US in January, which was quite a surprise. I could read everything and everyone understood me. Kind of a nice break. But the cars driving on the wrong side of the road freaked me out!! Good thing we were taught to look both ways before crossing the street. Some man actually asked me for directions to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and I was able to help him since I had just walked past it… Guess I look like a local! I grabbed some groceries and a falafel dinner. All of the waiters and cashiers were so nice to me. It had been a long day of traveling and exploring Dublin, so I headed back to the apartment. I took a shower and hung out in the kitchen where I ended up sleeping for three nights. They have four green chairs that I pushed together to make a makeshift bed. It honestly wasn’t that bad, or maybe I was just super tired. I waited up for Keegan and Irene to fly back from their trip around Europe, and they didn’t get in until 1:30 am, but it was totally worth it! I was so happy to see them, but also to get some sleep for our big day.

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Thursday:

Irene and I got up bright and early to eat some breakfast and pack up our stuff before heading to our tour of Northern Ireland. I had accidentally put the strawberries I bought it the freezer…so that was a mess. I really should have realized that there was ice cream and frozen food in there. Granted, it’s kind of confusing because they have a fridge and freezer that look exactly the same. Oh well. We had cookies and oranges and mini pancake bites. We met up with Keegan and went into the city where we got onto the Paddywagon tour bus (green and covered in leprechauns and clovers, what else would you expect in Ireland?). We drove up to Northern Ireland and saw the Dark Hedges which is a cool pathway of trees (from Game of Thrones). It was cool, but really cold and rainy. The next stop was Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. There were some fantastic views, and Keegan and I crossed the bridge to go over to the little island. Irene got a great picture of us crossing the bridge. It was a little windy, and the way back was very scary. But we made it! We got to stop and eat lunch after that. Irene had chicken fingers, and Keegan and I both had a beef and Guinness stew kind of thing. It was really good!! I just had water with it, but Keegan had Harp beer which I already liked more than Guinness. After lunch, we headed to Giant’s Causeway, which was definitely the highlight of the trip (as cool as the rope bridge was…). There were so many different rock formations below the cliff, and we climbed all over them. I thought I was going to slip and hurt myself a few times, but we made it through injury free! It was on and off sunny and rainy, but I was just glad it didn’t rain the whole time. Keegan couldn’t keep his umbrella open for most of the trip just because it was so windy. We climbed all over the cliffs and got really tired. The whole view was so beautiful, I loved it. We also got to see the ruins of Dunluce Castle. I fell asleep for a while on the bus to Belfast, some much needed rest. Belfast was a cute city that I definitely could have spent more time in. We got some good bakery sweets, I got a yummy cupcake (like I needed more sugar, we ate so much chocolate this trip).

We got back to Irene’s apartment and decided to go out with her roommates. We knew we were kind of crazy for going out after such a long day and after not sleeping, but who needs sleep. We went to a club called Howl the Moon, which looked like an old fancy house inside. It was actually really cool, even if it was chaotic with so many people. I got my first shot, which was a green apple shot, which may or may not have been just melted jolly ranchers… It didn’t taste like alcohol at all. I got a cider beer, which I enjoyed so much more than the Guinness. Irene and all of her roommates let me try the different beers they had. The club was super loud and crazy (as expected), but they played a few Spanish songs, and that was great. I also met Gavin, who’s a BME at Marquette. It took us until being across the world to meet each other. We finally got home at around 2:15 am and went to get some sleep before St. Patrick’s Day!!

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Friday:

We started off the morning with mimosas and putting face paint on each other to be ready for the parade. Irene, Keegan, Gavin, and I went with some of their roommates and friends downtown for the chaos that was St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin. It was pretty cold and crowded, but we found a spot to watch the parade. There were a bunch of bands, some bagpipes, and then various floats, which were not exactly what we were expecting, but I think they were supposed to depict the history of Ireland. We left after a while because we were too cold and got burgers for lunch (yes, we discussed that it was Friday during lent…but it happened.). We went to a pub afterwards which was in the Temple Bar area. Super crowded, but also really fun. I had a different cider beer today which I liked better than the one on Thursday. We left to go to a brewery kind of place and then went to get dinner. I wasn’t super hungry so I just had fries, but they were really good!! After dinner, half of the group went back to the apartments, but we walked around for a while before heading back in. We were exhausted and it was only 8 pm. Gavin, Keegan, Irene, and I planned on watching the Marquette men’s basketball game at 2 am, so we decided to rest for a while. I hung out in my room/kitchen and talked to Meredith and Cate for a while before setting an alarm for 1:30 am and falling asleep. I woke up to Irene asking if I still wanted to watch the game and realized it was 2 am!! Neither of us woke up to our alarms, but we went next door to Gavin’s apartment and watched the game together. It was so nice to be back with a group of Marquette students watching basketball again. We were so upset that they lost and that we stayed up til 4 am for the game. Maybe next year… 😦

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Saturday:

Considering we stayed up til 4 am, we slept in a little bit until 9 am or so. Irene and I went to brunch at The Bakehouse which was pretty crowded, but really yummy. We went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral afterwards which was beautiful. And it’s not a Catholic church! Unfortunately, I had to head to the airport, which ended up being a little chaotic and for some reason security wanted to do a swab test on my purse and liquids… Evidently my stuff might have had explosives? Not sure why, but it stressed me out because we were getting close to departure time. And of course, Ryanair was delayed by a half hour… So I didn’t even have to worry! I made it back to Madrid safely. Happy to be back in the country that feels like home, but I was really sad to have to leave my friends. This weekend really made me thankful for my Marquette community and so happy that we were able to hang out for a few days.

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Sunday:

I slept in a little bit, got ready, and then went to St. Peter’s church which is another Spanish speaking parish closer to church. One of the mass coordinators asked me to read, but I declined because I didn’t know the readings or the church and I didn’t want to mess up the whole second reading in front of all of these native speakers. I can’t even begin to explain how many cell phones went off in mass. And how many people answered the calls!! It was kind of obnoxious. Overall, I didn’t like this mass as much as St. Rita or the mass in Granada. I probably won’t go back.

After mass, I went to the American Museum, which was kind of boring, but I figured I had to go. It was just about the colonization of the Americas, and some of the artifacts were cool, but I just didn’t find it interesting. Right next to the museum, there is a lookout tower where you can see all of Madrid. It reminded me of the sky deck bar in the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, but with a lot less people and no beer. The elevator up there was kind of scary, but the view was quite nice. I went and had lunch at Rodilla, which is a chain around here and had a nice sandwich. After that, I went to the Almudena cathedral next to the palace. It was gorgeous, and the crypts were even prettier. I also saw the Muslim Wall as I was walking to Madrid Rio, which is a park along the river. The park is right near Atletico Madrid’s stadium, and there were so many people hanging out there, just because it was a nice day but also because there was a game going on. I really enjoyed the park and would go back and have a picnic there or something.

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Monday:

Just a lazy day, hanging out, catching up on sleep from a crazy week and a half of travel and exams. Kira and I got lunch at Domino’s and got a ton of weird looks for sitting on a bench eating a pizza. We embraced it though. And then I spent the afternoon hanging out and writing all of this at the park. Probably got sunburnt…

Days 46-53

Wednesday:

Today, I spent the day planning Italy and just hanging out at SIH. Katie and I went to mass and then to lunch at Miga. I had my last midterm at 7:15 pm for my circuits lab. It felt like I was just waiting all day for my exam, but it went well, so that’s good. So excited for Rome!!!

Thursday:

I got up, gathered my things, ate a quick breakfast, and then I was on my way to meet Cate to go to the airport. We took a bus to the airport because unfortunately the metro line that goes to the airport is closed until the middle of April. Getting through security was a breeze. It probably took fifteen minutes by the time we got into the airport to get past security. The airline we flew (Alitalia) actually went on strike the day we flew out, but our flight wasn’t cancelled and ended up being uneventful. We got these little cheese Cheeto like things for a snack. They weren’t powdery like Cheetos, but they did taste vaguely cheesy. The flight was quick, we got to Italy in two or so hours.

We went to go take a train to the metro station to get to our AirBnb, but the ticket lady told us we could take a shuttle instead. So we got into a van with five other people and got driven to the metro stop. It was all fine when we were driving on the highway, but once we got into the city, I was so scared that we were going to hit someone or some car. I am a very anxious backseat driver with anyone I haven’t driven with before, so this was an adventure. I thought we were going to die a few times, but we made it safely. The metro is so different than Madrid’s. I know people said that Madrid has a really good public transportation system, but I just got so used to it, that going to a metro system with only one real main line was kind of surprising. We got to the AirBnb and met Massi, our host. He was super nice and helpful and gave us restaurant suggestions and help on how to get to different places in the city.

We first went to find food; we were so hungry since we didn’t really eat lunch. We found a restaurant that was open near the Pantheon and had potato gnocchi. I’m not sure if it was fantastic or if I was just really hungry, but either way, I really enjoyed it! After eating, we went to the Pantheon which was so cool. It was so pretty and the dome is crazy cool. We went to Piazza Navona which is one of the main piazzas in Rome. It had a cool fountain and some touristy shops. We went to Church of the Gesu in Rome, which was cool because the parish I go to back at Marquette is also Church of the Gesu. It was one of the prettiest churches I’ve been in. Fair warning, I’ll probably change my mind about which church was my favorite at least three times while writing this blog. After seeing the church, we went to the Trevi Fountain, which is one of the oldest water sources in Rome. We threw coins into the fountain, which supposedly means that we’ll return to Rome one day. Fingers crossed!! We then went to Giolitti, which is the oldest ice cream parlor in Rome. I had Oreo and white chocolate gelato. It was very good!!

One of the funniest things of the trip was that near our AirBnb there was an ice skating rink. It was this tiny rectangle of ice that was basically all water because it was around 60 degrees Fahrenheit all week. But there were still people skating with American pop music playing. It was funny every time we walked by it. It was also weird to be able to speak in English to most people, since we’re all used to speaking English to each other and then Spanish to strangers, but here, it was easier to start by communicating in English. Although, throughout the whole trip I found myself answering questions in Spanish sometimes. And other times it was helpful to try and communicate in Spanish, since there are a lot of words similar between Spanish and English.

Spanish steps

Gnocchi

Pantheon

Piazza Navona

Gesu Church!

Trevi Fountain

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The weird ice skating rink

Friday:

Today was Vatican City!! I can’t explain how excited I was for today. We took the metro and then walked a little bit to get to the city/country. There are so many tourists in Rome; it was kind of crazy. I’m not sure I would want to live or study abroad in Rome just because of the sheer amount of people that were tourists. I know there are a decent amount of tourists in Madrid, too, but it doesn’t feel like there are nearly as many as there are in Rome. Maybe it would be different if I was in Rome for longer than a weekend, but it was kind of overwhelmingly touristy.
I’m not sure if I can count going to Vatican as another country because no one checked my passport when we went in. There’s only a few guards vaguely watching people walk in. Our first stop was St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s free to get into the basilica, but this means the line gets super long. We were there around 9:30 am and probably waited 10 or 15 minutes to get in, but by the time we were at the front of the line, the line had doubled or tripled in size. We got to look at the square while waiting in line, and it’s very pretty. I would love to come back and hear the pope speak. But the basilica was breathtaking. New favorite for this trip! There was an area closed off specifically for adoration. The area for adoration was beyond gorgeous. I was in awe the whole time of how beautiful the architecture and decorations were, but also how beautiful it was that I got to spend time with Jesus in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. To make my experience even better, I got to go to reconciliation in English in the basilica. Talk about cool. All of the artwork and statues in the basilica were gorgeous; my pictures don’t show half of it. I could have spent hours there, but we had tickets for the Vatican museum at 11:30 am, so we had to keep moving.

The museum was fantastic, but so crowded. The funniest groups were the groups of little school kids with the same colored hats with all of their names sewn into the front. They were cute, but also really loud. There were so many artifacts, statues, and paintings with so much history in one museum. It was so much to take in, but I loved it. Especially the Sistine Chapel. Wow. You’re not allowed to take pictures, and that’s strictly enforced. There were guards watching everyone and keeping us all moving along. It was super crowded in there, but that’s obviously a very famous and important chapel. It was crazy to be there. We got pizza and yummy cannoli for lunch. For dinner, we went to a little place suggested by Massi where we got “pinsa” which is an ancient Roman version of pizza. It was so good; mine had arugula, mozzarella, tomatoes, and ham on it. Even though I was stuffed, we went to supposedly the place with the best tiramisu in Rome called Pompi. Even though I don’t like coffee, this tiramisu was fantastic. If I wasn’t so full from the pinsa, I probably would have eaten two pieces of tiramisu.

St. Peter’s Square

St. Peter’s Basilica

So gorgeous

In the museum!

Part of the moon

Basilica from the museum

Lol this was the best picture…

Cannoli!

The fanta didn’t have artificial coloring

Pinsa. So good.

To a Spanish speaker, this looks like the gelato is Mango and Fish. It’s actually mango and peach….

Free alcohol or alcohol free?

Yum tiramisu

Saturday:

Today, we went to the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum. All of the ruins were so interesting. I think I liked the Forum the most. It was cool to see the old city center and to be able to walk around where they would have been walking. Nonetheless, Palatine Hill was cool to walk around in, and the Colosseum was fantastic. Of course, most of the tourists were at the Colosseum, so maybe that’s why I liked the Forum more. It was really cool to be able to see all of the ruins though. I took a bunch of selfies with seagulls during the day… It was pretty fun. We had lunch at a nearby restaurant and got some good fettuccini with a spicy tomato sauce.

After lunch, we walked around in the Trastavere neighborhood, which is significantly less touristy than the other areas. We wandered around for a while and climbed up a big staircase to see a nice view of the city. We went to a café for a pastry and got to listen to some guys playing bass and accordion in the piazza. They were actually really good! We then went to St. Cecilia Basilica, which is on top of St. Cecilia’s house and her body is buried there. The church was fantastic, and I got to go down into the area that was once her house. So cool. St. Cecilia is my confirmation saint, so I was blown away by the fact that I was able to go to the church where she is buried and go down into her house. Still so cool. I also went into St. Mary Basilica, which was gorgeous.
For dinner, we met up with Kira, Sarah, and Mary who were also in Rome for the weekend. We went to the Jewish quarter and had some yummy food. I had hummus and falafel and a Roman style artichoke. We also shared a bottle of the house white wine, which was quite good. We got some gelato afterwards, and I had dark chocolate and Nutella. Very good!

Colosseum

Look at all those tourists

First seagull…

Palatine Hill

My favorite seagulls

Rabbit just chillin

It looked like a pineapple

I don’t even know what happened to this tree

Forum

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River Tiber

Hey there, seagulls

Italian grafitti “Tortellini”

Street musicians

St. Cecilia!!!

Super awkward picture…

Altar

Ruins of her house

St. Mary Basilica

Tried to post this on snapchat but my android screwed it up

Yum

Sunday:

Last few hours in Rome! I went to the San Giovanni Basilica for mass. This is where the papal throne is and is the oldest of the four basilicas in Rome. It also is more important than all of the churches in the Catholic Church. (Honestly, I just read that on the internet, I didn’t realize how important it was when I went for mass) Mass was in Italian, so I didn’t understand it, but I picked up a few words that were similar to Spanish, and I tried to say all of the responses in English while they were saying them in Italian. I got lost during the Nicene Creed, but I got most of the other ones! There was a choir since I went to a high mass, which was really nice. I think I was one of a few people that didn’t understand Italian that was there. It was kind of weird though because even though the mass area was roped off, there were still tourists walking around outside of the ropes. Either way, it was cool to experience mass in another language, in another country. Admittedly, I haven’t been to Spanish mass yet… Oops. That’s on my to-do list.

Our flight back was easy! After getting off the plane, I saw Katie and realized she was on our flight, and we hadn’t run into her at all in Rome, even though we were at the same places at the same time. I took the bus and metro back with her and got to talk about our Rome experiences. It was super nice to be back in Madrid even though Rome was wonderful. It was nice to hear things in Spanish and be able to understand them.

San Giovanni Basilica

Fanta with a cool logo on the cap

Cheese cracker cheeto like things

Italian coast during takeoff

Monday:

I went to SIH to work on homework that I didn’t finish before going to Rome. Mary and Marisa went to SuperSol and got an avocado to eat with bread and cheese, so I decided that was a good idea and decided to copy them. Unfortunately, I got an extremely unripe avocado and couldn’t eat it. I did get raspberries and a Milka chips ahoy bar, which were both wonderful.

Today in ESL, we were learning about clothing, which proved to be really funny. We talked about underwear for a while, full slips, and any other weird item of clothing you could imagine. They love to make fun of us in Spanish, and sometimes I miss what they’re saying, but they’re having fun and learning at least a little, so that’s the important part! I think they’re hysterical, and it makes my Mondays so much more enjoyable. They make fun of my pronunciation sometimes, if I emphasize certain vowels. I try to blame it on being from Chicago, which probably is actually part of it. We listened to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for a fill-in-the-blank listening exercise which they really enjoyed. We then decided to listen to “Umbrella” by Rihanna because umbrella was one of the “clothing” words they came up with. That was pretty funny, since some of the older students had no idea who Rihanna was or what the song was at all. We also listened to “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran. I’m so happy to have this opportunity to meet people from Spain and also teach them English. It’s been a fantastic experience.

Tuesday:

Class as usual. I had my presentation in theology today! It was about Moral Theology, and it went really well. No one really pays attention in that class. The people in the first three rows were paying attention, but the back rows of people were all on their laptops not paying attention, so that actually helped my nerves… Kira shared some of her avocado with me because she felt bad that mine wasn’t ripe yesterday. After class, Katie and I went to go find paczki because it’s Fat Tuesday, and I thought I found two different bakeries that would have them (except they’d be called berlinesas – German berliners), but the employees all thought we were crazy. We ended up eating cake and ice cream instead. Oh well, it was still fun and it’s a good story now. Happy Fat Tuesday!

Sad because we didn’t get paczki

Wednesday:

Ash Wednesday! We had mass on the patio of PAH with around sixty people. If only we could get that many people to show up to the usual daily mass! It was nice to celebrate mass outside. The ashes we got were very light grey, so you can’t even see them. We then got some free soup broth and bread for those of us who are fasting today. Our bible study group met on the roof of SIH since it was so nice out. The weather was great, so I spent some time working on planning trips and doing homework outside. Great start to the Lenten season. Also got to skype Kristen, Lizz, and Rachel!! Yay 🙂

Days 40-45

Thursday:

I had my Theology midterm today, which I think went pretty well. After I finished my midterm, I went back to Santiago Bernabeu stadium to buy our tickets for Saturday. It was surprisingly easy, and the whole trip only took me an hour.

Friday:

I got up, studied a little bit, and then met Katie at a café near her apartment to study ethics together. It was a really nice, quiet cafe. They played primarily Spanish music, which is kind of unusual, since most of the places I’ve been are playing music in English. It was a nice change. After studying, we met up with Karin, Katie, and Sarah to go to the Reina Sofia museum. The Reina Sofia is an art museum, and I had to go for class, so naturally, I dragged some of my friends along with me. We saw Picasso’s Guernica, and a bunch of other art that was interesting. My favorite one was an old movie camera that was projecting an image of a house onto a screen with a cutout of the house and onto the wall where the house was outlined by the cutout. It’s difficult to explain, and the picture doesn’t accurately depict what was going on, but it was cool. After looking around the museum, we went to go get dinner. We went to a restaurant because we saw chips and guacamole on the menu, but when we got them, they were really depressing. It was a minimal amount of weird guacamole, but it did still taste good. We got some sangria, potatoes with aioli sauce, and black paella. It was all really good!! Afterwards, we decided to go get frozen yogurt, where I got an Oreo cheesecake brownie with frozen yogurt on the side. The frozen yogurt was very tart, like normal yogurt, less sweet than in the US.

The house video thing

Glass elevator

Oreo cheesecake brownie and frozen yogurt (with green spoon)

Saturday:

Today was National Marquette Day!! It was fun to celebrate by going to the Real Madrid vs. Espanyol soccer game. Cate and I had seats only a few rows from the top, but we could see everything pretty well. There were also heaters above us, which stayed on for most of the game and kept us warm (even though it was already a really nice day out). It is a huge stadium, and everyone there is super into the game and cheering their team on. The fan section was cheering and singing almost the whole time. Real Madrid won! And Gareth Bale scored one of the goals in his first game back from injury. Ronaldo didn’t score, but it’s okay. It was a really interesting experience. After the game, the whole stadium cleared out in about 10 minutes. It felt very different than any other sporting event I’ve been to in the US.

I didn’t stay up to watch Marquette play Xavier, but I guess I should have! The highlights were great. Always great for MU to win, but especially on National Marquette Day!!

The view from our seats

Ronaldo!!!

So far away!

Final score. Scoreboard and the fan section below

Outside the stadium

Gotta celebrate the best holiday! Go MU!

Sunday:

Katie and I went to the English speaking mass this week. If I didn’t mention it last week, this church still uses the old translation of the music, so it kind of feels like a throwback. It is very nice to have music though. We decided to go to El Rastro, which is the biggest flea market in Madrid. It was super chaotic, but really cool to see everything that people were selling. I would go back if I had something I was specifically looking for. I spent the rest of the night studying for my midterms.

Monday:

I went to another café to study today. It’s called The Little Big Café. I got a strawberry and orange smoothie and some pumpkin and chocolate bread. Honestly, I thought I was getting zucchini bread, but I mixed up the words for pumpkin (Calabaza) and zucchini (calabacin). It was good nonetheless! There were a few other students there studying and an English speaking family with a little boy. The little boy was super cute and showed me his Tegu blocks and keys a few times. After studying, I found the post office, which is only a few blocks from my apartment. I studied more, went to lab, and then studied more. During ESL, we taught about family, which was pretty fun. I used some awkward family photos to help them talk about family relationships, and they just thought the outfits and expressions on the people’s faces were fantastic. We probably talked about their outfits more than the actual family relationships, but that’s okay.

Trying to study…

Tuesday:

Circuits midterm this morning. I think it went okay. We’ll see. My ethics midterm was okay, too. We watched, “Hello, Mr. Marshall!” in Spanish class today. Kind of a depressing movie. I spent the rest of the night planning for Italy! Super excited. Pictures will come soon 🙂

Days 33-39

Thursday:

Class as usual. I went to Pizza Jardin for lunch by myself. That’s the first time I’ve walked into a sit down restaurant to eat alone. Kind of intimidating, but it went well, so I guess that’s a check off of my list! I’ll be more confident doing that another day.

I went out to get tapas with a few of my friends from school. We went to one of the many “El Tigre’s,” which is the first tapas place we went with SLU during orientation. I had sangria and good tapas. We then went to a club called Moondance. It was a little weird because there weren’t really any people there, but that was kind of nice. I enjoyed having my personal space and not being surrounded by a million people. My friends wanted to go to a different club (Joy – the club that most SLU students populate on Thursday nights), but by the time we got there, free entry was over. We met two girls from Valencia when we were in line, and we talked to them for a while. It was cool to talk to native speakers. A few of people decided to go try a different club, but I decided that I should go to bed. It was a fun night though!

This is from last week, but this is the group in front of St. Ignatius Basilica.

Friday:

Cate and I went to get lunch at an Indian place near her house. It was pretty good! I had chicken and curry along with some cheese rolls. We got this weird pistachio ice cream dessert afterwards. The ice cream was cut into triangles. It was kind of odd, but it tasted good! I spent some time studying after lunch, since I have two midterms next week. For dinner, I went with Carly and her roommate, Katie, to a hummus restaurant called Hummuseria. It was really good!! I had hummus with a tomato sauce topping and some tabbouleh (with pomegranate!) as well. I would go back to get more hummus some time. So basically, all I did today was eat food. Oh well.

Yum, hummus!

Saturday:

During Thanksgiving break, I posted a picture with Emily, Eliza, and Angele on Instagram that said something along the lines of “there has to be a correlation between how early you’ll wake up for breakfast and how much you love someone.” I still think that’s pretty true, and today I got up at 7:55 am (so early, I know…) or so to talk to Andrés, Grayson, and Jimmy. It was fun to talk to all three of them at the same time again. Kind of funny that they were going to sleep right after that, and I had just woken up. Very thankful for technology for allowing us to talk though.

It’s been really rainy here, which has been kind of sad. It doesn’t make me want to go outside and explore Madrid. Guess that’s helpful for studying?

For lunch, I met up with Julia, a friend from high school! She’s studying abroad in Valencia through University of Virginia. I got to meet three of her friends who came to Madrid for the weekend with her. We had lunch at La Sanabresa, which was delicious. There was a really long line, which is obviously because the food is so good. I had a plate of vegetables, chicken with garlic and French fries, and a piece of cake that was cookie flavored. So much food but so good. We decided to walk around and found a few cool spots in Madrid. We found the Congress of Deputies, which is the lower house of the legislative branch in Spain. It looks kind of like the Art Institute in Chicago, so we thought that was funny. Travel the world to look like we’re back in Chicago together. We tried to go to the free hours of the Prado, but the lines were so long, so we decided not to stay there. There was a protest on the street next to us. Not entirely sure what they were protesting, but we think it was something with fair trials. Then we walked past the May 2^nd memorial, which has to do with the May 2^nd uprising in Spain and is for the people who lost their life for Spain. We got to Plaza Cibeles, which has a palace, which used to be the post office and is the city council building now. We wanted to go on the Sky Deck area, but it’s currently under construction. Maybe in a few weeks. We also went to Puerta de Alcala, which used to be a gate for Philip IV. I went home for dinner, but I met up with them and went to a different El Tigre for tapas. I had a mojito this time, but we’re pretty sure it was almost 100% juice. It was great to get to hang out with someone from Wheaton in Madrid. And great to meet her friends. Thanks for coming, Julia!!

Cake after lunch

Congress of Deputies

Lion in front of Congress of Deputies

Art Institute??

In front of the Cervantes statue

El Prado

May 2 monument

Plaza de Ciebeles

Puerta Alcala

Sunday:

Today, a few of us decided to go to the English speaking mass, which is about a half an hour away on the metro. It was super nice to have a mass in English, in a church, and with music!! I’ll definitely be going back to mass here when I’m not traveling on Sundays. After mass, we had pastries!! And then Katie, Carly, and I decided to go get Domino’s pizza for lunch. Not as good as at home, but it was nice to have something that was really close to American pizza. I went to school to study for midterms, super exciting.

Monday:

Carly started a Bible study, so we had our first meeting today. I’m excited for this new group of people to share my faith with. Circuits lab today went very similarly to some of the labs last semester. I knew what I was doing and everything should have been working, but it didn’t. I think I’m just cursed to always have problems with circuits labs. I eventually just restarted and fixed it (don’t even think anything was wrong, but oh well). Today was the third day of ESL classes! We taught about food today. The best part was that they were amazed and humored at how to pronounce “lettuce.” From a Spanish speaker’s perspective, it should be pronounced like “lettu-che” (or something like that), so we showed them that it’s pronounced “let-us” in English. They couldn’t stop laughing about it! I also learned a bunch of new food names in Spanish. Especially that in Spain they use the word “zumo” for juice, instead of “jugo.”

Tuesday:

Class as usual. Katie and I were having lunch in the cafeteria, and some students came around and passed out little bags of candy for Valentine’s Day! Super cute. They don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day in Spain, but I’m still going to try and see if they have discounted candy tomorrow…

Wednesday:

I went to Santiago Bernabeu Stadium to buy tickets for the Real Madrid game on Saturday. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that I couldn’t buy tickets today because they have a game tonight… So I’ll have to come back on Friday. I did get to buy myself a t-shirt and some souvenirs for friends so that was good!!

I met up with Katie to go to mass, but as soon as we were going to try to go upstairs in PRH, we were met by chaos. A bunch of people walked in the basement of PRH saying that we weren’t allowed to leave the building, and no one seemed to know what was going on. We took the elevator up to the second floor to the chapel, and Father O’Leary wasn’t there yet. We overheard some people saying that there was a gas leak next door, so they decided to keep us in the building. We tried going on the balcony in the chapel to look at the chaos, but we promptly got told to go back inside. After sitting in the chapel for about an hour, we got some email updates about a gas leak in the construction site next to PRH. There were a bunch of policemen and fire trucks surrounding the area. Katie and I were joking about how at least we were stuck in the chapel… Father was probably stuck outside of the building because he never came for mass. The whole situation was really weird, but also kind of funny.

Also, I forgot to write about this the other day (and I don’t remember exactly what day it happened), but I walked into the apartment building and the elevator floor locator was showing dashed lines. It was déjà vu to some the Straz elevators every other week. So I decided to take the eight flights of stairs up to my apartment. I got to the sixth floor and there was a woman stuck inside the elevator that was partially stuck between floors. There was a man outside the elevator talking to her, and they got it fixed pretty quickly because I was able to take the elevator downstairs the next time I left.

Also, I have been on the metro for some interesting musical experiences. There have been multiple accordion players, some singers, and most recently, alto sax and clarinet players! It’s always interesting, some of them are better than others.

I’ve also been asked for directions while walking and on the metro, and I’ve been able to help people figure out where they’re going. Sometimes I totally miss what they’re saying, or I just don’t actually know how to help them, but it feels great when I can help them figure out where they need to go.

From Katie’s snapchat