¡Más fotografías!

I've finally finished uploading all the pictures from Rome! I sorted through both mine and Lizzie's pictures and put them all in one album on the Shutterfly site. I also uploaded a few more to the most recent Gigi in Madrid album.

Here's the link: http://gigiinmadrid.shutterfly.com

Enjoy!

Día Quatro en Roma

(The Fontana di Trevi in Roma, Italia)

Sunday, December 13th

So after only three hours of sleep, I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. Once I was ready, I woke up Lizzie, packed all of my stuff, and then crawled back into bed for a nap until Lizzie was finished. We went downstairs to check-out and after they made me run back upstairs to bring down our sheets, we headed over to the hostel restaurant to get breakfast. Today, we shared the egg and bacon sandwiches and a bowl of granola, yogurt, and fruit, and after we finished, walked back to the open-air market we found on the first day to do some souvenir shopping. Because our flight wasn't until later in the day, we had time to kill and had planned to explore the Trastevere neighborhood all morning. We asked a shop owner for directions, and she told us we needed to walk to a bus stop, take a bus, and then take a tram - all of which sounded awfully confusing. So Lizzie and I decided just to hang around central Rome for the morning and see what other things we could find. As we were walking, it started to rain, and we were still trying to think of something to do when we passed a church that was advertising Korean services. The sign was in Korean and Lizzie was excited because she is also half Korean. So we went in and listened to a group singing Christmas carols in English. Then we stuck around for most of the rest of the service. Lizzie was happy because she got to sit down and I was happy because I got to sing, (even if it was only my desperate attempt at Italian).

We then walked back to the Trevi Fountain again, because I still needed to throw in a coin. One coin means you'll come back to Rome, two says you'll come back to Rome and fall in love, and three says you'll come back to Rome, fall in love, and get married. As my worst nightmare is to accidentally marry into the mafia, I only threw in one. While we were there, we saw a terribly attractive and well-dressed group of teenagers in front of the fountain and then saw that they were being professionally photographed. Turns out they were models on a photo shoot, which explains their attractiveness and well-dressed-ness.

We then strolled back to our hostel a different way and headed back towards the hostel, where we had planned on going to lunch at a restaurant for which we had a coupon. Unfortunately, it was closed (we tried here several other times, as well, and it was closed each time). So we went back to the restaurant we ate the first day. I got rotini in broccoli sauce and then we both got tartufo for dessert. This waiter was not as friendly as the first had been and we were also sitting right next to the drink fridge. Every time someone shut the door to the fridge, a puff of air would shoot at me. I am like a cat in the fact that I do not like when air/wind blows on me, so every time this happened, I would cringe.

When we finished, we walked back across the street to the hostel to pick up our bags from the luggage room. Sidenote: yesterday, Lizzie had bought a poster at one of the open-air markets, but this morning, had refused to put it in the luggage room because she didn't want anyone to take it. Therefore, she had been carrying this poster around for two days. It now had a smudge of Nutella in the corner and rain-tattered edges. But it is still a very nice picture.

So after we grabbed our stuff, we headed back to the train station and bought tickets back to the airport. This time we asked about verifying our tickets, and we we were told that was unnecessary. We got on the train when it came and slept for the half hour ride to the airport. We got through security with no problems and with plenty of time to spare. We went to one of the airport restaurants for dinner (again we were the only ones there) and I got pasta with shrimp (risky, I know). After we had spent about an hour at the restaurant we moved to our gate, but unfortunately, the airport had re-routed another flight to our terminal. Therefore, our flight back to Madrid got delayed for about an hour. In the meantime, Lizzie and I fell asleep at the gate and when I woke up, there was nobody in the waiting-area. It was still a half-hour until our flight as scheduled to leave, so I woke up Lizzie and she went to check to other gates while I stayed and watched our stuff. After she had left, a security man appeared at our gate and I asked him what had happened to our flight. He said it was moved to a different gate, so I grabbed all of our stuff, found Lizzie, and we got in line at the other gate.

Once we were on the plane, we again fell asleep and woke an hour and a half later, thinking we were already in Madrid. Nope. We hadn't even left Rome yet. Apparently there was some problem with the mechanics and the guy that had been working on fixing it broke something else, so they had to call in an engineer to fix that mistake. So we were delayed for another hour before we took off. We were supposed to arrive in Madrid at 10:30 pm and didn't get back until 1 am. I wouldn't have been worried, but my flight to London was that morning at 6:30 am and I needed to go back to Julia's, pack clean clothes, and grab my boarding pass to London. I had been planning on taking the metro to Julia's and back to the airport, but with the delay, the metro was already shut down for the night.

The only way for me to get home was to pay for a taxi both ways, which would be over 40 euro. I asked the man at the information desk if I could just show the airline my passport without a boarding pass, and he said that would cost 40 euro extra. So I asked if he could print it off for me and he said the only printers at the airport were at the currency exchange desks. When Lizzie and I found a currency exchange desk, they wasn't anyone there. So I decided to pay for the taxi, but the next problem was that I did not have any euros on me. So I found a public computer and transferred money into my account and then went to the ATM to withdraw money. Unfortunately, none of the ATMs would take my card and I panicked, thinking that Bank of America had shut my card down again. This worried me, because if I had no money, I couldn't very well go to London for three days.

So Lizzie lent me money to take the taxi home and thankfully, I was able to withdraw money from the ATM near Julia's apartment. I was also able to get in Julia's door (I had been remembering the time when she locked it and I ended up spending the night at Lizzie's) and pack a new set of clean clothes. Things were looking up.

Día Tres en Roma

(The Basilica del San Pietro in Città del Vaticano, Italia)

Saturday, December 12th

We got to sleep in a bit today as we weren't planning on being at the Vatican until 10. We ate breakfast in the hostel bar and both had egg and bacon sandwiches with ketchup (the ketchup packets were really hard to open so we resorted to sharing just one instead of exerting the energy to open two). We then got on the metro to the Vatican and after Lizzie stopped to buy some leggings at a vendor, we started to look for an entrance. We got called after by one Australian guy who was advertising a Vatican tour, and we tried to cross the street to get away from him, but he managed to follow us and we were met on the other side of the street by one of his Canadian coworkers. They explained to us their whole deal and then invited us out for beers, (which really didn't add to the legitimacy of their offer). We managed to turn them down, despite their persistence, and kept walking towards the Vatican, but when we saw the line that stretched around the whole of the Piazza, we followed a different guy who was also advertising a tour (that was also cheaper than the first).

We met up with the group led by a British guy named Antony, who turned out to be kind of bizarre (he kept making dirty, inappropriate jokes that no one was laughing at). Three more American men joined the group and just seemed as though they were from Boston. One of them introduced himself as Tim Flaherty, which seemed familiar to both Lizzie and I, and for the whole tour, we wondering if he was some big-wig at BC (we never did figure out how to ask that without sounding like creepers, though). The group stopped at a bar to grab drinks and pay Antony and then we headed to the Vatican Museums, where the tour started. We looked at a bunch of paintings and what Lizzie decided were "handsome sculptures." We also saw a huge marble bathtub that had belonged to Nero, which I thought was pretty cool. The thing was the size of a swimming pool and made out of a slab of rare purple marble. The museum itself was also very cool and there were lots of mosaic floors and frescoed ceilings. One ceiling was even painted to make it look like it was sculpted. The tour finished off in the Sistine Chapel, which was different than I had imagined it to be. It was much bigger than I had expected and much more elaborate. Every inch was covered with painting and Antony explained some of the story behind its creation. Michelangelo did not like the Pope's Master of Ceremonies, and made him Charon the demon in the huge fresco of the Last Judgement, which is positioned over the altar. Also, he had painted everyone in the Last Judgement nude, which horrified the church, and the Church hired a different painter to come cover everybody up.

After the tour finished, Lizzie and I walked through the crypt under Saint Peter's Basilica, where all the popes and even Saint Peter himself are buried. Then we headed upstairs to see Saint Peter's Basilica itself. The place is gigantic! Everything was huge and really elaborate. We did one and a half loops to get all the pictures we wanted and I stopped in the prayer room for a little while, as well. By this point, my memory card was completely full and Lizzie had to take over as prime photographer.

We left the basilica after a while and after taking a picture with the uniformed Swiss guard we took more pictures from the main piazza. The Vatican's staff is currently setting up for the Christmas masses, so there were a ton of people putting out chairs and programs, setting up huge Christmas trees, and putting together the big outdoor screens. As we were leaving, we passed the fountains that Antony had mentioned on our tour. He said that Rome and the Vatican have some of the best water in the world and that people still drink from these ancient fountains. So I wanted to try. Lizzie took pictures of me while I essentially doused my head in a fountain - they aren't really built for convenient drinking. The water was fine - cold, but good.

We then stopped for lunch at a cafe right outside the ancient Vatican walls. There were a bunch of monks having lunch right outside, so we knew it must be good. We both got potato and thyme pizza, which was really tasty, and after we paid, I was put on map duty to get us back to the Tiber. I was successful in this endeavor and we wandered along, stopping for pictures of the Castel Sant'Angelo and then further along at the Palazzo Di Giustizia. As we were walking along the river we passed an ice-skating rink and another open-air market, where I got this wonderful marzipan, shortbread, ricotta, fruit dessert. Perhaps the best dessert I've had in Europe yet. We also passed what looked to be a giant groundhog chilling in the river and a bird swarm sitting in a tree, making the tree completely black. The tree hung over the path we walking along, and we didn't think anything of it until we heard thudding sounds close to the tree. This was the birds relieving themselves on the sidewalk and on the car parked under the tree. That will be a mess later. Lizzie and I decided to walk around the tree instead of under it. We stopped for another photo shoot near the Palazzo, because there was a nice background of a bridge and good lighting, and reminisced on our time in Europe for a while before heading on.

We then crossed the bridge and headed over to Piazza Popolo, which is another big Piazza with a obelisk and, during this time of year, a big Christmas tree. When we got there, there was a street performer doing Michael Jackson impressions, which was pretty spiffy, and then we walked through another of the big shopping districts back to the Spanish steps. We were chilling for a while at the Steps and watched this parade for heart health go by followed by a marching band with an all-female drum core and all-male flag twirlers.

We then stopped at a McDonalds to use the bathroom but our jaws dropped when we walked in. The place was gigantic and really cool. There were all these side rooms decorated in various styles and it was all really impressive. So we decided we may as well stop for a while. Lizzie got dinner and I got a McFlurry and while we were eating, the woman at the next table turned around and gave us a flyer for another pub crawl. That's something interesting about Rome - they have people advertising everything from tours to pub crawls on the streets and Lizzie and I ran into quite a few of them. We took her flyer and then finished eating. I had been watching the garbage cans in the corner because they were automated and people had been having some problems with them. The one I was watching was so full that it had started spitting trash back out at people. I did not want that to happen to us, hence my careful study of the trash collection area. Two workers eventually came to fix the malfunctioning machine and I told Lizzie that I thought we were safe. We managed to dump our trash without too much trouble and headed back to the hostel. We had decided to go on one of these pub crawls (the one advertised by Tac) and we needed to prepare ourselves.

When we got back to the room, Michelle and Scott were there studying for their last final and we swapped stories about our days, (apparently they had seen us from their tour bus while we were wandering the streets). Lizzie and I got ready and were both a mess. I was trying to put on this sparkly eye stuff but it kept getting all over the bathroom and pretty soon, Lizzie and I were standing in a cloud of sparkles. My hair was also not cooperating and ended up in a ponytail. Very saucy.

We then got back on the metro and headed to the Colosseum, where we were supposed to meet the group. Tac met us in the metro (good thing he recognized us, because I never would have noticed him there) and then we walked to the first bar with two Italians. One proclaimed himself to be a model and the other was a computer science major at one of Rome's universities. They were goofs and I think they had already started their tour of the pubs. So the deal: for 20 euros, we would go to 4 different bars, get free drinks, free pizza, and a free t-shirt. The free t-shirt is what swayed Lizzie and I. At the first bar I made Lizzie order me a Coke every time she went up for a drink and we just chatted with the other kids in the group. Lots of them were just traveling around on their own. It seems that a lot of non-Americans take a year off of school before university and just travel the world for a few months/years (and going to pub crawls, from what I can surmise).

Unfortunately, there weren't very many cuties on this pub crawl - only the bartender and one other Australian guy, but before you know it, we were off to the second bar of the evening. By this time, the two Italians, Margarito and Very Very Awesome, (when Lizzie asked him what his name was, that's what he said - we could get no more information out of him) were completely plastered and needed to be practically carried to the next bar, a process that involved bus transportation, which did not help the situation. I liked the second bar better because there was dancing, and although it was really only kids from the pub crawl, it was still a lot of fun. Afterwards, we moved to the third bar, which also had dancing, although people were becoming more drunk and more annoying.

As we walking to the fourth bar, the cute bartender from the first bar (who is also one of the pub crawl leaders - how's that for a job title?) was walking and talking with Lizzie and I. When we got to the last bar, he told Lizzie and I to wait at the bar because he would buy us a drink. He gave us Long Island Iced Teas, which were really strong, (I ended up hiding mine in a corner of the bar) and then we just talked for a while. His name is Musa and he is half German and half Nigerian. Both of his parents are ambassadors, he speaks 7 languages, and he recently graduated from university with a computer science major, (again - pub crawl leader?). He also mentioned that his parents own a semi-mansion, he played basketball and swam in school, and was moving to a new apartment the next day. We chatted for quite a while.

So I got to dance with Musa all night while poor Lizzie was stuck dancing with Very Very Awesome, who by this point couldn't even keep his eyes open. Musa kept buying me drinks, which I kept hiding in random places and by 3:30, I decided that we needed to go. Musa decided we should go to another bar and so we grabbed Lizzie, (Very Very Awesome followed) and headed down the street. Apparently, Musa knows everyone in Rome, because not only did we get to skip the entire line for this bar because Musa knew the bouncer and owner, we also walked in and about half the bar cheered when they saw him. I felt cool just standing next to him. He also managed to get rid Very Very Awesome, who stormed off down the street. So then he got us all beers, (nasty, plain nasty) and we chilled at that bar until it closed.

He then took the bus with Lizzie and I back to our hostel, saying he wanted to make sure we got home okay (although I believe he had other intentions). He was nice though. If I had actually drank all those drinks he bought for me, I probably would have needed help getting home. But as it so happens, I was the only sober one there, and was actually the one making sure we all weren't plowed down by any Italian drivers. Lizzie and I crashed, seeing as it was about 4:30. Too bad we had to wake up by 8 the next morning.

Día Dos en Roma

(The Colosseum in Roma, Italia)

Friday, December 11th

We got very little sleep because it turns out that Scott is quite the snorer. The worst I have ever heard, actually. Even I was woken up by the racket he was making and I am a really heavy sleeper. Then Michelle and Scott woke up late and were still using the the shower (separately, of course) when Lizzie and I woke up. While Lizzie finally got her turn in the shower, I met one of the other guys in our room, an Italian who is in acting school in Rome. Then when Lizzie came out, the last person in our room woke up and started talking to us. He was Australian and asked us all sorts of questions about what time things opened in Rome. Then when he actually adjusted to the light, he apologized because he had thought that we were someone else. Lizzie and I then headed downstairs to the hostel's restaurant/bar for breakfast, where I had french toast with bananas and Lizzie, egg and bacon sandwiches. Then we headed for the metro, with me bouncing up and down, because today was Roman Ruins Day! I was quite excited, to say the least. On the schedule were the Colosseum, Palantine Hill, and the Roman Forum. Yay!

The metro was packed, as there are only two lines in Rome. We missed the first train because we weren't standing far enough down the track and the train completely passed us, (we wondered why all the Italians were standing on the other side of the station). We then pushed our way onto the second train, me only getting squished by the doors once.

We got to the Colosseum, but it took us quite a while to find the entrance and then the audio guide booth. We walked around for a good half an hour before we were settled. Even after we had the audio guides we were lost because the audio guide's map didn't seem to correspond to the actual building. We ended up going around the Colosseum backwards and spent more time mimicking the British voices on the audio guides and taking pictures than actually listening to the guides. Two cool things that I remember were that the senators had their own assigned seats with their names actually carved into them and that the floor of the Colosseum had trapdoors so that the gladiators could rise out of the ground. Those Romans were tricky. When we were done with our tour, we again got lost trying to find the exit, and ended up meeting two German boys, who we had passed several times in our search for the door. With our combined four brains, we eventually figured it out.

Next, Lizzie and I were off to Palantine Hill and the Roman Forum, both sites of more Roman ruins. The entrance to Palantine Hill was also tricky to find and we passed these two guys dressed up as gladiators (for touristy photo ops) twice before finding the gate. Here were some of the lines we heard:

"Hey Shakira!"

"Look at those legs!"

"Where are you from? Paradise?"

The last one is my favorite. So after stopping at a stand to buy a Kinder Bar, we got to Palantine Hill, where all the Roman emperors had their palaces. The buildings were roped off though, so you can't go pretend to be an empress, as was my original plan. After a lot of pictures, we walked over to the Roman Forum, which was downtown Rome back in the day. There were so many Roman ruins, I didn't even know were to point the camera first. There were columns, stairs, buildings, arches, and amphitheaters galore, not to mention the supposed tomb of Caesar.

After the Roman Forum, we wandered through Rome a bit more, passing lots of pretty buildings and museums and then found a restaurant for lunch. It had huge windows and high ceilings and as we sat down, two very cute Italian boys were seated next to us. They seemed to know the owner of the place - the owner kept coming over to talk to them (a sign of the mafia, I know). I spent a good five minutes trying to get Lizzie to look at them, but my subtle cues were too subtle. I had pasta carbonara for lunch and Lizzie had lasagna and once we finished, we decided to find dessert elsewhere, and so started the search for tartufo.

Tartufo is an Italian ice-cream dessert, which I had heard about before even coming to Rome. But apparently it is rather tricky to find and for nearly an hour, we searched for a restaurant with tartufo on the menu (once passing the cute Italian boys by chance on the street - Lizzie missed them again). We passed several tourist shops and another open-air market and decided we needed to ask someone about this ice-cream delicacy. We stopped at a shop and Lizzie asked the cashier in English where we could find tartufo. The man said you have to go outside of Rome to find a tartufo place as it isn't very popular in the city. We must have looked confused because he then pointed at his tattooed arm and said, "Tattoos?" We responded that we were looking for tartufo, the ice-cream dessert, not tatuaggio, the painful inking process, and he said he didn't know where to find that. So we stopped at another shop and Lizzie again asked where we could find tartufo. The man didn't understand what she was saying, and when she turned to me for help, I said, "Tartufo!" (in my best Italian accent, complete with Italian hand movements - about as stereotypical as you can get). The man's face lit up and he said, "Oh - tartufo!" although he still didn't know where we could find it. Those Italians - can't speak without their hands.

So we again walked past the Trevi Fountain and managed to find a restaurant with tartufo on the menu. By now, it was about 3 and in between meals, so we were the only ones at the restaurant, except for all the waiters and cooks, who were all smoking at the next table over (another sign of the mafia, yes, I know, but they had tartufo). We ordered (you can guess what) and the waiter brought Lizzie a chocolate tartufo and me and vanilla. They were excellent and worth the time we spent looking for them. We ended up chilling at this restaurant for quite a while, just eating and talking, and an hour and half later we decided we should go be productive. So we left (after paying with handfuls of coins, miscounting by 10 cents, of which the mafia waiter quickly reminded us) and headed in the direction of the Pantheon. We stopped to take pictures of some more Roman columns at my insistence, and ended up talking to this Italian man, who told us that he's lived in Rome his whole life and loves it. After chatting for a bit, we continued on our way, only to be stared at by a creepy, definitely in the mafia man ("Ciao," he said, while staring me down - I ran away) and stopped by another guy, Tac, who was advertising a different pub crawl from the one yesterday. After we listened to his speech, we finally made it to the Pantheon. By this time it was dark, so we didn't see the light shining through the ceiling, but it was pretty spiffy, anyway. We took pictures of all the cool things and then left, deciding to just wander and see what we could find.

The first thing we saw was a Danish store, which had all sorts of Danish Christmas stuff on display. Lizzie (who is a Danish citizen herself) explained some of the stuff to me before we continued on. In Denmark, families hold hands in a circle around the Christmas tree and sing carols. I can't picture my family doing that, so I guess it's a good thing we're not Danish. We then stopped at a high end modern interior design store, where we felt really out of place, and continued north until we hit the Tiber River. We stopped at various churches and passed a weird modern art display set up along the street. We then walked through one of the expensive shopping districts where we saw some street performers (I said: "They would be perfect if they were in Italy. Oh wait. . .") and a book signing for some Italian author neither of us had heard of (he must have been famous though, there was a line around the block).

We then decided that since we hadn't stopped eating all day, why stop now? We started looking for a restaurant for dinner, which was surprisingly hard to do, (I assumed every other building in Italy was a restaurant) and after about a half an hour, finally unearthed one. We were the only ones there, but we ordered calzones, which were gigantic and really good and then we chilled while the owner of the restaurant watched the Italian Who Wants to be a Millionaire on TV. We headed out after paying and suddenly found ourselves at the Trevi Fountain again. We stopped to get crepes (I'm not kidding when I say that we didn't stop eating all day) and I got a lemon and sugar crepe, which was delectable. Lizzie got a banana and Nutella crepe and was a mess before she was halfway through. Those crepes are very leaky and I would have had Nutella all over me if I had ordered Lizze's crepe (I had Nutella all over my arm anyway, which I still haven't figured out. . .)

As we eating by the fountain, four Italians guys appeared out of nowhere and struck up a conversation with the little English they knew, (one comment directed at Lizzie was, "Your eyes are very. . . oriental." They also couldn't keep the words bedroom and bathroom straight, neither of which were acceptable under the circumstances). Their names were Guiseppe, Carlo, Fedele, and Miguel and they were all quite friendly and, I think, a little drunk. Fedele managed to get my phone number out of my phone and soon after, Lizzie and I managed to make an escape to the nearby McDonalds, claiming the need for a bathroom, (even though they offered us the use of both the bedroom/bathroom at their houses).

After hiding in McDonalds for a few minutes and checking out the rooftop terrace (McDonalds in Europe are much nicer than in the US) we slowly snuck back to Trevi, hoping the Italians had gone, (they had interrupted our planned photo shoot). We didn't see them anywhere, so we headed down to the benches near the fountain, which I was creeped out about. Another story Tad had told us on our tour was about a man who had been pushed out the window above the fountain and died. He was the nephew of the Pope at the time, and although the fall had obviously been a murder, the Pope declared it a suicide (as the guy was a bit of a loose cannon, and the Church didn't want anything to do with him). Afterwards, people reported seeing the man's ghost in the window from which he fell and also around the fountain, so the government actually closed off the room and walled up the window, painting the wall to keep the symmetry above the fountain. We had positioned ourselves right in this general location.

We had a nice long photo shoot, in which I used up most of what was left on my memory card and then we walked back to the hostel. In this amount of time, I had already received one phone call and one text from Fedele and since then I have received about 10 more calls and another text which said, "You think me?" I have not answered any of these. Geez, those Italians are persistent.

Día Uno en Roma

(An open-air market in Roma, Italia)

Well, hello there. As you may have noticed, I am behind on my blogging. Because I didn't have internet access and/or time in Rome and London, I have over a week of fun-filled activities to catch you up on. This may take a while.

Thursday, December 10th

I set my alarm for 3 am because I needed to walk to Lizzie's residencia by 4:45. Unfortunately, I woke up at about 3:45, as I think Morning Gigi has begun to take revenge on the alarm clock. I woke up thinking it was already 4:45 and that the alarm was Lizzie calling me to ask where I was. I was calling Lizzie to apologize when I realized that in fact, I still had an hour before I needed to meet her. I still needed to hurry, though, and had to skip breakfast to make it to Lizzie's on time (which did not improve Morning Gigi's mood). I headed down Paseo de Castellana, passing only one person along the way and turning off only one street lamp (for those of you who don't know - street lamps have a mysterious habit of turning off when I walk under them - it happens a few times each week. Unnerving, I know). I only got lost once and after waiting outside the wrong house for a few minutes, Lizzie appeared out of another door and we hopped in the waiting taxi to the airport.

By the time we got to the airport, the security check-in was open and we got in line. I got through with no problem, but Lizzie's boots kept setting off the alarms. She had to take them off and got back in the end of the line (we were too tired to realize that she could have just walked through the metal detectors again, and not go all the way back to the end of the line - but no worries - we had time to kill). After touring the duty-free stores for a few minutes, we sat down at one of the restaurants for breakfast (a cheese baguette and milk) and a planning session. Then we ran over to the gate and got in the passport/ticket line, with me still clutching my half-eaten baguette. As we were waiting, Lizzie nearly fell over. She had on her huge travel backpack and leaned against an open door which she thought was a wall. She nearly fell through and would have landed on her backpack with her feet in the air - turtle style.

We finally got on the plane and I got a much-needed hour of sleep. We circled the Italian coast, which was really pretty, and landed in Rome. We were wandering through the airport, looking for an exit, when we saw what looked like a promising passport check gate. We got in line, and when we got to the desk and showed the woman our passports, the woman asked us where we were going. We replied that we were going to Rome, and she said, "You're already in Rome. That's the door over there." Oh. So we walked through that door and eventually found the train that would take us to the center of the city. We bought our tickets, which said in about 17 different places that we needed to validate the ticket before use. I suggested to Lizzie that maybe we should investigate this validation process, which seemed to have something to do with the yellow machines that were everywhere. But the ticket was smaller than the machine's slot, and Lizzie didn't want to stick our tickets in and lose them, so she decided we could just get on the train. I did not like this idea, but didn't want to lose my ticket either. The train left and we saw the ticket-man coming up our aisle, checking everyone's tickets. I was terrified - one of my fears in life is the mafia, and my general avoidance strategy has always been to never make an Italian angry. That was about to come to an end. He took our tickets, looked at them, looked at us, and waved them around while saying something in Italian. He then walked away, mumbling in Italian, while my stomach continued to flip.

We got off the train and walked for about five minutes to our hostel. We checked in and went up to our room. It wasn't anything exciting, but the window looked out onto an authentic Italian courtyard, which was nice. We were starved by this point, and walked back out onto the street, looking for a restaurant. We found one and sat down and started perusing the menu. So many pastas, so little time! I decided on gnocchi with meat sauce and Lizzie got a pizza with eggplant. Other items I was choosing between were rigatoni with cheese and chestnuts and a strawberry risotto (which seemed curious enough to be good). We shared a strawberry parfait for dessert and realized we had been at the restaurant for over two hours. The waiter was really friendly and funny and the restaurant was authentic - we were the only ones speaking English. We then walked back to the hostel to have the front desk people look over our plans and help us decide what we should do that day. The woman at the hostel eliminated almost everything on our schedule, saying things were too far, closed, or boring. But she did help us create a new plan, and sent us on our way. We also signed up for the night tour of Rome, which we would do later that night.

So we headed towards central Rome to get ourselves oriented. We passed some old Roman ruins, about which I was pretty excited, (Lizzie tells me I have an obsession with Roman ruins, which I feel is completely understandable) and found an open air market. We looked through all the stands and had a nice long conversation with these two guys who were selling ties. We also asked them how to say all the important phrases in Italian, so they were quite helpful. We kept walking, stopping at a church and some fountains. We eventually found the Spanish Steps, and chilled there for a while. Apparently, for about a month in Rome, there are these bird swarms reminiscent of Hitchcock's Birds, but less violent. It has something to do with the weather, but thousands of birds meet up in Rome and fly in swarms around the city. So from the Spanish Steps, we had this great overview of the city, complete with the clouds of birds. We were approached by an Australian who was trying to get Lizzie and I to come to a pub crawl that night and then by a boy from Louisiana who had been trailing us for a while, (who I think was just lonely and heard some English-speakers). We looped back around towards Piazza Repubblica (the main square in Rome) and stopped for dinner on Via Nazionale. I got a pasta carbonara and Lizzie got a pizza with Italian ham (that was bigger than the plate on which it was served). Yay for Italian food!

We then waited in front of the church, Santa Maria degli Angeli, (which used to be a Roman bath-house/recreation center) for the night tour to start. The tour guide was already there, and introduced himself as Tad, who is also from the US. A few more people showed up, (two Australian guys and another American) and off we went. I really liked the tour (we saw the Fontana del Tritone, Fontana del Trevi, Spanish Steps, some obelisks - there are more in Rome than in all of Egypt, and the Hotel Bernini from The DaVinci Code, among other things), because Tad didn't just talk about the history, he talked about all sorts of interesting stuff, too. For example, at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, there is a statue of a ship, which was created because the French and Spanish embassies (both nearby), couldn't decide whether a French or Spanish monument should be built there, so they eventually agreed upon a ship, as the area flooded frequently (this was only one of the many arguments held between the French and Spanish embassies, who weren't the best of friends). At the top of the Spanish steps is a large obelisk, which was put in place using huge cranes. It was one man's job to make sure the whole thing was centered, and when he gave the command to drop the obelisk, he sneezed and grabbed the base of the obelisk to hold his balance. Unfortunately, the obelisk then dropped on his hand, which the workers had to cut off, and which is still stuck in the obelisk under a whole lot of plaster and detail work. Another story is at the Piazza Navona, where the famous 17th century sculptor/architect Bernini and his arch-nemesis Borromini were both given building contracts. Bernini was mad that Borromini got a contract for an entire church when all Bernini got was a contract for a fountain in the piazza. So the figures on his fountain are shielding their eyes so that they don't have to look at the atrocious church and also have their hands out as if to protect themselves from the church's fall. The only figure on the church is also built so that she doesn't need to look at the ugly fountain.

Our tour ended in the Piazza Navona, and Lizzie and I stopped in a bar for the bathroom, where it turns out that the bartender was Canadian - so we talked for a while. Then we headed back out to Piazza Navona and looked through all the stalls that were set up for a Christmas festival. Then we decided we wanted hot chocolate and actually found a place right on the man street. We sat down and ordered hot chocolate with limoncello (I was disappointed to find out that this establishment had ruined all of their hot chocolates by putting liquors in them). We got one right away, but after 10 minutes, they still hadn't given us the second drink. I went up to the counter and got the waitress' attention, but when she came over, I realized that I didn't know any of the relevant words in Italian. I stared at her and said, "No. . ." and she then said that she spoke English. But then I couldn't remember any of my English words, either, so that was a problem. Eventually I got the message across and she brought us our other hot chocolate. I don't know how you mess up hot chocolate, but these drinks were nasty. The chocolate tasted burnt and the limoncello didn't help anything. We paid and left without finishing.

We caught a bus back to the hostel, which was terrifying. Italian drivers are not inhibited by the fact that they are driving full-sized buses, so Lizzie and I were holding on for dear life. When we got back to our room at the hostel, we met two of the other kids in our room, Scott and Michelle, two American students that Lizzie knew from one of her classes at Carlos III. Go figure. By this point, we were exhausted and pretty much passed out right away.

¡Mis Pruebas Son Acabadas!

(A view of El Mercado de San Miguel in Madrid, Spain)

I have finished my last final. I am done. Todos de mis cosas son acabadas. Hurrah! I'll give you a quick update on the past week:

Sunday: I got up early this morning because I wanted to go to mass at one of the big cathedrals in Madrid. I ended up picking La Basilica de San Francisco el Grande, which has the largest dome of any church in Spain. I called ahead to see which masses had music (surprisingly, none of the masses I've been to yet have had music) and was told the 12:30 mass would be accompanied. So I got to the area at about 10, so that I would have time to explore.

The metro let me off in a big, circular plaza that had 5 roads branching off in different directions, which I new was a recipe for disaster. My map-reading skills have gotten worse since being in Spain, and I can't seem to find anything anymore. So I tried the first road, which looked promising, but realized that wasn't right, so then from that, I figured out which direction I was supposed to take. I walked down the second street and found the tale-end of El Rastro, which was not supposed to be there. I checked my map again and discovered I had been heading away from the Cathedral. But I wandered around El Rastro a bit and found a nearby park that had an old steam-stack still standing in the middle. So after taking some pictures of the park, I headed back in the other direction and started walking towards the road I needed. Turns out it wasn't the road I needed, but I did find the correct street on my fourth try. Fourth try out of five roads - it could have been worse.

So I walked down the correct road (luckily in a straight line now) and found the basilica. There was a nice little park next door with a nice view of the city, so I took some pictures there, as well. And since I still had time to explore, I kept going and ended up finding another really pretty park that was on a sloping hill and had a really cool view of a nearby bridge. I also saw another huge cathedral on the other side of the park and walked over to see which cathedral that was. I nearly got myself stolen in the process. I was about halfway up a trail when I noticed that behind every tree was a big gangster-looking fellow. All of them seemed to be watching me and I got a little nervous. So I put on my don't-mess-with-me face and made it out of the woods alive. Whew!

I got to the second cathedral where a gypsy tried to talk me out of my money - but if I can handle woods filled with gangsters, than I can handle a gypsy woman. The church was closed to tourists as it was Sunday and masses were being conducted, but I realized I was at La Catedral de la Almudena, the cathedral right next to El Palacio Real. I thought El Palacio was on the other side of the city. So I toured around a bit and found another whole area that I had been to before. Go figure. I did some souvenir shopping and then happened across this cool marketplace, El Mercado de San Miguel. It reminded me of Fanueil Hall in Boston, with a lot of little shops, so it was a neat find. Then I wandered a bit more and ended up in La Plaza Mayor. Again, I had no idea how close all of these places were to each other - maybe my map is printed backwards. . .

I then headed back to the basilica, and the place was gorgeous. There is a huge fresco ceiling and statues everywhere. I was surprised to see that it's not a classic Romanesque cathedral, which has a long nave and transept that intersect in a cruciform positioning (don't I sound smart after taking my Art History class!). The whole church is essentially under the dome, which is something I've never seen before. The music was just a man at a keyboard and a single singer (I would have sang, but they don't seem to give out hymnals in Madrid). There was a huge organ, and I don't know why they weren't using that, but it was still nice to hear some music.

After mass, I headed back to the metro, passing a really sketchy carnival that was set up in a small square. I got back to Julia's and then did work for the rest of the day (paper, studying, and internship applications - wahoo).

Monday/Tuesday: I was pretty much a hermit. Julia and I had an interesting conversation, though. We were talking about how my family's going to need to go shopping for food on Christmas Eve, and she was saying that most everything is closed in Spain on Christmas Eve. I mentioned that even on Christmas Eve, WalMart is open in the US, but she had never heard of WalMart. I was trying to explain the superstore concept, and when I finished Julia said, "Like Saks?" I said, "Yeah, kind of. . ." Oh, Julia. How much there is to learn about America.

Julia and I have been bonding though. We had a heart to heart about about how nervous we both were on my first day here and she seems to be opening up a bit. She showed me the Christmas lights she had put up on her gigantic acacia tree and even pointed out some pictures of Alexandra and Maria when they were little. We are making strides, Julia and I.

Today: Got up early and studied and then headed to Carlos III for my economics test. The professor decided it would be an oral final, so thank goodness this is my English class. I ran into James, who was taking the same test, and we walked to school from the train together. When we got to the classroom, our friend, Liz, was in with the professor taking her test. She was in for quite a while and me and James were getting nervous, especially when James peeked in the window and saw that the professor had Liz explaining graphs. This was an oral test, which was supposed to eliminate graphs! Liz came out and James went in, so I was left to my own nervousness. About 10 minutes later James came out and didn't seem too horrified, so that was a good sign.

I walked in and sat down in the row of desks the professor was using. He kept switching back and forth between seats and seemed more nervous than me. He explained to me that he had to record the test and how the structure would work. Essentially, he would ask a broad question and the depth of my answers would determine my grade. So he first asked me about convergence and Malthusianism, and I was all over both of those. He seemed impressed and told me I had a perfect score so far. Then he showed me a comparative advantage chart and a picture of a factory - I nailed those, too. He said he didn't need to go any further because it was obvious I knew everything. I agreed. Total test time: 6 minutes. Not bad.

Then I printed my boarding passes for Rome and London and ran into Guillermo in the computer lab. It's hard to say goodbye to these Spaniards, because I might never see them again. It's scary how that works. Then I decided that I needed a haircut and looked up a Peluqueria near Julia's house. The phone call to schedule the appointment was strenuous. As soon as I started talking, I realized that I didn't know the word for haircut, so I ended up saying things like, "I have long hair, I want short hair," and then "The thing you do with scissors." She seemed confused - I thought it was quite self-explanatory. What else would I call a Peluqueria for?

I stopped at Corte Inglés on the way home to buy a book for my trips (I figured that when I'm in London by myself, I might have some reading time on my hands. . .). Then it was back to Julia's and off to Peluqueria Manuel Aranda. I got really nervous when I walked by the place the first time - it looked pretty fashionable and I was wearing my sneakers. So I did a loop around the nearby park, plucked myself up, and headed on in. They sat me down with this guy who looked like quite the diva, so that didn't help my nerves at all. He asked me what I wanted to do with my hair, and I showed him a picture of myself over the summer. So after my wash, cut, and dry did I look like my picture? Of course not. But it is a nice haircut and much less scraggly than it was before. So it's a success.

Then it was back to Julia's for dinner (tuna in tomato sauce) and packing for Rome and Italy. I have mastered the art of packing for a 4-day trip in just a backpack - which I consider to be a major accomplishment. Alexandra stopped by after dinner, as it is her birthday tomorrow. Even though Alexandra has been unemployed for months now because of the economic crisis, Julia told me that she's been in Rio de Janeiro, with what I thought was some sort of paid position. So I asked Alexandra what she's been up to and she said, "Playing some sports, looking at beautiful places." It's tough being unemployed in a millionaire's world.

So tomorrow I'm off to Rome with Lizzie for 4 days and then I'm heading to London for 3 days by myself, (just me and a map - what could go wrong?). Yay for pasta and British accents! Talk to you all when I get back!

¡Más fotografías!

I've uploaded two new albums to my Shutterfly site - a November album, (sorry about the Retiro photoshoot in this one - quite a few pictures are dedicated to my friends' and my modeling skills) and a December album.

Here's the link: http://gigiinmadrid.shutterfly.com

Enjoy!

Pasada de Moda en Madrid

(A view of El Parque de Rodríguez Sahagún in Madrid, Spain)

Well, seeing as I set my alarm for 8:30, I didn't get up until 10 this morning. I had a dream that Julia was mad at me because I forgot to lock the door and someone had broken into the house. I asked her what was stolen, and she wouldn't tell me. I also dreamt (in a separate dream) that the family was here and we were touring around Spain - I'm so excited for them to come!

Best part of my day: I had a muffin for breakfast. And it was great. I was recently telling Julia about how someday I'm going to open a muffin shop, (which was difficult because I did not know the word for muffin and it wasn't in the dictionary, so my story turned into pictionary, and my drawing resembled a tree more than a muffin) and yesterday she came home from the store with muffins (magdalenas, for future reference). I'll need that later when I franchise to Spain.

Then I worked on my Economics paper - those Japanese had a very complicated industrialization. Of course, I'm going to be way over on the word limit, like usual, and because the professor wants us to send him a .doc version, I'm going to need to actually cut things out. I generally just change the margins, but because he'll be able to see the word count, I probably shouldn't be a 1,000 words over. Bother.

Then I had lunch with Julia (pasta - mmm. . .) and went back to working on my paper/checking my e-mail every 5 minutes to see if anyone had sent me anything that could be used as a distraction. Julia told me she was going to a dinner that night, so that I could eat whenever I wanted, so when she left I decided to go on a walk first. There was already a woman in the elevator when I got in and as we were going down, I noticed that she was wearing a Prada coat and carrying a Louis Vouitton purse. So not only did I feel like a giant, (because European elevators are really small and she was one of those petite types) I also felt really underdressed, (I was wearing my wool Alaska socks and Nike Airs - and although I was wearing my snazzy scarf, it did not match any of the aforementioned items).

But anyway, I like walking around Madrid at night and wanted to see some of the Christmas lights, so I just meandered around Julia's neighborhood a bit. I passed the Mallorca bakery Julia's told me about (I will definitely be making a trip back there) and ended up in Casa, a home decorating store. They had all their Christmas stuff out, but I started with the kitchen supply section, where I spent a good half an hour. I nearly bought a pack of heart-shaped mini-cupcake silicon molds (the fastest I've moved all day is when I saw them) but then thought to myself, "Gee, what is the purpose of making a cupcake smaller and heart-shaped? P.S. You don't even like cupcakes!" (It has to do with the frosting and the messiness - cupcakes are inefficiently designed - the frosting should go in the middle, as it will be in my muffin store someday). So my physical self obeyed my mental self and reluctantly put them back. I did end up buying some Christmas ornaments because they had little snow-globes I liked.

I got back to Julia's and after working on my internship applications, I had dinner (hotdogs and potato puree - both items seem to be quite popular in Spain) in my room, while watching The Santa Clause on my computer. I was quite content.

Julia came back from her dinner a few minutes ago wearing a fur-lined cape. Not many people can pull that look off and she can, so I'll give her that (although I do not support the amount of fur she has in her closet, which I highly doubt is faux). She's very well dressed and I've decided that her clothing budget is through the roof.

Now, as pictures didn't happen yesterday (I had an hour and a half long conversation with the family instead) - I'm going to do that right now.

Una Noche en Kapital

(The entrance to Kapital in Madrid, Spain)

Yesterday, I didn't wake up until 11:30. What's even greater is that I woke up on my own, without an alarm clock annoyingly blaring in my ear. After breakfast, I read a few articles for my Economics paper, and then ate lunch with Julia. We had a nice long chat about braces, of all things, (I picked up some new vocabulary there). Then I went back to pretending to be productive. Julia and Paquita had been talking about how nice it was outside, and when I got bored of doing work, I decided to go for a walk before dinner. I checked Google maps (because I can't be trusted to find anything on my own) and found a park that looked about half an hour away and a route that didn't involve making any turns (the only way I won't get lost).

So I headed out, wearing my new scarf, which makes me feel awfully snazzy. It was pretty windy, though, and my new scarf kept blowing into my face, which detracted from my snazziness. I got to El Parque de Rodríguez Sahagún - which was right where I thought it would be - and walked around for a bit. There were lots of people walking their dogs, some joggers, and a few couples playing Bocce Ball (P.S. When writing this I didn't know what the name of the game was, so I went to Google and doubtfully typed in, "italian sport balls court old people" and it came right up). I climbed up a hill and from the top, got a view of Madrid I wasn't expecting. Madrid seems to be built on somewhat of a hill, so their were sloping views off into the distance.

It was getting dark, and after taking some pictures of the view, I walked back down to the park. I saw a jogger coming towards me on the path and didn't pay him any attention until I saw that he was wearing a black mask. It looked like a creepy mask, too. I almost dropped my camera and ran in the other direction. But because (apparently) I would rather get stolen by a scary man in a black mask than actually break into a run, I just froze right there in the middle of the sidewalk. He got closer and I realized that it was just a black ski mask and that he had no evil intentions. Still, it was not cold enough to warrant the use of such an alarming ski mask. I also learned that I'll be a dead duck if anyone ever tries to steal me. . .

I got back to Julia's and ate dinner (calamari and rice) by myself because Julia was off at a concert. I ate quickly because I had to get ready for the one-and-only 7-story discotheque, Kapital! The place is a must-do in Madrid for discotheque loving types, and as I am of the discotheque loving variety, I was pretty excited. Lizzie, my intercambio Jennifer, and her friend Sara, and I were all getting together for the occasion. We were meeting at 10 for tapas, so I met Lizzie at Nuevos Ministerios and we took the train to Atocha. We all headed over to the tapas bar, which is one of Jennifer's favorites.

In most tapas bars in Madrid, you order drinks and then get free food, so Jennifer ordered a pitcher of sangria for the table and we got a plate of sandwiches on the side. There were three different kinds of sandwiches which were all good - hotdogs and cheese, jam and cheese, and a tomato spread. The sangria was surprisingly good, too. Lizzie is a connoisseur of sangria, so whenever she orders a glass, I get to try a sip and learn from a professional. She actually didn't like this one as much because you couldn't taste the wine, but in my records, it's the best one we've tried yet. I finished my first glass and it was refilled so that we could empty the first pitcher and get a second, which would result in a second plate of food - patatas bravas (essentially french fries with a topping of an aioli sauce and a spicy sauce). We plowed through that and the ladies were saying that the second pitcher of sangria was even sweeter than the first. So I finished my second glass of sangria so that I could try the new one (groundbreaking, I know). It was tastier, but I stopped after half a glass on principle. Glasses of sangria: 2.5. Effects: Nada (apparently, those beers given to me as a child by Dziad upped my tolerance more than I would have expected).

Then at about midnight - Kapital! We could have gotten in for free (we were on the list - Jennifer knows one of the bouncers) but we ended up paying 15 euros for admittance and two "free" drinks. Since the drinks at Kapital are upwards of 12 euros, it was a better deal. I knew that by six in the morning, I'd be wanting a Coke, too. Here's an outline of how that conversation usually goes:

Me: "A Coke, please."

Bartender: "With what?"

Me: "A glass and two ice cubes."

So we paid and got in. We were pretty early, so there was no one there and we had the place to ourselves for some photo shoots. We toured all 7 stories and then ended up in the karaoke room (Lizzie and Jennifer are big fans). There was literally no one there, so even I went once with Lizzie. We had to sing Brittany Spears, though, because it was about the only song on the list that I knew. I've accepted that I'm a failure at popular culture and have moved on.

Once people started to arrive we started dancing. One of the bartenders gave us free tequila shots, but I was not drinking that nasty stuff. Then we danced until 6 am. Kapital had lots of cool rooms to explore (which included the top floor, where during the summer, they open the roof and you can see the stars all night from the lounges and beds (?) that are set up all over the place), and on the main dance floor they have go-go dancers and this huge air-conditioning blower thing that they turn on in bursts that blows your clothes and hair all over the place (if only I had my snazzy scarf). There weren't too many people there because it was Thursday night, so no cuties, but plenty of friendly non-cuties that were promptly dismissed. Yay for Kapital!

Jennifer and Sara left at 5:30, when the last night-bus took off, but Lizzie and I stayed and danced until 6. We hopped on the train and I got back to Julia's at about 6:45 and was in bed by 7. I slept until 2 and woke up in time for lunch (eggplant/tomato something - really good). Julia and I talked for a bit and she even told me sit with her on the couch because I was conversing so well. But then she had to leave because her sister called and told her about a sale on meat at the butcher's. She ran off with wallet in hand. I worked all afternoon on Economics and then had dinner. Ever since it's been Christmas music and picture uploading. I'll see if I can get some up tonight.

Una Semana de Exámanes

(The view from inside El Palacio de Cristal in El Parque del Retiro)

I have only one exam and one paper left. Yippee!! I have had a constant stream of essays and tests for the past three days, therefore, I haven't seen sunlight (quite literally) for about a week as I have been closed in my room with the blinds shut to prevent distraction. Oh, finals week - how you deprive me of Vitamin D.

Saturday and Sunday: I legitimately did not leave my room, except to take exciting trips to the kitchen or bathroom. Memorizing all of Spanish history in Spanish is not fun - they have much more history than the US does and have been conquered way too many times. Plus, all the Muslim Emirs have practically the same name: Abderrahman I, Abderrahman II, Abderrahman III, Alhakem, Almanzor, and Almudatar, to name a few. Plus, since this class is an art history class, I needed to memorize all the art and architecture styles, important people, and dates of every time someone took a paintbrush to lienzo. And, as a matter of fact, I don't even know what lienzo is in English! Linen? Canvas? Can't be sure.

Monday: I had my Spanish grammar test today. I had memorized all of my tenses, (which were taking up valuable space that was needed for El Siglo del Oro) and was ready to go. I took a couple of online quizzes for practice and then noticed that I hadn't yet taken the Commands with Pronouns section. So I quickly answered the 20 questions and submitted my test for scoring. I got 15 out of 20 wrong. I nearly had a heart attack. With about 3 minutes until I needed to leave for my test, I had no time to further cram these answers into my head, and was now hyperventilating. I ran to the metro with notes in hand, trying to memorize the rules for the conjugations, which I had thought were already filed away nicely in some corner of my brain. I got to the test in a panic and decided to stop studying and gave myself a pep-talk, instead. We were handed our tests and for the first three pages I couldn't remember anything as my heart rate was way too high for concentration. By page four, I started to calm down and concentrate, and I think by the end of the test, I had figured almost everything out. Commands with Pronouns wasn't even on there.

Tuesday: I had to get up pretty early to go hand in my Historia del Presente paper. Six pages, in Spanish, on pollution and recycling in Spain. It's some pretty scintillating stuff. Next was my Spanish composition test. The test consisted of 5 essays to be written in Spanish, which were conveniently phrased so that we had to use all our different tenses. Teachers can be tricky that way. Luckily for me, the test was open-note, and two of the test essays were very similar to ones we had written earlier in the semester (which had been corrected and handed back to us). I simply had to re-copy my notes. I can only hope that the test went well, because it is my personal belief that one cannot just magically change their writing style; in their first language and especially in a second language that they can't even remember the conjugations for. So I went home afterwards and studied for Ana's final (the art history one) by pacing around my room and memorizing my study sheets. I made it to about 2 am (having slept for only 4 hours the night before, as well) before deciding that I needed to sleep and could finish studying the next morning. So I set my alarm for 4:30 and went to bed.

Today: I woke up with my alarm, turned on the light, and fell back asleep. Shoot. I woke up at 7:23 and needed to leave for my test by 7:30. Shoot. I skipped a shower, breakfast, and most importantly: studying! I passed another stressful metro ride pouring over my notes. I got to class just in time and Ana handed us our test packets, which consisted of 6 photos (paintings, floorplans, and photos of buildings). We needed to write a short essay about the artistic and historic context of 5 of them. We only had an hour and a half, which would have been barely enough time for me to write those essays in English, and this test needed to be in Spanish, por supuesto. So I just put nouns next to verbs next to some random conjugations and prepositions. I hope it's at least readable.

I then took the train with Kevin to Carlos III, because I wanted to print out some sources for my Economics paper that's due next week. But first, I had meetings with two of my Intercambios, Rosy and Ivy. Rosy and I had lunch, and good thing, as I was starved. She asked me for help with her English homework - of which I knew very little. She asked me why we say, "Having played sports for 10 years. . ." and then, "I would have liked if my parents had taught me. . ." and I had no idea where to go with that. So learning English is hard, too, (it made me feel somewhat accomplished). I then met with Ivy, and she took me to a hot chocolate café. Yay! I got a white hot chocolate and it was delicious - it came with a cookie (a cracker) and gummy bears. The only problem was that everyone in that place was smoking, including Ivy, and I came out of there smelling like an ashtray. Eek.

I had to go to the library quickly, because I realized my books where overdue (by only a day). I checked the online system to see what the fines where, and it said 2 euros per book per day. I thought that was a bit steep so I scurried on over to the library to hand in the one book I had with me (I have three out altogether). Turns out it's not a 2 euro fine, but a 2 day restriction on taking out books in the future. If I had known that, I would have kept it for another week. I then went to the computer lab in an attempt at productivity, but it wasn't happening. I switched to a different building, to see if I could focus better there, but no such luck. I walked back to the train and I've not done much since. I worked on some internship applications, studied 2 chapters for my economics test next week (a subject in English - hurrah!), and eaten dinner with Julia.

Tidbits I've learned about Spain this week:

1.) Catholic Spain refuses to acknowledge the existence of Santa Claus, so Spaniards do not get presents on December 25th. Rather, they get/give presents on January 6th (Epiphany) that are delivered by the Three Wise Men. And instead of leaving out cookies, they leave out shoes filled with straw for the camels. Maybe that's where the whole cookie problem started.

2.) Spaniards don't believe in heating their homes. It is frigid outside and I have a huge bay window in my room with a metal frame (that acts like a big ice cube). Therefore, my room is frigid, as well. The radiator is barely on and the other day, I came back from Carlos III and found that Paquita had left my window open. It was probably 50 degrees. This was good in that it kept me awake while studying, but bad in the fact that my hands were so purple I couldn't write anything.

3.) The Christmas light displays in Madrid are extensive, but are not kept on for very long. This is because there is a currently an energy crisis and they need to save money. But what I don't understand is why they then turn the lights on at 6 pm, when everybody is still at work.

4.) Foreign credit cards cannot be used to purchase metro passes. The ticket machines will reject your card no matter how many times you attempt to force it into the slot. If you do not have enough cash on you to purchase your month pass on the first of December, you will have to count your coins until you reach 4 euros which will buy you a round-trip ticket to Parla. Also, you should note that if you are going to Carlos III, you do not need to buy a round-trip ticket all the way to Parla, because you get off at Las Margaritas. A round-trip ticket to Las Margaritas is only 2 euros. Some of us have learned this the hard way.

I am going to sleep now. Finally.

¡Qué Semana!

(El Estadio de Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid, Spain)

Yikes! I'm getting behind on my blogging. Let's see if I can remember any of what I did this past week. . .

Monday: My Spanish class was cancelled on Monday and Tuesday (the professor had a family emergency), so I had to inform Julia that I would be around for lunch. Now if you remember, the last time this occurred, it ended with me in tears, so I was a tad nervous as I walked into the salon. But she handled it quite well, I thought, (maybe because Ines was there) and a few hours later we sat down for lunch. I had to head off right away to meet my new Intercambio, Rosy. She is a PhD student in computer science working on her thesis, which she said might be as long as 1,000 pages (I don't know that many words in Spanish and English put together and repeated seven times). It turns out that Rosy is from Mexico, and we ended up chatting for a solid hour about how abrupt and rude Spaniards are. She even brought it up! So there seems to be an official difference in mannerisms between the mother country and all of us poor colonized schmucks. . .

Tuesday: I had Historia del Presente this morning and was thoroughly annoyed that other people were saying that they had already started their essays (due in one week). I hadn't done anything for my paper but bookmark about 17 websites on my Internet browser and print out some newspaper articles about recycling. So after class, I stuck around campus and got all my sources together and made an outline so that I felt accomplished. I got back to Julia's in time for lunch (ham rolls and lentils) and then plunked myself down and started writing. I had planned to write about pollution: land, air, and water, but by 10 pm, I had finished writing about just land and my paper was 3/4 long enough. Unlike the average time-saving student I did not decide to stretch what I had, rather, I decided to delete about half of what I had and go back and write about air and water, too. I think it's things like this that make my stress level so high.

Wednesday: Today was the last day of Ana's class. We we were all hoping for some guidance in studying for the final. We've covered all of Spain's history plus a good amount of the relevant art that goes along with it. She's told us that we will be shown 6 slides and will need to write a mini-essay for 5 of them - in Spanish, of course. Someone asked if the slides would just be paintings we've seen, and she responded that the slides could be anything, from buildings, to paintings, to pictures of people. Gulp. After class, we all had to run to our last 2 hour Historia class. I spent a good deal of the class reading about the economic history of Japan. Historia, as a class, really isn't designed very well. We write an essay about a topic of our choosing as our only grade - there is absolutely no incentive to go to class, (except to learn, I guess, or read economics articles). I ate lunch with Lizzie in Getafe, (I had brought ham rolls and peppers from home) and then we toured the nearby supermarket before I had to run back to Spanish class. The professor told us that the class was essentially finished and that no new information would be on our final, so that was a relief. But then she told us she's giving us back our last tests, but that first we were going to work in pairs, take the test again, and correct those tests in class as review. Now, when I take a test, I like to write down everything I know, hand the test in, and not think about it again until I see my grade. I am very superstitious with tests and have a whole process worked out. I do not like to be tortured by having to take the test a second time and wonder twice whether I had put down the correct answers or not. It was an agonizing class for me. But I did fine, so I just want to get through the final. Then I had my weekly meeting with Jennifer - the Spanish week - a little rough, but still good. We discussed frosting, which apparently is another thing that I am going to have to introduce to the Spanish culture. Jennifer and I decided to have a baking fiesta next week, so I can demonstrate another of the wonders of America to her. We then walked back to the train and got churros con chocolate (they have set up a semi-sketchy churros stand set up in the parking lot of the train station). Then I had to hurry home and change because I was off to the Real Madrid vs. Zurich fútbol game at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium! A bunch of people were going and we were meeting at TGIF's for dinner beforehand. I grabbed my Real Madrid bufanda (Spanish for a scarf) and walked to the restaurant. We all sat and ate - I had chicken fingers (which were exorbitantly priced - 11 euros), and almost felt like I was back at one of the BC football games (I do miss BC's chicken fingers). We then headed to our gate. There were people everywhere - Real Madrid is the biggest team in Madrid and one of the biggest teams in Spain and it was rumored that Christiano Ronaldo (currently the highest paid fútbol player in the world) was playing for the first time since his injury. We climbed to our seats - the only ones we could afford were high enough to make the field look like a fuse-ball table - and started unlayering (although it was pretty cold outside, the stadium has these huge overhead heaters, and we were right up there next to them). The game was fun to watch - it goes much faster than football - and Real Madrid won 1-0. And Ronaldo played, which was probably the most exciting part. Lizzie and I walked around afterwards and ended up going back to Julia's apartment. Julia and Ines were both asleep, but we tiptoed around as I gave her the tour. The house is practically a museum. Then Lizzie went home and I tried to get some work done, but since it was about midnight, not much was accomplished.

Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving! I had my last CEH class today (the classes for Americans) and only have 2 or 3 econ classes left (a Grados class - for Spanish kids - they go longer). After class, all the BC kids met at the Prado for Ana's tour (just packing in another 20 paintings or so for our test which is in less than a week). It is interesting to actually get an explanation of the paintings, though, so I enjoyed the tour. Then when that was finished, it was off to Thanksgiving dinner! The BC program booked us all a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at the Cornucopia restaurant (?) so we all had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing (2 servings for me - Lizzie didn't like hers), spinach, cranberry sauce, and walnut bourbon pie. Satisfactory, but still not like home. There are quite a few BC families visiting over Thanksgiving break, so it was nice to meet friends' parents and see how similar they look to their parents. It was a good time, but I missed everyone back home. Then Lizzie and I walked to Plaza de España and took the metro to Nuevos Ministerios. We ended up walking to McDonald's for McFlurries and chatting for a solid 2.5 hours (sitting on a bench outside in the rain after McDonals's started to close). I then hopped back on the metro and got to Julia's by midnight and turned out some more of my Historia paper.

Today: I studied. I have not even seen daylight because my blinds have been shut to prevent distraction. I only left the room for lunch, dinner, and bathroom breaks, so I would like to think I was somewhat productive. I studied for my Spanish final (on Monday and Tuesday), wrote more of my Historia paper (due Tuesday) and studied for Ana's final (on Wednesday). Still plenty to do and I don't think I will be leaving the room the rest of this weekend, unless I run out of food and need to go to the supermarket. I'm always a wreck during finals, so it's best for me to just remove myself from society for a few days. But I'm currently in quite a good mood, because since Thanksgiving is over, I can officially start listening to Christmas music. I had started within four hours of finishing my turkey. I have more Christmas songs on my iPod than non-Christmas songs, so I need to get started right away. Sometimes I burst out in song, which probably alarms the neighbors, but since I'm under finals stress, I think it's completely acceptable. Currently playing: White Christmas from "Christmas Sing with Frank and Bing." Love it!

Día Tres con Las Amigas

(Me, Lauren, and Melinda at La Puerta del Sol in Madrid)

Sunday: We gave ourselves an extra hour this morning and didn't meet until 10:15 at La Tirso de Molina, the metro stop closest to the girls' hostel and El Rastro. Before heading to El Rastro, we stopped at the Starbucks in Sol, as the girls were craving the muffins and coffee that isn't available in Parma. I got a chocolate muffin and a small hot chocolate, so I was content.

We then walked to the Rastro while having a conversation about the spirit world (is that what people call it?). Melinda's aunt is a medium and/or exorcism-er (she has a collection of possessed items in a tunnel in her house). I told Melinda I have a possessed iHome and two computer speakers to add to the collection (the iHome turns on by itself and slides back and forth between different radio channels and you can hear voices talking in my speakers when they're not even plugged into the computer). Me and technology - it's a fun relationship. Lauren said her parents have been to a couple group medium events and that her mom is convinced about the spirit world. It was an interesting chat.

El Rastro was as crowded as ever, but Lauren managed to find a cool sweatshirt and a belt. We walked around for a while, looking at all the stuff for sale and all the people, and then got on the metro and hopped over to El Banco de España, a good place for tourist pictures. One woman asked me to take her and her friends' pictures and even showed me exactly where to hold the camera. I moved a little on the first one and she made me take another. So afterwards, I had her take our picture. Then we walked to El Prado and wandered through the different exhibits. The place is huge and I know very little about art, but with Ana's class, I'm starting to pick up a little bit more, and art museums are becoming a little bit more interesting (although I think I still prefer the science museums).

After the Prado we were outside, walking back towards Banco de España when we saw a lady in a green trench coat running and jumping on the benches that line the street. We didn't find anything strange in this, as just yesterday, we were rolling down hills in Retiro, so we're not really in the position to judge. I became alarmed, when a little bit further down the sidewalk, we saw her on top of one of the streetlamps, feeling the lightbulb. She jumped down and we noticed that she was just wearing a trench coat and boots, nothing else. She then ran over to one of the street vendors and licked one of the paintings he had on display. He shooed her away really quickly so she turned around and started following a woman who was walking towards the Prado. The second woman had no idea she was being followed and having her hair sniffed by this other lady. By this point we had stopped in our tracks and were just watching her, trying to figure out whether she was un poco loca or on drugs. She ran over to a low billboard advertising the Prado and felt the lips of the woman in the advertised painting. We decided she was a little crazy. She kept running around and following people, and then she ran off up some stairs. Very strange - incredibly strange. We kept walking, me a little nervous that we were being followed by the lady in the green trench coat.

We got to Pans & Company for lunch, a wonderful place that I've mentioned quite a few times before. It's just a fast food sandwich shop, but it is fantastic. During lunch, we got onto the subject of Melinda's pageant past, which I had known nothing about. Apparently, she won one of California's scholarship pageant competitions (which is more prestigious than the beauty competitions), and had she not moved to North Carolina, would have been in the running for Miss California. She had walking training and interview questions and everything. That's pretty cool.

After a quick stop at Haagen-Daaz, we took the metro back to the hostel and the girls checked out. We headed to the airport and off they flew back to Italy (which they love, by the way. I'm a bit jealous of their food situation, to say the least). I took the metro back to Julia's and although I tried to be productive, I promptly fell asleep at my computer, an occurrence which probably had something to do with only getting nine hours of sleep throughout the entire weekend. I woke up and remembered that I needed to design the guide covers for my Spanish class and send them to the teacher, so I did that quickly, only to find out that the files were too big to send with my internet connection. I figured out how to send them eventually and then Julia called me for dinner. Ines is still here and I really hope she sticks around. She really nice, keeps Julia occupied all day, and helps keep the conversations going (sometimes Julia and her just talk and I don't need to say anything at all!) She also made Julia buy a Pandoro (an Italian breakfast cake) and a box of cookies, so she's okay in my book.

Must sleep - I'll try to catch up more tomorrow!

Día Dos con Las Amigas

(El Palacio Cristal in El Parque del Retiro in Madrid, Spain)

Saturday: We met at about 9:30 am near the Bilboa metro stop to check out the breakfast at a cafe that was rated well in my student guide and recommended by Lauren's sister. The place is called Café Comercial and we all ordered tortitas, which is Spanish for pancakes! I don't know why I didn't know this word before. I managed to order for all three of us, a feat about which I was quite proud.

After we had finished, we walked towards El Palacio Real, stopping to do some shopping along the way. Lauren found a pretty shirt and both girls found awesome bags. I'm saving my pennies for London. We hit Gran Via, stopped at Starbucks, and then wandered through the world market held in Plaza de España. We then reached Palacio Real and saw that the line was a solid half an hour long. We took turns waiting and instead of waiting even longer for a guided tour, we decided to do the self tour through the Palace. I remembered next to nothing from my previous time, so we made up stories instead, which is always more fun. Plus, if we ever needed some real facts, there was an elderly couple from Texas (I know this because I chatted with them while I was helping them figure out how to use the storage lockers) using audio-guides with the volume turned all the way up. I liked them.

After we finished the Palace tour, we walked back to the metro past El Teatro Real, passing a parade that was celebrating the 20th anniversary of the signing of a children's rights act. We took the metro to el Parque de Retiro stop and started looking for the restaurant, Alfredo's Barbacoa. After my getting lost another few times (my friend's would call it lost, I would call it temporarily going in the wrong direction) we found the restaurant, which was packed. This restaurant supposedly has the best burgers in Madrid, though, so there was no way we were going to go anywhere else. It was about 3:15 and we got on the list with an hour and 15 minutes wait, so we all shared a small chocolate passion-fruit ice cream from a nearby ice cream store while chilling on a bench in Retiro until about 4:30.

Once back at the restaurant, we waited for another 15 minutes before we were led to our table, but I think it was worth it. The place has a decidedly American theme, although many of the flags were Confederate flags (?) and the burgers were good and authentic (I got a roasted onion and cream cheese burger - mmm. . .). But those poor deprived Spaniards! All the Spaniards in the restaurants were eating their burgers with forks and knives. My very American friends and I were going to take no part in that, so we ate our burgers as they were meant to be eaten - with our hands. We did notice that the little boy at the next table picked up his burger and started eating with his hands, although his parents refused. Then the restaurant's host, Jorge, who had been very friendly with our table since we arrived, brought us three shots of Southern Comfort. I actually finished mine - so I guess you could call that my first real drink, (even though I sipped it instead of shooting it). You only get free shots in a restaurant in Spain if you're pretty, so it's a kind of compliment, and Jorge also asked to take our picture for the wall of fame, (although from the looks of the pictures, you don't need to do much but eat hamburgers with a table full of girls). So if you're ever in Madrid and go to Alfredo's Barbacoa, check out the pictures on the wall - I'm up there somewhere.

Lauren, Melinda, and I then spent the rest of the afternoon at Retiro, rolling down hills and doing photo shoots in front of fountains, with the leaves, and on a random picnic table. We also saw El Palacio de Cristal, a glass palace in the middle of the park that houses art displays. At first, we thought it was empty, but it was actually a modern art display which involved randomly placed ladders and strings. Odd. As we were exhausted, we decided to head back to the girls' hostel before dinner and dancing. They slept while I did research (I got the short end of that stick), and after finding out that the paella restaurant we had originally wanted to go to required reservations and was all booked for the night, I asked the hostel-front-desk-people (for lack of a better title) for another and they provided me a name and directions. I crashed in Lauren and Melinda's room - in a bed which they told me was unoccupied - and after a 45 minute nap, we were up and dressed and ready to go.

We walked to La Fragua de Volcano for paella (pretty good) and then to Dubliner's, an Irish pub near Sol. This is where the rest of the BC kids were hanging out and since Melinda knew quite a few of them, we stopped by to say hola. This is the pub in Madrid where BC kids can come to watch the BC football games but it's interesting to think that in Boston we can't even get into such places because we're not old enough. Lauren and I ordered Cokes and chatted while Melinda socialized and afterwards we headed to Joy for dancing.

Apparently, I'm not up on my discotheque lingo, because while I was able to get us through the rest of the weekend with my Spanish skills, the bouncers were confusing me with talk of a list and pre-tickets and such, and I'm still not sure what they were telling me. We were probably quite an amusing sight to the Spaniards. I kept repeating, "¿Qué lista?" and when they asked Lauren how old she was, she responded, "89," (I believe she thought they were asking her what year she was born). But we eventually got into Joy with the help of the guy standing behind us (who also, coincidentally, had the 3 extra tickets we needed). Melinda and Jack went off for a minute and never came back, so me and Lauren danced with the rest of the BC group for most of the time. They had periodic shows with music from Grease, so that was interesting, but by 2:30 or 3 am, we were ready to call it a night. We found Melinda and the girls walked back to their hostel while I shared a taxi with Jack and got dropped off at Julia's. Day 2 complete!

Día Uno con Las Amigas

(La Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid, Spain)

Sorry I haven't written in so long! This is the last week of classes and next week is finals. Therefore, I actually have work that needs to be done. This has become a somewhat foreign concept while in Spain, so I've been a little pressed for time recently. So anyway, I'll start with last week. . .

Friday: Lauren and Melinda's plane landed at 11 am, so after explaining to Julia and Paquita (I've finally asked her how to spell her name) that I wouldn't be around much for meals during the weekend, I headed off to the airport to meet las chicas. I got ripped out of a euro when a man I thought was asking for directions was really begging, and I couldn't get him to go away without giving him money. I was peeved. But the girls got in right on time and after successfully buying them metro cards (which involved conversations in Spanish) we took the metro to their hostel.

After they checked in and got situated, (and after Lauren gave me presents - two bracelets from Florence and a box of chocolates from Parma - the girl knows the way to my heart) we walked around the Sol and Plaza Mayor areas. We saw a lot of Christmas lights being put up and also walked through a chic accessories shop with more sales people than customers. We then went to La Casa Labra for lunch, a small tapas bar which is where the Socialist party is rumored to have secretly started in 1879. They really have only 3ish things on the menu, so we tried them all: tuna and tomato skewers, bacalao (or cod) croquettes, and bacalao fritas (fried cod). It was all really good and it was warm enough to eat outside, where we could watch all the people that were shuffling in and out of the tiny room where you place your orders. We then headed on over to La Chocolateria where we got an order of chocolate con churros and an order of chocolate con porras. We planned out the rest of our trip using my student guide book, Lauren's sisters' recommendations, and a map I took from a tourist booth at the airport (probably should have invested in one of those about 3 months ago).

Then it was off to the National Library, but since we found out that the library is closed to the public (I know, right?), we took the metro back to El Corte Inglés, where after some shopping, we went to see Tommy Hilfiger. He was at the store for a book signing and his new line's promotion, so we stood around and watched the presentation. We also met Mrs. Hilfiger, who looks to be about 30 to Tommy's 60 or 70. Bit of an age difference there.

Since we were planning on going to a flamenco show that night, I wanted to change, so we all walked from El Corte Inglés to Julia's. Julia had her sister, nephew, and sister's nanny over. The nanny, Ines, just had a knee surgery and will be staying with Julia and I for a while, so I got to meet some of Julia's family again. The sister, Marta, (mother of the Princess of Sicily) speaks a little Italian, so Lauren and Melinda were able to show off their Italian mastery for everyone. I was impressed. They said that they didn't remember any Spanish from what they learned in school, but I think their Italian far makes up for that.

After I got changed, we headed back out to Chueca, where we were planning to have dinner. We were going to go to tapas bar recommended by Lauren's sister, but we ended up at a different place, Bazaar, which her sister had also recommended. We got mushroom croquettes, roasted tuna with mango salsa, a potato, ham, and egg dish, and a chicken and pesto crepe to share. For dessert, we got fruit skewers, a fruit and ricotta lasagna, and a chocolate cake-like thing. It was all quite tasty and the restaurant itself was really cool. It was all white and decorated as a high-end pantry. I liked it a lot.

Then we headed to La Latina, where we went to La Soleá for flamenco (after my getting lost about 3 times - maps seem to worsen my sense of direction). The flamenco was free, which was great, but there wasn't any dancing; only a guitarist and some singers. The restaurant pays only the guitarist for the night and the singers are gypsies who meander in off the streets and perform. It was really crowded but an authentic atmosphere. We also sat next to some characters who seemed quite smitten with Melinda. At about 1 am, we left so that I could catch the last metro back to Cuzco, and the girls walked back to their hostel. Day one complete!