Día Tres en Lisboa

(The sea otters at the Oceanário in Lisboa, Portugal)

On Sunday, I woke up a bit later and in a somewhat coordinated manner, and slid down the ladder without disturbing anybody. I showered, got dressed, and headed downstairs for breakfast where I ate with Lidia. Kevin joined us about halfway through and then we headed to the computer room to plan the day's activities. All of the BC kids except for Kevin and I were heading back to Madrid early that afternoon, so it was going to be just the two of us all day.

After we had something that resembled a plan, we headed to the nearest Barclay's ATM, as I was running out of cash. I stuck my card in, gave the machine my pin number, and asked for 100 euros. The screen went red and printed me a receipt that said, "Your card has been captured for security reasons. Please call your bank. Thank you." I didn't even move. I stared at the screen and hoped that my card would pop back out. It didn't. I had 15 euros on me and, of course, it was Sunday, so the Barclay's was closed. I called Kevin over and the two of just stared at the red, flashing screen. After about 10 minutes of my calmly asking the machine for my card back, we decided to give up. Kevin said he had enough money to get us both through the day, so with my poor card still under the captivity of the ATM, we headed to the metro.

We took the prior day's recommendation and trooped on over to the Gulbenkian Museum of Modern Art. It is free on Sundays (lucky for me, as I was still panicking about not having any money) and it was pretty cool. Much of the symbolism was over my head, but the stuff was fun to try and figure out. It's always bothered me that at modern art museums there is never an artist's explanation as to the meaning behind the pieces. Most of the pieces don't even have a title and the information cards simply say: "Untitled #42." Very unhelpful, if you ask me.

After we wandered through most of the Gulbenkian, we got back on the metro and went to the Expo Center, which is an area near the river with a lot of modern architecture and art displays that was built for the Expo '98. The Expo area also houses Lisboa's Oceanário, which we decided to visit. The museum sits out on the water and it is really quite large for an aquarium. There was one big center tank and lots of exhibits around the perimeter. My favorites were the penguins and the sea otters. Penguins are always spiffy and the sea otters were sleeping on their backs being just about as adorable as possible. One of the other coolest things we saw was this huge sunfish. I had never even heard of them before, but they are these huge fish that look like floating mattresses. They can weigh over 2 tons and their fins are too small to really do anything, so they just float around in the current. He was pretty nifty.

We spent almost 3 hours at the aquarium, and by the time we were done, we were hungry. We were in a pretty commercial area and hadn't seen any restaurants, so we headed back to the food court at the Vasco de Gama shopping center (a huge building in the expo area). We ended up splitting a pizza at Pizza Hut (don't judge - you have no idea how much I miss pizza) and then had to come up with a plan for what to do next. We had realized at some point during the last two days that the first pastry place in Belém the group ended up leaving was actually really famous. Only three people in the world know the recipe for the pastries and Samantha Brown went there with the Travel Channel. While no one else seemed bothered, Kevin and I were kicking ourselves for not having realized where we were at the time. So we decided to take the bus all the way back to Belém, just for the pastries, (I didn't need much convincing, although Kevin was a bit more hesitant). The bus ride took us a solid 45 minutes, and the line at Pasteis de Belém was out the door and around the block. The line was moving pretty quick, so it really didn't take very long to get to the counter. I ordered two of the famous little pastries (they're about three bites each) and one cinnamon muffin (I was overly thrilled about the muffin - I haven't even seen one yet in Madrid). The place goes on forever and there are about seven different dining rooms, but since all of the tables were full, Kevin and I took our pastries and ate outside near the Monasterio. Those pastries are good! Pasteis de Belém gives you a little packet of cinnamon and another of powdered sugar to sprinkle on top of your custardy pastry, so there was definitely a proper method of eating these. I hadn't quite mastered this method yet and ended up with powdered sugar all over my shirt. I then ate my muffin, which was also fantastic, and after taking some pictures of the monastery at night, we got back on the train and headed back downtown.

We had heard talk of an old neighborhood, Bairro Alto, where there were supposed to be a lot of eccentric little shops. We weren't sure where it was, but we had plenty of time to explore and just wandered in the general direction. We stopped to take pictures in a few plazas and also looked at the Santa Justa Elevator, a turn-of-the-century, eiffel-tower reminiscent, once-steam-powered scenic elevator. We didn't go up, as one has to pay to do that, but we took pictures from the ground, and then asked for directions to Bairro Alto. Of course, it was on top of what I would call a mountain. We were exhausted by the time we finished climbing, but there was a nice park with a great panoramic view of Lisboa at the top. By now, it was almost 8:30, so it was already dark and all of the shops were closed, so we headed back down the mountain/cliff to our hostel.

I stopped at the pastry shop near our hostel again, and got a slice of cinnamon cake with fruit glaze that would serve as dinner later. Then at the hostel, we splayed out on the couches in the TV room. There was a Canadian couple there who had just finished a pilgrimage walk across Spain, (some 780 km, they said) and we talked with them for a while about their trip. I decided 780 km might be a tad long for me, especially when there are no pastries involved.

Now, our flight was leaving early the next morning and we didn't want to pay the hostel for the night when we would only be sleeping there for a few hours before heading to the airport. Because of this, we had already checked out that morning and left our stuff in the security room. Our plan had been to come back to the hostel and watch movies in the common room until as late as possible and then just grab our stuff and go. We watched Cinderella Man first, for which I was mostly awake, and then I went to get The Devil Wears Prada. A woman from Argentina joined us for this one, but I fell asleep during the first scene. Kevin must have fallen asleep, too, because we woke up when his alarm went off at 4 am. We grabbed our stuff, (the hostel was very nice and didn't make us pay for sleeping on the couches) and got on the bus to the airport. We got off a stop early, but walked to the right terminal and a few hours later we landed in Madrid. We took our designated metros back to our homestays and put the lid on our trip to Lisboa!

Día Dos en Lisboa

(The Castelo dos Mouros in Sintra, Portugal)

Because I slept in the top bunk, the morning was a bit difficult. I am not at all coordinated when I first wake up and the last thing I want to do is attempt to crawl down a ladder. So while holding on the the ladder posts, I half-jumped, half-fell to the floor, and although I nearly knocked the fan over, no one seemed to wake up. I showered and got dressed and headed downstairs to check my e-mail. None of the BC kids were up yet, and I found out why when I turned on the computer. Lisboa is an hour behind Madrid, so while I set my phone alarm for 7:45, in Liboa, I woke up at 6:45. Wahoo. So I had more time on the computer than I thought, but I also had extra time for my eggs and toast. During breakfast, I sat with a girl named Lidia (a recent law school grad who is working as a lawyer in the Hague) who was in the room where I was originally booked. She said she didn't sleep at all because the rest of the room was occupied by rowdy Australians, so I was glad I ended up moving. We chatted for a while and she was really nice. She was traveling alone, so I invited her to join the BC group for our Fado dinner that night and she agreed.

Although the BC kids had planned on going to the flea market that morning, they didn't get downstairs until 11 am, at which point, we planned on taking a train to the highly-recommended town of Sintra. So the flea market got nixed and we all headed for the train station. Kevin and I ended up sitting next to a couple from Florida on the train who were traveling for 2 months around Spain and Portugal. The woman knew a lot about wine and art, saying her favorite wine was from Duro, a region in Portugal. I learned quite a bit about wine from just talking to her during the 45 minute trip. I'm not sure if I will ever need this knowledge, but it's good to have, just in case. She also recommended that we see the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisboa and the Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao.

We got off the train at Sintra and all the BC kids took the bus up a scarily-curvy-with-no-guard-rails type mountain road to the Castelo dos Mouros (or Moorish Castle). The castle ruins are perched on top of a mountain and from the turrets you can see all the way back to Lisboa. It was built in the 9th or 10th centuries by the Moors and has a lot of winding staircases and passageways. You climb about a billion stairs to go all the way around the perimeter, but the views are worth it. The mountain and short hike to the castle reminded me of upstate NY (minus the castle itself) and it was pleasant to take a stroll through the Nature of Portugal.

We then hiked back to the road where we waited for the bus that would take us to the Palácio Nacional de Pena, a 19th century palace on top of the next mountain over. After we waited for about half an hour, Pat went and asked how much longer the bus would take. The woman told him that there had been an accident on the scarily-treacherous road and that no traffic was coming through. So we walked, (it wasn't too far - although a lot of it was uphill) to the Palácio entrance, and then Kevin, Dan, and I walked up the path to the Palácio itself, while everyone else paid for the trolley ride.

The Palace was really nifty. It was built pretty recently, as far as Palaces go: 1842-1854, and in the Romantic style, which made it really surreal. The outside was yellow, purple, and red and the structure wasn't really classic architecture. It was a modern, yet still old-world palace that had great views from all directions. It was fun to explore and all the rooms were filled with fancy architecture and furniture. You could also walk through the kitchens and look at all the French chocolate pots - that's always fun, too. We ate lunch on the Palace balcony, (just sandwiches and ice cream from the cafe) where there were more cats. I do love cats.

We had planned to go look at the nearby caves, but the wait for the bus was too long, and we had to go right back to Sintra. We did have time to explore the city before heading to the train, so we split into groups to walk around. I went with Michi, Sean, Jack, Pat, and Jamie and we did some souvenir shopping and then stopped for chocolate crepes. As we were looking for a restaurant, Pat saw a little 3 year-old run out of a restaurant and into the busy road. He valiantly ran after the kid and saved him from what was about to be a very dangerous situation. He stormed into the restaurant and demanded to know who the parents were (this was his lifeguard training coming out in him). No one answered and Pat asked three times before a dad reading a newspaper looked up and said, "Oh, he's mine." All the little old ladies in the restaurant were shaking their heads. As the dad was fastening the little kid back into the stroller, the mom returned from the bathroom. Someone slept on the coach that night.

We got back back to Lisboa and found the Fado restaurant, A Baiúca, where we had reservations (albeit, somewhat slowly, as I was in charge of the map). The place was tiny, and there were 12 of us including Lidia. We crammed in around a table and looked at the menus. There were two set menus for about 30 euros each and an a-la-cart menu with entrees for about 20 euro. The minimum per person was 25 euros, (remember, 30 euros is $45). We knew this going in, and we had convinced ourselves to fork over the money, as it was dinner, a show, and an authentic cultural experience. I ordered a set menu which included: bread, cheese, olives, a liter of water, potato and cabbage soup, cod bacalhau, and dessert. Everything was great. The appetizers were good - who doesn't like bread and cheese? The soup was tasty and the cod bacalhau is a classic Portuguese dish. It is ground up salted cod mixed together with vegetables and breaded goodness to make a kind of stuffing. I would highly recommend it. For dessert I had chocolate mousse, which was also quite delectable. The Fado itself is a kind of Portuguese folk music that involves voice and guitar. It is very animated and passionate and there were a variety of different singers, some who just popped in off the street. One of the main singers was the owner of the restaurant and even the cooks would burst out in song every once in a while. The restaurant was so small that they just stood in the middle of the restaurant and turned in circles. It was very cool and very authentic and people were outside in the streets just listening. The cooks made the food while we were there and served the different courses to all the customers at the same time. The kitchen was so close, that you could smell everything being made. We were there for about 4.5 hours, so I think it was definitely worth the money.

Unfortunately, while I opted for the liter of water, the other menu option was a liter of wine, and all of my friends understandably chose that. The problem was that a liter of wine each really increased their volumes rather dramatically. Jamie was also receiving on-play texts from his parents about the BC vs. ND football game back home, so that didn't help the situation at all. They got shushed quite a bit.

After the bill of 340 euros was paid by all of us poor college students, we wandered back to our hostel and crashed. I remembered to set my alarm correctly this time, which was even more complicated, as I needed to account for Daylight Savings. But as soon as I hit "set," I was out.

Día Uno en Lisboa

(A view from the Castelo de Sao Jorge in Lisboa, Portugal)

I'm back and it's good to be home! Lisbon was great, but there is much to be done as internship applications need to be started, classes must be registered for, and homework must be, at least, considered.

But Lisbon! My friend, Kevin, and I slept in the airport on Thursday night, which is not fun and not particularly recommended. It would have been fine if we had chairs or something, but there was only floor. Cold tiled floor. I woke up several times shivering and/or with various parts of me completely asleep. At one point, I woke up and my whole right side wasn't functioning. But after a solid hour of sleep or so, we got in line to run our stuff through security. The security is much easier than in the US, and we were through in about 10 minutes. We then met up with another BC student, Dan, who we hadn't known was coming. Apparently instead of spending the night on the airport floor, he took a night bus, which would have been really convenient had we known about it. But either way, we got on the plane to Portugal and within an hour, landed in Lisboa. There were no signs for the bus we needed to take to our hostel, so we wandered in search of the airport's bus stop. We were about to cross the highway when we saw a stop behind us, so we doubled back, and managed to catch the next bus. After a 45 minute bus-ride through Lisboa, we were dropped off at a plaza and walked down Rua Augusta to our hostel, The Traveller's House.

This hostel was great. They had a living room, a movie watching room full of DVDs, an internet room with four computers guests could use for free, a dining room, and a kitchen. Breakfast was included, and you could get an endless supply of freshly made scrambled eggs, toast, cereal, coffees and juices. The bedrooms and bathrooms were really nice and clean and it is in a nice section of Lisboa. There were bookcases of both travel books and novels and the employees were the greatest. They will plan your trip for you, make your reservations, suggest the best/cheapest places, and provide you with various maps and sets of directions. All for 15 euros a night. Not bad at all.

So we dropped off our stuff and met up with the rest of the group that had arrived the night before, (there were 11 of us all together). Our first itinerary item was a walk to the Castelo de Sao Jorge (Saint George's Castle, in Portuguese) a big castle on an even bigger hill. We walked almost a full loop around the Castle before we found the entrance, passing through a quaint little neighborhood complete with three wandering peacocks. We then looked at all the scenic overviews of the city (the hill you climb is quite large) and explored the inside of the castle. You could even walk around and between the turrets, which I thought was pretty nifty. There were lots of children and cats at the Castle (the children because of a school trip, the cats because they are everywhere in Europe).

We then headed back down the hill to the Sé Catedral, and walked to Rua dos Bacalhoeiros for lunch. I ordered a sausage and egg item (the menu was in Portuguese, so I didn't understand much else) but it was really good. It was a fried egg on top of some sort of meat patty. It tasted more like a veggie-burger than meat, and had a similar texture, but I liked it a lot. But beware, the "free" appetizers they give you in Lisbon (like bread, cheese, or any fried item) will cost you, and probably a lot. Our group of 12 racked up an extra 26 euros in appetizers which they give you without your asking. There is a similar strategy in Spain, but none of us had ever been charged that much for bread.

After reluctantly forking over the money for the bill, we all caught a tram that took us to the neighborhood of Belém, which is right on the Tagus River. We first looked at the Padráo dos Descobrimentos, a monument built to honor Portugal's explorers and the area from which they set sail. We then walked down the street to the Torré de Belém, an old tower out on the water that used to serve as a prison. You can climb to the top of both of these places were you will find some pretty nice views of the city and the river. You can also see the Cristo-Rei, a huge statue of Jesus that overlooks Lisboa. After the threatening rain forced us off of the towers, we crossed the highway to the Monasterio de los Jerónimos, a huge church and monastery built in the 16th century. This is my favorite church since being abroad, and we were lucky, because the organist was practicing while we were there. It was very elegant and stately, as was the rest of the claustro, and after the monastery closed, we looked through the attached Anthropology Museum. The museum was very small and only took a half and hour, but the displays were nice. My favorite was the Egyptian display, which, although smelly (those mummies don't really have a nice odor to them), was pretty interesting, and a change from the rest of museums we've seen.

We then headed back into Belém and stopped quickly at a pastry shop to try the famous Pasteis de Belém (egg, cinnamon, and sugar pastries). Deterred by the line at the first place, we went to one across the street, and those pastries are good! Portuguese people are also very nice, and the man who owned the shop was very friendly.

We were told to speak English while in Portugal, as the Portuguese aren't exactly fans of the Spaniards. They always feel less popular and unfairly compared to Spaniards, and there is a undercurrent of competition between the two countries. But while most Portuguese people speak English perfectly well, if you need to speak Spanish, they will probably understand you. I also found that I understand Spanish better when it is spoken by a Portuguese person. Unlike the Spaniards, the Portuguese are very good at enunciating, which makes a world of difference when someone is speaking to you. I also found that I understand a good deal of Portuguese itself. It sounds like a mix of Spanish, French, and German, but at times, I felt like I understood more of Portuguese than I do of Spanish. There's a conundrum for you.

So after pastries, we all got back on the tram and regrouped at the hostel. We booked a Fado (Portuguese folk music) dinner/show for the next night with Miguel's (one of the owners of the hostel) help, and then headed to Rua das Portas de Santo Antáo for dinner. We thought we had a restaurant all picked out, but it turned out to be quite expensive, so we found another, cheaper restaurant on the same street. For some reason, I had terribly annoying shin splints and my back was throbbing like crazy, but I popped some Motrin and felt much better. I had kabobs for dinner, which weren't very good at all, but it was nice to sit outside and people-watch through dinner. The street was busy at night and we had to ward off the street vendors that would come right up to the table and push whatever they were selling right in your face (and whatever they were selling usually made some kind of annoying noise, which when pushed so close to your face was quite loud).

After dinner we walked back to the hostel, stopping at another pastry place right next door. This place was amazing. The pastries were huge and delicious, and most things costed less than a euro. I got some sort of sugar item coated in more sugar, which was simply fantastic and paid only 0.80 euro cents for it. We then pretty much passed out in the hostel. I ended up being able to sleep in the same room as the rest of the BC kids, as two of them slept in the same bed, and there was, therefore, one bed open. I was exhausted after having slept only a total of 4 hours in two days (1 of which was on an airport floor), so I fell asleep right away, with a whole lot of sugar inside of me.

La Tormenta de Viento

(A giant squid at El Museo de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain)

I woke up this morning to what I thought was a hurricane knocking down Julia's building. The storm was so loud that the windows were shaking. I rolled out of bed to look (you know it's bad if I roll out of bed to do anything), but it was dark and I didn't have my glasses on, so I couldn't see anything. I grabbed my glasses, but all I could make out were trees whipping around in the park next door. I wondered why no one else was panicking. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed that it wasn't even raining, which I thought was weird, because the thunder was scarily intense. Then my brain started to work, and I figured out what was happening. Julia lives on the 9th floor of a building that is next door to a park. Because of the park, there are no buildings on to my side of the apartment. This means that the wind is free to whip against my window as it so chooses. Apparently, it chooses to whip against my window quite vigorously. What I thought was thunder was actually just the wind. So no need to panic, I decided. I crawled back into bed, only to have my alarm clock go off ten minutes later.

So I woke up, finished an economics reading, took a brief nap, then took a shower and got dressed. I had breakfast and chatted with Baquita, then was off to run some errands. I went to Barclay's to cash my Morocco partial-reimbursement from BC (I waited until the exchange rate went up, so I made a tidy $15 profit), but the Barclay's lady said she didn't have access to the cash today, but that there was another Barclay's a few blocks down that did. Fine, I thought, as I looked forward to wandering around in the windstorm looking for the other Barclay's. I stopped first at the closest papeleria, where I needed to get some school supplies, but they didn't have colored paper, so I thought, maybe one of the grocery stores will. I looked at a map and wandered towards where the second Barclay's was supposed to be. Luckily for me, it was actually there, so I tried to let myself in. Of course, this Barclay's has a complicated door system, as well, and it is different than the one that attacked my thumb. A man was yelling directions to me from inside, but I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying (apparently, I should brush up on my door-entering vocabulary), so I shouted back that I barely speak Spanish, and he shut off the door system to let me in. He didn't seem pleased about it, but he did cash my check, and I managed to let myself out without problems.

Then I looped around to one of the neighborhood grocery stores, didn't see any colored paper, and went to another down the street. They didn't have any colored paper either, but they did have a wall of chocolate. I stopped to gawk, and after about 5 minutes of my staring at the wall, a bunch of business people came out and started taking pictures of the display. This rudely interrupted the gawking process. Since they were standing between me and the chocolate, I decided to loop around the store, and then come back, hoping that by that time, they would be gone. Of course, they weren't, and then I felt silly having come back to gawk a second time. So I grabbed a promising looking pack of assorted chocolates and checked out. Someday when I am a business woman taking pictures of chocolate displays, I will know not to bring all my friends with me and interrupt everyone's shopping processes (indiscriminate of how prolonged their shopping processes are).

I stopped at a sketchy papeleria on the way back to Julia's, but did find colored paper there, so mission accomplished, I headed home. I spent the morning working on art projects and eating my Socado chocolates. They are good. Really good. As a semi-professional chocolate aficionado, I rate these chocolates very high on the all-time records list, so I will probably be visiting that grocery store again, despite it's annoying chocolate photographers.

I then had Spanish class, (which was as scintillating as always) and stopped at Nuevos Ministerios on the way home. Lizzie said there was a post office in the Corte Ingles there, and I had to mail my letters to the Countess (I have two addresses, therefore she is getting two letters). Yes, that's right folks, they have officially been sent. I went up to the mail lady and said in perfect Spanish,"I would like to send these letters, please." She replied, "You're in the wrong section. The post office is around the corner." Turns out she was the customer service representative, not the mail lady. Undeterred, I rounded the corner and waited in the real mail line, repeated my brilliant statement, and sent my letters. The Countess should be getting them any day now.

I made it home just as Julia was heading out. "Where are you going?" I asked. "Out," she replied. I had dinner alone, as she hasn't come back yet, but I should probably take a nap now, as at 12:30, I will be heading to the airport. My friend, Kevin, and I are on the same flight that leaves tomorrow morning at 6:55 am. Unfortunately, we need to check in before the metro opens, and rather than pay for a taxi, we are going to sleep at the airport. This will be good practice for when we sleep at the airport in Lisbon on Sunday night (we have an early flight on Monday morning and don't want to pay the for the taxi or for the extra night at the hostel). Julia nearly had a conniption when I told her where I would be spending the night (although she still didn't offer to give me a ride to the airport in the morning) and Baquita said this is when having a big, strong, Spanish boyfriend comes in handy. I said Kevin would have to do.

I'll talk to you in a few days!

¿Dónde Están Las Galletas?

(A statue of the Hindu god Ganesha, on display at the MNA)

Today is Wednesday, which means I was sitting in a classroom before the sun came out. I was decently awake, perhaps because I had to sit sideways at the desks which seemed to be made for midgets. Class was held in a different room than usual and I have never before seen desks like this. Both the desk's seat and table fold down, but because of the way it was built (for midgets), you have to sit before pulling down the table or else you will get stuck in an awkward position between sitting and standing. It was funny watching everyone fight the desks with their eyes sleepily half-closed, and hopefully next week, we move back to our normal classroom with human-sized desks.

The next class was an endurance effort and after 2 hours of Spanish lecture, my head was bobbing just as much as everyone else's. But then it was lunch-time, which always perks me up. I had beef stew, which was quite tasty and a pastry I bought from the cafeteria. The pastry was decent, but still not the chocolate-chip cookie I have been craving for nearly 2 months now. Spain is in a really sorry state when it comes to cookies, as what they call cookies are really crackers. I have searched Madrid high and low for a cookie to no avail, and at this point, Lisbon may be evaluated based on its cookie-availability.

After Spanish class, I met with my intercambio, Jennifer. This week was in Spanish, and I was exhausted at the end of our hour-and-a-half, but we have plans to go out to dinner next week, so I'm excited about that. I was telling her all my stories about Julia, and she told me a pretty exciting story as well. Her great-grandmother was a Spanish Countess (why are there so many of those running around over here?) who had an affair with a monk. Yes, a monk. Her grandfather was had out of wedlock and grew up in an orphanage. They told him when he was older who his parents were and if he wanted to accept them legally. He said no, but now he has an awesome story to pass on to future generations. "Once upon a time when Great-Grandma went to church. . ."

My last class of the day was economics, were we talked about our final, which the Professor has decided will be oral. Great. We have a 7 - 10 minute "chat" with the professor which will determine 50% of our final grade. That's a lot of percentage per minute. He said he likes oral exams because students can't just memorize facts. This did not please me, as I am a memorizing queen, and can spit out textbook facts like nobody's business. We'll see how this one goes.

I got back to Julia's and was waiting around for her to return for dinner. I was listening to the wind whistling outside (and through, in my opinion) the window, and shivering, as today was the really cold and rainy. Julia called my phone, but fortunately, I understood must of what she was saying, which involved my eating dinner whenever I felt like it as she was eating with her family. That was a first, and saved me a solid 45 minutes of Spanish dinner conversation.

Tomorrow I have quite a few errands to run before I leave for Lisboa on Friday morning, so I plan on waking up early and being productive. We'll see how that goes.

Un Príncipe

(El Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, Spain)

Today I met a prince. Officially. He is only 8 months old and it was naptime, but I looked at him and he looked at me, and there were no tears on either part, so I'm calling it a success. I brilliantly uttered something resembling baby-talk in Spanglish, which I'm sure impressed the adults in the room, but he didn't say anything too clever either, so it's okay.

I had come home from classes when I saw Julia pushing a baby stroller around the living room. I then noticed that there was a very large baby in the aforementioned stroller (the prince is rather large for his age, it seems). I veered into the living room, and Julia said to be quiet as it was naptime, but she seemed to be in a good mood and let me get a closer look. I saw a women on the couch, and at first, I thought it was Princess Maria, but it was Julia's sister, Marta, the Pricess' mother. We chatted for a bit, and she seemed nice. Fortunately, I understood everything she said.

Then I went to put my stuff down in my room, and couldn't decide whether to go back out, because Marta was reading and Julia was trying to put Prince Francesco to sleep. After an emergency-advice call to Lizzie, I wandered back out, but Marta was packing up the Prince to leave (he was really upset about having to put on a coat). We chatted a little more and then they were off. The whole ordeal was unexpected and rather exciting.

I've since been trying to get ahead on reading so I'm homework-free for Lisbon this weekend. Julia came back for dinner and even offered me flan. This is the first dessert I've seen in the house since I've arrived. Because it was half-eaten, I figured it had something to do with the Prince's visit.

It poured a few minutes ago, which is the first time it's really rained since I've been in Madrid. All today, it was very blustery, but I've always liked this weather as it is mysterious and very poetic. Anything can happen (like meeting a prince)!

Another fun tidbit: Baquita and I were having a heart-to-heart yesterday in the kitchen during breakfast. She got excited about something, closed all the doors, and came over to tell me a secret. Turns out, Julia's father was a minister under Franco. I think this explains a lot about her lifestyle and personality - it's the old-money/dictatorship in her. Baquita also told me that Julia divorced her husband, whose father was also a minister under Franco. Very interesting.

In addition to meeting princes and living in a social circle that's way over my head, things are just peachy. Classes are running smoothly, friends are drama-free, and my cold is getting better. Life's looking pretty good.

¡Más fotografías!

I've uploaded the Toledo pictures and my pictures from Madrid so far this month onto the Shutterfly site.

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

Enjoy!