Geneva and Interlaken, Switzerland

Last weekend, we were in Switzerland!  I had never been to the country before and really didn't know what to expect, but we had heard so many great things about its beauty, I thought it was well worth a visit.  That was sure correct!  We ended up finding a relatively inexpensive flight to Geneva, Switzerland, then reserved a train ride from Geneva to Interlaken, which was rumored to be one of the most beautiful and picturesque places in the world! Luckily, Dan, Lauren, Ross and I made the arrangements for this trip, while at the same time our two friends, Emily and Callie, were making the same plans.  So even though we were not traveling "together" we eventually ended up in Switzerland all together, which was a blast.  In addition to that, we have a few friends from SLU who are actually studying abroad in Geneva through Webster University in St. Louis, therefore they basically babysat us from the time we got off the plane, until our arrival to the airport on Monday morning!  That was unexpected, but so helpful!

We left Madrid last Thursday afternoon, as usual, however the mood of the group was a little bit angrier than normal.  I do not get out of class until 3:15 PM, while the other three are finished at like 1:45.  Our flight was scheduled to leave around 6:20, so we had decided to be heading toward the airport at no later than 3:45 to avoid any confusion like we encountered in Paris.  Since I had to stay at the university for a bit and print my train tickets, I did not arrive at the apartment until 3:30 and Dan was immediately rushing me to leave!  That pissed me off!  Then, once we met Lauren at the metro station (30 minutes late), she was angry with Dan, since he had not told her we were delayed!  On top of all that, Dan was then mad at Lauren and me for making fun of his unwillingness to attempt to use Spanish - ever!! Regardless of the tension, we arrived to the airport on time, flew through security and found ourselves enjoying a large beer and snacks at the gate, well before departure.  On the flight, Lauren and I ordered a ham and cheese sandwiches, since we were starving, and it was actually pretty good!  When we got into Geneva around 8:00, our friend from SLU, Jen, was there to meet us at the airport and help us get back into the city, since we would be staying at their apartments for the first night in Geneva.  We were hungry, so Jen took us to a nearby burger place, but not before warning us of the exorbitant prices in Switzerland and especially in Geneva.  For one burger, fries and a beer, I paid over 20 CHF (Swiss Franks), which is equivalent to a little more than $20 USD.  Ugh!!  After our burgers, she directed us through the city's incredible public transport system, which consists of high-tech trains, which run on rails and cables and are built right into the streets!!  We arrived to Webster University's campus and made ourselves at home in our friends', Carl and Ben's, tiny apartment.  Ben took us on a walking tour of Geneva, while Carl went back to the airport, this time to fetch Emily and Callie, freshly arrived from Madrid.  The tour was nice, but it was difficult to really see the city at night.  Dan and Ben got into swimsuits and jumped off of a bridge, near their apartment, into a freezing cold river below.  Ben said they do it a lot and Dan couldn't pass it up.  I opted to stay high and dry!  We reunited with the rest of the girls from Madrid and together we went to a Indian place to get Döner Kabobs, I am still not really sure what they are, but Carl and Ben swore they were delicious and about the only thing they could afford to eat in Geneva!  We ate the sandwiches and went to bed shortly after, since our train ride was at 10 AM on Friday.

Ben walked us to the train station on Friday morning, since Carl had already left with Emily and Callie for Interlaken.  We stopped in the station for coffee and Lauren and I picked out the most delicious waffle I have ever had in my life.  It was a sugar waffle, with bits of melted sugar inside, powdered sugar on top and warmed on a griddle.  I would kill for another one!  We boarded the train on time, made our connection an hour later in Bern and were well on our way to Interlaken (only about a 3 hour ride by train from Geneva).  The views from the train were incredible and I even said I would have been content if the train just turned around and my money was spent only on the scenic ride!  We passed mountains, lakes, field, and small Swiss villages, which made for a quick and enjoyable journey!  We arrived at the Interlaken West station and after a brief moment of confusion in locating our hostel and being utterly flabbergasted by the beauty of the surroundings, we made it to the Lazy Falkan Hotel, stored our bags for the day and got some advice from the super nice guy working at the bar.  Since it was a beautiful, rather warm and clear day, he suggested we go up the Harder Mountain for awesome views of the city of Interlaken, the surrounding mountains and the two adjacent lakes.  He suggested we stop at a grocery store for some snacks and beer to have a small picnic atop the mountain - so we did!  We took a funicular, or cable car, called the Harderbhan, to the top of the mountain.  It was a shaky ride straight up!  Lauren was nervous and it didn't help that the railways had been built over 100 years ago and they didn't hesitate bragging about that!!  Once we made it to the top, we were shocked by the beautiful views!  We were taking pictures left and right and walking slowly along the wooded path to a large restaurant, which is the main attraction on the Harder (aside from the views).  Along the way, we heard Dan let out a scream and discovered that his entire, freshly-purchsaed loaf of bread had shaken out of his bag and fell straight down the hillside!! hahaha!  We were laughing so hard, both at how strange it was and also at the fact that we were now 5,000 feet in the air and he had no lunch! We found a shady spot along the trail, prepared our sandwiches, cracked open our several, luke-warm beers and reluctantly shared with the starving Dan.  We returned to the hostel later to regroup and take a little nap.  The walks around the quaint town of Interlaken, seem straight from a movie set or fairy-tale world.  The colors are more intense - the water is so blue that it doesn't look real, the grass is greener, the flowers more red and the homes look like little gingerbread houses.  We couldn't get enough.  We ate dinner at a pizza place, despite the horrible prices for food.  Lauren and I split what we thought to be a delicious, creamy vodka sauce with prawns and turned out to be a thin oily pasta with tiny shrimp.  Nevertheless, I ate all of it, plus Dan and Ross' pizza.  I realized that afternoon that I had forgotten my contact solution in Geneva and no stores were open to buy some.  I had to find a random guy in the hostel to lend me some solution and he ended up being very nice and hug out with us the next night!!

Ross, Dan, Lauren, Jen and I in Geneva

Overlooking the rivers of Interlaken

Interlaken with a view of Jungfrau Mountain in the distance

Interlaken from Harder Mountain

On Saturday, the weather was a little worse in the morning, kind of cold and rainy, so we ate the free breakfast at the hostel and then, again per the recommendation of the hostel employee, we boarded a train to Lauterbrunnen.  This is a city located higher up in the mountains with busses connecting to the town of Trümmelbach and it's famous waterfalls.  These waterfalls collect the runoff of the three largest mountains around the towns and the water has, over time, bored falls deep into the rock.  Now, there are tunnels, stairs and lighting inside the mountains to observe the waterfalls from the inside.  It was incredible!! Very loud and wet!  Plus, from the waterfalls, we had great views of the land outside and the improving weather.  Upon leaving the waterfalls, we took the bus and train back to Interlaken, then boarded a super nice train (which was heading to Frankfurt, Germany!).  This train dropped us at Interlaken West, where we could walk home and grab some ingredients for more sandwiches and more beer for dinner!  After eating, we ended up reuniting with Brad, the contact solution guy, who was traveling alone and had met a couple other travelers from Canada.  They were all heading to a big party that evening at Balmer's Tent Village, which is a huge hostel type place for visitors to Interlaken, and is right where our friends, Emily, Callie and Carl, were staying.  We all made the 30 minute walk to Balmer's together and had a great time at the party there.  It was celebrating both the closing of the tent village for the season, as well as the beginning of the famous Oktoberfest in Germany.  We ended up running into more people from SLU and meeting some interesting characters from Australia.  Lauren enjoyed herself so much that she even got to spend a night in the tent village in our friends' tent!! hahaha!

Dan, Lauren, Ross and I at Trümmelbach Falls

Refrigerator...

Emily, Dan, Callie, Ross and Lauren at Balmer's Tent Vila

Carl, Lauren and I 

Sunday was our last day in Interlaken, but since we booked a train ticket back to Geneva for 9:00 PM we virtually had the entire day to enjoy the city.  We decided to rent bikes and tour the surrounding towns and lakes for.  After eating the free breakfast and collecting Lauren from the tent village, we went to a bike rental shop and the super-nice employee rented bikes to us for just 9 Franks (around $9) and told us to just keep them for three or four hours, despite the two hour time limit.  We grabbed a map and headed north from Interlaken to a neighboring town,  There, we explore an old ruined castle and biked through the small, residential streets.  Next, we continued along the river, across a covered bridge and eventually made our way to Böning, where the western lake of Interlaken is located.  We parked our bikes and sat by the lake eating some left over bread, taking pictures and watching some horrible boaters try to get their 19 foot Bayliner onto the trailer and out of the water.  What a joke!  Eventually, they asked us to help them rock the boat so that it would fall into place on the trailer! haha!  We continued riding along the lakeside, stopping for a big German hotdog and beer at a food stand near the marina and then made our way back to Interlaken to return the bikes.  There, we got more beer (Desperado's) and sat by the picturesque river enjoying our final few hours in paradise.  We decided to spend the remainder of our Swiss Franks on a traditional Swiss dinner at a nearby restaurant.  We ordered cheese fondue, which is hugely popular there, especially in the winter, and I got a delicious schnitzel with mushroom gravy and buttered noodles!

The Jungfrau by night

As usual, our luck began to sour as the trip came to an end.  We returned to the hostel to get our bags, only to find that the bar where they were stored was locked and closed for the night.  We were panicking because all of our things should have been locked inside.  It turns out, they had moved them outside the door for us, but we didn't see them initially because it was so freaking dark!!  We just barely dodged that bullet!  We got on our first train around 9 PM,  transferred trains at Bern and then boarded the second train to return to Geneva.  On that train, Lauren discovered that she had lost her purse somewhere along the line.  Luckily she had her passport and tickets with her, but her credit cards, cash, keys, camera and phone were inside the misplaced purse.  Again we were in panic mode, Dan was running around the train trying to find a "conductor-man" he kept saying, and in the meantime Lauren and I decided to try to call her phone.  I did it right away and nearly passed out when someone creepily answered!  The man said that he and his girlfriend had found the purse and that he would happily mail it to Lauren in Madrid, no problem.  Thank god!  However, this is still unfinished business and I really do not know if Lauren has heard from him again or not.  Once back to Geneva, we met up with Callie and Emily and decided to simply go straight to the airport, since it was already after midnight and we could just get comfy in the terminal and rest until boarding around 6 AM.  As it turns out, since it was Sunday, the airport was closed for the night and would not reopen until 4 in the morning.  So, we were stranded outside the airport for about an hour until we saw people just going inside through the cracked doors.  We followed suit and made ourselves makeshift beds on the uncomfortable chairs for a few hours until security opened.  The next jab would come when we woke and found that our Easy Jet flight which was scheduled to depart at 7:05 AM had been delayed for three hours (due to technical issues) and would not leave until after 10 AM.  This was terribly depressing and we could not bear the thought of spending any more time in the stupid airport, but with no other options, we went back to sleep on the chairs, spent too many Franks on an overprices croissant and coffee and caught the 10 AM flight back to Madrid.  With virtually no time to spare, we returned home gathered our things and went directly to class, beginning another week of school to recuperate from the excitement of Switzerland!  

Paris, France

Once again, I am delayed in writing this blog post, but for the second time in a week, I find myself crammed into an airplane seat between my friends. This time we are on our way to Geneva, Switzerland!  Expect a belated update on this trip sometime next week. We have no clue what we are getting into here in Switzerland, so it should make for some entertaining stories. 

As I said last time, Dan, Ross and I traveled to Paris last Thursday night (September 13), arriving in the city around 8 PM.  We had already made plans to meet up with our friend from SLU, Carly, and her friend, Courtney, who are studying abroad in Brussels. It took us longer than expected to get to the hostel and after an extremely uncomfortable encounter with an unfriendly, anti-American, anti-English train ticket salesman and a long and sketchy ride on the metro into the city, we arrived at the Lumiere station and walked through the ghettoish area to St. Christopher's Inn. There, we checked in and reunited with Carly, whom we hadn't seen since last semester at SLU. She is always a blast and her friend Courtney was fun too! Together we figured we would venture down to the Eiffel Tower for our first night in Paris, get some drinks and enjoy the calm night before the masses arrived on Friday. We stopped into a little convenience store to grab some cheap beers and I rediscovered one of my favorite beers of all time - Desperados! I had this for the first time with Bettina in Strasbourg, France then again in St. Martin (a French island).  I am not sure if it is available in the States, but it is flavored with tequila and definitelyworth a try!  Besides, the kind old man at the store rewarded our crappy French with a handful of some good pistachios, which barely made a dent in our debilitating hunger, but helped. We excited the metro at the Tour Eiffel stop and our jaws dropped as we had timed the view perfectly for our first sighting. The Eiffel Tower shimmers and sparkles with lights for the first five minutes of each hour in the evening. We caught it perfectly and were so excited and impressed. The Eiffel tower is the only monument that despite seeing it before, seeing it in popular culture my whole life and even visiting it three times on this last trip, that has never failed to impress me and keep me gazing! Just across the street from the tower on the Seine was a tourist-trappy food vendor with crepes, which we couldn't pass up!  Mine was simply sugar, but others opted for nutella and fruit. Then, we sat beside the river with the Eiffel Tower just behind us, enjoying the evening in Paris.  At this point, Dan and I had to pee so bad, I was looking for any secluded bush or tree that I could hide behind. We had decided to make our way back to the hostel, so as we walked to the metro, we saw a dark, deserted park adjacent to the Eiffel Tower that looked perfect for a bathroom break. As we entered the park, not 20 feet from the sidewalk, we saw some scary, dark figures appear from behind the bushes with what appeared to be very bad intentions. They were approaching us quickly, so we took off running for the sidewalk and just dodged the mugging... or something.  As if our luck hadn't soured enough, the metro had closed (probably while we were trying to get mugged) so we were forced to walk to different stations, take different trains and hike a long way back to the hostel, reviving that hunger that was only temporarily satisfied by the crepes.  We stopped into a to-go restaurant by the hostel to get a croque monsieur and fries - traditional French! We met some "outgoing" girls from Australia back at the hostel, who didn't mind mooching off our fries. Afterwards, we went to sleep for the first time in a hostel, padlocking our valuables and closing the curtains to our private bunks! Haha! 

Reunited with Carly

Shimmering 

On Friday, we had anticipated to meet up with the rest of the huge group heading to Paris from Madrid. They were supposed to arrive relatively early, but after 10:30 rolled around, we decided to make a move and begin exploring the sites, just the five of us. We had to check out of the room and store our bags, since the following nights were booked under separate reservations. Our first stop was the famous Catacombs of Paris.  Back in the 18th century, Parisians were concerned about the health safety of the buried bodies in cemeteries, so all of the graves were exhumed and the bones were stored in the abandoned underground quarry, which can be toured today. It was unreal! The pathways were literally lined with bones, inlaid designed made from skulls and femurs decorated the walls and countless plaques were left to honor the bodies. It was cold, dark and creepy, but totally cool! Upon leaving, we were hungry since the morning's baguettes and nutella didn't hold us over for long. We stopped at another streetside creperie and ordered big, hot chicken and cheese crepes. Finally no ham!  Since we had bought three day unlimited metro passes, we were able to use the system to travel all around the city.  We chose the Notre Dame cathedral as our next stop.  The church was impressive and beautiful.  We took photos outside then toured the inside, which was crowded and anticlimactic.  I actually remember going in there with Dirk and Gayle back in 2006, but didn't realize it until then.  That shows how incredible the inside is.  Haha!  However, I was able to write my name in a huge guest book, documenting my visit to the famous church!  We walked down the Siene afterwards, heading towards the Louvre.  Just on the backside of the museum, we discovered a little farmer's market, where we tried handmade jams, honey, cookies and sorbet.  We walked into the plaza of the Louvre just to sit and take it all in, but planned to return again later.  Having not heard from the others of our group all day, we decided to make our way back to the hostel and look for clues to their whereabouts.  They checked us into our rooms, which ended up being incorrect since the huge, confusing group from SLU literally turned the place upside down.  As a result of the confusion, I was issued keys to both the 5th and the 2nd floors, which gave me access to most of our friends' rooms for the weekend.  That came in handy! We ended up running into the girls we were missing and since it was our friend, Emily's, birthday, they had made plans for dinner and then an evening on the lawns of the Eiffel Tower with wine.  Since the wine started flowing well before then, we ended up taking the recommendation of our friends Carly and Courtney and picked up a few baguettes and brie from a market to make sandwiches with blueberry jam.  The snack was great and filled us all up enough to get to the Eiffel Tower.  By the time we got the big group moving, the metro closed when we were only half way downtown.  We were forced to walk over a mile and a half to the tower to make it there by the last "sparkle" at midnight.  We had some difficulty along the way, as a few people fell down, others had to pee and others had to ditch shoes and clothing.  Despite a hellacious marathon night, we made it to the Eiffel, saw the sparkle, got another delicious crepe and returned to the hostel, while the girls continued on to a nightclub for even more birthday festivities. 

Skulls of the Catacombs

Notre Dame

Courtney, Carly, Ross, Dan and I at the Louvre

Final sparkle of the night!  

On Saturday morning, Dan, Lauren, Ross and I decided to break away from the group to do our own thing, considering the confusion and difficulty of the night before. We planned to go to The Palace of Versailles to start the day then work our way back into Paris. We encountered metro delays and cancellations due to an "accident involving a person". Therefore, we were forced to transfer to several, different stations and metro lines to inch closer and closer to the Chateau. Along the way, we met a very nice older couple from the Boston area who took us under their wing, literally, and helped us make to Versailles with them. Monica the wife, was very international and had worked for the UN, lived in Paris and spoke French, so she managed to get us onto a real train heading to Versailles - for free!  In the town of Versailles, we stopped into another market for baguettes, brie and jam to make the same sandwiches.  Plus, we got half-bottles of white wine for a little picnic outside the palace.  The picnic was great and lifted our spirits after the challenging and time consuming travel.  We had a strange restroom experience there, which repeated itself a couple times in France.  It was a unisex bathroom with both urinals and stalls, so guy are peeing while women are walking behind to get to the stalls or standing besides you to wash their hands.  So funny!!  We managed to get into the palace for free because Lauren and I had copies of our visas, which sufficed for European residency.  We whined to the lady enough for her to just let Dan and Ross follow us in for free.  Big savings!  The palace was as incredible as I remember.  We started in a really cool museum part, which documented the history of the chateau built by Louis XIV to wine-and-dine the French nobility.  We passed trough the lavish rooms, the famous hall of mirrors, as well as the King and Marie Antoinette's bed chambers.  Her room has a secret passage for access to the king's chamber during "riots".  All the rooms had incredible views of the famed Gardens of Versailles.  We couldn't access the gardens for free, but since it is like a huge park with a lake and several things to see, it was worth the money . We got some great views of the palace, then lied in the grass with fruit sorbet until leaving for an evening in Monmarte at the Sacre-Coeur cathedral. This church is situated high on a hill with great views of the city especially at night when it gets dark and the skyline illuminates.  The steps of the church fill up with people eating, drinking and watching Paris come alive.  We got more baguettes and cheese and a couple big bottles of wine. Dan couldn't pass up a fried chicken store so we had some chicken wings too!  Naturally, he knocked over and shattered Lauren's, unopened wine within 5 minutes which caused some tension...  We found our friends on the steps and sat with them for a couple hours watching the street performers and the swarms of people. Afterwards, we walked around the corner for some nice views of the Eiffel tower, then the four of us continued on to explore the area, passing through shops, getting more crepes (Lauren had two), trying the famous macaroons (I did not like it) and finally stopping into a cafe for some beer and a snack. We settled on one with good looking escargot, but when we only ordered 4 beers and one large order of escargot for the table, the unfriendly waitress scoffed at us and left without taking the menus or saying a thing. We talked to the nicer guy who brought our drinks and asked why she seemed unhappy. He told us that usually they are only a "restaurant" at that time and we were ordering more like a "bar", but that it was no problem.  Whatever!  She was mean the whole time and I left her a really nasty look and pissed off "bon soire" as we left, which Dan said definitely sent the message!  haha!  The escargot were some of the best I have ever had (no offense to my Saputo's family)!  They were served in the shell, filled with garlic, parsley butter, along with strong tongs to hold them and extract the meat. Delicious!!  On the way back to the metro, we had an odd encounter with a Venezuelan woman and her daughter who were traveling in Europe.  They found out I spoke Spanish and followed us to the metro and got directions to their hotel.  They asked to take a picture with the four of us and even wrote their names on a piece of paper for me to find them on Facebook! Haha!!  Back at the hostel, we encountered the others and Ross and I went back out with them to a bar nearby for a Desperados before calling it a night. 

PS: I forgot to mention that I am currently writing this post on a train, as we pass through beautiful Switzerland from Geneva to Interlaken for the weekend!  More on that later.  

Palace of Versailles 

Picnic at Versailles 

Ross, Lauren, Dan and I at the Gardens of Versailles

Sacre Coeur, Montmartre 

On the steps of the Sacre Coeur

On our last day, Sunday, we had to hit everything that we had missed the previous days.  We began at the Arc de Triumphe, walked down the Champes Élysées and found a nice cafe for a croissant and coffee.  We continued down the beautiful, most famous street in Paris, all the way to the Louvre.  We had heard it was a holiday in France and that all the museums and sites (including the house of the president, which had a 2 mile line) were free to enter. We were nervous of the Louvre, but it turned out it wasn't free for everyone and we only had to wait 5 minutes to enter.  Once again, we gained free entry with the European visa!  Two for two!  We headed straight for the Mona Lisa, which was honestly anticlimactic.  It is a rather small painting, protected behind thick glass and surrounded by hundreds of pushy, smelly people.  We got in and out of there quickly and moved on to see some other famous paintings, the Sphynx, the underground moats of the original Louvre, the private apartments of Napoleon and the code of Hammurabi. We saw the very famous painting of the Second French Revolution with a topless woman holding a French flag amidst fighting soldiers, which I have since studied in my art history class. Perfect timing!  We left the museum and stopped for lunch at an overpriced cafe along the Seine. I ordered a Croque Madamme with fries and another icy Deaperados. We walked back past to the Notre Dame so Dan and Lauren could place a lock on the lovers' bridge. Their romantic moment was preceded by a big argument, so it was very, very special... Haha!  We ended up running into some of our friends at a cafe adjacent to the church and chatted until Ross and I got ran off by the rude waiter, since we were not eating and must have been taking up too much public space on the sidewalk.  We reunited with the lovebirds and headed to the Pantheon.  This huge church has crypts in the basement, which contain the bodies of famous French people like the philosopher Voltaire, the revolutionist Roussaeu, the famous scientists the Curies and even the man who invented the braille language, Mr. Braille!  We sat on the steps of the church until we were run out of there, then went to the beautiful Luxembourg Gardens until we were forced out of there!  The gardens were great.  We had bought beers and sat in the garden, by the pond, with views of the Eiffel Tower and interesting people. The place closed eventually so we were sent to the streets to track down a place for dinner.  We decided to spend a little more money on a good, traditional French meal that did not consist of baguettes or brie.  The restaurant was great, very fancy with outdoor seating. I ordered a filet with Bordeaux red wine sauce and Lyon style potatoes.  It was great to finally have beef!! I tried to save money by ordering mineral water and not wine, which turned out to be more expensive than a glass of wine.. Ugh!  After the dinner we headed back to the hostel, since the big group from SLU that arrived on Friday were leaving so early on Monday morning that they planned to just sit at the Eiffel Tower until 1AM, then rest at the airport for a couple hours before the flight, instead of paying for another night.  We, on the other hand, didn't fly out until later on Monday, so we planned to hang with them at the tower, then go back for a decent nights sleep in the beds. We viewed the tower from a plaza directly in front of it. We were able to get more crepes, sit on the steps in a big huddle to stay warm and enjoy the last night in Paris. It was a lot of fun!! 

Arc de Triumphe

Mona Lisa

Luxembourg Gardens

Monday morning was not as fun!  We were scheduled to depart Paris at 10:25, so we woke at 8ish and planned to be on the metro and moving by 8:30. There were terrible delays that morning and it took us well over an hour to get to the airport, let alone to get to the ticket counter for boarding passes. When we got up to the agent, she told us the flight had "closed" at 9:40 and it was just after 10 at that time. We were freaked out, but luckily there were two other guys next to us, in our same position.  The agents called the gate, issues our passes and instructed us to RUN to the plane.  We flew through security and hit the jet bridge in a mad dash.  Fortunately, we were not the last ones on the place and no one seemed as frazzled as we were.  The flight went by quickly and we landed back in Madrid for three short nights before leaving again for Switzerland. 

Segunda Semana in Madrid

I am currently sitting on an airplane, between Dan and Ross, as we make our way from Madrid to Paris. This should be a very fun weekend and will hopefully result in some really great stories to share. More on that later. For now, I have a couple hours to pick up where I left off on life in Madrid.



The rest of last weekend was good. It is surprising how quickly we are getting acclimated and comfortable here in Madrid. Not only in the city, with the transportation and food, but also at home with the changes in room temperature, meal size, bed size and the stiffness of our line-dried laundry. On this issue, our culture (along with Downey) wins without a doubt! My underwater could strip paint off of furniture and my jeans could literally be furniture. Ugh...



On Saturday night, we went to Maloney’s, a little bar relatively close to our apartment with all of our friends. FYI a 30-minute walk in Spain is "relatively" close. These are not a Ford Explorer and golf cart kind of people. Maloney’s was a blast. It is a TINY place, like the size of our breezeway and we got there early to establish a spot and add our names to the millions on the walls, which are covered in American license plates. I spotted an Illinois plate and instinctively planted my name just under the "Land of Lincoln" slogan.  The place played really fun music and filled up with people around 2 AM. When we got home, we were greeted by our new host dog, Milou. She is a little, yappy Jack Russell terrier who woke the whole house when we entered. This reminds me to mention the bizarre door to our apartment! The door has four, separate sets of triple deadbolts going up the door jam. With each turn of the key, one of the bolts closes so it takes four turns total to completely lock and unlock the door and doing so sounds like a bank vault being cracked open. Pretty sure a tank could not penetrate this apartment. 



On Sunday, I refused to let Dan and Ross sleep too late, since I feel like we waste too much of the day sleeping. I can't stand that.  We "enjoyed" our skimpy breakfast at home and then headed west down our street to Parque del Oeste, which is supposedly the second most popular green space in Madrid after Retiro. We were still starving by the time we made it to the park, so we stopped into a cafe for a ham sandwich. I really wanted coffee, but I had evidentially missed the cultural coffee cutoff and everyone was drinking beer - so I settled for sangria. Haha! Back to the ham sandwich, the only person I have known to consume more ham than the Spaniards was Pat Neighbors, and even he would have tired of it here. There is ham in EVERYTHING, breakfast empanadas, baguettes, soups, sandwiches and even potato chips.  Good thing we like it, since it is about the only protein we consume in our all-carb, Spanish diet. After lunch, we walked through the park, stopping to check out the Teleférico, cable car, that we intend to ride sometime for great views of the city. We wandered through the rose garden then happened upon Templo de Debod, an Egyptian temple, which was given as a gift to the Spanish by the Egyptian government as a thank you for their archeological help. From the temple, we could see the back of the Royal Palace, so we simply walked the few minutes back to the palace, stopping for gelato (I had chocolate and hazelnut mixed!) and then to see a famous monument in Plaza de America.  On Sunday night, the three of us went to see the infamous La Corrida de Toros, or Bullfight, in Madrid. The bullfight season is from May through October, with fights taking place each Sunday this time of the year. We ended up scalping tickets from an old man on the street for 10€ each, which was really a rip-off, since the face value (which he was hiding) was only 2€. Either way, we got in and were utterly horrified, but still very happy to have the experience. The fight takes place in the historic Las Ventas bullring and is divided into thirds.  I am not certain of all of the specifics, despite having just looked them up, but each third of the ceremony consists of a lot of taunting and what appears to be torture of the bull. Ultimately the bull is stabbed between the shoulders and killed. It seemed gruesome to us, but our host mom assured us it is not that bad for the bull, that they are raised to be strong fighters, and that they would be slaughtered for food if not fought.  Whatever - when in Rome right? Dan did not even know that the skin of the bull was broken, let alone that it was stabbed to death, so he left in shambles. Long story short, we should not believe what we are taught as kids, that bullfighting is simply matadors waving red capes in front of a happy bull!! (Bullfight photos are at the bottom of this post!) That Sunday was my mom's 50th birthday and as much as I regretted not being there, I really got to be when she Skyped me into the garage party with the usual gang in their usual spots. What a blast! 



Rose Garden, Parque del Oest

Templo de Debod

Monday was a great day! My first class of the day at 2:00 was cancelled since the professor was in London, therefore I didn't have class until 3:30 and got to roam around our street with Ross and Dan looking for another good bakery for pastries and coffee in the morning. You would not think to-go coffee would be so difficult to find, but Europeans have a thing about serving food on real china and drinks in real glass. I have to say, I like it, but a simple cup of coffee to take to school must be available somewhere. After my one class of the day, I went with Dan and Lauren to a place in Retiro called The Crystal Palace. This is a cool glass structure, which is supposed to be vert beautiful at sunset.  Well, we kind of missed the sunset so we took a look at the glass building then headed to Gran Via in pursuit of another famous bar called El Tigre which serves massive amounts of Tapas with a 6€ drink, serving as dinner and drinks all in one! We found the place, had a couple beers, four plates full of tapas and left for home content. Then we spotted McDonalds, which we couldn't resist. This was the most beautiful McDonalds I have ever been into and we even told the people. It's in a really old building and adorned with marble and gold. Crazy! Lauren got a cheeseburger and fries (I think that's a secret) and I had to settle for an ice cream cone since they don't have milkshakes. I told them that no real, American McDonalds would not have milkshakes and they laughed, but could probably care less. 



Tuesday night took us back to Maloneys! They had a 10€ bottomless cup special, so everyone from SLU was there. We were old-timers, having already been there on Saturday and already having our names on the wall. Haha!  They played more great music, including Kelci’s favorite "Make it Nasty" and Grease songs. I could not resist sending a few texts home especially after a couple of the free chupitas they were handing out. Lauren and I were dying for a good country song and the best we got was Garth Brooks' Friends in Low Places. I was just fine with me, but I think I was one of maybe two people in the bar who knew every word. The wannabe-karaoke-singer bartender definitely did not! 



Yesterday, Wednesday, was another late start day at 2:00 with my art history class. Ross and I walked to our new standby café, Chocolate y Nata, were we get a great napolitana (chocolate filled croissant) and a café con leche for just 2.50€. After getting ready for class, I stopped into a tiny shop near SLUM that sells sandwiches. They guy, I assume owner, is Chinese and very fanatical - weighing each piece of jamon y queso that he adds to the sandwich. It makes for a perfect, cheap lunch for school. My two classes were just fine and afterwards we went to get a big juicy burger at a place on my street that we had spotted a few days ago, looked up online and had to check out. It was called San Francisco Burger Cafe and had real American style burgers and fries. We are saving the TGI Fridays and Taco Bell for when we need a real big taste of home. The burgers were great and really hit the spot along with a big, icy coca-cola. We went back home, watched the release of the iPhone 5 online and did some homework. We ate dinner at home, meatballs in gravy with pasta salad and lettuce salad, plus a bottle of cheap red wine, which has become a staple at the dinner table. We rested up for our big day today by packing and going to bed relatively early. 

Plaza de Toros Las Ventas, Madrid

Banderillero  

First week in Madrid

First, I want to apologize for the delay in blogging.  I really had no clue how must time it would take to write these very comprehensive posts.  It seems like now that "vacation" has ended and semi-normal life in Madrid has begun, I will be able to publish something every few days or maybe once a week to recap the activities here in Spain.  Besides, I think stories from here can get pretty redundant and the really interesting stuff will occur while traveling outside of Madrid - stay tuned for that!

All in all, week one has been a blast.  Very exhausting, but we have definitely gotten acquainted with life here very quickly.  Last Monday, the day after arrival, was our day of orientation for SLU Madrid.  We all met at the university in the morning and were bussed to a retreat/convention center in the Sierra of Madrid (kind of out in the hills).  We discovered our super-simple commute to school will be extremely convenient.  We can get to and from classes in under 5 minutes, while some people are forced to take the metro and deal with 20+ minute travels.  The biggest thing that we learned the hard way on this first day was the cultural difference in meals.  From the US, we are used to BIG, hearty breakfasts, lunches and dinners, plus some hefty snacking in between.  Here in Spain, we are offered ridiculously light breakfasts, consisting of toast or maybe a small bowl of cereal or a croissant and coffee or juice.  This little meal has to hold us over until lunch, which traditionally does not occur until 2:00 PM, and then dinner rolls around at about 9:00 PM.  While I do think we are slowly getting used to the smaller portions and delayed dining schedule, we have had to do a lot of supplementing this past week.  Snacks are the only thing keeping us going!  Orientation was alright, we got some useful tips from our leaders and got to meet up with all of our friends from SLU, as well as meet other people studying at SLU Madrid.  My leader, Claire, originally from St. Louis, has lived in Madrid for two years now and attended SLUM.  Therefore, she has great insight into life here and our difficulties as foreign students.  On Monday night, a big group of us from SLU decided to meet up in La Puerta del Sol, Madrid's city center, to go out and explore the nightlife that we had been hearing of so much.  The plaza is brimming with club promoters, who will beg you to visit their venue, offering free entrance and often some free drinks.  We followed one promoter to a couple bars, then ended up at Dubliner's, which is an infamous hangout among SLU study abroaders.  It is an irish bar that is always packed and supposedly always fun.  We have been there twice this week and have really had a great time.  Another culture shock that was noted in the bars is the obsession with "chupitos" or shots!  We do not really do shots at home (at least not that often) but here in Madrid, everyone does shots, offers shots and hands them out free with drinks.  They slam them down saying, "¡arriba, abajo, al centro, al dentro!"  Our main mode of transportation is the metro in Madrid, which picks us up a couple minutes walk from home and drops us all over the city.  We are getting better and batter at navigating the system.  The downside is that the trains shut down at 1:30AM, which is right when the bars are getting warmed up, so basically you are stranded until 6AM, when it reopens, or you're left to take a cab or walk back home!  We did not get home until around 4AM on Monday night, which seemed to be quite normal... yikes!

Dubliner's: take 1

Tuesday was the first day of class, I had Spanish Literature, then Sociology (Spanish Culture), and finally another Spanish class on the civilization and culture of Spain.  The classes are longer than normal, 1 hour and 15 minutes, which seems like an eternity in the classroom, but since all my classes are only two days a week, I have Fridays off!  That is well worth it. Our class is held in SLU's large building, Padre Rubio Hall, and basically you just move from room to room throughout the day, bouncing around the same building.  It is a lot of fun and kind of like being back in grade school, where you literally see everyone you know all day long.  We were still kind of injured from the wild night before, so after class I swung into to bookstore to pick up my books.  I got out of there for only 80 EUR, much less than I would have paid at home, and then stopped by the store, Carlin, to get school supplies.  It took me forever to find simple, lined notebooks for writing.  Nearly all the notebooks were graph paper - who even uses graph paper?  I napped for a while after returning home and later Ross, our roommate Alex and I went down the street to supplement our dinner that evening.  Since our host mother, Pilar, works during the day and is busy in the evenings, she has hired a Romanian housekeeper, Cosmina, to manage the housework each day and also prepare our meals for the evening.  So, unfortunately, the housekeeper cooks dinner around 1 or 2 PM and we are left to microwave the food around 8 or 9 PM for dinner.  It sucks! but the benefits of living here (ie. location, nice house, etc.) outweigh this flaw.  We ate at a resaturant called 100 Montaditos, which is just up the street from our apartment and has a menu with 100 tiny sandwiches off all different types, for really cheap.  So we each ordered a couple sandwiches, receiving a big jar of beer for 1 euro with the food.  We were now full (enough) and tired, so we headed home and went to bed.

As far as Wednesday and Thursday went, class was just the same, with the addition of two new classes, Art History: Modern Art and Theology: God and Human Experience (this class is 99% St. Louis students, so it will be a lot of fun).  After class on Wednesday, Dan, Lauren, Ross and I hopped on the metro to go explore Sol in the daylight.  I must mention Madrid's excellent metro system that I keep referencing.  I have heard it is literally one of the best around and we are quickly discovering why.  We live just near (a few blocks from) the stop Islas Filipinas "Philippine Islands" haha!  We can begin here and easily travel to Sol and really anywhere in the city with ease.  Once downtown, we were hungry (as usual) and were on the lookout for some good tapas for lunch.  We walked around La Puerta del Sol and wound through a couple side streets and settled on a little tapas place.  The food was alright, tapas are like little appetizers ordered in large quantities with drinks that serve as a whole meal.  We had things like croquettes, spanish omelets, and various other portions of meat and fish.  We all got a big jar of Sangria, which was delicious!  After lunch, we walked to La Plaza Mayor, a famous, square in the heart of Madrid.  Then, we decided to stop for churros and chocolate, a famous Spanish dessert.  I remembered a place that I visited last time I was in Madrid, but had no idea the name or location.  I asked a lady in Plaza Mayor for a churros restaurant and, by chance, she directed us to Chocolateria San Gines, the exact place I was thinking of!  The churros were good and revitalized us for awhile.  Afterwards, we walked to the Royal Palace, Palacio Real, for some views of the outside.  That evening, we met up with our group of friends outside a bar relatively close to our apartments.  The place was called Orange and was being advertised for it's drink specials.  For that reason, there were a couple hundred people waiting outside.  We decided to hop back on the metro and head to Sol, once again.  We followed a promoter to another irish bar for the free shots and champagne.  The girls were dying to go to a large discoteca, The Palace, so we followed them there until we discovered there was a large cover charge for us, so we bailed out and took a cab back home - not until stopping for a slice of pizza near the club!

Churros and Chocolate de San Gines

El Palacio Real - The Royal Palce

Thursday is the new Friday in Madrid.  Since I do not have class on Fridays, it makes for a great Thursday night and wonderfully long weekend.  Class went well on Thursday.  I am hoping that these classes will not require too much busy work, aside from preparing for lecture and studying for exams.  It is appearing that way, but I will keep my fingers crossed.  My two Spanish courses are challenging, since it is really the first time I am fully learning other topics in the Spanish language, like literature and history/civilization.  After class, Dan, Lauren, Ross and I decided to go in search of a local cell phone.  The university sells them, but we were told we could get better rates through other companies.  Right near our apartment was a Vodafone store, so we decided to check it out.  On the way, we ran into a store called "Taste of America," which carries all sorts of imported food from the US, like Aunt Jemima syrup, Ocean Spray jellied cranberries :) and much, much more!  We freaked out, scoured the aisles and definitely plan to return for a little, but expensive, taste of home! The cell phone store was closed in the afternoon, like so much of the city is, we headed down the street to 100 Montaditos for a 1 euro beer while we waited.  After, the store was open and we were able to get tiny, prepaid, flip phones for use in Spain and in Europe to stay in touch with our friends.  That was a must!  After, Ross and I stopped into the grocery store to pick up some snacks and he got a cheap bottle of wine for dinner.  We noticed the eggs and milk are not refrigerated and the seafood section smells so bad, it is hard to walk by!  yuck!  We had intended to go out again with everyone Thursday night and stay in Madrid all weekend to get acclimated, however our plans changed over dinner.  We decided it was silly to waste any time and wanted to get straight to traveling.  Toledo is a small, historic town just outside of Madrid that we were interested in going to, so we puled the trigger and made plans to leave early Friday morning and potentially spend the whole night in Toledo.  Therefore, we did not leave the apartment on Thursday night.  We polished off the wine and went to sleep to rest up for the first day of travel from Madrid.

"Taste of America" - Aunt Jemima, Betty Crocker and Hersheys

Our trip to Toledo began at 8AM on Friday.  We got up, choked down our measly piece of toast, grabbed our bags and headed to the metro stop for a rather long ride to the bus station.  We knew the busses left nearly every 30 minutes, so we were hoping to catch one just in time.  We power walked from the metro to the busses and happened to arrive within 5 minutes of one leaving.  We fumbled with an automatic ticket machine and then boarded the bus for Toledo.  It was about an hour ride, so by 10:30AM we were sitting down for breakfast in they city.  Toledo is very old and historic and sits very high up, so we had to tackle a pretty big hill before earning our meal.  We got a map from a tourist center, then began to walk around the city, stopping at each tourist attraction we encountered.  I mentioned that we were considering spending the night.  Therefore, we each had big backpacks filled with clothes for a night's stay, which was terribly hot and annoying after a couple hours of walking.  Our first stop was the Cathedral - a huge Gothic masterpiece in the center of the city.  We had to pay 8 euro for the entrance and were initially turned off by that, however after seeing the inside and all that the place had to offer, we were happy we went inside.  Several people are buried inside the building and if they were bishops, their caps hang from the ceiling above their grave to protect their spirit (I overheard a Spanish tour-guide and got some free info).  We walked from the Cathedral, down to the Jewish district.  Toledo is unique in that at one time, Christians, Jews and Muslims coexisted there and their distinct influences to architecture and the culture of the city are still evident.  We toured the Jewish mosque and then stopped for lunch.  The last major attraction that we toured was The Church of the Jesuits, quite fitting since we attend a Jesuit institution.  The church was very nice, but best of all was its "twin towers" that we could climb for incredible views of the entire city.  We encountered a woman at the top, from New Zealand and chatted with her for awhile (well... I did).  She took a couple pictures of us and we began our marathon walk out of the city.  We decided it was not really place to spend the night and was better suited as a day-trip, since the major attractions are really viewable in a day and as my host mother said, the city lacks "marcha" or liveliness/nightlife.  We, along with our now seemingly 50lb backpacks, scaled the cliff on our way to the train station.  Even though we arrived by bus, we thought we would try the train, either for a ride to another nearby city, or a cheap and efficient means back home.  Unfortunately, the trains from Toledo only travel back to Madrid, so we bought three tickets, had a beer during the wait and enjoyed the 25 minute ride back to Atocha station.

Catedral of Toledo, Spain

View from atop the Twin Towers of the Church of the Jesuits

Photo thanks to the New Zealander 

Once back in the city, we intended to just go back tot he apartment and siesta, however we were at Atocha station, literally across the street from where I stayed last time in Madrid, with Jenna and our classmates, and very close to the famous Parque del Retiro.  Since we had walked so much, we saw no harm in continuing the adventure and hiking through Retiro, stopping for some ice cream near the huge pond and catching a metro ride back home on the other side.  The park was beautiful and filled with people!  Coming from Springfield, I think we are not really "park people" but I can definitely see the attraction here in Spain.  Back home, we rallied again to go out with our friends (who were not exhausted from a full day of walking).  We did the same ole thing, beginning at Dubiners for drinks, then the girls were again dying to go to a club, so we all headed there, with the same horrible outcome. The place, Pacha, was busting at the seams and required an exorbitant cover charge.  Plus, I got screwed into riding in a cab with two girls from SLU that I didn't know and after they bailed, I was stuck with the 8 euro fare.  I can't wait to see those two around Padre Rubio Hall!  Frustrated, we got in cabs and returned to our neck of the woods just to have some friends over for drinks at our place (since mamá was gone for the weekend, haha!).  A very good night's sleep was in store after this exciting week!

Pond of Retiro Park