Castles, Castles, and more Castles!

NYU let us pick out of three weekend trips to take, and I picked the trip to places that I knew I would never see on my own, and it was really worth it! We went to a region in Spain called Extremadura and crossed over into Portugal.

The trip didn't start out on the greatest foot. I was all ready to go the night before and left early so as to not have to rush around in the metro to get to campus at 8 am. I've never had problems with the metro here, not once, and of course on that morning there were issues and it was announced it might not come for another 15 or 20 minutes. Then, the nervous person I am, call my friend Jill who was already there and told her there were issues and I would take a taxi even though at that point I would still probably be late. After spending 8 euro on the taxi ride I found out that they were waiting for everyone to get there because of the metro issues. I was so flustered and angry about wasting the money that I was ready to deem the trip a fail before we even left. Luckily things turned around and it turned out to be a beautiful trip.

The first stop, Merida, was full of Roman ruins which after going my freshman year of high school on my trip around Rome and Athens I felt like I could fully appreciate. We watched Gladiator on the bus right before we got there (Maximus the Spaniard is supposed to come from this town in the movie!) and it really helped set the tone to picture all the fights that went on there. I forgot my camera in my backpack which happened to be under the bus, so sorry to say no pictures from here.

We stayed in a small city called Caceres. There were storks all over the place clacking their beaks. We got a tour of all of the old quarter inside the castle walls with it's churches and royal homes. There was also a film festival going on, red carpeted street and all.

NYU really hooked us up with a nice hotel, big rooms, lovely bathrooms, and a GREAT breakfast. Jill who I was rooming with and I were still full from lunch and were so exhausted so we just had some snacks and went to bed at like 9:30.

Saturday we went to Portugal and saw two more castles. The one little town Castelo de Vide I loved mostly because of all the old men walking around with their newsies caps. They all had them, in lots of different colors and styles, and they all had canes. I'm not exaggerating, the town was just filled with groups of cute old men in their Caps for Sale caps (my parents better get that reference!) and their canes.

The Fearless Leaders

Marvao, the other Portuguese castle town was up high on a mountain, so as to not be attacked easily. The castle was beautiful and we had plenty of time to wander around and explore it. The views were amazing.

That night Jill and I had tapas in outside seating in the Plaza Mayor of Caceres looking at the lit-up castle, then had some delicous ice cream. I forgot to mention how beautiful the weather was the whole time and I got my first sunburn in the first week of March which has to be a record. Today it was in the upper 60's, sunny, and gorgeous. Yes, I know you are all jealous.

Today we went to this funky museum. It was all modern and hard to explain, and although I don't usually understand or like modern art, this stuff was pretty cool and in a gorgeous location in the middle of nowhere.

Then we had to go to one last castle. This one was pretty funny because there were some college aged kids dressed up in medieval outfits trying to make some sort of movie. The views here were also incredible. Lunch was a bit disappointing because I ordered the hamburguesa (hamburger) and they brought out just the patty, fries, and fried eggs. Not exactly what I had in mind.

Reunited

Irene came to Madrid to visit me this weekend. It was a really great time, and we are both so excited to have so much time together this summer (Dad you guessed right, luckily she isn't getting a job). She came Saturday morning and left on Sunday night and we did a lot of walking around Madrid. We got Indian food for lunch and basically had dessert for dinner because we were still so full.

We did a little shopping, but it was more like perusing because neither of us wanted to spend a lot of money. Nothing all too exciting really, we just had a lot to catch up on not seeing each other in two years. Her English is still excellent, and although we should have talked in Spanish we mostly spoke in English with eachother.

Reme LOVED Irene. It was so funny. She just kept going on and on after she left about what a nice girl she was (tan simpatica, maja, preciosa, guapa). I think it was a nice break for her to have someone Spanish to talk to outside of her family. I mean she could go on about the current state of things in Spain and political stuff and Irene was following along right with her as we watched the news.

Although the weekend was a lot of fun, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep and happened to have a midterm today in my Spanish Cinema class. I think I did okay on it, nothing spectacular but I'll get at least a B I think (and hope). This is midterm week so everyone's stressing out, mine are spread out over the next two weeks so it won't be so piled on. This weekend I have a trip with the school to Extremadura and Portugal which I'm looking forward to.

I hope everyone back home is doing alright with this snowstorm I'm hearing and reading about. I saw "A Foot of Snow is Predicted for New York City" on my NYTimes newsfeed and felt a lot better about being here. They cancelled school everywhere in NYC except NYU.

Bray, Dun Laoghaire, Howth, Guinness! Dublin Part 2

Ireland was a blast. I met so many cool people and got to see a lot of cool things. On Saturday I went on a day trip to Bray and Dun Leary with the girls from my room. We got Subway to bring with us and had a lovely picnic on the beach. It was so nice to be near the water again, it reminded me a lot of home. The weather was a bit cloudy but fairly nice. We started in Bray and walked up and down the beach and then took the train to Dun Laoghaire. This was more of a port and we walked out on the pier. It also had a pretty neat town center full of cute little shops so we wandered around for a while. That night we got to see some live Irish music for free, so that was fun. The round trip train ticket cost 4.60 euro and it was totally worth it to get away from the Dublin tourist area and go somewhere so nice and calm.

I still had to go to the Guinness Storehouse and check that out and so I went Sunday morning. It was a really cool place and very informative. Now I know why Guinness is the way it is, "It's the toasted barley!" (that comes from a commercial I watched while there). They had tons of cool things to see and at the top the views of the city were amazing. I was lucky to have the place be so empty because I heard it can get jam packed up there.

Because I enjoyed myself so much the day before I planned to go to Howth. I read online there was a hike to go to the summit and overlook the bay. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to get there and wandered around a lot and found some trails and the castle but not the summit hike. There was a farmer's market going on and one of the vendors let me sample all the nuts and candy he was selling. In the end I bought some mixed Chili nuts. I spent most of my time just sitting on the pier watching all the fisherman. There were three funny young guys trying to fish with just line and bait standing down by the water on some rocks. I watched them struggle for quite a while and it kept me amused.

Bray:







Dun Laoghaire (Dun Leary):

The girls from my room in the hostel

Guinness Storehouse: One of the important ingredients: Hops, Barley, Yeast, Water

My Irish side coming out... my complimentary pint of Guiness at 11 AM

Howth (like Both with an H):

Had to see at least one cool castle

Outdoor market... they were selling clam chowder in the green caravan on the left

Ireland's Eye

A seal! He popped up to say hello

Craic! Dublin! Part 1

Here I am, in Ireland, the country of my heritage (well a good percentage of it at least). The flight here went flawlessly, and I met a girl named Elyse (pictured below) on the plane. She's from Bedford, Ma and goes to Fordham in NYC so we had a lot in common. We figured out our hostels were pretty close to eachother so we decided to take a public bus there. When we got dropped off it took us a bit to figure out where to go, but we found it eventually.


Elyse, my plane buddy

Dublin Center is situated along the Liffey River and has tons of bridges along it. I'm pictured here on the Liffey or Ha'Penny Bridge, and it happened to be right near my hostel that I just stumbled upon in our search, a sort of, "oh hey, look, there's my hostel!" I met back up with Elyse later on a mission for french fries and a nice cold glass of Guiness (I'm in Dublin, I had to try it!) I'm staying right on the river in the Temple Bar area, which has a lot of nightlife, it's flowing with people, lights, and of course, pubs galore.

When I checked into the hostel I found out three other American girls had checked in right before me. I'm in a 6 bed mixed ensuite (meaning we have our own bathroom. They were really relieved to find out I was a girl, and there is a another guy who was in our room, but I never even met him because he was asleep when I got home and in the morning, and was gone when I got back today, so there are two empty beds right now. The three girls are from UMass Boston, studying abroad in London. They were all super nice and we had the hostel breakfast (coffee, toast, and rice krispies) together this morning before I headed out on my own to go see the sights.

On this beautiful sunny day I decided to start by to St. Stephen's Green:





From there I walked over to St. Patrick's Cathedral:

All of a sudden I head "Kelsey!?" and it was Elyse. What a coincidence! We then spent the rest of the afternoon doing more sightseeing like Christchurch and the Dublin Castle and then we grabbed a two course Italian lunch for 9 euro that we split our choices to make the most of it and got bruschetta, garlic bread, yummy pasta, and a big margharita pizza. We then took a long walk past the Guinness Storehouse (which I will be taking a tour of on Sunday) and over to Phoenix Park and afterwards got a bit lost wandering around a more residential area.



Christchurch-Oldest Church in Dublin

Dublin Castle
The Guinness Storehouse


Phoenix Park


Tomorrow I'm going to Dun Laoghaire and Bray with the girls from my room which I'm really looking forward too.

Valentine's Day Disaster Turned Success

Well things didn't exactly go according to plan. As you could tell I was really excited for Briana to come. After she had to sit in a plane for 3 hours they canceled her flight from what she told me was about one or two inches of snow. I was pretty upset about it because it was really the only time it would make sense for her to visit. Luckily she should be able to get a refund.

Otherwise my weekend was still pretty fun. Friday night, I went out for tapas, which is a traditional Spanish food of little small appetizers. For the most part they are tostadas which look like pieces of toast with different toppings on them. We ordered a sampling platter to start and there was salmon and brie, veal and carmelized onions, goat cheese and sweet red pepper, and iberian ham with olive oil and tomato. They were all very good. Then we ordered a bunch of other tapas to try, and raciones (bigger portions) of albodingas which are these veal meatballs , and potatoes and spicy sauce. When we split up the check at the end it came out to about 11 euro for a very filling and delicious meal.

Later we went to this discoteca called Kapital that has 7 floors, all with different types of music. We all got separated into groups of two pretty much immediately and didn't meet back up again til the end of the night. It was impossible to find people in there because it was so huge. Later I went with a girl who is basically my neighbor here, Candy, for some churros and chocolate at 5:30 AM before heading home on the subway when it opened.

Yesterday I woke up and went to the gym. I got ready as quick as possible after to go to the park and read. It was probably around 65 degrees and I was sitting in the sun in just a t-shirt and felt hot. Quite amazing for mid-february. Then I went grocery shopping because I didn't want to be left with no food on Sunday like last week. Everything is closed here on Sundays. After eating a cute little mini-baguette with my favorite herb cheese spread I enjoyed a nice long nap before going out for dessert and wine with some friends. We found this really cool place called Artebar that has live music and pretty good desserts. We made it a pretty early night so that we could get up to go to El Rastro which is a huge flea market that takes over the streets. It reminded me a lot of the street fairs that pop up all over NYC except without the food stands.

Shout-out

Happy Belated Birthday Grandfather! (My Dad told me you read this)

Today I met my intercambio Sofia. She's a freshman at the Universidad Autonoma of Madrid and has lived in Madrid her whole life. It was nice to be able to practice my Spanish and she showed me a few parts of Madrid I haven't seen. She was very impressed with my Spanish and it was helpful that she knew a lot of English in case I couldn't remember how to say a certain word. Today the weather was beautiful, around 55 degrees and sunny.

This weekend Briana's coming to town and so I am really excited to show her around. It should be interesting to see how Valentine's Day is here in Madrid since they already take PDA to an extreme level.

Next weekend I'm off to Dublin!

Getting Comfortable

Well this week was off to a pretty bad start. I ended up losing my voice to what I'm guessing was laryngitis from a mix of all the second hand smoke everywhere and still getting over the sinus infection. I had no voice at all Sunday and Monday and Tuesday it was still pretty bad.

Wednesday I had a lovely menu del dia at a place I walk by every day on the way to class. I always see the sign out front for 8 euro menu but I finally convinced a group of friends to come try it with me. For the 8 euro which is around 10 dollars I got a peach juice, bread, big bowl of cooked mixed vegetables for my primer plato (first plate), and for segundo plato I ordered cocido madrileno which is a big pot of soup but they just take out all the meat, garbanzo beans, and potatoes and put them on the plate and serve the broth part as a primer plato. Then there's dessert which I got a fluffy cheesecake-like slice covered in berries. It was a great deal!

The day got even better when I booked my flight to the Canary Islands for spring break. We are going for 4 nights and will be staying in some sort of villa/bungalow/apartment near the beach with a pool and kitchen. The flight was only 80 dollars and I'm not entirely sure how much the hotel will come out to be but it's somewhere between $75-$125. I've never really done a spring break beach vacation so this will be really fun and I'll hopefully be going with 5 other people.

Thursday I woke up and was feeling pretty much completely better and was determined to go to the gym. I tried the yoga class at the one nearby and I loved it. It was a bit difficult because I'm used to hearing downward dog and child's pose but I was surprised to find that I almost already knew what was coming next. My back was in extreme need of that yoga session and I could tell due to the incredible inflexibility of my hamstrings and how even simple twists made it crack. I feel really great today after it, I mean my arms are a bit sore but my back isn't hurting so I'm pretty happy about that.

I was going to sign up to just come in the morning because it was cheaper but for 12 euro more I got a student deal that will last til May 8 and I can go any time of the day and to any of the classes which helps in case I don't want to wake up early. They also have a sauna to use which will be nice. Then to top it all off I was looking at their brochure of different spa-type offers and I noticed massages for 30 euro. I asked her how long they were for, expecting to hear 30 minutes but they are 60 minute massages! They have a package of 5 that makes each one come out to 23 euro ($30!).

I went out to dinner with 4 of my housemates and it was the first time we've all gone out. It's funny that I live with 5 other people but due to our different schedules see some of them more in class than at home. It was the last night for the TGI Fridays 2 for 1 deal and so we decided to go because I've been craving chicken wings since I couldn't have them for the Superbowl. It was a fun time and we had lots of laughs. We ended the fun night by going out for dessert to this adorable place called El Jardin Secreto. It had the most delicious desserts that could rival any dessert menu for 3.75. I got a Tiramisu made with Baileys with a white chocolate topping. It was amazing. Nneka and Valerie shared two desserts, and their cheesecake was to die for. Literally they acted like they could just up and die after eating it. Valerie's favorite food in the world is cheesecake so coming from her saying it was the best she's ever had is saying a lot.

I'm really getting used to Madrid now and feel so comfortable. They metro system is amazing, clean and fast and now that I have my monthly unlimited pass I will be going exploring a lot more. People here are so friendly when you ask for directions although I've been pretty good with directions since I've been here (surprising I know!). Next weekend Briana is visiting from London so I'll have a fun Valentine's Day.