Finally made it up north

After three straight weeks of travelling, I finally spent one back in Madrid. And man, was I glad I did. The city is just getting nice and warm, and it was great to see it in the springtime. Also, my roommate told me on Friday the 28^th of May that she was moving out on Saturday and not paying her part of the rent for June. It really caught me off guard, and I spent all Friday and part of Saturday upset about this. This meant I was out 390 euros, which is definitely something that I don’t have to spend with expensive graduate school coming up next year. But I can’t dwell on the fact that I had a bad roommate. She has pretty much isolated herself from all her friends here in Madrid, was not re-hired back next year at her school here in Spain like she wants to be, and will be in community college next year while living at home. So Karma has already started to catch up for her.

But after that nasty weekend, I was able to take a 4-day weekend up in León, with Vicki, Becca, and Miguel. Vicki and I went up on Wednesday night, Becca on Thursday morning, and Miguel on Friday. Vicki’s half Spanish, and her mom’s parents live in León. Also, Vicki’s family has an apartment in the city. So we were able to stay at their apartment and explore many different cities.

The first full day we were there, Vicki showed me all around León. It has an amazing castle, some cool other cathedrals and plazas, and a house designed by the architect Gaudí (who designed some really cool buildings in Barcelona). After Becca got there, we went and met Vicki’s grandparents. It was really fun to sit with them and hear their stories. Also, we were able to spend some time with Vicki’s aunt while we were in town. It was really nice.

Gaudi's house in León.

On Friday, the three of us already in town took a day trip to the town of Burgos. It was a little far of a bus trip, but the city had a great riverfront, an enormous cathedral, and a nice lookout point to see both the city and the countryside. We spent the day there, then went back to León to meet up with Miguel and enjoy some typical food from the area.

Me in front of the Burgos cathedral.

Eating some great Spanish tapas and enjoying the León nightlife.

On Saturday, we got a little of a crazy start. The night before, we bought bus tickets to head up to Gijón, a beach city in Asturias for the day. It was a late night the night before, and I thought that the bus left 15 minutes later than it really did. So I woke Miguel and the rest of them up, but only Miguel was ready in time. We ran the whole way to the bus station and luckily were able to make the bus. Becca ended up joining us later in the day, and Vicki stayed in León to visit more with her family. Gijón is apparently a really pretty beach city. Unfortunately for us, it was cloudy and cold the whole day. We took a long nap before Miguel got there, then wandered around the city and braved the beach, Miguel and Becca were two of the few who actually went in the water that day. I put my feet in, but immediately went back and put my sweatshirt back on. It was too cold for the water. We made it back late to León, but it was still a nice day.

The view on the way home from Gijón. It was pretty amazing.

And of course the trip had to end with a little more fun. The bus ride, which was supposed to take 3 and a half hours, ended up taking 5 and a half after we broke down on the side of the road and had to wait an hour for a new bus. Luckily, the weather was nice and we got to see a great sunset.

After the drama of the weekend before, it was a great way to spend my long weekend out of Madrid. Now I have less than 5 weeks left, and predict even more crazy adventures to come!

Back to the beach

To continue my long string of travels, the next Friday morning I took off to Mallorca, a small island in the Belearic Island chain in the Mediterranean. I flew in with Katarina, Becca’s Austrian roommate in Madrid, and Becca joined us later that night. When we got to Palma, the largest city on the island, we spent the day leisurely exploring the coastal town. We saw the famous cathedral and fortress and walked all around the city.

In the city of Palma for the day.

When Becca got there that night, a German guy named Ulf picked the three of us up in Palma and drove us up to the north of the island to his hostel in the city of Alcudia. Alcudia was much more of a beach town, and definitely a tourist town. There were German and British people, culture, and restaurants everywhere. But the beach was nice, and this is basically all we did there. I didn’t have to work on Monday, so I stayed a day longer than Katarina and Becca. This is where I spent my time until Monday night, when I took a bus back to Palma to fly out.

Becca and Katarina riding in an Alcudia boat.

Jumping on the beach in Alcudia.

Three full days on the beach is exactly what I needed. The weather was perfect, the water was clear and so nice, and I was able to sneak into a beachside resort and set up shop by their pool. It was such a relaxing and great weekend to work on getting my tan back.

Sunset in Alcudia.

Yes, they sold ham and a bike as a combo.

Porto, Portugal

The weekend after getting back from Berlin, I was off again on another excursion out of the country. This time, I left on Friday with Vicki and Becca headed for Porto, Portugal. Porto Is a lesser-known Portuguese city, famous for its port wine and nice blue tilework. We were able to see both of these, and a whole lot more.
Of course, no trip can go without glitches here and there. For this trip, the glitch was pretty big. Our plane was supposed to take off at 9:20 in the morning. When I left my apartment that morning, there was nothing listed online about a delay or anything. After checking through security, I look at the screen and see that the estimated leave time for our flight is 6:20 pm. What?! Yeah, I was not reading it wrong. We went back to the RyanAir desk (the budget airline we were flying), and they told us that the plane could show up at any time and they weren’t really sure why it was so delayed, but we had to stay around the airport and wait. So wait we did. For nine hours, we ate the sandwiches they gave us and the other food I boy scout-edly prepared, slept on the floor and seats of the airport, and had a very Tom Hanks Terminalesque afternoon. By about 6 pm, our plane had arrived and we were on our way. The crew and pilots were called in from being on stand-by, and they had no reason why the plane was delayed so long either. So to this day, no one knows why we had to sit in the Madrid airport for over 9 hours.

Vicki and Becca excited to be sitting in the Madrid airport for 9 hours!

By the time we made it to Oporto that night, the sun was setting and we took advantage of the dwindling daylight to do some sightseeing. We went down to the river and ate a nice meal, saw one of the main cathedrals and the main bridge, then called it a night.
Saturday was our only full day there, and full it was. We woke up early and went ahead and made reservations to do port wine tastings later on in the day. For 3 different wine bodegas, only 6 euros! After getting our reservations set, we went and explored the city. We climbed the Torre Dos Clérigos, a church tower that provided great views of the city. We shopped around the oldest bookstore in Portugal, which had a really cool interior. We did take a little rest though, to grab a coffee and pastry at a Lonely Planet-recommended café.

Me in front of the River Duero.

By the time we had done all that, it was time to head across the river to the wine bodegas. In all, we did three different tours: Sandeman, Offley, and Ferreria. They were all in Spanish, but I was proud of myself for being able to understand all of it (at least of the parts I was paying attention to and not zoned out). At each bodega, they explained the process of making the wines, gave a tour of the barrels, and ended with a tasting of both a white and a tawny port wine. I had never had port wine before, but I really liked it. It is sweeter, and will probably make a few appearances in coming years in my US life. My favorite was Offley, so hopefully I can find it back home.

Becca, Vicki, and me at the Offley wine tasting.

After that, we took a boat cruise down the river to see the city’s 6 famous bridges. It took us all the way to the mouth of the River Duero at the Atlantic Ocean. While it was fairly cold and windy on the boat, it was still a nice tour.
That night, we grabbed some dinner and went looking for a place with wireless Internet so Becca could call her mom on her mom’s birthday. We were headed to McDonald’s for that. When we get there, there are two or three girls outside yelling and being held back by McD’s workers. We look inside and more girls are being held back. For the next 20 minutes or so, we watched a massive girl fight inside and outside of McDonald’s. They were all yelling in Portuguese, so we have no idea what it was about. But it was really crazy to watch, and I’m glad we had not been inside when all of it went down. Luckily, we were able to find another bar to enjoy Wifi and a drink.
Sunday was a little more relaxing, without the crazy amounts of sightseeing. We were able to walk around the city some more, see a really cool park overlooking the water, and walk along the waterfront before having to head back to Madrid. All in all, I was definitely a fan of Porto.

Had to jump in Porto, too!

Adventures with Bethany and Dustin

It has been a long time coming, but it’s finally time for me to write about some of my past adventures. We’ll start with my adventures with Bethany and Dustin.

Dustin and Bethany have made guest appearances on my blog in the past. They met Jordan and I in Madrid, and then I met them in Copenhagen for a weekend getaway. Bethany is on the same type of Fulbright grant as me, only in a town outside of Berlin, Germany. They have been in Germany since the beginning of September without a trip back to the states. After 8 months of being friends in the same continent, we finally all made it to each other’s towns. From May 6- May 9, Dustin and Bethany visited me here in Madrid. The next weekend, I spent four days visiting them in Berlin.

Dustin and Bethany arrived in Madrid at the perfect time. The rain had finally ceased, the sun was shining all day long, and the blazing Spanish heat had yet to arrive. And while they were here, we definitely lived the Spanish life. We took many relaxing siesta-esque breaks in parks around the city. We went to all the major Madrid sights, including the Prado, the Reina Sofia, a lunch menu of the day at the Ham Museum, and the Palacio Real. And we also took a day trip out to the city of Segovia. Although it was my third time to Segovia and the weather was foggy and chilly, that city is still one of my favorites in Spain. In all, I think they got a very accurate depiction of the Spanish life and the city of Madrid.

The three of us in front of the aqueduct in the city of Segovia.

Four days after they departed to go back to Berlin, I made the same journey and met them in Berlin for four days. While it was sunny and nice in Madrid the week before, it was also sunny and nice in Berlin… that same week. When I arrived, the weather was cloudy, rainy, and fairly cold. The first day, we endured the rain and waited in line at the Reichstag (Parliament building) to make a journey up to the top dome. It provided some really cool, free views of the city of Berlin. We then made our way over to one of Berlin’s many museums to see the Ishtar Gate and the Pergamon temple. It was really cool to get to see some of the history that Berlin had on display.

That night, we made our way back out to their town, Frankfort (Oder), a city about an hour west of Berlin that is right on the border of Poland. It was nice to get to see their “box” of an apartment, which really was just one room that was as tall as it was wide and long.

The next day, we went back into Berlin. I got to visit the Berlin Olympic Stadium, which was a great experience for me, especially with my future aspirations to work for the Olympics. From there, we went back into the heart of Berlin for a typical German lunch. We did some more sight-seeing in the city, including with the Berlin wall remains and Hitler’s bunker, before heading back out to Frankfort.

Of course I had to jump in front of the Olympic Stadium entrance.

Me in front of the Berlin Wall remains!

The next day, Dustin had a weekend ultimate frisbee tournament in the city, so Bethany and I stayed out in Frankfort (Oder) for the day. We walked all around the city, giving her a chance to finally be a tourist in her own city. We also crossed the river over into Poland! It was cool how easy it was to just cross a bridge and be in another country with a different language, currency, and culture. We had an amazingly cheap meal in Poland and bought some sweets at a market before making our way back to Germany.

Across the German border, into Poland!

On my last day in Germany, Bethany and I took a train out to Oranienburg to see the remains of a concentration camp. While the camp was a small one where not many people died in the grand scheme of things, it was still very powerful to see where so much brutality occurred. Bethany had not been there yet either, so it was nice for both of us to visit. From there, we went and met Dustin to watch him play in his last German ultimate frisbee match before heading into Berlin for some Subway and a movie. From there, I said goodbye to the two of them to make my way out to the airport. They had only one week left in Europe before heading home to the states, which made me really jealous.

After spending the night out at the airport on Miguel’s borrowed sleeping pad, I boarded my 7 am flight and headed back to Madrid. This definitely made for 2 great trips with 2 great people.

We're all out of ambulances

This past Sunday, I undertook one of the most difficult and craziest tasks I've ever done: I ran my second marathon in 2 months. While I did not have much time to both recuperate and re-train after the Barcelona Marathon, I had already registered for and set my sights on completing the Madrid Marathon. And complete I did. Barely, but still.
While I knew that I wasn't as trained as I was for Barcelona, I went into this marathon confident. The weather was nice, I knew the city and the course well, and I had friends who were going to be cheering my on along the way. And even though I was having knee problems before beginning, I wasn't going to let that stop me.
I started the race great. I was right on my pace at every 5 kilometers, and ran the half marathon in 1 hour, 47 minutes. That was putting me on pace to be right over 3 1/2 hours total, which is what I wanted. I made it all the way through mile 20 still feeling good, slowing down but still running. But then at about mile 24, I hit that wall. You know, the wall every runner talks about hitting somewhere after mile 20? The one that you think has to just be a myth because you've already made it so close to the end and all you have to do is just tough it out? Yeah, that wall exists. And I hit it hard. I couldn't even move. I had to sit down, then when I tried to get back up, I couldn't. I just laid there on the side of the road, accepting assistance from spectators offering me bananas and water. And when the EMT got there on his motorcycle, he tried to help as well. He told me he was going to get an ambulance to take me to the finish line area to get assistance. My race was over. I had come 24.5 miles, less than 2 miles from the finish line, and I wasn't going to make it. Now to just lay there and get taken away be an ambulance.
But wait. This being Madrid, of course not everything works the way you thinks it's going to. The EMT tells me that all of the ambulances are being used (yes, by the marathoners. 190 people had to be assisted during the race) and there was really nothing else that he could do. What does this mean? It must be a sign, I thought. So after laying on the ground for 45 minutes in complete agony, I decide to get back up and finish the race. Why the EMT let me do this, not really sure. But I stood up, put one foot in front of the other, and kept going.
With about 1.5 miles to go, Becca, Katica, Ali, and Katica's friend were all waiting for me to cheer me on. They were of course worried about me because I had not showed up yet, and this was an hour after I was supposed to be there. But they walked with me for a while until I got up the strength to run the last mile. So I toughed it out, picked it up to a jog, and finished the race with fans screaming my name and "Go USA!". My time was pathetic-- 4:24:19-- but hey, I made it. I didn't give up and wait for an ambulance to free up and take me away! Toughest thing I've ever done.
Although I didn't have my dad here to share this experience with me, I did have some friends along the way. Miguel (my old flatmate) ran in the race as well, finishing in an impressive 3:50:00. And Becca created her own "Urban Challenge" where she set out to see me at as many points along the course as possible. In total, she saw me at 5 different points. Along the way, she picked up other friends who joined her in cheering me on. Also, I was able to see Lisa along Gran Via cheering runners on.
Other than the people I knew, I was so happy to have many other spectators cheering for me. My outfit was... well let's just say, ridiculous. I got this amazingly tacky running singlet that had the American flag on the front and "USA" on the back. And I wrote my name in permanent marker on my bib number. So I had people chanting my name, chanting in their broken English for USA, and all sorts of things. It was so nice to have the support of the people.
While I'll never do 2 marathons again in 2 months, I am definitely glad that I've had this experience. And that I'm alive to tell about it.

Becca was very busy cheering, but was able to get one picture of me running. This is at about 8 or 9 km.

Aunt Lou visits Madrid!

So as soon as I get back from my crazy Spring Break travels, you think it'd be time to relax, right? Nope, not so much. The day after I got back to Madrid, my Aunt Lou arrived. She, a math teacher at a high school, was a chaperone for a school trip that came to Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid over an 8-day period. Quick, yeah I know. But as part of that, she got to spend a day and a half here in Madrid. I was so excited to have another family member come and visit, and was able to get the time off of work to hang out with her the whole day and a half.
Luckily, the weather here in Madrid was perfect. We were able to walk all around the city, see Fat Spiderman in Plaza Mayor, see the changing of the guards at the Palacio Real, and even rent row boats in Retiro. She also got to see my apartment, which she realized was actually as small as I said it was. It was such a nice time, and I was so glad for her to be here and visit me. I think her students, all 4 of them from her group, really enjoyed their time in Europe.

Us on the rowboats in Retiro, waving to the camera (like my aunt always does in photos).
Watching the Changing of the Guards at the Royal Palace.

But since she was here for such a short time, she's now just going to have to make her way back for a longer visit!

And to end, a great picture of my aunt posing with Fat Spidey.

Adventures of semana santa

After over 2 weeks have past since my adventures during Semana Santa (the week before Easter, which is the Spanish version of Spring Break), I guess that it's time for me to give a little recap of what went down.
Being one who is always up for seeing new places and having new adventures, I tried to take advantage of my 10-day hiatus from school by filling it with travel. In accomplishing that, I brought along my friends Lisa and Ariel to join me on a trip through 5 different European cities: Dublin, Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, and Amsterdam. While it was a cold one, it was so awesome ot see all of these places.
Dublin: We spent the first day walking all around the city. We took a free tour from a tour company called NewEurope. The tour showed us most of the city, but we explored even more after the tour was over. For our next and last day, we took a side trip out to see the Irish hillside. It was so nice to see, even though it was fairly windy and cold. It wasn't as green as you might expect, but still cool to see things like where Braveheart was filmed, the estate where the Beatles wrote the song "Yesterday," and Bono's Irish home.

Trinity College in Dublin.
Some of the awesome graves out in the Dublin countryside.
Me standing in front of the estate that Bono always stays at, also where the song "Yesterday" was written. My favorite Beatles song.
Ariel, Me, and Lisa all standing in front of one of the Irish lakes in the countryside.

Scotland: We flew from Dublin into Glasgow, Scotland really late at night. The next morning, we woke up and set out through the cold Scottish weather to the city of Edinburgh. We took a tour of the amazing Edinburgh castle, then participated in another free NewEurope tour that showed us all of the city. We saw where J.K. Rowling sipped coffee and wrote Harry Potter, along with the castle that it was based upon. We heard stories about famous escapes from the castle, and learned the origins of the phrase "s**t faced." Oh, and we saw an outdoor prison, inside of a cemetery, where they used to keep prisoners hundreds of years ago. While it did rain on us most of the time and was pretty cold, it was still an amazing city. The next day was our last day in Scotland, so we went out exploring and saw the Glasgow cathedral, the city's old cemetery, and explored some of the central part of the city. While I've heard cool things about Scotland, Glasgow def. did not live up to what I was expecting. Let's just say there wasn't really much to do there, and it wasn't one of my favorite cities.

Me standing in front of the Edinburgh castle.
In the cafe upstairs is where J.K. Rowling sat to write Harry Potter.
The four-towered castle that Hogwarts is said to be based off. What is it now? Yeah, it's a school.
The Glasgow Cathedral.

London: Let me just say, I really really liked London. Lisa and I made the journey there, while Ariel boarded a bus headed for Manchester and met up with us at the airport to make the last leg of the trip. We got to London in the evening and explored the Hyde Park area around our hostel, including seeing the world-famous Harrod's department store lit up at night) the first night.

Harrod's, all lit up at night.

I was able to get in a good run through Hyde Park the next morning, which was really nice. Then after my run and breakfast at the hostel, we headed out to see the city. We started off going up to the theatre area. We were lucky enough to pick up tickets to not one, but two musicals: Wicked and Les Miserables! We then continued our journey in the northern part of the city up to the National Museum, which is probably one of the coolest history museums I've ever been in. It had the Rosetta Stone, the stone that was used to decipher different ancient languages. It also had moai from Easter Island, the mummy of Cleopatra (comin' at ya), and pieces of the Parthenon from Athens. It was so cool! From there, we made our way down to see St. Paul's Cathedral and walk across the famous Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern museum. There was a lot of cool and interesting modern art, which I enjoyed seeing even though I'm not a big modern art fan. After that, we made our way past the Shakespeare Globe down towards the London Bridge (which is actually nothing very special. I guess after it fell down, they just built a normal bridge there) and walked across the Tower Bridge. Along the way, Lisa managed to let the wind steal her umbrella and deposit it into the River Thames. Not fun in the moment, but pretty comical in retrospect. After making it across the really cool Tower Bridge, we saw the London Tower. Now, when you hear Tower, what do you think of? Yeah, probably a tower. But no, the London Tower is actually an old castle. It was enormous, and we just stood on the outside and got some good pictures of the thing. We then made our way back to the hostel for some r&r before heading out to the musical. That night, we saw Les Miserables, which was amazing even though we were in the very top row. I've seen the play many times before (esp. since I worked it when YPAS did it my senior year), but it was really cool to see it in London. After that, we saw London's version of Times Square, Piccadilly Circus, all lit up at night. One of the big videos was a McDonald's ad where you played it in paper, rock, scissors. And yes, Lisa managed to lose to the video screen game. Good work, Lisa.

The Rosetta Stone in the National Museum.
Me in front of the Thames River, the Millennium Bridge, and St. Paul's Cathedral.
Shakespeare's Globe Theater.
Lisa in front of the Tower Bridge, right before her umbrella blew into the river.
Us outside of Les Miserables.

The next morning in London, we had another very full day of sightseeing. We made our way to the National Gallery art museum for a little bit to look around before heading over to see the changing of the guards. We got there just in time to see the band marching in with the soldiers getting off duty. It was really cool to see them enter, but then it kind of got pointless to stay around. So we just headed back to the National Museum to look around a little more. There were a lot of great paintings there, including some from my favorite artist Seurat. Then we managed to make our way to yet another NewEurope tour, this time through Royal London. Our tour guide was pretty random and wacky, but we were able to see all the major London sites: Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park. It was a really nice tour, even though it was again pretty cold and kinda rainy. That night was our last night, so we grabbed our stuff from the hostel, took it to the bus station to put in lockers, and made our way to Wicked. Again, we were in the very top (this time second-to-last row. moving on up!), but it was really good. I had never seen Wicked before, and I liked seeing it for the first time in London. That night, we went out to the airport and slept on the airport floor. Our flight left at 6 am the next morning, so that was pretty much our only option. It ended up working out, and we met up with Ariel and headed for Amsterdam.

Watching the old guards make their way to Buckingham Palace.
Me in front of Buckingham Palace. You can't tell, but the flag flying means the Queen is in there!
Lisa and I posing with a guard. My face was a little too close to his gun.
Me in front of Big Ben!
The London Eye, as seen from St. James Park. It was too nasty to actually pay to go up in it. Maybe next time...
Wicked! WOW!

Amsterdam: We actually flew into Eindhoven, but took the train on over to Amsterdam. We got there about noon, took some naps, and headed out to see the Anne Frank house. It was a very moving experience to see the house and space where Anne Frank and her family hid out. We then wandered around the city some before calling it an early night. The next day, we took a boat tour through the canals. There are so many of them, and it was really nice to see them from the water. We then met up with one of Lisa's Dutch friends who studied at her university and he took us around the city. Of course, we tried the local cuisine of raw herring fish with onions on a sandwich bun. I actually didn't mind it, but had the taste in my mouth for a good while. We then experienced the Red Light District for the first time, which I was surprised to see hoppin' in the middle of the day. Ariel and I made our way back there the next night, and it was even more hoppin' at night. But def. not my cup of tea, as it just seemed shady and pretty gross to me. The next day, we went down to the southern part of the city to see the Van Gogh Museum and the Heineken factory. Def. 2 of my favorite parts of Amsterdam. Both the museum, which was full of impressionist works (my favorite) and the Heineken factory were great. In the Heineken factory, it was more than just a tour. It was so interactive and fun and def. worth the 15 euros we paid for it.

Of course I had to jump in front of one of the canals.
Eating our herring (raw fish) sandwiches. Actually not too bad.
All of us at the I amsterdam sign.
Me inside the Heineken factory.

The next day was Easter, which meant most things were closed. But we were able to go back down to the south of the city to see Vondelpark, the big park in the city. We walked through there for a while, then made our way by train out to the town of Haarlem. It was a really nice city, but we didn't get to see much since everything was closed. It is the city where Corrie Ten Boom hid out. In case you don't know who that is, she was basically on the other side of the Anne Frank story. She was a Christian, but her family helped hide Jews in their house until they got caught. Her book, The Hiding Place, is one I would recommend to anyone. Also in Haarlem we were able to see Hadrian's Windmill, the only actual windmill we saw up close while we were in the Netherlands. We got some great pictures with it, then made our way back into Amsterdam. We went and saw a movie that night, then walked around Amsterdam again at night. While the town and all of its crazy shenanigans were not necessarily my favorite, we did get to see a lot of cool things there.

In front of the windmill in Haarlem.

The last day, we made our way early out to Eindhoven, where we were going to catch our flight from. We wanted to rent bikes in the city, but ended up just walking around by foot and seeing its cool architecture. Oh, and eating some Dutch pancakes. And while I'm not a pancake fan at all, they were really good.

This cool bowling ball/pin sculpture in Eindhoven. There was a lot of weird art there.

By the end of day 11, I was really worn out and glad to be back in my own bed in MAdrid. It was a great journey, and now I can def. say I've seen a lot more of Europe.