SPAIN

I'm procrastinating from reading the article I need to review for Thursday right now so here's another blog! WOOT. I am freaking exhausted right now and had one of the WORST days. Last night was Halloween and we may have celebrated a little too much. We didn't get back til after 6am and I had set the first of my 5 (sorry, Macy -my roommate) alarms for 7 so that I could register for classes. I also was supposed to meet with people to walk to the Agora at 8:45 or so because our 9:30 Art & Archaeology class was supposed to meet there. I woke up at 9:34. Whoops. I threw on the nearest clothes (only to realize later that my shirt was in fact on backwards) and hopped in a cab. I managed to find the group only a half an hour late and discovered that NONE of the people I was supposed to meet and walk with had even bothered to show up to class. I think everyone had a little too much fun last night.

SPAIN.
Alex, Rosie, Bryan and I all flew to Madrid Monday morning after getting back from the Peloponnese the day before. For once, I actually slept before going to the airport rather than staying up all night. Of course I got patted down in security but at least we know to expect that now. As soon as we checked into our hostel, we went in search of food. We found a little restaurant in some square that had an incredible deal for an appetizer, entree, dessert and drink and we had our first sangria in Spain! Afterwards, we wandered down to the Palace which was closed but we walked through the gardens anyway and found this amazing market on our way back.
SANGRIA

 (fried pork rinds... gross)

 outside the market:

 (beer-loving penguins are the best)

 Madrid is beautiful...

 the big cathedral across the square from the palace:

 one of the numerous street performers (if you can call them that?)

We went to a modern art museum that night. Modern art is not really my thing but I found some really cool war photography and propaganda. When we got home though I was so exhausted and felt sick so I unfortunately missed out on dinner that night...

The next day, we wanted to go to Toledo in the morning but our train was sold out so we went to the national botanical gardens to kill some time before the next train.

 we all picked out corsages to go with our prom pictures... this orange one was mine

 we also found a fascinating inhabitant of the gardens... a bear-cat. here he is in action:

 I of course made a new friend (sadly not the bear-cat despite my best efforts) who left her mark on my leggings in the form of muddy little paw prints...

 Oh hai, philly

 I dunno what this one is but it's weird looking...

 Obviously I like flowers a little too much...

Enough flowers (for now). After the gardens, we ran back to the train station and made it just in time for our train to Toledo. Toledo is awesome. It's apparently known for its swords? There were sword and jewelry shops EVERYWHERE. I of course immediately ran over to the first display case and tried to pick up a ridiculously heavy sword only to see afterwards the "no touch" sign. Whoops.

 cathedral:

 After Toledo, we returned to Madrid and had a nice dinner (tapas, of course) with one of Brian's friends from school before going to a cave bar where we met up with a bunch of Penn kids. The cave bar was a lot of fun and I even got a "free" t-shirt that's COVERED with sequins.

The next day, we went to the palace (and actually made it inside this time). It was beautiful. My favorite part was the music room that had the most beautiful cello. After having to buy my own cello, I definitely appreciated the beauty and fantastic quality this one cello had. Obviously, it was a lot nicer than the one I ended up getting.

 some views of the palace:

 Afterward, we went back to the market we'd discovered the day before to meet up with some of our friends from Penn.

It was a lot of fun, but what was meant to be an hour lunch turned into four hours and by the time we finally made it to the Prado, we had probably had a few too many glasses of sangria. The Prado was amazing though. We saw Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, Rubens' Three Graces, Velazquez's Las Meninas, and Goya's Saturn Devouring One of His Children, among others. I was particularly excited to see the last one but was also equally amused by my somewhat inebriated friend narrating the rest of the paintings, including one that details the creation of the Milky Way according to some Greek myth (that even I had not heard of). Look it up. Seriously.

That night we went out to dinner at a cute, trendy restaurant near one of the squares before meeting up with Brian's friend from college and one of Rosie's friends from high school (whom I knew from Nantucket) at a local pub. We hung out there basically until closing when we then went to meet the rest of the Penn kids at some club. The club was super expensive but we managed to get in for free and quickly discovered that, unlike Greece, Spain actually celebrates Halloween! There were make-up stations all over with fake blood and face paint and all the bartenders and waitresses looked like zombies. Brian went basically straight to the airport from the club and the next morning the rest of us packed up our stuff and headed to Barcelona.
The CYA gang:

Barcelona was not quite what I expected. I had been talking with my friends who were studying there and it seemed like it was going to be right on the sea. Instead, it was more like Athens, sprawling and with one part that was quite far away actually on the water.

We wandered through the gardens for a while (sorry, this was a while ago and I can't really remember exactly what we did anymore so I'm reconstructing this from the photos I have):

 we wandered through this pretty park that Rosie wanted to see and we found... A MAMMOTH

No clue why that was there but you know I tried to climb it. Afterwards we found another market that was sort of like a mix between the market it Madrid and the Tokyo fish market. So, more hectic and with more raw stuff that made me want to vomit, but also CHOCOLATES.

 (Shaped like hedgehogs)
After the market, we took the metro and a tram thing to get up the big hill to a giant fortress/castle/thing. It was pretty cool and we could see the ocean (and the shockingly gross looking harbor) but some woman fell and was really injured so that was scary. Here we are:

 There were a bunch of old tank guns and weird war stuff all over so obviously we needed to take pictures with it...

 After that we wandered through even more gardens before getting to the art museum where we sat outside at the bar and had a glass of champagne and waited for the magic fountains to turn on.

 Every night at around seven they turn on the fountains and there's a light show. A ton of people all came to watch:

 That night, as we were sitting in our hostel playing a slightly classier than usual game of Kings (champagne, not beer... but reaaaally cheap champagne), we happened to be sitting next to a boy who went to high school with a girl we knew from Penn who had actually come to visit Penn our freshman year and stayed with Alex's hall. He had also been in the Barcelona police station that afternoon but walked out while they were trying to book him (fail). The poor kid was absolutely terrified so of course we adopted him for the night. We basically just wandered around for tapas and drinks and ended in this hilariously americana 50s diner near our hostel that had ridiculously good mojitos. We also made friends with the craziest group of middle-aged (or older) German women, one of whom I'm pretty sure went home with a 20 something street performer.

The next day, we went to the Sagrada Familia, which is probably one of the coolest cathedrals I've ever seen. Of course, waiting in line we ran into one of Alex's friends from high school with his family who then adopted us. Anyway, here's the link for the wikipedia about La Sagrada Familia (it has a pretty cool history/present): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia
aaaaand here are some pictures 'cause I'm too lazy to write:

 (note the stylized alpha and omega behind the guy tied to the pillar:)

 couldn't figure out how to rotate this, sorry...

 some of the coolest stained glass but my stupid camera wouldn't get the colors just right:

After that, we went to go see the rest of Gaudi's architectural work throughout the city:

 Alex and I decided this definitely looked like a skull but we were too cheap to actually buy tickets to go in and find out if it's meant to look like one. I think it is?

 After that, we made our way to the big park that has a lot of Gaudi stuff too:

 pillar worship? (#greeksdideverythingfirst)

(some bitch stole that sweater from the CYA laundry room... grr)
Anyway, after that we had the BEST dinner yet. We went to a Peruvian/Japanese restaurant and the food was sort of expensive but sooooo worth it.

 (Alex trying to help me put my shoes on and get me down safely from my treehouse bed in the hostel)

After that, we met up with Alex's friend at this really cool bar that let you pour your own drinks (obviously I loved that) before going to a club for Halloween night. The club was so much fun. The next morning trying to get to the airport? Not so much. I've never had a more miserable wait in line. I finally gave up standing and we all just sat on the floor and slid ourselves and bags along. We were functioning on probably 3 hours of sleep over the last two nights and it was a serious strugfest. The plane ride was also the most miserable experience of my life. The seats were tiny, there were two screaming and struggling children in front of me, there was turbulence and Alex kept jumping up and over me to get to the bathroom. Not fun.

Ok, I'll post about Prague, Budapest and Thessaloniki once I'm back from Istanbul!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!