The Gangs All Here

 Just last weekend (week of Thanksgiving) my family was in town visting for the week, it was really great to see them and awesome to spend time with them especially for the holiday. Since we all had gotten in on Sunday (I was coming back from Rome) we were all beat so we just chilled for the day and got "dinner" at Mercado de San Miguel, this big market in Madrid that sells all kinds of tapas, food, drink, and pastries. Over the course of the week we went around Madrid and I showed them all the must see sights and then some of the places I frequent. We took a bus tour of Madrid which was actually pretty cool because it took us to the southern part of the city which I don't know very well. Gotta say though sitting on the top of a double decker bus with an open roof in the end of november with only a sweatshirt on while Clare kept the window open to be able take a picture of literally everything that we passed was not my best idea.

Xmas picture in Toledo

 My Dad and I went on a tour of the palace together, it was my first time going inside and the place blew me away, its got to be hands down the nicest most lavish palace/castle I've ever seen. Theres a whole room made out of porcelain and the chapel is literally covered in gold and black marble.

Paloma (host mom), Dad, and Mum

 While they were here we took two day trips, one to Segovia and one to Toldeo. Since I'd already been to Segovia I was able to show them around there too which was fun and also being with them we had time to see more stuff that I didn't get to see when I was there the first time, like going inside the Cathedral for example. Toledo was my favorite of the two though, its another old town thats set up on a hill just south of Madrid. We took the high speed train there which was really comfortable and got us there in only 35 minutes. It was really fun taking a trip with them since our family trips together always get really goofy and end up being us dying laughing for the majority of the time usually because Joe and Kitty are trying to act our age. In Toledo we saw the Greco house and museum, the Jewish museum, Victorio Macho Museum, the Cathedral, and the famous Burial of Count Orgaz by Greco. The Greco painting were really cool, he has the great impressionist/distorted/dark colors thing he goes with which is really cool. So when we got back on our last night my mom and I went to the Prado, it was again my first time and we were there for an hour and a half and had to rush to even make a dent in seeing everything. But we saw the Greco's, Velazquez's, Goya's, and a bunch of other famous painters thanks to Rick Steves and it was a blast hanging out with my mahjah. It was a bummer to have them go at then end but it also meant my time in Madrid was coming to a close (a subject that has been made off limits). It was great to see them and I'll see them again soon enough.

Quick trip to Rome

 I have completely neglected my blog yet again and I have no excuse for it so let me attempt to recap my trip to Rome.
 Three weekends ago I flew out to Rome for a short trip to visit a couple of my good friends from my old school Loyola University Chicago. I was only there from Friday morning until early Sunday morning but I managed to do and see everything you can think of in that the short time I had.
 It was great to see Addy and Sam since I haven't seen them since I left Loyola, and also because they know the city so well and were great tour guides while I was there.
 First thing I did off of the plane was go see the Colosseum with John (buddy from here in Madrid) before he headed off to Florence and I met up with my friends. It was amazing to think that I was able to walk around and stand in a place where ancient Roman gladiators fought and royal senators and emperors would sit and watch. To me thats what one of the coolest things about Europe, is just how old it is and how much history it has compared to our "young" country. From the Colosseum we walked across the street to see the Temple of Athena and one of the big, old city gates (I can't remember the name). Although there is nothing really left of the Temple it was cool to see the remains of where one of Rome's most popular and special goddesses was worshipped.

Trevi Fountain

 The rest of the day we walked around and saw the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Pantheon, Wedding Cake building, went up to this hill and looked out over the entire city from a place called the Zodiac, and saw some of the famous government buildings around that area.

View From the Zodiac

Sistine Chapel

St. Pete's

The next day we spent most of the day at Vatican City where we walked through the Vatican Museum (place is hugeee), St. Peter's Square, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. Seeing the Vatican was one of the coolest and most memorable things I've done since I've been abroad, there was so much cool stuff and so much history, and its just a really special and famous place to see and now I get to say I've been there and done that. After I had the best panini I've ever had at a restaurant across the street from the Vatican and then got gelato from Old Bridge gelateria which was 3 huge scoops for only 2 euro... it was too good  to be true, but the best part is it was true. That night for dinner I had the best meal I have had ever thanks to Akon, ok maybe not ever but top 5 for sure. We went to Jamm Ja', a nice Neapolitan  place in the Campo di Fiori, Alex gave us specific instructions on what to get since she had spent her entire semester abroad hanging out there; so for dinner we had margarita pizza, bruschetta, pasta bolognese, wine, tiramisu, and homemade lemon sorbet... meal blew my mind in terms of what thought was possible for food to taste as good as.

Sam, Addy, and me in St. Peter's Square

After Italy it was back on home to Madrid to see my parents who were flying in earlier that morning! 

You Sound Like You're From London

 This past weekend it was off to see the Queen in London. The theme of the weekend was no sleep, let me give you the rundown:

Thursday:
-woke up at 3:00am for a 6:30 flight (2 hours of sleep that night)
-land around 9 (1 hour of sleep on the bus to London)
-4 or 5 hours of sleep due to creepy dude snoring in our hostel

Friday:
-walked around all day
-(most sleep all weekend) 8 hours of sleep on my friends floor

Saturday:
-0 hours of sleep 8:00am flight on Sunday
-Stayed out all night at the casino

Sunday:
-at 5:00 am 45 mins of sleep on the bus to the airport
-"2 hours" of attempted sleep on the plane home
-Got home around 2
-Nap? absolutely not I had my soccer game at 3:30

Sunday night got a record 14 hours of sleep to make up for it all

 Anyways we did so much in London its literally impossible for me to write it all without publishing a book and I'm too lazy to I'll bullet the highlights

Buckingham Palace

Thursday:
-Buckingham Palace
-Kensington Garden
-Green Park
-Trafalgar Square
-Royal Guard house
-Westminster Abby
-Fish and Chips for dinner
-Big Ben
-The Eye of London (the big ferris wheel)

Friday:

Wes and I in Trafalgar Square

-Change of the guard at Buckingham Palace
-Portobello Market
-Tower of London (place was wickedd cool)
-Big Ben
-Monument to the Great Fire of London
-Whole Foods for Dinner
-Went over to visit my friend at LSE (London School of Economics)
-Went out with him and his friends

Big Ben 

Saturday:
-British Museum (huge museum that displays all the stuff the British have stolen from every continent over time)

Tower of London

-Went to a pub to watch the Aston Villa v. Man U game
-Dinner with one of my friends London friends
-Went out for the night
-Casino at 2:00am
-Lost 50 pounds at Hold'em
-Won 210 pounds at Blackjack
-Bought Pizza Hut
-Checked out of hostel where we had a 45 year old creepy pedophile guy who moaned in his sleep and stared at us from the shadow of his bunk when we were sleeping

Sunday:
-Flight home
-Landed
-Soccer game (we won 4-3 so we are now 3-1... no big deal)
-Slept for dayss

 Looking back on it we had wayyy to much time in London and it wasn't as fun/interesting as I would of thought it was a really cool city and awesome to see the all the old historical sights. Plus winning the 210 pounds wasn't to shabby either.

London Bridge...and it wasn't falling down

Fish and Chips Dinner

 So I'm off on my last trip of the semester to Rome, and then my family is coming to visit me on Sunday so theres a lot going on in the next week and I'm pumped to see my family finally. Can't believe theres only 3 weeks left, definitely going to make the most of them! Anyways hasta la proxima vez, nos vemos amigos!

Should of known I'd get screwed by a cheap european airline

 Last weekend me and a couple friends were supposed to go up to Bilbao in the north of Spain for our long weekend. Why Bilbao?? It was stupidly cheap and we needed something to do since it was a long weekend. Anyways the day of our flight we go to check in and turns out they messed everything up. I never got a confirmation email and one of my friends somehow had my name on his ticket... oh and we had already booked a hostel for the weekend. So like normal people we both call Ryanair to complain about the issue and see how they are going to fix it so that we can get this resolved before we get to the airport. Yeah that didn't happen instead they told us that they have no ticket on file for me, even after I got the confirmation page after buying my ticket, and told my buddy he can pay 110 euro to change the name on the ticket. So since we paid 35 euro for the flight and paying 110 was not worth it at all we had to scrap the trip.
 Turned out to not be such a bad weekend in Madrid anyways. Our friend Josh's parents were in town for the weekend so Wednesday night they took Joe and me out to dinner with them and then for drinks after. His parents are hilarious, we were supposed to meet people at 11:30 but didn't end up saying good night to his parents until right before 1... and dinner was at 9. Wednesday was of course halloween too, it was interesting to see how different it is from back home in the states. Here it is not nearly as big a deal and the real holiday the celebrate is All Saints Day, but the celebrate halloween to and some people dress up but everyone tries to dress as something either really creepy or really scary.  For the most part the rest of the weekend was pretty chill, everyone else was away so we just hung out and hit up a lot of the local bars. Found this one great Irish bar near Banco de Espana called James Joyce that has live music which was pretty sick and cheap drinks so it was solid.
 Sunday was study day because this week was our last round of midterms. Brutal week I had 3 exams and 2 presentations (in Spanish) all packed together Mon-Wed. And so now that its over I'm off to London in 7 hours, and since I have to get up to go to the airport in 4 hours I'm going to leave it at that but I'll bring back stories and pictures from London at the end of this weekend. Hasta luego!

Visit to the Homeland to hang with leprechauns

 This past weekend I too my first pilgrimage to Ireland to visit a couple of my irish friends. It was my first time flying in Europe since we landed and I went the the ever safe and reliable Ryanair whose reputation precedes itself. Turns out its not actually all that bad and I didn't end up dying thankfully but it has to be the most bizarre airline, might as well of just been a hallow alloy shell we all sat in. First of you have to get there early so that you can get to the front of the line when the board since they don't assign seats (thats the first warning sign you actually get what you paid for), and European airports I've noticed were built with making it easy to get to your gate in time since it takes about 20 mins to walk there from security. Next they don't actually have their own gates so they share with other cheap airlines yet all the employees at the desk are the same. So you finally get on the plane and its completely bright yellow, not even kidding so bright you need sunglasses or else you will go blind. Then you pick a seat and watch as everyone else behind you piles on and frantically tries to get the best seats available. Then heres the kicker, its true they have advertisements up everywhere, and you can only bring a suitcase the size of kids lunch box, and they make advertising announcements every 10 mins for the entire flight. And if things could get worse you get airborne and you lean your chair back to sleep... but oh wait the seats don't go back.

Anyways got there thursday night and that night my friends took me to what they described as an "Irish Institution" called Coppers which is a bar/night club. It was a good time and packed full of Irish people, so I got an authentic experience. Friday we woke up really late at like 2 and then my friend Steve showed me the sights around Dublin. We both are big into golf and I know him from my golf club back home cause he worked there with me last summer, so we obviously went into this golf shop and I obviously couldn't leave without buying something so I got this sick gor-tex pullover jacket, then since we both felt broke after being there we went to Subway for lunch. Since it was freezing cold out we watched a lot of movies and American sitcoms (they love that stuff for some reason) so we watched a movie and then for the second night in a row ordered pizza, really authentic Irish cuisine. That night we went to a friend of his house outside of the city for her 21st birthday party. It was a blast, but it was hilarious because although everyone speaks english and it seemed enough like a normal American house party TO a certain extent, I felt so lost sometimes because I swear Irish english is a different language altogether.
 Saturday we drove out to his hometown of Kilkenny to hangout there and eat a home cooked meal, 3 nights of pizza was not happening. Kilkenny is a country town, very different from Dublin, but its beautiful out there. It has rolling grassy hills everywhere you look and fields for as far as you can see. The town of Kilkenny itself is a small quaint little town with cobblestone streets lined with little shops. We walked around the city a little bit and went up to see the Castle of Kilkenny as well. Compared to all of the other Spanish/Muslim/French/Roman castles I've seen it was much smaller but way more dark and medieval looking. We got lucky while in Kilkenny because there happened to be a food festival going on so we walked through tons of tents in the town square all selling different kinds of foods and deserts.

 For dinner we went to his family's house for a home cooked traditional Irish meal that his mom cooked for us. For dinner we had meat, boiled potatoes, roasted potatoes, veggies, and gravy; I have never eaten so much food in my life and it was so nice to have a meal like that after being away from home for 2 and a half months. For desert we had apple pie which I was so excited to see and this big meringue and cream tart with fruit. It was amazing and I felt so spoiled eating it all but also so lucky to be able to do so since I have friends from the country and they invited me into their house. His family was the nicest and his mom was so funny, she was so nice and it was hilarious because she was asking me all theses questions about the US for example "is it true at dinner you guys have these big bowls of food and pass them around the table like you see on tv shows?". We were only in Kilkenny for the day so we headed back to Dublin after dinner and when we got back we all watched a movie and then went to the movies to see the new James Bond movie. Sunday we walked around this huge new mall in Dublin for a little bit and then it was back off to the airport and home to Madrid.

 I know I've neglected my blog over the last two weeks but I'm back and theres a lot to catch up on. So two weeks ago now (October 20th) school offered a free day trip to Segovia for whoever was interested and so a bunch of my friends and I went, because who would turn down a free trip to tour Spain? Segovia was really cool and very very different from Madrid because it is a much older (and smaller) city. Segovia's claim to fame is their roast suckled pig and their 2000+ year old Roman aquaduct. It was incredible to see because you really don't realize your in Spain when you see it, it is enormous and the craziest part is it has been sitting there for the last 2000 years, through wind and rain and its not even held together with cement, just the power of engineering and arches. Besides from the aquaduct Segovia has lots of medieval history and buildings as well as remnants from the renaissance, its a lot like a cliff on the shore that has layers marking different periods in history.

 In all there were fourteen of us and one teacher, Medina who is the absolute man, it was nice having a small group because we got to see way more things and have a much more personal tour. We went to see the cathedral, which is relatively young at only a measly 500 years old, we also got to go see Isabella's castle which is built on the edge of a huge cliff looking over the country side. The castle has a foundation which is thought to be Roman, then the building itself is detailed with the classic Muslim prints, and the inside looks like Spanish medieval castle; so the castle itself in a way reflects the city itself with the different layers of history. The views the castle were incredible and we got an even better view when went up to the top of the castle tower, from there you could see for miles into the country side and all of the city of Segovia. After the Castle we had some down time and went to this really old restaurant that was started in the 1700's and is still run by the same family, its now the 4th generation that is the owner and his son is the head chef. This place, and Segovia in general, is famous for roast suckled pig... sorry to let you down but no I didn't eat it, its legit a whole pig so I skipped it and went for a spanish omelet. 

 After lunch we met up at a bakery where Medina bought us all coffee and introduced us to the famous desert of Segovia called "el ponche segoviano". Then we headed back to Madrid only a shirt hour and a half drive away up this huge mountain where you get lost in the fog at the top at 1900 meters (6233 ft). 

La Roja

 I'm going to keep this one quick since realistically I'm writing it as a form of procrastinating from studying for my Spanish midterm. Last night on a whim me and 10 of my friends bought tickets for the World Cup Qualifier game between Spain and France. Being a huge soccer fan and especially a huge Spain fan (since when I was 12 we didn't have a team worth rooting for and its still true today) it was an awesome opportunity that I couldn't pass up and especially being abroad a lot of things we do are unplanned and on the whim, thats half the fun of it. Hopping on the metro down there was an experience in its own, the train was packeddd legit I'd rather of been a sardine in a can then go through being squished and unintentionally (I hope) groped by random people. At the stadium stop everyone flooded off onto the platform and it took a good 15 minutes to get out of the station with all of the traffic. The streets were much of the same story, once you got to within 2 blocks of the stadium streets were blocked off and filled with people. If the atmosphere outside the stadium wasn't already cool enough the atmosphere inside was even crazier. Since it was an international match and for 1st place of Group I for the 2014 World Cup stakes were high and of course all of us took the game seriously so for the few hundred French fans it meant living in hell for a good 3 hours or so.

 We had an awesome view of the field from behind the goal and the game was a good one... for the first half. Spain scored early which got everyone amped up, and then it started to fall apart; Fabregas (supposed to be one of the better players for Spain but anyone who knows anything knows its not true) missed a PK at the end of the first and then the second half was some of the sloppiest soccer I've ever seen. It looked like they eek out the win though and in the 93rd minute we were all up on our feet cheering the win in anticipation for the final whistle, and then the nightmare came true. The new right defender Juanfran, who had just been called up this year to fill in for the injured legend Puyol, made a careless mistake and to make a long story short France scored in the 94th minute to tie it. The tie was disappointing but it was still an amazing experience and awesome to get to see the national team play, I will definitely never forget it.
 Getting home was interesting, we figured since the green line would be packed we'd walk to the grey line since it looked close on the metro map... note to self metro maps aren't made to scale. So I asked a cop for directions and he tells me its over the bridge and a 20 min walk from there. To save myself all of the embarrassment we ended up walking 45 mins wayyyyy out of the way and catching the yellow line instead like 2 miles from where the stop we were trying to find was. Yeah I'm great with directions I know. Alright back to studying for spanish, wish me luck! Nos vemos

Familiar Faces

Yesterday I met up with a family friend from home father Dani, he's a young preist from the N. of Spain who used to be a preist at our parish back home. I recently found out he has a huge role and deals with all the publicity for the Vatican, the Jesuits in Africa, and is constantly travelling the world on business so I feel lucky he could spare a couple hours for me. I went to mass at his church which was on the opposite side of the city from me and I got ridiculously ost of course, but I ended up only being 5 mins late. After mass he took me out with one of his childhood friends to a local bar for a beer and tapas. It was so much fun to be able to hangout with them because A) they're both hilarious guys and really friendly as well but B) Dani wouldn't speak a word of english to me or let me speak english to it was awesome to be fully and immersed and even better to realize my spanish is all coming back to me and I didn't have one problem understanding or speaking even though they were speaking really fast. After 2 months of being here I no longer feel like a tourist and feel more and more immersed into the Spanish culture. The crazy thing is while I'm just starting to get good and feel at home I'm more than halfway through with my time here and it feels even shorter since I'll be gone 5 out of the last 7 weekends. But I'm doing whatever possible to not think about that. Anyways I'm hoping the next 10 days fly by so I can go to Ireland already and thats all I got for now, hasta luego!

School paid for me to hangout on the beach in Barcelona

 This past weekend (first weekend of October) we had the last trip of our Eurovison Seminar. For our trip we had the great fortune of going off to Barcelona for 4 days and 3 nights. Theres a good and a bad with this; we spent 8 miserable hours on a bus each way, but the nice part was we stayed in a wicked nice hotel right in the heart of the city and they took us out to a huge seafood lunch on Saturday. 

 Barcelona is such a sick city because it is right on the Mediterranean, has amazing architecture and is a very vibrant and lively place. The main street in the city is called La Rambla and its full of people, shops and restaurants; its also the biggest tourist trap in the world. One night me and one of my friend fell for it at a tapas bar and ended up spending 22 euro on two little, not very good tapas and 2 Fosters... ripoffff. Clearly I didn't learn my lesson either, to make a long story short I lost 50 euro to a guy on the street who was tricking people with the 3 cups and a ball and trying to guess which cup the balls under; so which cup is the ball under? In case you're wondering the ball isn't under any of them! He takes the ball out when hes taking you're money... fun day.

 I got lucky, since Lilly studied abroad there last semester she gave the hookups for all the best places to eat. This placed called Milk has the best breakfast I've had in Europe, they had the classic American specialities such as french toast, pancakes, and even breakfast burgers. Then for dinners we ate at a hole in the wall sandwich joint called Bo de B and it was so good we went the last 2 nights in a row. You get a huge sandwich loaded with whatever toppings you want on a fresh baguette for only 3.80 euros, its an absolute steal. The night life is crazy there too theres so many clubs by the water and its a hopping places with tons of clubs, bars, and casinos. The last night I was finally feeling better and we went to the Ice Bar which was so sick. Its -8 degrees celsius inside and everything is made of ice... literally everything the cups, the seats, the tables it was unreal. They give you a jacket and gloves when you go in and after 30 mins you're cold. But it was definitely something to check off the bucket list.

   

 The best part about the trip was all the sights in Barcelona... except I didn't get to see those either cause I had the great fortune of getting the flu the day we left. That put a damper on the weekend but I still got to explore a little when we would go out for lunch or dinner. Theres so many old buildings that are still erect and in good shape that in certain parts it feels like you some how went back in time and are walking through a medieval city or even a roman city. Plus its right on the water so we spent a lot of time at the beach plus they have fresh seafood which school bought us for lunch on saturday. 

 Barcelona is an awesome city and its beautiful, when we first got there I wondered why I didn't study abroad there, but after the weekend I'm glad it was only a weekend because its pretty touristy and kind dirty too. It was a fun weekend and I'm glad I got to see it before it becomes its own country...

Sunday when we got back we went to this Irish bar we go to a lot called Dubliners to watch el clasico which is when the two superpowers Barcelona plays Real Madrid, its a huge deal like Red Sox v. Yankees in the ALCS or Bruins Canucks in the Stanley Cup Finals. It was fun to be in there with the atmosphere from the game and I of course reped my Barca jersey and wasn't fazed by the hecklers. Game ended in a tie 2-2 with the two superstars Messi and Ronaldo scoring all the goals. Just our luck after that game the Pats game was on the big screen so we got the best of both worlds. During the Pats game we ended up making a couple Spanish friends to, so we got to practice our Spanish and culture ourselves a little bit. Well thats all I got for now so until next time hasta luego!

Stay to the right... or just walk wherever

 When you're growing up you're always taught to stay the right when walking and always give me the right of way and such... Apparently they don't teach that in Madrid, people walk wherever the hell they wanna walk. I can't even start to count how many times I've played chicken with people on the sidewalks and lost because I assume they're going to move to the right and then they force me into the street. The best part is the sidewalks here in my neighborhood are barely big enough for me to fit on in the first place. I guess its not completely their fault though because the escalators are backwards as well.
 It makes it even more fun walking on the sidewalks because dog's here aren't potty trained, so they feel free to poop all over the sidewalk and I get to play a fun game of don't step in the crap on my way to school everyday. Usually they'll sit there for weeks until it rains too and its hilarious because I'll see one in the morning and then when I come home there will be a foot print in it.
 Anyways midterms are over until November and I'm off to Barcelona so I'll tell you guys all about it when I get back. Hasta pronto

PDA in Spain

 So before I get into the hilarious details of how shameless Spaniards are about PDA I gotta talk about how hilarious class was today when my whole classes showed up for our midterm without studying except for like 4 of us and literally tried begging and guilting the professor into moving the test to next week... it was a joke. One kid thought he was tough and decided to get up and hand in a blank test a minute after they were handed out cause he's wicked cool and everything. Then you actually open the test and it wasn't bad at all... rookies.
 Anyways now that thats out of the system on to uncomfortable awkward PDA here. So ever since I got here I've noticed Spaniards thoroughly enjoy PDA. It doesn't matter where it is subway, park, cafe, street, escalator, crosswalk, you name a place they PDA all over it like its their job. Best part about it is its not just like holding hands and giggling or sneaking a kiss in when no ones looking, no they don't mess around this is like full of clothed intimacy; they go big or they don't do it at all.
 I have to take the metro, which I still call the T, to school everyday and I gotta say I'm starting to contemplate walking instead. At least 4 times just on the subway ride there I am confront by a couple age 14-43 ravenously making out on the platform next to me. Then on the train there the couple sitting down or standing in the corning eating each others faces off, then when I switch theres another couple dry humping on the escalator down, and finally one more on the platform before I finally get to school.
 If you haven't tried it yet I recommend you find a couple attempting to procreate with clothes on and stand right next to them, most uncomfortable thing you'll ever do but after that you can say you've been to Spain because when people ask you how it was you can tell them about the PDA and they'll think you're a local. Doesn't get anymore awkward than that, strangest thing is its an accepted practice... go figure.
 After that lecture on PDA we're gonna discuss dogs, dogs pooping on the sidewalk, and sidewalk etiquette in Spain... or lack there of. I know you won't sleep tonight in excitement for my blog tomorrow, so drink a lot of coffee tomorrow. Buenas noches

I'm back, recap of the last 2 weeks

 Its been a couple weeks since my last post due to a combination of being busy and laziness so theres a lot thats gone on in those last couple weeks. The soccer match the other week between Real Madrid and Machester City was incredible, literally couldn't of asked for a better ending. We had amazing seats 12 rows back from the field in the corner by the Machester goal in the second half (the spot where all the goals were scored). Man City starting the scoring in the 2nd half and it went back and forth until it was 2-1 City with less than 10 mins left they scored to tie it and then Ronaldo scored the game winner in the 90th minute and ran over to our corner for our celebration. the atmosphere is the stadium was like nothing else i've ever seen and the streets after the game were overflowing with the 80,000 people who were at the game and other people who had been in the bars around the stadium. It was an amazing experience that I will definitely remember for the rest of my life. After the game at this Irish bar me and my friend Wes ran into a Man City fan who we started to talking to and he invited us to go hangout with him and his friends and so we made friends with some English guys and we talked and they told us jokes for a good three hours. I don't think I've laughed so hard in my life, when we were saying our goodbyes we had told them how we were going to London and they told us it wasn't worth it and if we decided to come to Manchester instead they'd bring us to a game and show us around and now we're going to Manchester as well! After the game and hanging out with the English blokes it was a great and unforgettable night.

 Fall is finally here in Spain and its been a lot chillier than I would have expected, we've had weather in the low 60's for the last week or so which has been great because the 80's and sunny everyday was starting to get a little old and sleeping without AC is brutal. Fall in Spain isn't quite the same though the leaves aren't changing yet and frankly there aren't all that many trees to change anyways. Its great to have sweatshirt weather though and although this is no New England fall, fall is my favorite season so it'll do.
 Last weekend we had a ton of rain which is great for the ground but there was some pretty major flooding in the south of the country kind of like in southern VT last fall. The wind we got was crazy though it made it a little difficult to walk sometimes which provided some great entertainment when out and about. The other big news here has been the rioting thats been going on over tax hike and austerity measures the government is imposing. Luckily I haven't been close to any of them but they've turned pretty violent and hundreds of SWAT policeman end up swarming the massive crowds of thousands of people. I've only seen it on TV and online but I've never seen more people in one place at the same time, and they actually formed a ring around the parliament to barricade policymakers inside. Things are definitely heating up here with the economic situation in Europe only getting worse, but its neat to be here to witness history in the making first hand.
 Since I've been here I've been noticing a lot of things here that seem strange to me compared to back home, since theres so many I'm going to break them up and do a couple each day for the next week or so. So look forward to tomorrow to hear about how the Spanish love PDA and will go as far as you can with clothes on in all public areas with no shame. Until then I have to actually study, go figure right.
Hasta manana

Weekend in Lagos

 Portugal was easily top three greatest times of my life. Its one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and the weather was fantastic all weekend. It was a longgg bus trip there (6.5 hours total) but it was well worth it, we left Madrid at 1am on Friday and got to Sevilla at around 7am. The bus to Lagos didn't leave until 1:30 so we had some time to kill and got to explore Sevilla which was awesome. Out of our group of Syracuse kids there were only 5 boys Brad, Josh, Joe, Brian and me; and we all split a tour of Sevilla in a horse and buggy which was a lot of fun and allowed us to see everything in a short time. Sevilla is a beautiful small city with amazing old architecture and a beautiful central park. After the buggy tour we were walking around looking for food and we stumbled upon heaven... they have Dunkin Donuts in Europe, but I gotta say its not nearly as good as the real thing. From there we headed off with the group to hop on the bus and head to Lagos which is about another 3 hour or so ride.
 We ended up geting to Lagos around 4:30 and our hotel was gorgeous, its called AquaLuz and its a 4 star resort only blocks from downtown and the beach!  Once we got there we dropped our stuff in our rooms and headed down to the beach in the cliffs called Praia Dona Ana.

 We spent the rest of the day there hanging out, swimming, playing games and sangria. After a few hours we headed back to the hotel to shower and get ready for dinner. For dinner 12 of us went to this really nice seafood restaurant and I got a bowl of cream of shrimp soup and a tuna steak with potatoes and veggies which was wicked good; and the best part was it was pretty cheap only 10 euros for the fish and 2 for the soup. Then we went off to this club down the street where Discover Seville (the company we went with) rented out a club for us. That was a lot of fun and it was a small place and we pretty much took it filled it up since there was about 120 or so of us total on the trip. Saturday we woke up for breakfast a little before 10 and ate by the pool then hopped on the bus and headed down to the wharf for the sangria cruise, but because of the fog we had to wait until it cleared and went to the beach close by called Meia Praia for the morning. This was a hugeee beach that had beautiful white sand and some good waves. We played football for a little bit, then had a 3 on 3 game of soccer on the beach and swam until 1. At 1 we walked back to the wharf and got on the sail boats for the sangria cruise. There was 60+ of us so we had to take two of these big 50ft sailboats. We made sure to get all 25 of us who had come from the Syracuse program on the same boat which made it 10x more fun. 

 We took the boats out to the cliffs where we dropped anchor and hung out there for the entire time, when we dropped anchor it was time for swimming and jumping off the boat (obviously my idea). While people were swimming 8 kids at a time got to hop on the skiff and take a tour of the cliffs which have all been named by fisherman back in the day, so for example there is the kitchen, the garage, the living room and so on. The cliffs were magnificent, the are so pretty and it was so cool to go inside of them and you can see the layers and layers of old shells and sand that have built up over time to form them. 

 Hanging out on the boat swimming and doing flips off the boat was a blast and in the spirit of Europe some of us may or may not of swam European style briefly... YOLO. Then it was back to the beach where we grabbed lunch and hung out briefly before heading back to the Bus to go back to the hotel. 
 Back at the hotel we went swimming in the pool and hung out at the pool for a little where we played dibble which is where some take a bottle cap and put is on the bottom and you have to wait on the pool deck until you think you see it before you jump in and try and grab it all in one fluid motion. After the pool it was off to the showers and we headed back to the bus to go to a place called Sangres also known as the end of the world, which is about 40 mins away to watch the sun set over the ocean from the cliffs. It was so beautiful out there and we saw dolphins jumping too as the sun was setting it was an amazing view.

 Once the sun set we hopped back on the bus and into town for dinner. This time I tried the sea bass, which came out as a whole fish head and all! It was good fish and again very cheap which is amazing compared to home. After dinner we walked back to the hotel where Brian and I played pool before showering and heading back into town to the bar where we were meeting everyone. The next morning it was up at 9:30 for breakfast and then we (the Syracuse kids) headed off to Praia Dona Ana again to spend our last half day at the beach while the rest of the group got surf lessons at Praia. 

The last day at the beach was a lot of fun it was just us which was a blast, I got buried in the sand and we went cliff jumping which was pretty sweet. Then it was the long journey back, left at 5:15 got back to Sevilla at around 10:30 then grabbed a quick bite before our 7 hour bus ride back to Madrid where we got in at 5:30 this morning and i've only slept 2 hours since! Good thing I don't have class till noon tomorrow. Well tomorrow's a big day we're going to the Man City vs. Real Madrid Champions League game... 12 rows off the pitch couldn't be more pumped so until next week thats a wrap!

 Its now been one week since I've been in Madrid. Madrid is a huge city with many different parts to it, Sol is the main nightlife area, Salamanca is the neighborhood I live in, and Almagro is the area that our school is in, just to name a few. Madrid kind of reminds me of New York in a way it has the same sort of feeling and a lot of the hustle and bustle that comes with such a big city. The funny thing about Madrid is that there are all kinds of people here; pretty much every corner store is owned by Asians who speak Spanish with Asian accents which sounds pretty bizarre, there are a lot of Indian people, and then tons of tourists from all over the world as well as the 10,000 plus American students study abroad all over Madrid.
 While here myself and Colman Tishler, another St. Mike's kid, are living together with a host mother, or Senora, named Paloma. She's a really nice older woman who lives with her daughter and her daughter's husband. We got lucky enough to live in a house so there are three floors; the top floor is where here daughter and her husband live, the 1st floor is where Paloma lives as well as where the kitchen and such is, and the basement is where Colman and I live. Its nice to have our own floor cause we get more space and we don't have to worry about being to neat all time because she never comes down here anyways.
 The program I came abroad through is Syracuse University's abroad program, but we study at the International Institute in Madrid which is also used by USC, BU, and Stanford. For us classes started officially last Wednesday an we had 3 days of the equivalent of syllabus week. I'm taking 5 classes this semester; Money and Banking and Economics of the EU are my classes taught in english and then Colonial Latin America, Spanish Society and Pop Culture, and Spanish IV are all taught completely in Spanish. Its definitely kind of weird having classes all in Spanish but luckily so far I've been able to understand everything my teachers say and hopefully my comprehension will only get better as the semester goes on. This week classes kick off and we actually have to start paying attention, but considering class only lasts about 5 hours its not to bad.
 It's been a great first week in Madrid and its nice to finally be settled in because I'm starting to feel more comfortable and get a rhythm which is always nice. I've bumped into a couple of my friends from high school  as well which has been fun and it'll be nice to see them throughout the semester as well. This weekend a bunch of us are headed of to the beach town of Lagos, Portugal to surf, swim and hangout which should be a blast, so i'll make sure to brag about how much fun it was next week, but until then nos vemos!

 I left the states on August 21st and just arrived in Spain the other day on September 2nd. For the two weeks in between my arrival and my departure I was on my program's seminar for business and economics students called Eurovision. Eurovision was a seminar where we travelled to 5 different countries visiting different political/economic institutions and businesses. We started in Heidelberg, Germany where we stayed for our first four days, Heidelberg is very old city with a lot of charm and culture. For a small city it is very diverse in terms of the people that live there and believe it or not but it gets quite a lot of tourism because when we were there I'm pretty sure I saw more tourists walking around than locals. Heidelberg was a great place for us to start because it literally has one main street so it was a good place for us to adjust to life in europe and get to know each other since it's impossible to get lost on one street. Although we stayed Heidelberg the purpose of our visit to Germany was Deutsche Bank's head quarters in Frankfurt, Germany. We only went into Frankfurt for one day, our second day there, and it is a very built up city that when you see it is quite clearly a financial hub. While in the big city we went and walked around the EU building before our meeting, then we headed over to Deutsche Bank and got a talk about the history of the Bank and the role they play in the global financial world. The best part though was getting a tour of the Audi factory, unfortunately we didn't get free Audis but the plant was really cool and we saw some sweet R8s and even some models that haven't come out in the US yet. After Heidelberg we went off to Amsterdam for 3 days; Amsterdam is a neat city and full of interesting people, it is 7 feet below sea level (or 7 miles as one of my friends was convinced) and so there a serious of canals that create horseshoe shapes through the city. In Amsterdam we visited the Anne Frank house which was really neat to see, the houses in Amsterdam aver very skinny but long in order to avoid higher property taxes so the space where Anne and her family was very very small and it really made you appreciate how they did it for over 2 years. That night for dinner school treated us to a 5 star meal at a local restaurant which was pretty awesome, and then from there we went off to explore Amsterdam. At the conclusion of Amsterdam visit we stopped for a tour and tasting at the Heineken factory which is about 40 mins outside of Amsterdam.

 It was a good tour and I never realized just how big of a company Heineken was until that visit, the tasting at the end wasn't too shabby either. From Amsterdam it was on to Belgium where we stayed in the old small city of Bruges, which was a beautiful city with great architecture, but the purpose of our stay was to Visit the European Parliament and European Commission.
 The European Parliament was kind of a disappointment because we couldn't see the chamber because there were cracks in the ceiling and the guy who spoke to us was very boring and went on forever. The European Commission was a lot better, we had a English guy with a great sense of humor talk to us about the Commission and tax policy in Europe, which to his credit, he made interesting.

After Belgium it was on to Paris for a few days where we saw all the sights, had a great fancy 5 course meal underneath the glass pyramid at the Louvre, climbed the Eiffel Tower, visited the Arc de Triomphe, walked the Champ d'Elysees, and got a boat cruise on the Seine river. The business we visited while in Paris was a international ad agency called Publicis Groupe, they do a lot of work for many of the biggest companies in the world, their office was a really cool modern building and we got talked to by an  
American guy who has been working there for the last 8 years. From Paris it was on to Bordeaux where we spent less than 24 hours, while there we got to visit Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte and who happened to be there right before us but Spur's star SG Tony Parker. The vineyard was a really cool place and it was huge, they said they produce around 40,000 bottles of wine a year, we got a tour of the barrel storage area's, the fermentation area, and then we got to try a red and white wine. Bordeaux was a much bigger city that I expected, its right on the Gironde Estuary and has a lot of cool buildings, but again we weren't there long so I didn't get to see too much. After France we made it into Spain and stopped in San Sebastian in the northern Basque country for a night. In San Sebastian we got shown around by a woman who does wine and culinary tourism, San Sebastian is a food mecca, she took us through the big market and to a culinary club where we got to sample some cheeses, the traditional wine and cider and the best part we got an amazing lunch. We had fish soup/chowder, salad, chicken and melon for dessert. It was really cool visit and interesting to learn about the history of these culinary clubs which started out as all male clubs where guys would share recipes and ideas and cook for each other, smoke cigars and play cards. Since San Sebastian is in the Basque country it was a pretty different place not only because they speak Basque which is a pre Macedonian language but they also are separatist and want to be their own country from Spain. It is a costal city so we got to eat a lot of good sea food and of course we spent all our free time at the beach. The next day it was back on the bus and on to Madrid, I'm looking forward to finally settling in and to the semester ahead.