So it’s been awhile since I’ve written, but I’ve so busy with school and seeing Spain. This past week we had midterms here, so in one week I had five tests. Thankfully they were all pretty straightforward and not too hard, although I did have to write essays for all of them. So the weekend before I basically studied and wrote papers, except for a couple of things. Thursday for dinner we had a cena de rociera, which was basically a dinner with flamenco performers. That night Natalie, Daniella and I went to my intercambios house and him and his roommates made us mojitos. We listened to Spanish music, told jokes in Spanish and had a lot of fun! We left rather early…for Spain that is…because we had an excursion the next morning and we had to be ready by eight in the morning.
The excursion was to Alcalá de Henares, which is near Madrid. The first thing we did when we got there was tour old university. It is one of the oldest in Spain. My intercambio actually said he went to college there. It was very pretty and we saw the room where the students take their final exams. Our tour guide told us that the students would take their doctorate exams in this one room and if they past they could go through a door that lead to a plaza where a fiesta would await them. But, if they failed they would have to go out a different door and have almost like a “walk of shame.” Basically the whole town knew who passes and who failed! Good thing that changed! After that we went to Coral de Comedía, which is a really old theater. That was basically our tour of Alcalá de Henares, because after that we got free time and at dinner. During free time we shopped and I bought a really cheap pair of flats, and then we went to lunch. It was at a really fancy restaurant, the first entrée was a seafood lasagna, the second was almost like a beef stew, and then we got this amazing dessert. AND, like I’ve said before there are always AMAZING bread rolls throughout the entire meal! Needless to say we were sooooo full by the end!
When we got back that day and did one of our papers, and then took a nap! The rest of the weekend was spent studying or writing papers. The hard work paid off because all of the exams were pretty easy! The main paper we had to do was for our art class, and it was a paper on the torres or towers of Toledo. It was an interesting paper to write, but it was very time consuming. We had to pick four towers in Toledo that we wanted to research, and there are TONS of towers, and then we had to write a paper on them. The paper had to answer the questions who, what, where, when, how and why. We also had to go visit the tower to take pictures of it and write down an initial response as to what we thought of it. So I think the paper was interesting because we got to learn more about Toledo and we got to see more of the city we live in.
The next weekend I met with my intercambio again, but that was about it for going out. It was a pretty low-key weekend. Natalie and I spent a lot of time catching up on the new season of gossip girl. Also, I actually had a phone for the weekend because I got my new one in the mail that week! Getting my new phone inspired me to start looking for a new camera. I got the idea for some of the girls here to check for my same camera on ebay, so I did and there were like seven! I put bids on four of them and lost them all, but then I finally won one and it was the cheapest out of all of the bid I made! So I have a new phone and now and new camera too!! Yay! On Friday a group of girls decided to go to the zoo in Madrid. We had so much fun, except for the walk there. It was probably the coolest zoo I’ve ever been to! They had so many animals and an amazing aquarium. We watched the monkeys for probably 40 minutes and we saw a seal show. It was a great day, but we were all so tired after it.
Sunday we went to a Real Madrid soccer game, which is one of the best teams over here! Soccer is sooooo big, and I knew that but going to the game made it so much clearer! The stadium was HUGE and it was packed!! We had a great time and Real Madrid won 3-2! The game was a night game so it didn’t get over until late and the buses had already stopped running at this time, so we had to stay in Madrid. We knew we were going to have to, and luckily the guys we hang out with went to the game with us and their moms came that weekend to see them so they had a hotel room! They said we could just stay with them, so it all worked out perfectly! Seeing a soccer game was one of the main things I wanted to do in Spain, so I am really glad I got to experience that!!!
Today…. I VOTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The excursion was to Alcalá de Henares, which is near Madrid. The first thing we did when we got there was tour old university. It is one of the oldest in Spain. My intercambio actually said he went to college there. It was very pretty and we saw the room where the students take their final exams. Our tour guide told us that the students would take their doctorate exams in this one room and if they past they could go through a door that lead to a plaza where a fiesta would await them. But, if they failed they would have to go out a different door and have almost like a “walk of shame.” Basically the whole town knew who passes and who failed! Good thing that changed! After that we went to Coral de Comedía, which is a really old theater. That was basically our tour of Alcalá de Henares, because after that we got free time and at dinner. During free time we shopped and I bought a really cheap pair of flats, and then we went to lunch. It was at a really fancy restaurant, the first entrée was a seafood lasagna, the second was almost like a beef stew, and then we got this amazing dessert. AND, like I’ve said before there are always AMAZING bread rolls throughout the entire meal! Needless to say we were sooooo full by the end!
When we got back that day and did one of our papers, and then took a nap! The rest of the weekend was spent studying or writing papers. The hard work paid off because all of the exams were pretty easy! The main paper we had to do was for our art class, and it was a paper on the torres or towers of Toledo. It was an interesting paper to write, but it was very time consuming. We had to pick four towers in Toledo that we wanted to research, and there are TONS of towers, and then we had to write a paper on them. The paper had to answer the questions who, what, where, when, how and why. We also had to go visit the tower to take pictures of it and write down an initial response as to what we thought of it. So I think the paper was interesting because we got to learn more about Toledo and we got to see more of the city we live in. 
The next weekend I met with my intercambio again, but that was about it for going out. It was a pretty low-key weekend. Natalie and I spent a lot of time catching up on the new season of gossip girl. Also, I actually had a phone for the weekend because I got my new one in the mail that week! Getting my new phone inspired me to start looking for a new camera. I got the idea for some of the girls here to check for my same camera on ebay, so I did and there were like seven! I put bids on four of them and lost them all, but then I finally won one and it was the cheapest out of all of the bid I made! So I have a new phone and now and new camera too!! Yay! On Friday a group of girls decided to go to the zoo in Madrid. We had so much fun, except for the walk there. It was probably the coolest zoo I’ve ever been to! They had so many animals and an amazing aquarium. We watched the monkeys for probably 40 minutes and we saw a seal show. It was a great day, but we were all so tired after it.
Today…. I VOTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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