To Begin the Journey...

So, here's a trial "post" so that everyone can see what I've been up to in the most recent week. To try to update you all at once since my last massive email, and unfortunately the only one, would take an entire chapter of a book so in an effort to bring you up to speed, I'm just going to update the last 10 days or so.

I promise that as time permits, I will share what has happened since the massive email-novel of Sun, Sept 6 but since I'm a horrible traveler and haven't kept you up to date on everything during the last 2 months, this will have to suffice for now! Please, forgive me!

Let's start at the beginning of November, shall we? Ok, how about Halloween/Dia de los Muertos aka October 31, you'll thank me! (well, if you like stories about excursions you will and that's why you're reading this, right?!)

Part of the deposit for going on this amazing trip to Spain included excursions with the Study Abroad program to various regions of Spain. October 31st was the first of our excursions and we travel approx an hour south/southwest of Madrid to a city called Toledo. (ever heard of or said "Holy Toledo!" Yep, that's the city!) So we had to meet the chartered bus at 8am on Saturday morning. Since I probably hadn't discovered at the time of the massive email-novel of Sun, Sept 6, allow me to enlighten you to the fact Spaniards party hard and late/early. Many return when the metro reopens at 6am (after closing at 1:30am) and yes, I have done that a few times, but not this particular night. I was smart and went to bed at the early hour, according to most Spaniards, of midnight. Yes, that is early. Most, some of whom I can occasionally hear outside my window, don't go to bed until 1 or 2 am. Plus it takes approx 45 minutes from my piso (large apartment/flat) to get to school/the meeting point for excursions.

Now that we've established that, we arrive at Toledo at about 9am and pick up our tour guide for the day. On our way to see various parts of the town which is very spread out on various hilly sections of the landscape, we went to a lookout point so that we could more or less see where it was we were going to be visiting. (Don't worry, I took pictures and they will be posted sooner or later!) It's a beautiful area, more or less isolated feeling, kind of like most of the cities/towns of Spain that I have seen so far. After stopping at the look-out point, we went to a place where they made swords and engraved almost anything with gold and silver, BY HAND. It was all done by trades-people who intricately hammered the gold or silver into the item. It was an extremely detail oriented task to say the least. Following that stop, we proceeded to walk through the majority of la ciudad vieja, or the old city. By old city, its not just the older part of the city, but also the part of the city that existed prior to the Inquisition by Isabella and Ferdinand. During the walking tour, we stopped and visited a monastery, a synagog, and a cathedral. All are beautiful structures (with pictures to come!) and we learned about the history of each of them from our tour guide. At one point of the day, we stopped and went into what appeared to be a trap door in the middle of town but what was really an opening to an old well from olden days. Several of us joked as to whether or not it was safe to go into an opening in the middle of town, but it turned out to be just fine!

After exploring Toledo, we got back on the bus and went to a town called Consuegra which is where the windmills made famous by Cervantes' Don Quijote are located! We were there for about an hour or so. I'd always seen pictures of windmills, but as far as I can remember, I don't think I'd ever seen one and been able to touch it so that was super cool, especially because there was the mental picture of Quijote fighting with a windmill and slashing a sword through one as though in battle! That would make any inanimate object entertaining! After Consuegra, we got back on the bus came back to Madrid. Just a day trip, but one much enjoyed and, like almost anything in Spain, historical!

My Halloween day was not yet over though! Along with a friend from the program, Amanda, I went and saw the Backstreet Boys live in concert in Madrid! Yes, that boy band that was popular back in the 1990's still exists and amazingly has new music out, none of which I had heard though. They went on at 9:30pm and we got back from the excursion at about 7 or so, but at the other end of the city. After a quick stop at Amanda's, we headed to the concert to pick up our tickets and find our seats with plenty of time to see the end of the opening act's performance, or so we thought! I knew and had noticed that Europeans listened to a lot of American music, but the degree of its popularity hit me when I went to try to find the end of the line to get into the concert. Amanda and I followed the line for approx 9 city blocks, at minimum to get in line, probably close to 3/4 mile!!! We had gone in a giant circle and had almost made our way back the metro station where we had gotten off at before we found the end. Once inside, we raced to our seats, running up escalators only to find the opening act just finishing at 9:30pm, we heard music and had assumed that the Backstreet Boys had already started but were pleasantly surprised! The concert itself was amazing!! By the end I had absolutely no voice left from screaming and singing and the like. Upon exiting, however, I became aware of the popularity and the seating capacity of the venue. We both had to use the bathroom so we stopped at a bar to use the services, as they're translated, and have a beer since if you use the bathroom, you have to buy something and beer is cheaper than water. When we arrived at the metro, we were suddenly aware of how many people in the city buy the monthly metro pass. Although the concert took place on Oct 31, it ended and we got to the metro by about 12:30am, which is no longer Oct 31, but rather Nov 1; an entirely new month which means a new monthly metro pass must be bought, or an individual ride or whatever type of ticket you prefer. Before we could discover this important detail however, we had to wait for at least 20 minutes to get INTO the metro's entrance! We were able to go down the stairs, however at the point, we had to wait along with MOBS of people through the first walk way to enter the doors to the inside portion, the second walkway to go down another set of stairs,  the third walkway to get to the doors to enter the ticket area, and then the fourth walkway to get to the entrance where you go through the turn style with your ticket. This would normally take a matter of minutes, usually less than 3, but needless to say, it was not so simple that night. After we finally managed to get through the turn style, we made it to the metro platform only to be joined by enough to make anyone, regardless of their definition of personal space, claustrophobic. And once on the metro, it was even more crowded since there were already people on the metro itself. This sensation lasted until we made it past the downtown portion of the city where it finally opened up. Although it was Halloween and we were being encouraged to go out and party, we decided to call it a night since we'd been going nonstop since before 8am that morning.

An amazing but extremely long day, needless to say.

As you can see, my descriptions are rather detailed, so for now, I will stop and will continue later with this last weekends excursion to the region of Extremadura. It was a 2 day trip and therefore will be rather lengthy and would hate to bore you! Besides, you have better things to do with your life than sit there and read about my adventures all day!

I hope that you all enjoyed the massive novel-blog of Mon Nov 9! Until the next time! Ciao! (yes, they use the Italian word in Spanish, it threw me off for a while!)