Last weekend was a four day weekend, and our Brown group had a scheduled trip to Madrid, Segovia, and Toledo. I was really excited to visit Madrid and I loved it. I think for a moment, all of us thought "why aren't we studying abroad here??". But of course, Granada has it's own special charms.
I personally think that all big cities are more or less the same, so because of this, Madrid felt very normal. This was a very welcome feeling actually. We were all a bit tired of Spanish food so we ate at restaurants that you could easily find in the US.
Also the Madrid accent is so easy! We could understand exactly what everyone was saying!! The Granada accent is horrible, it's really hard to understand. They drop a lot of syllables. But they say that once you master the Andalusian accent, you can understand any Spanish accent. I definitely think that will be true.
The first thing we did in Madrid was go riding through the big city park. I think this will be one of my favorite memories of the entire semester. It doesn't sound special, but it felt amazing to go racing around such a beautiful setting with friends.
On Halloween day, we drove about an hour north to the city of Segovia. The stone structure you see below is a Roman aqueduct that WAS BUILT 2000 YEARS AGO!! And it is still in practically perfect condition. They have only ever fixed a very small part at the top. It's an absolutely amazing piece of architecture. Also, it's built like a game of Jenga. There is no mortar holding all the stones together. They are perfectly placed and aligned. I don't entirely understand how this is possible, but I have enormous respect for the Romans. Why can't we make things of this caliber anymore?? I'm looking at you, Bay Bridge.
And here the pictures end. That night, my friends and I went out for Halloween in Madrid and tragically my phone was stolen. Luckily, I have insurance and will get a new one when I go back to the states. Even luckier is my friend's mom is currently visiting from New York so my parents overnighted her my old phone and she brought it to Madrid and my friend will bring it back to me in a this Wednesday. So that's a week and a half or so without a phone. I'm a big fan of disconnecting, but it is a bit sad when you can't take any pictures because your phone is also your camera.
Halloween isn't huge in Spain, but it is definitely getting bigger thanks to globalization. We didn't dress up on Halloween but there were a lot of people out on the streets dressed up. And some stores and restaurants had decorations. My flamenco teacher who is the cutest being ever said Halloween is his favorite holiday. On our last class before Halloween, all we did was watch scary videos and tell scary stories; he even brought us candy! I told him he should watch Hocus Pocus, which is the best Halloween movie out there. But he really likes the Nightmare Before Christmas, in Spanish.
On Sunday, we went to amazing museums: the Reina Sofia and the Prado. My friends and I were basically walking around like zombies after Halloween, but I still really enjoyed the museums. We saw Guernica by Picasso and Las Meninas by Velasquez and other really famous paintings!
And on Monday, we headed back south towards Granada, but we first stopped at the city of Toledo. Toledo is beautiful. It is actually used in a lot of movies and tv shows such as Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and more. My family and I will be spending about 4 days there after Christmas. I am really excited to go back!
It was a really fun, but exhausting weekend. I really like traveling with the Brown group because it is rare that all 18 of us are all together and I really enjoy spending time with everyone. I forgot to mention that our hotel in Madrid was a four star hotel! It was so nice. Breakfast was amazing. We ate so much. But at the same time, it would have been nice if we had stayed in a less nice hotel and Brown had paid for other things like food or other excursions. Oh well.
It's so crazy that it is November now. Time, please stop!