Adventures in El Escorial

I'm still in Sevilla, but I found some internet again to update you guys! I have a lot to add since I missed 2 weeks of updates.

Let's see, where did I leave off? I got back from Las Fallas on a Saturday night, so my Sunday was free. Luckily, I'd heard that Matt the Mellophone was in town for the weekend! Matt is studying abroad in Sweden, but he decided to come visit Madrid and stay with Colin, yay! It was really great to see someone else from U of I in Spain. So we all decided to explore El Escorial, an old monastery/palace in another part of town.

I got a lot of pictures of the outside and a few of the gardens from afar, since pictures weren't really allowed inside. Ahem, but I did manage to get a few, ahem. Anyway, this place was huge! The Cathedral was the most impressive part. I've only seen churches that big in movies or video games, never real life.

The rest of El Escorial was filled with paintings, antique furniture, and different exhibits about the construction. Oh yeah, and...a mausoleum?! I couldn't believe the kings of Spain lived here with all the former kings of Spain just resting in peace in the basement, more or less!! There were a heck of a lot of tombs and corridors to other tombs. We found one room with a huge circular tomb with 60 different spaces for people to be buried, and I believe 47 of them were...ummm, occupied. (This is so weird to talk about...) The sad part was, it was in a room that was entirely dedicated to the burials of the royal children who never made it past puberty :( It was really interesting, but really morbid at the same time. Jesus H, if I could barely handle this, how am I gonna handle the crypts in Palermo!?!

Um, let's move away from the crypts... The rest of El Escorial was beautiful. We found a gorgeous painted ceiling in one part and snuck some pictures :o)

It took a long time to tour the whole place because it was so big. My favorite part was at the end when we saw the library!!! The books were all handwritten in latin, in calligraphy!! If you know me well, you know I love books and I love writing in calligraphy so this was pretty much heaven on earth for me :) They even had one book of hymnals, and all the scores were handwritten in calligraphy; it was just the coolest thing. The books were all hand-bound too, and all the illustrations were drawn one-by-one. They were just beautiful. I really didn't want to leave, but we had missed lunch and it was already 4, so we left after that.

I'll be back one day to explore the gardens since we didn't get to. Recently, I've been finding out that I'm kind of in love with European gardens. Kruse and I explored this garden in Sevilla the other day and I just would not shut up about how cool it was...woops. The picture here is of the gardens in Sevilla because they are so gorgeous and I just had to share a picture! I've been there twice and am considering visiting again, if I have time. Entrance is free for me because I'm a student so I can just visit whenever I want.

Anyway, I'm making a shopping list of gardens I want to see before I go back to the US, and I'm gonna try to work on being a little less awed when I visit, but we'll see how that goes ;)

See you all later!
Ariel

I Made It!

I’m finally in Spain!! It felt like I would never get here.

I flew in on Thursday. The plane ride didn’t feel that long, and the flight was really empty to so I ended up having 2 seats to myself, awesome! It was a Spanish airline, so they did all of the instructions in Spanish first, then English. I guess I looked Spanish because all the flight attendants talked to me in Spanish but talked to the guy behind me in English!

It was a little sad leaving Chicago because they had all this horribly slow, sappy piano music playing in the background while we took off. Fortunately they shut that off after we were in the air, but then they showed a really strange Iberia-sponsored “news show.” It all worked out in the end because I just listened to my iPod for most of the way and watched The Hangover.

The best part was when we finally reached the coast of Portugal. We flew over Porto, Portugal and its lights looked so pretty at night. The clouds kind of made it look like it was sparkling too, so my first glimpse of Europe was absolutely beautiful.

We landed in Madrid at 7 am their time. No snow here; it’s been in the 50s all week, so that’s totally awesome. Their airport was really new but sooooo long. I went through 7 or 8 moving walkways before we got to the middle of the terminal where the exit was. It was early, so nobody was really there except the people that had just gotten off my flight.

Nobody was in the line for customs either, so I got to go straight up to the guy. He took my passport, stamped it, and said, “Bienvenida a España!” and I said, “Gracias!” Oh man that was absolutely my first conversation on Spanish soil.

Later that morning, I met my host mother. She’s really nice and definitely very motherly! After she made me a traditional Spanish breakfast, she showed me the university and then took me shopping for a bottle of coke after I said I was tired. Her husband works at the bar down the street from the apartment, so apparently I can head over there whenever I want for something free. Today she gave me a glass of sherry from the 1920s; it was really good.

Spain is so different from the United States! People are really friendly and nice to each other; it’s rare to find a stranger who’s grouchy or who won’t respond when you speak to them. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is nice. The architecture of everyday buildings is gorgeous. And they only buy furniture that fits perfectly into the space it occupies, so it’s like every room has feng shui or whatever it’s called. They listen to a lot of music in English too, even if they don’t understand it. Rihanna is really popular here, and so are a couple of bands that are obscure in the US.

Woops, this is getting long. I’ll update later because now I need to buy a new jacket! I look kind of conspicuous with my big red coat haha.

Hasta luego, amigos!

Oh hey, Ariel has a blog!

Hey, everyone! As you may know, I'm going to be studying in Madrid, Spain for the Spring semester!

...If you didn't know, surprise!!

Anyway, I figured this is the best way to update you guys, since international calls are insanely expensive and I can't skype with 200 people. I'll update a lot with interesting stuff, so don't worry, I'm not going to be telling you the thrilling details of how my thermodynamics class is going. Oh yeah, and this is going to be written a little differently than if I were to post something on facebook...I just suddenly feel like I have to pay attention to punctuation and capitalization more since I'm not just typing some lame facebook status.

I bought my plane ticket today, and it was only $700! Ahaha, I'm gonna be broke by the time I get there. Buying transatlantic plane tickets is the absolute worst. I actually found a really good deal, because most of the flights are over $1000 (in general.)

So, I'm leaving February 4th at 4:45 pm. Luckily I got a non-stop flight, so I don't have to transfer in London, Rome, Frankfurt, or Newark in New Jersey (I know, New Jersey, what the heck?!) I just get on at Ohare, wait awhile, and then plunk down at the airport in Madrid.

Wanna know how long the flight is? It's about 10 hours. God, I have never sat in one place for that long!! Suggestions on what to bring? So far, I'm bringing my iPod, a book, and some sudoku. My carry-on can only weigh 20 lbs, but that's not a problem because that's pretty much all I can carry anyway.

Well, this is getting a little long, so that's all for now! I'll update later on my host family.