That Time I Forgot to Charge My Camera.

I have come to the conclusion that I will only be able to make one or two posts a week due to excitement, adventure and um...hard work? That's a thing, right? So for my two readers, look for updates on Saturdays or Sundays.

This past week was the real start of classes, as I had more than one day of class. I am officially
 taking five classes: Grammar, Spanish Conversations, Great Painters of Spain, Culture and Jewish, Muslim and Christian art in Toledo. Which seems like an awful lot of learning so thankfully I've got naptime built into my schedule. Whoever created siestas was a genius.

School here is basically the same as school back home. Differences: small classes, Spanish and relatively cheap textbooks. We get to take field trips too, to museums and other cities. For instance, I went to a mosque/church Thursday for one of my art classes. It was pretty fantastic, and I WISH I REMEMBERED MY CAMERA. Sigh. Next time, my friends, next time.

This weekend we also went for a short jaunt (A+ for vocab) to Madrid. Friday the entire program took a bus there and had a tour of the historic-y part of the city. And wouldn't you know it, but my camera died there. Le sigh. The city is impressively huge so it was a good thing we were in a group, as I'm going to have a minor in Getting Lost by the time this trip is over. After the bus tour, we went to the Palacio Real (Royal Palace for you Spanish n00bs) and I now know where I want to live in the future. The place is huge and absolutely beautiful. And shnazzy. We, unfortunately, weren't allowed to bring cameras inside, so alas for there will be no pictures of the inside of the palace, which leaves me to describe it as best I can. The Spaniards clearly believed in a lot of gold. And crystal. And fanciness. My roommate summed it up best by saying, "Hola, peasants," as she descended down the extra-fancy stairs.

After the tour, we went to El Museo de Jamones (the museum of ham) where we, contrary to the name, did not have ham for lunch. We did, however, get ice cream, which is probably more important. A group of seven of us decided to stay in a hostel in Madrid overnight to take in more of the city. When you're wandering around, it becomes really clear the scale of the place; we were not in Kansas anymore. We went out to eat and spent the night out, going to a few bars. At night, everyone in Madrid is trying to get you to come to their discoteca (club) and they all offer you free shots, or Mojitos or whatever. Thanks, but no thanks. After a long day, we called it quits and headed back to the hostel.


Saturday we did a little shopping and traveled back to Toledo. Getting back was a little tricky and involved some subways and buses and walking uphill for far to long but we made it back fairly easily.

And it was a balmy 60 degrees outside here, Minnesotans. Lo siento no lo siento. (I'm sorry I'm not sorry.)

Ciao for now.

Also, shout out to Mr. Boatz who may or may not be reading this (Best math teacher ever, much?)