¡Hola, todos!
I figured I’d fill you in on this past weekend, my adventure to Madrid(among other places). I went with my two friends, Rod and Kent. At first weweren’t sure how the weekend was gonna go down… we didn’t really have ahostel, but we had bus tickets that would get us to Madrid, which is all wereally needed. While we were talking about our adventure in the lobby, thesetwo girls (Jacklyn and Leah) piped in and told us that they were taking thesame bus to Madrid. We then found out they had a bunch of stuff planned, andthat they also had a hotel for the three nights. Wanting some sort ofsubstance to our trip, we asked if we could tag along with them, and possiblycrash in their hotel (we would pay, of course). They excitedly said yes, andwere very glad that we were gonna be on the same bus. When we got to the busstation, we found out that Jacklyn was actually on a different bus, but shewould meet back up with us in Madrid. We got to the city but couldn’t checkinto the hotel until later, so we had to lug our bags around the city with uswhile we did stuff. We went to the Prado art museum, got some food, thenchecked out a botanical garden. The girls had broken away at this point, andwe received a call saying that their friend who was paying for the hoteldidn’t feel comfortable with us squatting, and that we needed to find our ownplace to stay. That was a bit of a low blow, but we just dove into the cityand looked for a hostel. Every one we came across was full, one after anotheroffered the same answer. At the end of our wits, we came across HostalCasanova, who had an open room. We readily took it, and were pleasantlysurprised with three beds and cable TV. We quickly ran downstairs to askabout the next two nights, and paid even quicker when we found out we couldget them. While we were paying, a man asked about getting a room and was toldthat the hostel was full… we had gotten the very last room. SO lucky. That night was pretty interesting… me and Rod were supposed to meet up with afriend of mine in the city, but that never happened. We waited in line atthis one club for here to come, but she was 20 minutes late and we decided topeace out. We bar hopped our way home, and came across an Irish Pub thatblasted disco music, a poorly decorated club called KissSex which containedlots of unfortunate looking people and a 6’4’’ drag queen, another club calledBlack Jack that seemed to only serve whisky, a bar called La Boca del Lobo(the mouth of the wolf) that played techno remixes of classic rock tunes, anda salsa bar called Sol y Sombra. We got to sleep around 3am, and had to wakeup at 7 to catch a bus for our day trip to Toledo. Waking up wasn’t too bad… ok, that’s a lie. It sucked. I was exhausted allday. It didn’t interfere with the trip though. The ride to Toledo was only50 minutes and 7 euro, so it was a no brainer to do. The city was beautiful. Its one of those old-world cities that seems to have avoided modernization,which makes it truly magical. Everywhere you look is a gorgeous vista of theriver and the rocky surrounding hillsides. We checked out the cathedral, thecastle, a mosque, and a few museums, and then headed across a bridge to climbone of the surrounding hills/mountains to get a great view of the city. Itwas incredibly, sitting at the top of this hill, overlooking the entire citythat we had trekked across all day. We caught a bus home and crashed early,getting a fantastic night’s sleep before our next day trip, to the north thistime, to the medieval city of Segovia. Segovia was pretty damn gorgeous as well. Almost as soon as you step off thebus, you can see the GIANT roman aqueduct. It runs a long way through thecity, and is just enormous. Its really quite beautiful, huge stonework justrising out of the middle of a city. From there we headed across the city tosee Alcazar, the castle of Segovia. This castle was the inspiration for thecastle in Disneyworld, so it had a very magical quality to it. Actually, assoon as we saw it, my friend Kent started singing “When you wish upon astar…”. We climbed all the way to the top of the tower, and the view wasbreathtaking. You could see well out of Segovia into the surrounding towns,and you could see these awesome mountains that sprung out of rolling greenhills all around the city. I took a great picture of the cathedral, backsetby some rolling green and a snow topped mountain – something I never thoughtI’d see in Spain. We checked out a modern art museum and the cathedral andthen caught the bus home to Madrid, feeling all the days travels starting tocatch up with us. We ate dinner at a real classic Spanish restaurant that was actually amicro-brewery, and I scored some home-brewed double bock beer that wasabsolutely delicious. To celebrate the end of our trip, we bought a bottle ofwine to enjoy at the hostel, but realized that we had no cork screw. Rod wasdestined to get that bottle open, and he attempted (after Kent and I had donethe same) to open the bottle with our room key. Unfortunately, he broke thekey off in the cork, and our door was locked open… there was no way for us toshut it. Luckily we were able to get a replacement key for just a euro, butstill… crazyness. We slept late the next morning and watched some Spanishcartoons before catching our bus back to Seville. What a weekend! I gotta say, I’m really proud to call Seville home. Its warm, sunny, andgorgeous most of the time. The people seem to be more friendly and althoughit’s a big city, its much more personal than Madrid (or Barcelona, from what Iremember from high school). If you ever get the chance to check it out, I strongly suggest doing so.

So its only a week and a half until I head to Morocco, then semana santa after that. That will bring me to the official half way point... OH MY GOD. After that, things just pick up speed. April is going to fly by, having an adventure every week... Grenada, then Stuttgart, Germany, then Lagos, Portugal, then Gibraltar. Absolute madness. This semester is incredible... just incredible.

I´ll catch you all on the flip side!