First off, sorry I’ve been bad with keeping up the blog, but
these last few weeks have been crazy busy!
I’m absolutely loving every minute of it and can’t believe I only have
one month left :(
From Thursday April 4th to Sunday April 7th
I was in Toledo, Avila, and Madrid (again ha) with the UConn in Granada group,
and the lovely addition of Gustavo’s wife (Senora Toth!!) and their new
addition, the adorable Juan Bosco! We
left On Thursday afternoon and were in Toledo that night as it is about 5 ½
hours away. All three of these cities
are in central Spain and we’re down south.
On the way to Toledo we stopped for dinner at the pueblo of done other
than… Don Quixote! For those of you who
don’t know, Don Quixote is the not so smart “knight” in one of the Spain’s most
famous novels. If you’ve taken any
Spanish class you’ve most likely heard the name of read a passage or two as the
book is super long. The most known part
of the novel is when Don Quixote mistakes the windmills in his pueblo for
monsters, and runs himself and his horse right into the windmill. The pueblo had many windmills but they were
in the mountains. I still can’t believe
the bus made it up there in one piece, but I’m so glad it did because the view
was amazing. However, it was raining so
it was quick pics and back to the bus for to go back down the mountain for
dinner.
We spent the next day until lunch in Toledo. Toledo itself has a medieval feel, and is
known for its swords and knives. Today,
they’re especially known for the swords that appear in the movies, like Lord of
the Rings and Kill Bill as examples.
Sorry family but I didn’t buy any kitchen knives, because this was also
the day I found out I was officially buying a car back in the states and money
was being taken out that day. So yes I
now have a car waiting for me in the driveway when I get home!!!!! :D We also went to the Synagogue El Transito. It’s
the first synagogue I’ve ever been to.
Toledo is also known for meats different from what we’ve tried here so
far, such as, bull, venison, and partridge (like the bird in the 12 days of
Christmas) so at lunch I had venison in sauce in addition to paella and it was
super good.
After lunch, we made the trip to Avila, which was only a few
hours away from Toledo. We did a short
walk with Gustavo and our teacher/favorite tour guide MariCarmen, to see the
outside of The Wall of Avila that surrounds the city and then we had free time
for dinner and what not. One of my
friends and I were pretty drained from the week before and the few days of
traveling, so we decided to chill out and relax in her room sleepover
style. I’m talking sweats, jar of peanut
butter, and watching the Voice on projectfreetv. We had a blast, especially since my friends
and I never get to hang out like that here because we all live with different
families and having friends over isn’t encouraged. It gave me a nice taste of hanging out in my
suite back at UConn which I miss… shout out to the roomies!!! <3
That morning we got
to go to the top of The Wall of Avila and walk along the top of it. From there we could see all of Avila and
more. Avila is the highest city in all
of Spain; so being on top of the wall that surrounds it brought us to the tipity
top. We also went to the birthplace and
church of Mother Teresa while in Avila.
Throughout the day, we kept running into a wedding party that was
dressed up in masks and costumes of different medieval characters. There was one guys dressed in a cloak and
masquerade crow mask. He was
hilarious. He kept squawking at our
group and made jokes as one girl tried to squawk back. Him and his friend even took a picture with
MariCarmen as she tried to impersonate a nun with the hood of her coat.
We had lunch slightly outside of Avila on the way at a
restaurant on the way to Madrid. There
we had piglet, sheep, and lamb. They
were all very good and a specialty of Avila, but the piglet was hard for a lot
of people to eat. They brought out the
whole piglet…still intact…face and all…. If you’ve taken bio1107 it was like
that :/ However, it was super good if you just ignored the face, but some
people had to switch to the vegetarian table.
But after lunch… we finally made it to Madrid! J Why finally? I mean it was my third time there in four
weeks after all. BUT this time in Madrid
I ran the Medio Maraton de Madrid! The Madrid Half Marathon, all 21.7 km/13.1
miles of it….even though we thought 13.1 only equaled 20 km…woops. I ran it with to friends from UConn in
Granada and two of my best friends (Mike Tedone and Katie Lainas woot! woot!)
from UConn. Katie, Mike, and I are
all in UConn Endurance (a running club
on campus) so our club is now officially international! It was Mike and mine’s 6th half
marathon with all but one each running together, and Katie’s 5th. Katie and I have run all 5 of those
together. So needless to say, us
casually meeting up in Madrid to run a half together was pretty special. Mike is studying in London for the semester
and Katie is studying in Paris (See my Paris blog post to read all the great
stuff the two of us did together there!).
The three of us had a great first night of sangria, tapas, and catching
up.
Somehow in the midst of catching up we decided we joining
the rest of the UConn crew for a night out in Madrid at El Kapital, which is
one of the best clubs in Spain and Europe.
VAlE LA PENA! (Worth it!) We had a blast on all 7 levels of the club
including a failed karaoke attempt of Hit Me Baby One More Time on floor two. We sadly missed our turn for it… don’t worry
Mike there’s still late night! ;) So
after leaving the club at 4 am the 5 of us (My two friends from UConn in
Granada and us three) woke up at 7:30 and met up at 8:30 to walk to the 9:30
start. We all did great hovering the
2-hour mark. This was my 6th
half and 3rd best time of 2:04…guess it’s time to challenge myself
with a marathon. After the half, we went
to the Prado and the Palacio Real.
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