off to italy... !

Hello all! Just a quick update here... Semana Santa (holy week...spring break!) is here, so I'm headed off to Italy for 10 days! I leave tonight.. ah! I can't believe it :) I'm going with three other girls from my program. We will be in Milan until Saturday, then we're taking a train to Venice. We're going to be in Venice until Monday, when we'll take a train to Rome. Then we have a few days in Rome and are taking a train up to Florence on Thursday. Then on Sunday, we're heading back to Milan and flying back to Madrid on Monday the 5th. It is going to be a whirlwind trip, but I am soooo excited! I am leaving in about an hour for the airport in an hour, so I have to go finish up packing. Love you all..  :D Bonnie

mi vida en españa

Hola hola, que tal todos? Time is flying by here in Madrid... I've been so busy! My dad and Terri have been here for almost a week now - I have had a great time showing them around the city. It's a lot of fun being able to show people what I've been falling in love with for the past couple months... we've done a lot of touristy things, but also have just been walking around and seeing different neighborhoods. I took them to meet my señora, which was a lot of fun. She doesn't know any english, so it was mostly me translating. Terri knows a bit of Spanish, so she was able to talk to my señora about how she had made the apple dessert for us :) It has also been nice having them here because we've been able to go out and try some restaurants! I'm not much help because I haven't been out to eat much, but it has been a lot of fun to go out and try some places. We've found a few really great places (with vegetarian options!) It's also been good timing to have them here because I was just starting to get a bit homesick, so to have some people I care about here is nice :)

My classes are all going great - I have two midterms next week, but they shouldn't be too bad. I'm starting to think about what to do for the few final papers that I have to do. One of them is going to be comparing the syntax of "The Little Prince" in Spanish and English, which has been fun to work on because I just love that story. Another is for my class on Islam in Spain, and I'm thinking on writing it about the concept of cleanliness and purity in Islam compared to in Christianity. My third paper is going to be about some work of art in the Prado art museum. I'm still not sure which I'm going to do, but I'm thinking about doing Velázquez's Las Meninas, and then focusing on how Picasso did a whole series of his own versions of it. We'll see what ends up happening!

My dad, Terri and I are heading to Barcelona this weekend! I went a bit ago with friends from my program and absolutely fell in love with the city. It is a very modern place with a young vibe, yet still a rich history. Barcelona is the center of Catalunya, the north-east region of Spain that is a quite different culture. The Catalans don't typically identify with Spanish culture - there is no bull fighting or flamenco dancing there. It all brings up interesting thoughts (or heated discussions) about a people belonging to a nation that they do not identify with... there is some talk of trying to secede from Spain, but who knows how realistic that is. It was quite interesting though to learn about the history of Catalunya's fight against Franco (and what he represented) - and also about the long history of the football rivalry FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid. I'm looking forward to going back to try to learn a bit more.

Barcelona was the home of Picasso and Antoní Gaudí, a modernist architect. His famous building La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral still in construction, is right in Barcelona. You should look up pictures of it - it is just crazy. Construction of the cathedral started around 1880, and they're expecting to finish in 15 or 20 years. Although there are some strange details in the sculptures (like bunches of fruit), I loved the use of geometric forms and creative lighting. One really neat thing is that on one of the [three] facades, there are sculptures of saints surrounding the entrance (like a typical big cathedral) except the sculptures are done in cubist style. It was all really neat to take in - and to think that this is a building that has been in construction since far before WWI... since when the light bulb was invented! Apparently, construction workers will go work on La Sagrada Familia for a few years before retirement. The whole project is funded by the money that they make from tourists... hopefully this weekend we can continue to fund the project and see it again!

I went to the Picasso Museum also, which has thousands of works (donated by him) from his early career. I'm becoming more and more interested in art history, especially learning about the careers of artists. I really like museums of just one artist so that you can see his/her evolution and how the art has changed with the times. My other favorite part of Barcelona was the BEACH. Early Sunday morning, I woke up and walked down to the beach to watch the sun rise over the Mediterranean. This was one of the most peaceful sights that I have seen in the past 2 months... Just thinking that this is the Mediterranean Sea that I've learned about so many times, that Odysseus sailed on, that borders Egypt. I LOVE all of the history I feel everywhere I am here!

Feeling so connected to the history of this continent is great, but also makes me sad that I am not connected to the history of my land. Sure, I would say that I am to the east coast and the south, but not as much to the history of Minnesota. A lot of that is due to the fact that I hardly learned anything in school about the native Americans who lived there before the northern Europeans arrived. This is making me really wanted to take a class in the American Indian department next year - I should be able to fit it in! Speaking of classes, I have to start thinking about what I'm taking next fall! I'll register in a few weeks here. I have a flexible schedule next year, and basically have a list of about 10 classes that I really want to take. I can take 2 or 3 electives each semester, which is great... but I also am thinking I may want to only take 4 classes in the fall to be less stressed out and to be able to enjoy being back in Madison (as well as try to figure out my life after graduation..ah.) As for this summer, I'm still hoping to go to Uganda, but am waiting now to hear back from the EDGE Project on dates of travel and on more details with the missionaries who receive us on the island. Ideally, I will leave Spain around June 24 or 25, go to Uganda for 30 days, and then head back to the States around July 25. I'm thinking of trying to fly into Chicago first to see Sylvia, who will be working there for the summer. I then will have a few weeks off before moving into my apartment in Madison, but I have a feeling they will be filled with things such as camping, spending time at Tim/Tara/Addie's, or going to my friend Gunnar's cabin. Anyways, at this rate, the summer is going to come before I know it!

With my dad and Terri here, I've realized that there are some cultural differences that stick out quite quickly that I may not have noted on my blog yet. One of them is smoking cigarettes... I swear at least half of the people I know here smoke. It is now illegal to smoke in the metro and the busses, but people still smoke in restaurants, in the university buildings and of course in the bars. A few weeks ago I saw a girl who must have been 12 or 13 walking with her mom... and the girl was smoking. Imagine how different a society must be for a 13-year-old to be smoking a cigarette in public while hanging out with her mom. The cigarette packs here say in large type "Fumar puede matar," which is literally "smoking can kill." One other cultural difference which I am not too fond of is PDA - public displays of affection. It seems that in almost any public place, it is acceptable for a couple to constantly kiss - and passionately. The craziest thing for me is riding the metro at night and seeing couples who must be at least 50 years old just making out like there wasn't anybody else around... like they weren't in the dirty metro stop, haha. I recently made a list of other cultural observations that I'm going to start including in my blog to help give you a sense of the daily things that I see.

Everything is going great for me... I really love my apartment, I'm feeling confident about my Spanish, and the weather is finally getting better! I had a really good Spanish day today - I have my on-days and my off-days, but the on-days are becoming more frequent. Tomorrow is Saint Patrick's day, so I'm going to an Irish Pub with my intercambio and her friends - a good chance for me to help them with their English :) Other than that, there are a few more things I want to show my dad and Terri before we head off to Barcelona for the weekend. They leave next Tuesday, and then I leave for Italy next Thursday! I will update before then to let you know more details about what I will be doing in Italy. As you may have noticed, I hardly ever post any pictures - and that is because I am so bad at taking them. I always try to take pictures and so I bring my camera, but then the few that I do end up taking just don't really fit with what I've seen. Luckily, I can easily access photos that my friends have taken, it is just a matter of downloading and compiling them so that I have them myself.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Love, Bonnie

It's March!!

Buenas noches! The past week has just flown by for me... there are so many things I want to tell you guys! Last Wednesday was my last night with my señora, so we had an action packed night of watching Pasa Palabra, a spanish game show based which is great for vocabulary, she made me my favorite soup (a carrot and zucchini puree) and we played board games. Before I get too far into this post, I would like to apologize in advance for my English - I honestly feel like my writing is not nearly as interesting now that I'm getting used to the Spanish sentence structure.

At any rate, on Thursday, I left to go meet my roommates from UW in Amsterdam! It was an absolutely wonderful weekend... so nice to see my friends. Amsterdam is a really pretty city - filled with old row houses lining the beautiful canals. Our hostel was right in the middle of everything... meaning it was right in the Red Light district. It was actually really shocking, even on day three. Just walking down the street on Friday morning you would glance to the side and OH there is a woman in the window wearing less than a bathing suit dancing and trying to make eye contact with me... the whole prostitution atmosphere was a bit crazy. The Red Light district was pretty touristy - lots of souvenir shops and gawking visitors. In the middle of the main street of it was a pretty canal filled with probably a hundred beautiful white swans... I wanted to take a picture of them, but you have to be careful about taking pictures with the prostitutes there in the store fronts. Besides that part of Amsterdam, the rest was great! The atmosphere was really nice and chill... we visited a few of the fabled coffeeshops and also had some really great falafel. The food I was most excited about was the french fries - I guess they originated in Holland... there were street vendors everywhere selling them! The weather was pretty dreary - chilly and rainy the whole time. Luckily, my señora let me borrow her nice winter coat so I was all set :) Here's a picture of Ruth and I, with some bikes and a canal in the background.

We were able to go to the Anne Frank house, which is a museum including the secret annex. I haven't read her diary in at least ten years, so I'm thinking about reading it again - in Spanish this time! It was really sobering to be walking along these beautiful canals and then remember that Amsterdam was very much affected by WWII. It all sparked conversations about how different the United States is - not having any foreign wars on our soil, we cannot see the effects of total war - on civilians, on structures or on the atmosphere of a city. Amsterdam also has two monuments dedicated to WWII, one of which is a really nice called the "Homo-Monument."      (Side note - I get the feeling that in Europe there is less of a worry about being politically correct or offensive... if there were a monument to homosexuals in the US, it would not officially be named the homo-monument. For another example, the equivalent of a dollar-store here in Spain is a shop typically owned by Chinese immigrants, and people usually call the stores "Chinos"... which would again probably not be widely used in the states.)

Anyways, we also went to the Van Gogh museum, which was really cool! I really like being able to see a lot of work by one artist together to understand how their work evolved throughout time. As for my art class at the Prado, everything is going great. Last week, I had my first "tutoria" - the two hour session I'm going to have every Wednesday that is at the actual museum, seeing the paintings in person that I've learned about in class. I'm really excited about it - I am still so happy I decided to take this class! I ended up switching my classes with Spaniards around, so now I'm taking a class called "Cartography: Strategies in Security and Defense" and another called "Geography and Gender". Both are going really well so far - I got really lucky with the professors! Turns out that I now have all of my classes on Monday/Tuesday (with the Prado tutoría on Wednesdays), so that will make it a bit easier to travel.

Speaking of traveling, I have a busy month coming up. This weekend, I'm going to Barcelona on a trip with other students from my program. Then, my dad and Terri get here next Wednesday! I'm so excited to see them, but also excited to have visitors to show around the city. They're heading to Sevilla for a couple days while I have class, and then we're actually all going to Barcelona again the weekend of the 19th. I've always heard that Barcelona is a great city but in completely different ways than Madrid, so I'm really excited to get to know it. After my dad and Terri leave (they're here for two weeks), I'm going to Italy for spring break with a few girls from my program.  And then, what do you know, it's April already!

I'm really happy in my apartment ("piso" en español) so far. When I got home from Amsterdam on Sunday night, I moved my stuff over here. The location is great - I'm only about a 25 minute walk to class (or 10 minute bus trip) and am right by most of my friends. Turns out there are 6 spanish girls all around my age plus me... a lot of fun! I'm really glad to be living with so many people, but am having a hard time keeping them all straight, haha. They have all been really welcoming and I haven't had any problems whatsoever. Everything came furnished, and I ended up borrowing sheets and a comforter from my señora. I have been unpacking and decorating, and it is starting to feel like home :) Here's me sitting on this nice sofa-wedge-thing that came in the room:

I've been trying to explore my new neighborhood, but it has been hard with the rain. I feel like it has been raining for at least 3 or 4 weeks now... everybody says how uncharacteristic it is, but that still doesn't change the fact that the forecast for Sunday is 43 and rain! I'm really hoping that it starts to warm up here in the next couple of weeks. There are so many things in Madrid that I look forward to doing once it gets nice out. I have been fitting in as much running as I can, but it is hard to motivate myself after being in class from 8:30-4:00 Mondays and Tuesdays. I've been teaching English, which has been great! Besides classes, traveling and moving, I've just been trying to hang out with friends as much as possible. Last night, I tried to go to free yoga at a community center with my friends Melissa and Amanda, and we ended up at this really cool hippie-feeling place that felt like a commune. I feel like I keep stumbling upon wonderful little places like this, and its really making me love this city.

All for now, besos! -Bon

Los Domingos

The atmosphere in Spain is pretty chill - looking at an average Sunday is a great way of seeing this. Today, I slept until noon, ate an hour long breakfast with my señora, watched a movie / napped; then, I went for a walk to try to wake myself up, and came back and watched another movie with my señora and we had our merienda, the afternoon snack of tea, cookies, clementines and some homemade fried dough/honey thing that she made. Now, I'm listening to Spanish music and am about to read in bed before falling asleep.. not a bad day! My señora makes a point of being around home on Sundays, and I think that is the general trend. It is nice because it is basically expected that people relax, catch up on sleep and eat lots of good food. 

This is my last week living at my señora's house, so I've been spending a lot of time with her. Yesterday, I went on a touristy day with her and her niece, and we went to 3 museums and exhibits: a Miquel Barceló exposition (contemporary artist), the Romanticism Museum (essentially an old queen's house) and an exhibit of cultural artifacts, many of which came from the UK's collections. Then, 2 of my señora's kids (with their families) came over so I could meet them - it was pretty overwhelming but a lot of fun! The bigger a group of Spaniards is, the faster they talk, so I was mostly just trying to keep up with what they were saying... but I definitely realize that their family dynamic is similar to a lot of American families. They got into a long discussion about euthanasia, and the movie El Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside). I didn't give any input into the discussion, first of all because I didn't want to join either side, and second because it is really hard to make an argument in Spanish. I decided to watch El Mar Adentro today, so I had to figure out how to get some vpn network set up so that Sam's netflix account would think that I'm in the USA and it would allow me to watch movies. I got it figured out, and now this means I can catch up on The Office! :)

Tomorrow I have a day full of class - my three reunidas classes with other Americans, and then a couple complutense classes with Spaniards. I have decided that I'm going to try to not take Intro to Psych and I'm going to try to do a geography class. I'm attending 2 new classes tomorrow afternoon to see which one I like better. I found myself spacing out a lot during my psych class, and I just don't want to have to do that all semester. I'm also starting to teach english classes, and I have my first lessons tomorrow! The family has 3 girls, ages 3, 5 and 9. I'm going to teach them for an hour every Monday and Wednesday afternoon... I think it is going to be more like babysitting in English, but that's okay - they're paying me 18 euros an hour! 

My dad and Terri are coming to visit on March 10, which I just realized is only 2.5 weeks away!! These next couple weeks are going to fly by - I am going to Amsterdam this weekend with my roommates from Madison (Maggy is studying there), when I get home on Sunday I move into my apartment, and then next weekend am going to Barcelona with other students from my program here. I'm sad to be leaving my señora's house, but am also really excited to move in with the Spanish girls, and to get to know a completely different side of Spanish culture :) 

I'm off to bed, muchos besos (lots of kisses!) - Bonnie

February 15

Even though today is a cold, rainy/snowy day in Madrid, I'm having a wonderful day! I woke up at 7 am this morning to get ready for class, and then I had class. I am really liking all of my classes actually! My first class is about the artwork at the Prado art museum. We're starting around year 1600 and going to the most recent work. Even though it is pretty early, the professor is very easy to understand and is making the subject of art history very interesting for me :) My classes are all going to fit in together very well... the art history class brings in a lot of Spanish history (especially the monarchy) and religious topics. On Thursday, I start a class about the Bible and its use in western literature. I am also in a class on Islam in Spain, in which we have so far been talking about Islam as a religion and how the muslims conquered Spain in the 8th century. I think that these all tie together very well... as well as in a lot of the travels that I have been doing! 

This past weekend, I went to Marrakech (Morocco) and Granada. Both were absolutely amazing... this was my favorite trip so far! I am so glad that I went. There were 6 of us from my program. Wednesday morning, we flew to Marrakech, which is an old city in the interior of Morocco. The hostel that we stayed at was essentially a family's house and some rooms that they rented out - it was decorated so nicely and we got served a free breakfast. On Wednesday, we just kind of got our bearings straight and walked around the city. Our hostel was just inside the wall of the Medina, the old city walls. It was such a contrast - inside the Medina is just crazy and busy... lots of winding little lanes, street vendors, people hanging out together, donkeys with their carts. Outside the Medina was an area that essentially felt like Ixtapa, Mexico - beautiful, but built up recently and mostly for tourists. The Djema el-Fna is Marrakech's large flea market. It was just amazing - and I'm saying that in the sense that it amazed me how big it was, how much was going on, how much attention we got, etc. There was so much commotion everywhere - very exciting, but almost stressful. Even on the trip from the airport to our hostel, I was almost laughing because I was so happy to see everybody - more bicycles or scooters than cars, weaving in and out of each other, yelling at each other. The whole two days was just filled with new everything... sights, sounds and smells!

There were two really new experiences for me: 1. being in a non-Christian country, and 2. not being able to speak the people's language. Both were pretty refreshing. There were beautiful mosques all over the place... I wasn't sure if I would feel out of place for not wearing a headscarf, but I would say that under half of the Moroccan women wore them, so I felt fine. We had also been learning about the Berbers and Arabs coming into the Iberian peninsula, so it was really neat to see Marrakech (an old Berber town on the edge of a mountain range) and learn about its specific history in that epoch. At no point was I worried about my safety - the only thing was the cat-calls and people constantly saying "Hello! Sorry!" - the only English words most people knew. As far as the language, Moroccans typically speak French and/or Arabic - it seemed like most people speak both. It was quite frustrating not being able to communicate with people - it was hard to even walk into a restaurant and have somebody show us on a map where we were. This really made me realize how far I've come with my Spanish.. and got me really excited to come back to Spain to keep working on it :) I feel pretty good with how much I've improved - not necessarily my grammar, but being able to understand (some of) what people are saying even when its a mile a minute and slurred. 

We were in Marrakech for a 2 days and 1 night, and then Thursday night we took an overnight train to Tangers, which is up on the coast at the Strait of Gibraltar. We then took a ferry across to Algericas, Spain. How crazy is it that I saw the Rock of Gibraltar and the Pillars of Hercules... and even that I was on the Mediterranean Sea!? Late Friday night we arrived in Granada, still in Andalucia (southern Spain). It was rainy and in the 40's, but Granada was still absolutely beautiful. Granada is home to La Alhambra, the last Muslim palace/fortress in Spain. Again, I've learned a lot about Granada in previous classes and in my class on Islam, because it is where the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel finished the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492. Because of this, there is a lot of historical stuff to see there. We of course toured the Alhambra (if you don't know much about it, you should google it! amazing) and also walked around the old Islamic quarter of town (from after the reconquest). We also went to the Royal Chapel, where Isabel and Ferdinand are buried. All of this was just crazy... to think that I was actually standing in the room where Columbus proposed his trip to India to Isabel! Everything that happened in 1492 in Spain happened in Granada (and because of the taking of the Alhambra) - the expulsion of the Jews and the unification of the Spanish language with its first grammar book.  

It all made for a wonderful time in Granada - it is too bad it wasn't nicer weather, but I loved it. Now that I have visited a number of other Spanish cities (Sevilla, Salamanca, Toledo, Granada), I can appreciate even more that I chose to study in Madrid. I know I've said this before, but I just love how it is a "living city". I feel like I am able to join the city, to be a part of it, instead of just be a tourist. I'm so happy I chose to come here! I have a pretty chill week ahead of me - just class! Tomorrow, I am getting together with Julia, my intercambio. She finishes her exams tomorrow, so I'm excited to be able to spend more time with her! Most of my friends have moved out of their home stays into their apartments (I move out in 2 weeks). Tomorrow night, we're going to a friend's house and he is going to make tacos for us - I have been missing my Chipotle! I'm also going to start "teaching" English to my Señora's grandsons who are moving to Dallas in a couple months... they're pretty young, so this will essentially be playing with them and just speaking English. I feel pretty lucky to be able to get to know my señora's family like this, and I am looking forward to have this connection with her still even when I move into my other apartment. I am going to go make dinner with her right now (even though we just finished our tea and afternoon snack).. but I am so happy to be able to share the details of my trip with you guys! I still need to get pictures together, and will do that when I have time this week. Hope everybody had a wonderful Valentines Day! Love, Bonnie

Fotografías!

Hola amigos, que tal? Aquí están algunas fotos:

Melissa, Amanda and I taking pictures with the peacocks here. This was in the park of the "Palacio Real", the royal palace that is a short walk from my house. The park used to be the private yard of the king and queen who lived in the palace, but they no longer live in the palace. Now, they have a nice park with lots of beautiful peacocks! 

A nice sunset from a different park by my house... reminds me of Madison

Graffiti is EVERYWHERE here. This is one of my favorite ones at our university. As you can tell, the graffiti here is usually happy. The photo below is of a "Victory" sign on a wall of the University of Salamanca - traditionally graffitied onto the exterior walls after a student completed his PhD. It is really interesting seeing the graffiti everywhere... while it is sadly sometimes on historic monuments, it is typically seen as an acceptable thing.

This is Ruth (roommate from UW) and I in front of the large Gothic cathedral in Sevilla. It is the largest example of Gothic architecture in the world! This picture sort of gives you a sense of the plaza - a large place to hang out, usually with benches and fountains. There are plazas everywhere! In the twenty minute walk from my house to the city center, I walk through seven or eight plazas. It is so nice to have pedestrians be the focus of the cities here, rather than cars.

My roommate Marissa and I in front of the Temple of Debod. This is an egyptian temple that was reconstructed in Madrid as a gift to recognize Spain's help with saving some other ruins. We got to enter the temple! It was really amazing being able to see the carvings not in a picture, but 1 foot in front of my face. The Temple is actually in a large park that is right next to the apartment that I will be moving into! We went to the temple with our señora after we all went to watch the changing of the guards at the Palacio Real... a nice touristy day :)

Me in Salamanca. I did a day trip there yesterday with two other girls from my program. In this picture, I am standing on an old Roman bridge, and you can see two cathedrals in the background. Salamanca is another beautiful city, with lots of open space and cool old traditions. On the facade of the University (the oldest in Spain), there are intricate carvings. If you are able to find the small frog in the carvings, it is said that you will have good luck on your exams. After at least ten minutes of craning my neck, I found it!  Similar to my previous weekend in Sevilla, it was nice to get out of the big city of Madrid and see "old" Spain. Salamanca is a couple hours away by bus, and I was able to see a lot of smaller Spanish towns that are actually quite run down. 

These are just some random photos from my last few weeks here! Today I went to the Reina Sofia, one of the big art museums here with more recent collections... including Picasso's Guernica. It is absolutely amazing - it is so large and humbling, it was hard not to tear up thinking about the Spanish Civil War, the reason he painted it in the first place. We saw a lot of other Picasso and Salvador Dali pieces also! One thing I love about Spain is that Sundays are really family days. There are always people out for long meals (often over 2 hours), hanging out in the plazas or visiting the museums, which are typically free on Sundays. I also went for a long run today along the river and over some of the neat bridges that they have. The river here is not very impressive, but they are working on beautifying it by putting in nice wide biking and running paths, playgrounds for children and rows of trees. They blocked the river off for the winter to make construction easier, and I am looking forward to the spring so that they open it back up again. My intercambio buddy, Julia, lives just on the other side of the river, so today I explored her neighborhood. I saw her a few times this week - we went to the "Museo del Jamon", a bar with cheap beer but with pig legs hanging all over. I'm glad I went once, but I told her that was probably enough, haha. She's in the middle of her exams from fall semester, but I'm looking forward to spending more time with her once she's done!

I have a big week ahead of me... I'm going to Morocco and Granada! There are 6 of us from my program going - we're flying into Marrakech on Wednesday morning, going up to Tangier (on the coast) on an overnight train Thursday night, taking the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar and then on to Granada for a couple days. I'm sooo excited for it all. Morocco is one of the places that was at the top of my list for travel destinations - my professor for my Islam class suggested a number of places for us to go, so it should be a really great trip. I happily told Sam that we will be on the same continent again for 48 hours :)

On a family note, I have changed my computer background to the cutest picture of Tim and Addie... she is so adorable! I feel sad that I am not able to see her and how much she is going to be changing in the next several months, but at least I am able to see pictures! I will update again after my trip this weekend! Love, Bonnie

My life in Madrid

Hola todos! Disculpame por no escribir en mucho tiempo...

I am having a fabulous time in Madrid :) I have done a lot in the last week and a half.. I can't believe I've been here for almost 3 weeks! Part of it feels like it has been only a couple days and part feels like it has been a couple months. I am at the point where I feel comfortable in my daily schedule, but I still feel like a tourist when I'm exploring the city. There are so many places to see in Madrid - I have a good grasp on the big things, but am still working on trying to get to know the city. The city itself is more interesting to me every day - as with any big city, it has so many little pockets to explore. Each day I try to go to a new part. Today, I explored the neighborhood that I will be moving to in March and walked through a wonderful park just a couple blocks away, with botanical gardens and a sky lift to see views of the city.

My apartment! I am living in my home stay for one more month and will move into my apartment on March 1.  The apartment is fabulous... I will be living with 5 Spanish girls who are all students and all seem so nice! I have a corner room with my own balcony, it all comes furnished, and my room is painted orange! It is only 1 block from a good metro stop and about 20 minutes from school.. It seems like a match made in heaven :) I am really happy about it, but still excited to be able to stay with my senora for the next month.

This past weekend I went to Sevilla, a 6 hour bus ride south of Madrid. I went with 11 other friends from my program, and we all stayed in an awesome hostel. Sevilla is a beautiful town and it was great to get out of Madrid to see a more stereotypical Spanish city. The streets there are even more confusing than in Madrid! We took a long walking tour of the city and saw the great Gothic cathedral (3rd largest cathedral in Europe) and lots of beautiful old buildings and palaces that had to do with Sevilla's role as the main port city in Spain's glorious days of colonialism. I also saw Ruth, my roommate from UW. Always nice to have a familiar face :)

I was matched with a spanish student, Julia, to do an "intercambio." We speak both Spanish and English to help each other learn the other language. I have hung out with her a couple times and am happy to say that she is my first Spanish friend! She is very welcoming and a lot of fun to be with... I have met some of her friends and we have plans to meet tomorrow and possibly see a movie. She is studying indigenous cultures of America, so most of her texts are in English - so I'm going to help her out with those. I'm really happy that I got matched with somebody who is so great and is interested in hanging out! Besides hanging out, I think she will be a big help with my grammar.

Today was my first day of class! I had the 3 with other Americans: one on the works of the Prado, one on Islam, and one on syntax. I am really excited about the first two and am not quite sure about syntax, haha. We will see how tomorrow goes :) I had to leave home before the sun rose this morning, but it was   refreshing walking to class so early, and needless to say, I look forward to waking up bright and early again tomorrow morning.

I am going to upload some pictures in the next couple days, and will fill in some more details then! Sending my love, Bonnie