Around Madrid!

Whew. The last few weeks have been like a whirlwind, and I know that things will only get faster as time goes by. My friends from school came to visit last weekend, and I had a great time getting to catch up with them. I think they enjoyed Madrid, although them not having functioning telephones got old very quickly. One of my favorite things that we did was take a visit to the Royal Palace. Turns out, it is El Palacio Real, and not Versailles, that is the largest palace in Europe.



It is massive and completely beautiful. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but here is me, my friend Laura from home, and my friend Hannah in the palace courtyard.

Going to the Palace helped me to see that I want to do more things around Madrid so that I can really feel like I have had a chance to explore the city. So, last weekend I went to El Parque del Retiro to take in some sun and read outside. Thankfully, it seems like spring has finally come to Madrid, so it was an amazing day, and I believe that I got hot for the first time since being here. Interesting story is that this park was originally built as a private garden for the kings. Imagine that.

Later on that day, some friends and I decided to go on a Teleforica cable car ride. Basically, this cable car takes you over the city and to the more foresty area called Casa del Campo (because the kings, incidentally, also had a house here). It left us with some of the most amazing views that I have ever seen of the city, and was the perfect place to take in the sunset.

This weekend, I hope to explore more of Madrid, and next weekend starts spring break. I will be going to Paris, Normandy, and Caen, France, as well as Berlin and Frankfurt, Germany. There will be pictures and posts to come of my travels!

March showers.

Well, the month of February is over! That means that I have officially been here for two months (or I guess, technically, at this time I was just on the plane).

Last weekend I went to the city of Salamanca, which is to the northwest of Madrid. It is a beautiful little place with cathedrals and baroque architecture. It is also a college town, so there was a young flavor and we enjoyed getting to visit. The weather was supposed to be nasty and rainy the whole time that we were there, but fortunately most of what we got was wind. The winds were up to about 40 mph, which can make climbing to the top of a cathedral pretty interesting. I got some absolutely BEAUTIFUL pictures though, so I thought I would share:

It was just confirmed that the class I was worried about actually ends at the end of April, which makes my calendar wide open for going to Italy and Greece. I am really, really excited about that! I will say that one of my friends from school, Laura, is here to visit for her spring break. She is here with two of my other friends, Emily and Mike. So I hope that I get to hang out with them a bit while they are here.

I will write another post soon when I have more interesting things to update about.