Madrid! Toledo! Poblet! Oh my!

So it's been a while since I have updated. Sorry for that. For the record, I haven't been doing anything too terribly exciting during the week-- all my classes are going fine, I like my language and grammar class (despite the 9am start time) and surprisingly, I am enjoying my Hispanic poetry class. I'm kind of enjoying analyzing poems, looking for metaphors and underlying themes... it's definitely a challenge, seeing as I was never that great at analyzing poems in English, but it's keeping me engaged. We were supposed to have our first fieldtrip this afternoon in my Barcelona: The City and it's History class, but it started pouring down rain about 15 minutes in so it was called off. It has definitely been a transition to go from studying physics and anatomy for countless hours in the library, to having a lot more reading and analyzing and discussion about literature and history. I can't decide if I like this change or not... it's a bit drastic, so I feel a little bit out of my element, but regardless, I think I'll definitely learn a lot.

The past couple weekends have been a lot of fun! January 28-30, the whole Advanced Spanish Studies group (all 30 or so of us) took a "study tour" to Madrid. We met bright and early on Thursday morning at the train station, had some breakfast (the fresh squeezed orange juice here is AMAZING!) and boarded. I started watching Twilight in Spanish, but at some point dozed off. It was pretty entertaining while it lasted though. We arrived late morning, and right away checked into our hotel. The hotel was really nice, and I stayed in a room with two other girls from my program on the 8th floor. Seeing as this will definitely be the nicest accommodations I will be staying at for the remainder of my time in Europe (hellooo hostels), I savored it. Right away, we headed over to la Casa de la Villa/Ayuntamiento, which is the equivalent of the town hall building. We had a guided tour, and got to see the room where the city officials still hold their meetings. (**Disclaimer: My head was overwhelmed with historical facts this weekend, so I'll try to throw them in whenever I remember, which may not be very often). After the tour, we all headed over to a little restaurant on a side street for a traditional Spanish comida of tapas. Everything was delicious, excluding the tripa (pig intestines) that I tried. Oh well, check that one off the list. We then went on a guided walking tour of the city, with special emphasis placed on what Madrid was like before the Bourbons were in control. After that, we headed over to the Prado museum, and were able to see the most famous paintings housed there. My favorite was Las Meninas by Velazquez, probably because I had seen Picasso's interpretation of this painting at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona.  But we also saw some great works by Goya and El Greco, too. That ended our first day, and later that evening, a bunch of us went to Kapital, the biggest club in Madrid; it has 7 stories, and each floor has a different type of music playing, so that was a lot of fun.

The following day was probably my favorite of the weekend. We took a charter bus to Toledo, which is about an hour outside of Madrid. It's a beautiful old town, with narrow cobblestone streets and a lot of character. We went to a small church that houses one of El Greco's most famous works called "El Entierro del Conde Orgaz," and then headed over to an old synagogue. At one point in time, Toledo used to have a large population of not only Catholics, but Muslims and Jews as well, which was very uncommon for a Spanish town in the 14th century. After the synagogue, we went to el Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes, which was built in the 15th century. It had a great center courtyard with orange trees and an old well where the Franciscan monks used to grow their own food. Finally, we had a guided tour of the Catedral de Toledo. It took 250 years to build, and it shows-- jaws were dropping at how intricate everything was! I have never seen a more beautiful church, with so many different artistic styles represented. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photos inside, but I was able to snap one of a depiction of the heaven's opening up in the ceiling. No way my picture does it any sort of justice, but I will always remember how beautiful this cathedral was. That concluded our day trip to Toledo, and we were able to get out of the bus and snap some panoramic views before heading back to Madrid.

Our last day in Madrid, we were able to tour the Palacio Real, where the Kings and Queens used to live, but don't anymore. The rooms were really extravagant, filled with ornate ceiling paintings and huge wall-to-wall rugs. We concluded our visit by going to el Reina Sofia, a contemporary art museum that was built from a huge old hospital. The main event was definitely seeing Picasso's Guernika, which was very cool. Seeing as it was a contemporary art museum, there were some interesting, shall we say, "paintings" of seemingly blank canvases, along with some other strange pieces. There was some confusion as to how certain things were considered art, but that's neither here nor there.

Off to class, I'll add the Poblet day trip stuff later!

//Poblet\\
Ok, so like promised, I will add my Poblet day trip on here. Better late than never, right? Anyway, a few weekends back, IES took us on a day trip to this small little town about an hour and a half outside of Barcelona. We showed up outside of the Hard Rock Cafe in Plaza Catalunya for our 8am departure, a bit sleep-deprived and more than anything, looking forward to being able to nap on the bus. We arrived and immediately went to the monastery that houses 30 or so monks who live there and take care of the place. We got to see where their old living quarters were, the dining hall, library, etc. Overall, pretty cool with a long history, but nothing that really wowed me. After the monastery tour, we loaded back on the bus and took the quick drive to a nearby town called Montblanc. They took us to a restaurant called El Call de Montblanc, where we ate a traditional Catalan meal called calçotado. Basically, they give you a bib, and for good reason! There is a contraption that I like to call the "wine bong," where you grab the handle of the jar and directly pour the wine into your mouth. No wine glasses, nothing. As you may be able to imagine, it can get a little messy, but fun nonetheless! Then they bring out an appetizer of spring onions. Basically, you peel the charred outer shell, dip them in this AMAZING sauce (tomato, almond, etc.) and then just eat them whole. Normally, I wouldn't find an onion appetizer very... appetizing, but these were really good, and it was a fun and messy experience! Then they bring out a gigantic plate of more appetizers like baked potatoes and artichoke, and then comes out the meat. All types you could imagine, including blood sausage, which I finally decided I should probably try to see if I was missing out on something. No. Not a fan. Then they bring out dessert, which was a typical Catalan favorite called crema catalana. It reminds me of flan with caramelized sugar on top, and was really delicious. After stuffing our faces with this delicious meal, we had some free time to explore Montblanc. A group of us basically just blindly walked around, and found a great little lookout hill where we could see the whole town. It was a super windy day, but we were able to enjoy the sunshine and have a nice photo shoot atop this hill. That pretty much concluded the day trip, and I can say that I ended up really enjoying it.