A lot of catching up to do..

Alright everyone, I guess I have been a little lazy.. And I mean really lazy because its been a while since a post.  Since my last post I have hit up Munich, Sevilla, and then Valencia for three straight weekends on the trot and have a ton of stories to share.

First and foremost: Munchen, Germany.  After navigating the bus to madrid, the hour long metro from the bus station to the airport, then hopping on my plane I finally landed in Germany at 10, about 10 minutes behind schedule.  I checked Savannah's flight and I went to the other terminal to meet up with her.  From the airport we took a train to the central station in Munich which was very close to our hostel.  After wandering around the city for a while and getting Burger King where I ordered a number 2 and ended up just getting 2 small fries, where I was too embarrassed to try and communicate again without a language in common, we found the Euro Youth Hostel.  Right when we got in there it was a party.  The receptionist was already drunk with the other one basically passed out by the window.  Embarrassing moment #1, and I will have to give it to Andy for starting this and I am totally going to steal it when it happens.  In Europe, it is a common practice when someone is married to put their ring on their Right ring finger, not their left like in America.  Now Sav had a ring in that exact place so when we checked in the receptionist assumed we were married and some minor confusion ensued...  Needless to say we did clarify that we were not married and proceeded to the bar which is open until 330am on Thursday or Friday morning.  The atmosphere at the Hostel Bar was a lot of fun, everyone was drinking and just having a great time with the bartenders doing their fair share to add to the ambiance by flinging bottle caps off drinks and giving out free jagerbombs and shots for us.  Friday we decided to head on to Neuschwanstein Castle just a couple of hours away in Fussen in Bavaria.  We jumped on the train and then bus to get up to the town, and then took a carriage up to the castle itself, which was pretty incredible.  Apparently the king at the time went on a castle building spree and almost bankrupted the country.  Then some ministers decided to take him and a psychiatrist (because this guy was nuts) and he "died of unknown reasons" one day later in a lake with no witnesses.  Anyhoo, the castle was legit, with some awesome rooms like the throne room and the room of the cave, which was basically was a cave just randomly put in the castle.  The views were spectacular because the castle was basically build on top of a mountain, and was the 3rd of 4 planned castles.  Unfortunately, our dear king died before it was completed, so there are pieces still missing like the actual throne.  Later that night, we hit up a local beerhouse for some tradition German food and beer.  The atmosphere was once again super friendly, loud, and a lot of fun.  There is no seating, or reservations, you just show up and sit down at a large table with whoever else happens to be there.  Luckily for us, we sat across from 4 Chinese tourists from Hong Kong out to get their taste of German culture aka BEER.  I ordered just the house sampler and ended up getting a little bit of some potato goo stuff, quite a bit of duck, even more beef, and even more pork knuckle all in a dark beer based gravy and to drink, a large pint of strong German beer.  The meal was absolutely delicious and I can see why the Germans are very husky (including their women) and loud just from the meal and atmosphere of the beerhouse.  Moving on the our Asian companions.  Each one ordered one beer, which is about the equivalent of 5 beers in the US for alcohol content because its bigger than normal and a lot stronger than normal.  Throughout the meal the grew more more open and even starting talking to us in broken english, punctuated by more and more frequent "CHEERS".  By the end of their beer the guy was basically staring at an incredibly interesting knot in the wood table and the three girls were using each other as supports even though they were sitting down and one of them looked so red in the face I thought she had spent the entire day in a tanning bed.  Saturday was our trip to Dachua and then into the city center.  Dachau was the concentration camp all the others were based off of and had a very informative museum and some of the camp had been recreated or preserved in memory of those that suffered there.  It was very depressing but I would still recommend that everyone try to see it sometime.  After Dachau, we wanted a little pickup so we went to wander around the city center and poke our heads into a couple shops and experience Munich and its culture.  Unfortunately it was freezing so we didn't want to wander around outside for very long and only stayed in the city center for about a couple of hours after stopping at a huge church right in the middle.  Finally, we headed to a upscale german restuarant where we enjoyed pork knuckle and some sausage. After, we headed to Hofbrahaus, not sure if I spelled that right or not, but its basically the most infamous drinking den in the world.  Its this huge building the size of a hotel dedicated to beer.  Basically German heaven and it was awesome.  The beerhouse we went to the night before was no comparison with the size and scope of Hofbrahaus.  The beers came in 1.5L, which is absolutely gigantic and was the best beer I've ever had, both dark and light.  To go with it, I bought the biggest pretzel I've ever seen that is way better any bar beer nuts in the US.  In the end, the trip was a great success.

Check out Facebook for pics =)

Soon to come, Sevilla and Valencia

Madrid y Mas

The last couple of weeks have literally flown by as I have started to adjust to the two different schedules here in Spain: The weekdays and the weekends.  The weekdays are from Monday to Thursday where I spend my time in class, doing homework, or just killing time off.  Classes aren't too difficult as of yet, but I think that my cinema analysis class and my two business classes will get much more difficult in the near future.  As for my grammar and conversation classes, those should help a ton with my fluency.  Once Thursday rolls around the atmosphere changes in general.  People start discussing plans for the weekend or get prepared to head out of town for a trip somewhere in Europe.  Two weekends ago everyone in the program just stayed in Toledo and checked out the local scene which was pretty fun.  A big difference between Europe and the States is the club atmosphere.  In Minnesota, clubs really aren't big at all and people usually just go hang out at the bars.  Here, people will go out to the bars then head to the clubs after the bars are closed until about 6am.

This last weekend, the program had a day trip to Madrid for a little sight seeing at the palace and cathedral.  We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside, but it was pretty sweet.  The throne room was really cool with both thrones a ton of life-size statues.  Everywhere we went in the Palace, there were lions, which I guess are a symbol of power.  One of our favorite activities when going from room to room around 80 times was to guess what each one was for from the porcelain room (made entirely of porcelain), to the man cave (wasn't actually called that) that had a pool table and the smoking room adjacent to it.  It was also interesting that the entire tour was in Spanish for us since our program is supposed to be entirely in Spanish.  I wasn't able to catch some of the random facts, but it did reaffirm my conviction that tours are the same no matter where you are whether Madrid, Washing D.C. or the University of Minnesota: They get a little tiresome as they spew random fact after random fact at you.

After the tour, the majority of our program decided to stay in Madrid for the remainder of the weekend, with most of the group at the Hostel Cats.  We shopped around a little bit and did some sight seeing around the Madrid City Center including Plaza del Sol.  For the night we kept trying to plan a huge group thing but everything backfired when no one knew how to get to the club we all eventually settled on (the person who did didn't want to leave until 1 am), so everyone ended up just wandering around for most of the night trying to find someplace to go.  The group I was with eventually found the club after a long hike and terrible directions from the locals who would claim the club was "just around the corner" over and over again. Once we arrived however the club bouncers demanded I.D.'s and since two of our group of 6 didn't have them we decided we wouldn't split up and turned around.  Saturday night a large group decided to go to Kapital for the night, which is supposed to be the best spot for Saturday nights (the party night in Spain).  We headed over there early to get in at a discounted cover before 1230 with a coupon that lets you in for 15 euros and two free drinks.  The club is incredible.  It has 7 different levels, all with a different theme.  The first floor is a massive dance floor with a bar behind it.  On the stage there are two go-go dancers that are basically eye-candy.  Every 15 minutes or so they shoot CO2 down onto the floor to cool everyone off because it is hot, crowded, and everyone is dancing.  The atmosphere is awesome and everyone is going nuts the whole time, dancing to any song that comes on even though the majority are American.  The second floor is a separate club with a small stage set up for what looks like a small band along with another bar.  The third floor was set up as a different bar/dance area and a balcony overlooking the 1st floor dance floor.  The fourth floor had a specialty bar for mojitos along with another seating area around the balcony set up as suites.  The fifth floor was a completely separate dance floor playing different music that was more Spanish influenced.  The sixth floor was incredibly quiet and had a bunch of couches and a bar that exuded a classy style for lounging or hanging out with a special someone.  The seventh floor called heaven was set up as a neo-gentlemens club that had bright blue lighting with a mixture of sofas and tables for card games along with a bar on each end.  The mood was also relaxed here and there was even a special room for smoking set aside.

I spent the entire night bouncing back and forth between all the levels meeting up with different people, exploring the club, and dancing with various people, even dancing on some raised platforms on the first floor.  It was a ton of fun and I would definitely return there again, but that we have planned a similar group trip (smaller group) to Ibeza (island off the east coast of Spain), the party capitol of the world, during Carnival, the party week in Spain.

Overall it was an incredible experience and I can't wait to see more of Europe and have a great time this semester!  Oh and learn a lot of course..

Primera cuenta

Toledo is a pretty beautiful city.  I haven't had much of a chance to explore the incredible countryside yet, as I've concentrated my time on exploring Old Toledo, which is inside some stone walls and is really cool.  The roads are tiny, and people usually just walk everywhere instead of driving as there is barely any room.  All of the buildings are several stories high and with the roads being about 8-10 feet wide, with no real structure or logic to the roads, its easy to get lost in the maze of streets.

The life here is really different.  Shops open up at about 8 and breakfast here is a little later, starting at 830-10.  Lunch is at 130, followed by siesta from about 2-5 where all the shops close down and everyone goes home to nap.  Things start to get going again around 5-6 and then stuff starts to close down again around 9-10 with dinner starting at 830.  People is general stay up a lot later than in the US, and on the weekends especially its crazy.  Midnight is considered early in the night, and people stay out until 6 on average.

Classes are all in Spanish but are only Monday through Thursday, and we are not allowed to speak English while in the school.  Both the dorms and the school are in the same building, so my classes are around 20 feet from my room.