Springtime in Madrid :)

Well its official..spring has arrived! This past week we have had marvelous weather in Madrid, and I've been trying my best to take advantage of it. After two weekends of travelling, I have spent a lot of this week catching up with friends, which has been great. Noel had a friend visiting from the US, so we all hung out together several times, which was a lot of fun!! We have all been enjoying the terrazas (terraces..or basically just eating/drinking outside). On Friday, I went with Kelly on a day-trip to Aranjuez, which is just a 45 min train ride outside of Madrid. The main attraction there is the "Spring Palace," or the dwelling of the royal family during the spring. We took the tour..and it reminded me very much of the Palacio Real in Madrid, but more "springy." We had gorgeous weather, so we spent a lot of time wandering around the town and the beautiful gardens outside the palace. We had a nice relaxing lunch as well. Then, I got back to Madrid in time to meet up with Cassandra, another friend which whom I needed to catch up!!! We had a great night!! And today..I have spent lots of time updating my blog, but also went to the park with Ruth, Fonsi, Carlos, and Aitor for a few hours. It was nice and relaxing, and was so warm, it felt like summer! I learned a new card game, which was fun, and of course, got some sun :) Tonight I'm heading out with Ruth and some other friends...another late Madrid night for sure. Anyway, I think i have finally finished my updates...for now!

Off to the land of Mozart and Beethoven!!

Just days after I had returned from my amazing weekend in the Basque Country, I was off to Vienna with Christina. Since I've been here, I don't think I have ever done two big trips consecutively like this, so it was a bit overwhelming. Of course, I can't complain...both trips were incredible! I made it through the work week, still exhausted and a bit under the weather...but noenetheless excited for my next adventure. And an adventure...it certainly was!! If anyone remembers the story of my trip to Budapest with Christina, you know that it was great, but certainly not without some stress, improvising, and adventure. I have come to expect that travelling with Christina is always a lot of fun (we never seem to run out of things to talk and laugh about) and very efficient (we both love to see and do a lot!) but also always ends with some sort of exciting, funny story to tell! We start this adventure at 3:15 in the am, when we wake up and get ready to head out (Christina had "slept" over at my place the night before..."slept" in quotes because we didn't really do much sleeping). We walked towards Calle Princesa where we waited for the night bus for 20 minutes. We needed to take a bus to get to the airport bus..and when the first bus didn't arrive, we ended up takng a cab. Then, eventually, we got on the airport bus and made our way to the airport. We arrived, went through security, and got to our gate, exhausted but excited for the trip. Suddenly, though, we noticed that the screen at the gate no longer had our flight posted. So, I got up to look at the screen to see if there had been a change of gate and sure enough our flight was cancelled..yes, CANCELLED!! So...since it was 6 am and there was no one in the gate to talk to, we had to go back out, and basically all the way around the airport to get back to check-in (took about 15 mins). Luckily, we were flying Lufthansa, which is an airline that works to get you on another flight if you have problems. Also, luckily, there was a flight going to Vienna through Munich, leaving just an hour after our flight was supposed to leave. So, long story short, it all worked out in the end, but not without some panic and stress. We finally arrived at our hostel around 2 or 3 pm, and decided to walk to a restaurant that we had read about in our guide book (courtesy of a Madrid public library). After a bit of wandering ( a very scenic walk) and trouble with the map, we finally found the restaurant. We were the only people eating at that time (it was alreayd 4 pm by the time we got there), but the waitress was very friendly and served us no problem. The food was really great and a good find. We spent the rest of the afternoon just wandering around the city, walking by the opera house, the cathedral, and some of the other major sites. When we walked by the opera house, there were several men dressed up as Mozart, attempting to sell tickets for the show that night. Christina and I had bought tickets in advance, so when one of them men approached me, i politely replied that we already had tickets. Well, he started to talk to me, telling me how much he liked my hair, and before u know it..he was asking me to date him, basically. We ended up running into him after the show and he told me again how much he liked me, and another "long story short"...I was proposed to by "Mozart" (well that part was a joke for sure, but it makes for a good story). Anyway, Christina and I went to see a Don Quijote ballet at the Statstoper opera house, which was absolutely incredible. THe building is quite the sight to see, both inside and out, and the show was also really great. But, to "Mozart's" dismay, after the show, we were exhausted after a night of little sleep,a nd wanted to rest up for what we knew would be a very busy Saturday. Saturday certianly was busy...we really crammed in a lot in one day (there was just soo much we wanted to see). We started off the day with a delicious breakfast at Cafe Central, one of the oldest and most famous cafes in Vienna. The cafe was literally part of a palace, and it looked it!! It was so elegant, you really felt like you were amongst the literary and musical elite :) We also met a very friendly Viennese man at the cafe, who told us about the history of the cafe and palace, and well as other suggestions about Vienna and about travelling in Europe in general. Then we continued walking around, enjoying the beautiful weather, and taking in all of the sights (every building seemed to be magnificently beautiful!). We saw three different royal palaces, a square with museums, the national library, the cathedral and much more. Also, we went to the outdoor market by our hostel for a lunch of stuffed olives and peppers, homemade bread, hummus, and fresh Austrian cheese. That evening, we headed to Kursalon, another beautiful concert hall, for a night of fine dining and wonderful music. We had purchased a combo dinner-show ticket, so we got to eat a nice, long dinner at the restaurant at the concert-hall. We had some delicious cream of turnip soup, salmon, and some very ineresting desserts. We were by far the youngest patrons, but we enjoyed being classy and sophisticated :) And, the concert was incredible, probably my favorite part of the trip. It was a Strauss/Mozart concert, perfomed by a chamber orchestra, occasionally accompanied by dancers (Viennese waltz) and opera singers. The music was great and reminded me how much i miss playing my clarinet and being involved with classical music! Plus, we got lucky with our seats...we didn't realize that we didn't have assigned seats. Apparently we were just in a certain section, and people were seated on a first-come, first-served basic. Well, as we didn't realize this, we showed up only a few mins before the show, and the room was already almost full. But, I guess the guy assigning the seats liked us, because he allwoed us to sit in the second row on the side, right by the stage, which was definitely not what we paid for! The next morning, we checked out of the hostel, got another yummy breakfast at a Viennese cafe, and headed to the airport..back to Madrid once again!

Aventuras en el Pais Vasco

So..I'm running a little behind on my blog posts, because I have been running around a lot lately, but I will try my best to make some updates now. Two weekends ago, I went on my much-anticipated trip to Bilbao with Ruth. We had lots of time for silly moments and roommate-bonding, we shared lots of laughs and certainly lots of great food! We arrived to Bilbao late Thursday night, and Ruth's parents came to pick us up at the airport. I finally got to meet them, after all this time living with their daughter, so that was really nice. They were extremely friendly and welcoming. We went back to her house where we had a late dinner (Spanish style), with her brother as well (by late, i'm talking midnight!). We then went to sleep, to prepare for the busy day ahead. Friday was jam-packed with activity. We met up with Garazi, Ruth's friend from college (who I had met in Madrid several times), who took us to the area, outside Bilbao, where she lives. The view from her apartment was absolutely breathtaking. She lived right on the water, just a short walk from the beach and beautiful views of the mountains. We wandered around the area for awhile, taking silly pictures while the strong winds blew our hair in every which direction. Then, we got out first pintxo of the day at a restaurant in a nearby town. Next, Christina arrived (she had taken an early morning bus from Madrid and decided to meet us in Bilbao and spend Friday with us). We went to the Puerto Viejo (Old Port) in Ruth's hometown, Algorta, which was another incredibley beautiful site. We saw all of the old boats by the water, and wandered through narrow, hilly streets full of small, quaint houses and lovely restaurants, filled with the aromas of amazing Basque food! We stopped at one the restaurants and sat outside, enjoying our second pintxo of the day (a small piece of bread with goat cheese, crispy onions, ham, and olive oil..yum!). Then we wandered around the area a bit more, and drove to another nearby town (lucky for us, Garazi has a car) and saw the Puente Colgante (Hanging bridge), another cool site. Next, we headed to Bilbao centro, to see the major sites of the city. We had a yummy menu del dia (lots of food), and then walked around some of the central streets. We went to the Guggenheim museum, which was a really awesome building with some really cool exhibits, and saw the Universidad de Deusto, which is right next door (where Ruth and Garazi went to school). It was cool to see where my friends had gone to University, and they were clearly proud of the beautiful building and the great location! Then, we walked over to the Casco Viejo (the old, central part of the city), and saw the Cathedral, the town hall, and other sites. For dinner, we found a bar with amazing, delicious pintxos, but not before we passed by an ice cream store that had bacalao (codfish) flavored ice cream!! Some of the other interesting flavors included: txipirones en su tinta (squid in their own ink!) and Kalimotxo (a drink made of cheap red wine and coca cola). Christina was brave enough to try the bacalao flavor (we thought the names were jokes!) and assured us that it was as disgusting as it sounded and that there were, indeed, chunks of fish in the ice cream! Needless to say, the bar where we went for dinner had much more appetizing food. After a long day, we were all exhausted, and we headed back to rest up for our next busy day. The next day, Christina left early to go to Santander and Garazi had plans with family, so Ruth and I spent the day just the two of us. We took a bus to San Sebastian, which is only about an hour away from Bilbao. We lucked out with teh weather (as Ruth loves to remind me, it is almost always raining in the Pais Vasco...hence the abundance of green!). Luckily though, we avoided the rain, for the most part, while we were there. San Sebastian is a very pretty, small city, located right on the beach. For me, it was really cool and rather unique to be walking around a city, and to be able to walk just 5 minutes to a boardwalk-lined, sandy beach! We wandered around the town and walked along the bach for awhile, taking our time and just enjoying the sites and the weather. It was a nice day, more relaxing then the busy day before, and we had a lot of time to chat and catch up on life :) We had some more wonderful pintxos (including real txipirones en su tinta!) and headed back to Bilbao in the early evening. We met up with Garazi and had some pizza at Ruth's house, deciding to stay in and just relax, since we were all tired from all the activity. On Sunday morning, Ruth and I went for a walk around her neighborhood and got another view of the water. Later, Ruth's family (parents, brother, grandma, aunt, uncle) came over in the afternoon to eat, chat, and celebrate Ruth's brother's bday. It was really nice to meet all of them! We had a relaxing afternoon and a LOT of great food. When I commented on HOW much food we had eaten that weekend, everyone kept joking that eating was what los vascos do best! In the evening, we met up with Garazi and drove to a bar located right along the water, and got yet another amazing, and different view of the mountains and the water. Needless to say, I ended the weekend with a ton of amazing pictures!! After that, Ruth and I headed to the airport and made our way back to Madrid, where we arrived very late (our flight was delayed and we didn't make it back to the apartment until about 1:15!) We were absolutely exhausted and disapointed that we had to wake up early and work the next day, but also very happy about the amazing weekend we had shared together!