¡Viva España!

¡Hola!

Well I think it’s safe to say that once again, it’s been too long since I’ve written. A few weeks have passed and I’ve had a LOT of adventures. Before I tell you about my most recent ones, I have to talk about my week in Spain. 

 Our school took us on another planned excursion to Madrid and Barcelona for six days. We left two weeks ago on Sunday and started in Madrid. Once we arrived and checked into our hotel, we took a walking tour through the city. The most noticeable thing once you are out and about in Spain is how relaxed the culture is. It’s basically the exact opposite of the go-go-go-get-things-done German culture. There’s a big square that’s very popular called Peurta del Sol and there are so many groups of people just lying on the ground in the sun. All I could think of when I was there was how unacceptable that would be in Germany. There are also a ton of parks filled with people strewn across the city. It was really beautiful to take a mid-day walk, especially because the weather was so nice when we were there.  Also, if you didn’t know, the Spanish have a weird thing called “siesta.” In the middle of the day, around 2 pm, all the stores close for about two hours and everyone goes home and takes a nap or just relaxes for a bit. Um? All I can say is that I’m sure every German that’s ever traveled to Spain has probably been completely perplexed by this odd tradition.  Also, the time schedule is completely different. Dinner is not served until about 9 pm, and it usually runs until around midnight. It’s totally normal to have dinner around 11. Then, since you eat so late, you also go out very late and hence, get home very late (or early, however you want to look at it) in the morning. I guess that’s why the siesta is sort of necessary. Except, we didn’t get any siesta time and since our group director is German TO. THE. CORE., we were waking up at 7 am everyday. Can you say NO SLEEP? 

Anyways, the first night we got there, we all went to an IRISH PUB. Pretty much runs along with our typical group situation of not knowing where we are going and wandering around the city looking for something to do. We ended up at this bar that was totally American and I guess we just drank a lot. Actually, scratch that, we all drank way too much. I don’t think there was one person in our group that wasn’t totally wasted. One guy even ended up unbuttoning his shirt, one button at a time, and by the end of the night was dancing with basically no shirt on. When in Madrid? So it ended up being fun because we were all together, but I definitely decided on having a solid plan before going out the next time.

The next morning we had to get up really early to go on a day-trip to Toledo. It’s a quiet town about an hour away in the mountains, and it was about an hour away. Safe to say we were all passed out on that train ride. We toured the city for a while, saw some pretty amazing cathedrals, and got a great view of a river and the lush hills of Spain. 

 We also went to the top of a cathedral and saw the whole city. It was probably one of the most gorgeous cities I’ve seen in all of Europe. That night, we went out to a traditional Spanish dinner and saw a Flamenco show. To be honest, I’m not a big fan of the Spanish food. It’s a lot of fried food and a lot of rice, neither which I’m a big fan of. We had tapas, which are very common in Spain, and they are basically small plates of food that you share with people. Kind of like appetizers, if you will. You get a bunch of them and have a little bit of each. So we had a plate of ham, one of cheese, another with a Spanish omelet, and still more with calamari and potatoes. We all shared multiple bottles of wine and a few pitchers of sangria, and had a delicious dessert. Clearly, I was very happy that dinner was on the school’s tab. The flamenco show after started at 11 (told you the Spanish culture runs late), and it was really interesting. A few guys sit on stage playing some instruments and clapping while singing (but it’s kind of like a mumbled singing), while a guy and girl dance on stage. The dance is a mix of intense bursts of sharp movements and slow, fluid moments. I kind of dozed off halfway through the show, not from a lack of interest, but because I was so damn exhausted.

Once the show was over and I had gotten my catnap in, a few friends and I decided to go out even though most everyone else went to sleep. It was basically a girl’s night, and we went to a bar where we got free shots. It didn’t taste like they even had anything in them, but it was fun and we danced for a solid few hours. The Spanish guys are much different than the German guys when they dance. If you go to a club in Germany, you’ll rarely see the men gawking at girls dancing or trying to grab them. That’s just not how they are. But in Spain, there were plenty of (pretty skeezy) men grabbing me and trying to dance. This is where my phrase of the week – “gracias, pero no” - came in. It’s basically what I said to every guy that tried to dance with me. It was fun to dance with the girls though, and we had a great time. We headed home late, once again, and got in a few hours of sleep before our next long day in Madrid. 

 The final day was really interesting. We went to a museum called Museo del Prado, which houses some of the most important art in the world. It boasts masterpieces by Raphael, Goya and El Greco, to name a few. A few days before we had been to a museum where we saw works by Picasso and Salvador Dali. I have to say; I’m much more of a fun of the classical pieces than I am of the modern art. Picasso and Dali are interesting, of course, but I find religious pieces like El Greco’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” far more fascinating and beautiful. After the museum, we visited the Royal Palace, which was absolutely mind-blowing. Each room is intricately decorated, furnished with extremely expensive pieces of furniture and artwork. I asked, just out of curiosity, how much the palace would be worth if they were to put a price on it. The tour guide told me, of course, that it was absolutely priceless and I could think of any number I wanted and it would be worth more than that. Realistically, I would say it was worth at least a few billion dollars. Seriously, it was that lavish. And they say WE have a huge divide between rich and poor???

So that day was over, and now I’ll tell you what I remember from that night. Oh yeah, Liz officially had her first real shit show of a night in Europe. And I’m talking shit.show. It started out all right, a friend and I decided to look up good clubs to go to and have a plan. We had a few options, and even though I didn’t want to go out with the group, we ended up starting the night with them with the plan to break off later and go to a club that was a local hotspot. We drank in the hotel room before going out, and went to a pretty sketchy “club” that had free shots to start with. I don’t know what’s with everyone wanting to get free shots. They are basically fruit juice and they are only there to get you inside in their so-called “clubs.” So we spent a little while in this place dancing with some very questionable older men (don’t worry, there were guys in our group too), and then moved on to another club, which again, I was not very fond of. I just wanted my last night in Madrid to be SO fun, so I kept drinking and wasn’t keeping track of how much I was consuming. So after the second club, a friend and I went back to our hotel to continue drinking even though we had had enough. We drank straight from the bottle and since we had nothing to chase with, we chased with GUM. Oh yes, mint gum. That was probably the worst taste of my life. Then we went to the club we were planning on going to all night, and a few guys told us we could get in for free. We were so stoked on this because we thought it was going to be a 10-euro cover charge. Later we found out it was ladies night and every girl got in for free, so I guess we weren’t so special. The club part of the night is very hazy, and I actually couldn’t tell you what I did. I’m told I drank with some guy I met and danced a little sloppily with him, while having a nice little audience. Not really sure. It’s a possibility that I made out with him. Not really sure. Then I completely black out and there is no more memory from the night. What I’ve heard is that two of my friends had to carry me home, which took one hour even though our hotel was 10 minutes away. Then apparently I spent two hours throwing up and when I wasn’t throwing up, I was running around the hotel lobby and a few guys in our group had to run after me and take me back to my room. (Evidently I signed on to Facebook while I was that drunk, mad props to me on that one). Honestly, when I woke up in the morning, I had zero recollection of any of that. Later in the day I was even talking to my friends and I said, “Well you guys, it could have been worse. I mean I could have spent the night throwing up and someone could have had to hold my hair back.” They looked at each other, totally confused and said, “Liz, that’s exactly what happened.” Welp, first shit show in Europe is all I can say. 

I woke up the next morning completely wasted still, and struggled to actually pack my things and make it out of the hotel. I know I was still drunk because I said, “I couldn’t get my jeans on, so I just put on my sweat pants.” I actually wore my sweat pants to the train station and on to Barcelona, which is totally unacceptable in Europe. I also wandered into a mini mart at the train station and was ravenous, so I grabbed a baguette and started devouring it before I had even paid for it. I slept on the two-hour train ride to Barcelona and when I woke up, the hangover had officially hit. Miraculously, I made it to our hotel in Barcelona but once we were there I spent the next two hours miserably throwing up and sleeping off my hang over. I couldn’t even keep water down, even though that’s the one thing my body needed. I didn’t go on the bus tour that everyone else went on, on account of my night, and Viktoria (director of our program) was not very happy with me. I got a nice lecture about how my behavior affects the rest of the group and how I’m representing LMU, blah blah blah, and was told to not drink the entire rest of the trip in Spain. So that night I went to bed instead of going out and woke up the next day refreshed and ready to go.

The following day we went to another small town that had a monastery at the top of this hill. It was a really pretty sight, and actually reminded me a little bit of home. It was a pretty relaxing day and since we had some free time after, I went to the cathedral called La Sagrada Familia, which is a must-see in Barcelona. The rest of the group had seen it as part of the bus tour, but I obviously wasn’t present for that. It was one of the most beautiful and absolutely unique cathedrals I’ve ever seen. Gaudi, a very popular Spanish artist, designed it and it’s just completely different that anything I’ve been to in Europe. The outside looks a little ominous, but the engravings are so beautiful and actually very simple to understand. In front of the church there is a nativity scene, and anyone can tell it’s a nativity seen because it clearly has a manger with baby Jesus in it and it says JESUS below it. The three wise men are very distinct, gifts in hand, and everyone is looking at the manger. It’s not one of those churches where you have to have a tour guide or priests to tell you what everything means or sit there for hours to figure it out. It looks very intricate right away, but once you observe it, it’s actually simple to understand. I really liked that about it. Inside, Gaudi used bones for his inspiration, and the columns of the church really do look like bones. 
 There are plenty of windows for the light to shine through, so it’s much brighter than any other cathedral I’ve seen. There is mosaic art on many of the windows, and on the ceiling it almost looks like there are icicles hanging down. It’s just mind blowing and I was very happy I got to see the work in progress of such a beautiful place. The cathedral won’t actually be done until 2020, but it’s well on its way to being completed.

That night was Thursday and since it was our last night in Spain, I really wanted to have a good time. We got together as a group and decided to go out, and I wasn’t about to be rebellious and try to go out with just one other girl or anything because Barcelona is a very sketchy place to go out as a girl. Even during the day, I was in tights and shorts and I was getting whistled and hollered at non-stop. So after our group farewell dinner, we went out in search of some good clubs. A friend and I had looked up good clubs in Barcelona, and we had addresses, directions and a plan for the night. Except, the first two clubs we TRIED to go to had been closed for years, we found out. So we did exactly what we wanted to avoid doing and ended up walking around for hours around the city. Lesson learned: websites are not reliable. Eventually we found a place that looked really good, and since I was so frustrated with the night at that point, I definitely disobeyed orders and had some vodka. Come on, last night in Spain. Whatever. It ended up being really fun. We all danced on the stage together and partied until about 5 in the morning. Or maybe it was 4. I can’t be sure at this point. I definitely got my fair share of creepy attention from lots of Spanish guys, but it was a successful night. I made it home in one piece and without throwing up anywhere. With only a few hours of sleep and a total of NOT very much sleep at all in Spain, I was definitely a struggle fest the next day. 

 For our last day, we went to another Picasso museum where we got to see his progression as an artist. I thought it was really interesting because before he started doing all his abstract modern work, he did a lot of traditional work that was absolutely stunning, especially because he was 14 when he started his pieces. We toured the museum for a while with our Spanish tour guide, and afterward had some free time. I took a much-needed nap on the couches in the hotel with a few other people, and after I went on a walk to the beach. It was a beautiful day and I hadn’t really gotten a lot of pictures from the beach at Barcelona, so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity. I got some good shots and headed back to the hotel, where we left for the airport kind of late. We got home around midnight, and I was so happy to be back and in my room again. I slept soundly but I was so excited because my VERY best friend was coming for 10 days for her spring break the next day. Our adventures were outrageous, but that’s a story for another entry ;) 

Besos mi amores!