MADRID

Educational Field Trip to Madrid: OK - well I'm going to skip all of the Educational part because that's not fun to write or read. Pretty much, we went to many many museums, saw lots of Picasso, El Greco, Velasquez etc. etc. We also went on a day-excursion trip to Toledo, which was a beautiful little Spanish city, famous for their swords! There's a lot of history that goes with Toledo as well, but I won't bore you with details. The tour-guide, Marty did a good enough job of that! She was a spunky Spanish woman that demanded our attention and got what she wanted! But, she did teach a lot...i guess. The last of the educational stuff included going to another monestary, pretty much the Spanish version of Melk, the one we saw in Vienna. Many of the Hapsburgs were buried there/lived there....and we also went to a Mozart/Brahms concert, which was really great. Blah blah :) We had lots of free time to roam around, check out the coffee shops, go to CLUBS, hang out in our lovely hotel rooms and go see Flamenco shows! As part of SGA, Richard and I decided to plan a trip for all of us to go see a Flamenco show. It was a really great time and a hit!...probably the best Flamenco show that I've seen yet. (Number 4!) The Spanish guitar was, of course, phenomenal...and the dancing was extra passionate. The girls in the front were splashed with sweat, haha! Shakira, beat that. To be quite honest, one of my favourite parts of the trip was the hotel room! I roomed with Sabrina and we had many visitors throughout the week. I definitely took advantage of the bathtub and HUGE fluffy towels. We even raided the huge grocery store across the street and made quesadillas in the microwave! I spent most of our free day having a nice "Siesta" after a huge paella-filled lunch...catching up on sleep was a definite bonus. The other highlights of the trip include La Palazio - a huge dance club that we went to...twice! Thursdsay night was student night and we just spent the entire time dancing the night away. They had a techno room, a salsa room, a spanish music room, a hip-hop-ish room...pretty much everything for everyone. It was packed, which was a good sign - and it was an old Palace turned into a club. So, the rooms were extravagent, the ceilings were high, and it was a pretty classy place. Friday night was Carnivale night...so people came dressed up in costumes and it was pretty crazy! There were nurses, popes and nuns, clowns, just anything you could think of. Some of them were pretty disturbing, others were entertaining, some scary, and some just WEIRD. we didnt' know that it was Carnivale night so we didn't dress up, but oh well. we still had a great time because everyone came out. Shakira shakira...haha. The pictures pretty much sum it up :) Here's Sabrina and me at a bull ring: Funny Faces infront of Toledo: Our group going through Toledo: Me and some of my roommates at the Flamenco show: Group photo at the Concert: Making quesadillas in the hotel: