Vale, vale, vale

Our trip into Madrid was very exciting! We got on the train in Alcala and arrived in Madrid about 30-45 minutes later. Coming out of the train station in Madrid was like arriving in any new city, like Philadelphia or New York, for the first time. It is much more modern than Alcala. It is easy to forget you're in Spain besides the architecture! We walked through a lot of the city on our way to Teatros de Canal where the flamenco show was held. We saw some familiar places, such as Starbucks, which was funny! The show we saw was a modern flamenco entitled "Fedra," which is actually based on a Greek tragedy play. It was really exciting and not too difficult to follow because of the acting and dancing. Afterwards, the group had to split up for dinner so Grace, Audrey, Greg, John, Kelly, and I found a little Irish pub that was showing the Barcelona v. Sevilla futbol (soccer) game. I've always enjoyed watching futbol so we ordered some croquets and beer and just enjoyed the game. Barcelona's team is really good this year so that's exciting to watch. After a while, we figured we should head back to Alcala and since the trains stop running at 11:45, we had to take the bus. With the help of some Spaniards, and taxis, we managed to get to the bus station just in time to make the bus. It was very exciting to be in Madrid and we're definitely planning on going again soon! Especially now that we understand the transportation system.

In other news, I going to the bank today to pick up my Real Madrid tickets for this Sunday! They're playing Malaga and we'll already be in Madrid for the day so we figured this would be a good time to go. The group wasn't able to get tickets all together but hopefully we'll be close! Loyola actuall subsidizes a portion of the ticket price, which is also great.

Now that we've been here for over a week, the planning of other places to travel has begun. Since Jen, Caitlin, Eleanora, and I have the same schedule, we've been planning everything together. Most of the places we're scheduling at the same time as other people in our group, too. We officially booked flights to Portugal (Lisbon) Feb. 20-22 and Italy (Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan) March 25-31. It's hard to believe this is actually happening! There's a lot of other places I really want to see but it's surprisingly hard to find time for everything! And I kind of forgot to account for schoolwork when planning all of this, which is a teensy bit of a problem...

Yesterday was one of the best days here yet! I'm not even sure why, because it just consisted of class and dinner with some friends but it was great. I think it had everything to do with the fact that the weather was absolutely beautiful. Low 50s and Sunny! Perfect. I even had the greatest playlist on my iPod which made it even better (John Mayer's Battle Studies album). Eleanora, Jen, Caitlin, Tara, and I went out for tapas around 9 and hung out for a few hours just talking. We found a great little candy shop in the plaza which was amazing too. All-in-all, just a geat day.

Also, "vale" means "okay" in Spanish. So it's my response to just about everything Eleu says to me :)