Despedidas.

Classes are over, all finals have been taken, and it's time for goodbyes. Where did the time go?! We had a very busy few weeks studying, researching, writing papers and taking exams...and i won't deny some partying. We met some really fun people, met up with our friend Edguardo again, had some fun at the book store as Scrabblistas. Tonight we leave for Barcelona until Monday afternoon and then we are flying to Mallorca.
Yesterday was very bittersweet...as we had a time to relax and enjoy some copas with our professors, it was sad to say goodbye. We had had a copa at the beginning of the semester as well, and I can't believe how fast it all went. Now I'll finally have a chance to show you some of my professors:

Fatima and our friend Adi...doesn't she look so nice and happy? It's a lie.


Our favorites: Carlos y Augustin. They kicked Matt out of this picture.


Augustin allowed Matt in this one:


Best candid shot ever:


Another favorite: Monica

Glamor shot waiting for the bus

(p.s. Sara has the pictures of Domingo- the one that looks like Antonio Banderas/Jeff Goldblum- I'll post them as soon as I get them)

We got home with nearly five minutes to spare. We rushed to get ready and then headed to Cafeteria Jumor. It was the same place we had eaten the very first night we had gotten here. Once again, bittersweet. Delicious food, good company, excellent drinks annnnnd.....a tuna! Margaret brought them out of retirement just to play for us.

Some of us went a little crazy:

Joe's Senora showing him some moves:


Meghan's Senora playing some air guitar on her cane:

Meghan dancing with a tuna



Our hot senoras:

(Left to right: Mauri- Matt's, Juani- Laura's, Ana- mine)

Juani, Ana and Margaret (the director)


Guapisimos:


Me and some Tunas

After dinner we went out to Ego with a group of people from our group and some of the people who work for Margaret. We got in around 3.00 and I slept until 13.00 today. Our flight tonight is at 23.30. I have to pack for Barcelona/Mallorca and get my stuff ready to go home home. We're leaving Thursday, June 8th at 13.00 and will be back in New York 15.00 the same day.

Quickie

Q uick trip to Alicante this weekend. It was another holiday in Madrid and Matt's señora wanted to bring us to her sisters apartment on the shore. We had an excursión for our medio ambiente class on Friday, so we were not able to leave until Saturday morning. It worked out for the better because we were able to party with my twins again. Ana had gone to Galicia for a friend's wedding and was gone for the weekend. Once Julian heard of this, he sat at the dinner table rubbing his hands together "¡fiesta!"

T he excursión was fun but it was all things that we had already seen. We went to tour the old part of Madrid and learned some interesting facts. Then Carlos and Augustin (our professors) had a surprise for us- they took us to the cultural arts center in Madrid and had the security guard bring us all the way to the top. We had a full view of the city...little scary so high up, but fun.




A fter we relaxed for a bit and then went for dinner. When we came back to the house there were a good 20 people in the living room and kitchen. Not even 22.00 and the party was at full speed. We discussed things like culture and the use of the word 'cagar' and practiced our Spanish. We called it an early night as we were leaving at 7.30 the next morning for Alicante.
We all packed into Emi's (Mauri's sister) little car and sped across to the coast. We arrived around 11.00 and got a quick tour of the apartment and had some breakfast. We all changed into our bathingsuits and headed straight to the beach. While we could see the water from the apartment, we had to drive about 15 minutes to the beach that Emi liked. According to her, the beach by her "no es sano." The beach we wound up going to was "salvaje." The waves were huge, the current strong and there were little dust balls of seaweed rolling around the sand. It was very windy and quite chilly. We tomar el sol-ed a bit and decided to go for a walk to warm up. Matt found a star fish "estrella de mar" on our little excursión.

T he rest of the group started getting hungry again so we headed back to the apartment for a huge lunch of paella and salad. We all relaxed for a bit and went to another beach. This one was even colder and I got wrapped up in a towel while I siesta-ed. We returned to the apartment once again and had a small bite for dinner and called it a night. We were supposed to meet up with Steph, but we were just too exhausted we decided to take it easy. We watched The Princess Bride in Spanish and turned in early.

T he next morning we got up, had a light breakfast and headed straight to the beach. Everything was crowded since it was a holiday. We went to another natural beach. The weather was much better and we actually went swimming. The waves were really strong, but the water was shallow. I actually concluded how Jesus walked on water- we were swimming over 100 ft out and there was only about a foot of water! Tricky, tricky! I read a lot of my book and took in some sun while Matt played paddle ball with Emi's novio, Bonnie.
We headed back to the apartment and Matt and I made our Mother's Day calls while we waited for lunch to be ready. After we ate we checked out Emi's pool (sadly it was not going to be open until the next day). We walked around and longingly stared at the crystal blue water, wanting to jump in...until we got kicked out. We all showered and headed into town. We got a speed tour of the city by foot and Emi dropped us off at the train station.


We got back to Madrid a little before midnight. Monday started our last week of classes.

View from Emi's Apartment

Beach

Matt as "Lawrence of Arabia"

Pool that we weren't allowed to swim in


From the diving board


View of the beach from the pool

Paris in the Springtime

Day One:
06.00 Friday- Arrive at Barajas for our 07.00 flight.

We are pumped and ready to go.

No complications, we land in Orly, find our way through the Metro to our Hotel located near Les Gobelins (false cognate we found out later, "gobelins" really means "curtains"...not goblins) at 11.00. We couldn't check in until 12, so we decided to wander around a bit. We found a menagerie and walked around checking out all the animals. The sun was shining and it was the start of a beautiful day.



































We headed back to the hotel to check in and then went to the most logical place to go in Paris: the tourist trap known as....The Eiffel Tower.








































We decided to be brave and young and climb the 668 steps to the second level. Tourist trap? Yes- we had to pay nearly $4 to CLIMB...and we couldn't go past the second level without paying extra for the elevator. It was worth the haul though...beautiful view and some interesting facts posted along the way.

So apparently someone came up with this idea of making a skating rink, on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, and tried to make a BEAR skate on it?

After we came back down, we sat out in a park near the tower for a little while to plan our next move. Matt wanted to see the tomb of Jim Morrison, so we found our way to Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise where he is buried (along with other famous people including Seurat, Chopin, Modigliani, Chagall, Proust, Jaques Louis David and Gericault). We made it there, started walking around, and got kicked out. Everything closes very early in Paris, which is very different from the late hours we have here in Madrid. We decided then to head back to the Seine and catch a cruise that our hotel had offered us. We literally ran through the streets of Paris to make it in time for the boat.

When we finally made it, sweaty and out of breath, it was relaxing to be able to sit and relax and take in the sights. We passed many points of interest: The Louvre, National Assembly, O'rsay Museum, many bridges, Notre Dame, The Eiffel Tower (again) aaaaaand.....The Statue of Liberty....or at least a scaled down replica.














































After our tour, we were absolutely exhausted. We decided to get some nice cultural food. And by "cultural" I mean china food for 5euro. We headed back to the hotel and got some much needed rest (seeing we had been up since 04.45 that morning.)

Day Two:

Since we didn't get to see Jim Morrison's grave the day before, we headed back to the cemetary...not without stopping for a healthy French breakfast of chocolate filled crepes and cafe au lait's first, of course.

Matt's very first crepe:

The cemetary was packed. We wandered through hundreds of old grave stones until we finally found Jim. It was so old and incredibly interesting. All the tombs were above ground and they were all beautifully decorated.

After the cemetary, we continued our tour to Notre Dame. While we had seen it from the cruise the day before, I had no idea just how amazing it was.

Images of my art history text book were dancing through my head and I was killing myself to remember terms- flying butresses, skeleton vaulting, apses, fresco. The cathedral was built in 1160. I could not believe that something this remarkable was able to be made nearly 900 years ago.































































Matt and I sat for awhile admiring some of the details in the cathedral. We were analyzing some of the carvings on the side of the altar and, being the dork I am said "Mary looks like she is modeled after an ancient sculpture," but I couldn't remember the name.



Our next destination was La Louvre. I approached with much anticipation (yes, I already know I'm a dork.)



Once we got a map, I started looking at some of the features and my sculpture was on it! Etruscan Sarcophagus of a Married Couple (among MANY other things.) There was also a Greek copy of the Etruscan sarcophagus that we found.












We made a list of priorities and began our tour. We saw Michelangelo's Dying Slaves:







Code of Hammurabi:



Venus de Milo:



Mona Lisa, of course, as well as many other DaVinci's. Like everything else in Paris, the Louvre closed early. We were kicked out at 18.00. Fifteen minutes before we were running through the halls, up and down the stairs trying to see everything that was on our list. We ran through an amazing hall of Reuben's (he was sponsored by the Medici Family who had a major influence in Paris) We also ran through the German, Holland and Flanders art at great speeds. (I was looking for Hans Holbien for you Mom, but no luck!) We exited the Louvre and headed back to the Hotel as it had begun to rain. We waited the rain out for a bit and then decided to brave it.


On our way to the Louvre earlier, we had walked through the Park of the Medici's and stopped and had lunch. We found a flyer for a guided Da Vinci Code tour, but it said that the last stop, the cathedral of Saint Sulpice where the Rose Line is found was closed on Sundays for mass. We were interested in the tour, but we wanted to be able to see the Rose Line. We explored on our own that night. We arrived in the pouring rain and the entire thing was gated and locked for the night. We wandered around it and finally found a door. When we were passing, two people were coming out and we asked them (using every possible combination of English, Spanish and made up sign language to communicate) if the church was still open. They told us yes, so we went down the stairs to find a eerie set up of chairs, carpets cement floors and displays of beautiful gold leaf art work. It was supposedly an Orthodox Church and definitely not what we were in search of. We headed back to the metro, slightly disheartened.



We headed over to the Arc De Triomphe. It wasn't quite sunset yet and decided to have some dinner in the area and come admire the arc later in the dark. We found a cute little restraunt and had a lovely dinner- french onion soup (still not nearly as good as yours, Mom), tomato and mozzarella salad, delicious steak and potatoes, bread, flan, and wine. It was a nice break from our normal Spanish cuisine, but I was glad to get back here to some affordable prices. When we finished with dinner it was nearly 23.00. We went back to admire the arc. In the distance I could see the Eiffel Tower and it was adorned in beautiful sparkling lights. It looked like fireworks all over the tower. We decided to go back and see it lit up at night. Entering what we thought was the metro, we ended up under the arc. We admired it for awhile and read about it in our tour book. When we were about ready to leave and go back to the Eiffel Tower, I noticed that it was no longer sparkling. Exhausted, we were going to head back to the hotel, but Matt decided that it was our last night in Paris and we needed to go back and see it lit up at night.

Eternal flame for all the unnamed soldiers:

It was absolutely beautiful all lit up. Unfortunately I only got a few shots as my camera battery was absolutely dead. I took very nice mental pictures though.



Day Three:

We got a very early start to make sure we had enough time to see everything we wanted to. We first headed back to Saint Sulpice to try again to get into the cathedral to see the Rose Line.










































The cathedral was absolutely beautiful. The architecture was gothic, but completely different from Notre Dame; much more modest. I felt almost disrespectful coming in as a tourist. They were preparing for mass and it just seemed very traditional. The Rose Line, while not very ornate, was facinating. It's just completely amazing that something that complex and old is in a city like this. It was designed by Ptolemy and it determines date of Easter, as it is the most accurate measurement of the Equinox. There were many tourists there and the entire city is preparing for The DaVinci Code movie. The metros are decorated, tours are being given to many of the sites mentioned in the book (we opted not to take it as it was overprice like everything else in the city) and there are posters everywhere.



Our next stop was the Pantheon: many famous tombs here. We entered and admired some of the paintings on the walls (huge floor-to-ceiling murals) and then we went down into the Crypts to see all the tombs of famous French men (and Madame Currie).

"Live Free or Die"

Right before we got to the Pantheon though we were starving. We had been searching for a place to get crepes for breakfast again since before Saint Sulpice. We finally found a place called Crepes a Gogo and we endulged in the most delicious crepes I have ever eaten.



Next stop was supposed to be the O'rsay Museum, but once we passed by we realized that it would take the rest of the day if we waited on that line. Apparently it's free entry on the first Sunday of every month and the line wove up and down the plaza and into the street. I guess I'll have to go back...



We headed to the tomb of Napoleon (so many dead people!) It was ornately decorated in all sorts of different beautiful marbles.








































After the tomb, we decided to get some lunch, shop for some soveniers, and just wander the streets for awhile before we had to say goodbye. We headed back to the hotel to pick up our packs and headed to the airport. The flight was packed with spoiled kids and their parents coming back from a weekend in Disney. Matt and I got to the airport late, so we had to sit separately. Fortunately it was only an hour and a half before we arrived in Madrid. We made it home by 22.45. It was a very packed, wonderful weekend. Exhausted once again!