as i've previously mentioned - time goes quickly. and well here i am, a week and a half after my last post with novels to explain. so here's the big and small of it:
last week was semana santa. it's like an elongated easter holiday/spring break. well for the spring break part of it, my friends and i occupied ourselves on the fabulous spanish island of gran canaria for 6 days. the running joke (okay there's like 8 running jokes) is that we utilized every form of travel possible within those 6 days: metro, plane, bus, taxi, boat, jeep, banana boat, camel (yes, camel)... i think that's all. relaxing and all, we spent time on the beach, went on a boat cruise, the jeep comes into play for a jeep safari (the coolest part of the trip in my eyes) that took us up to the top of the "volcano." it's not active, but we had lunch in an ancient canarian village in the middle of a crater. not quite the crater you'd expect - you wouldn't be able to tell it was one unless someone told you. other than that, the island itself wasn't quite the green paradise we'd imagined. palm trees, ocean, beaches, yes. but the ocean was cold, the sand was black-ish and hot, and well there seemed to be a weird haze in the air from landing to take off. the weather, however, was better than anything we could have asked for - except for the jeep safari day. lady at the counter forgot to tell us about, even though our geography class could have easily prepared us for, the temperature decrease as you get higher up the mountain. "oh yah! flip flops, bathing suits, get a tan, it's the best!" not so much. maximum cloud coverage and maximum wind do not mix with minimum clothing. aside from that, however, our tour was governed by a guy named dean. he just so happened to pick us to be in his jeep, so we got a little bit more information and energy from him than the other bandwagons. the camels come into play the following day (which happened to be the last) is where the camels come into play. nothing thrilling, there's no squeezing in between the humps or avoiding spit missiles. just balancing on one side as a friend does so on the other. relaxing; amusing. so that pretty much wraps up my spring break. a couple nights out, a fantastic st. patricks day, 6 days of finally getting to wear my rainbows and care about the state of my toe nails.
the day after i got back, my friend from high school, chad, arrived. he's studying in valencia and wanted to tour madrid and other locales while he's on his spring break, so he's staying with me until the 28th. today actually happens to be his birthday, surprising things planned (for him). anyway, he arrived on good friday and i took him for a tour of half the city. we stumbled across the palace as a huge crowd was gathering and decided to see what the commotion was. we ended up witnessing a spectacular procession, something every church in the city/country does on good friday. hard to explain, it's not really that long or extravagant, but some priests and important people walk out of the palace doors, followed by a giant float/statue of the crucifiction. we managed to get there really early and without understanding that we'd be waiting in a crowd of people for 35 minutes before anything happened. however in our waiting, we witnessed some amusing characteristics of madrileneans. see some random people were allowed to stand inside the barracades that kept you about 15 meters from where the doors would open. and those 40 or so people decided to stand in the way of the view of everyone in the crowd on the right side of the door. sooo, the people around us went nuts, harassing one of the "guardia civil"s who did nothing despite looking rather distressed about the angering crowd. it was amusing too that most of the mini-revolution was conducted by women, just complaining that they couldn't see anything even though the statue/float was over 15 feet high when it came out.
saturday we toured the rest of the city, went to retiro, the prado (not all i expected it to be: there's just so much there that eventually you become numb to art and forget to take in the beauty and significance of most of the pieces). sunday was a little more interesting. we started at 8:15 am, had american breakfast at dunkin coffee (equivalent to donuts) and took a self-guided tour of the palace. there's a cathedral next to it that is the place where all the royal family gets married, so we wanted to take a look at that too. when we went over there, there was a service going on, so we decided to hang around for the 12:00 mass because it was easter. and although i'm not catholic, i got a lot out of it. i couldn't understand everything; echos mixed with lots of people, mixed with the fait but fast tongue of the cardinal of spain made it a little difficult. yes, the cardinal of spain ran the service. fascinating to me, and for those of you who don't know (like i didn't until chad explained it to me) teh cardinal is like the third highest under the pope - so it's a big deal. i feel like i've gotten really lucky with some of the incredible things i've seen while i've been here, things an american isn't quite worthy to see. i saw zapatero, the now re-elected president of spain, at my school, and now the cardinal. okay so only two things but they rank pretty highly on my why-spain-is-cool scale. after that, we went home, took naps, and then went to good old dubliners to watch real madrid lose once again. well i watched them lose, chad, fortunately, got to watch valencia win 3-2. we were originally supposed to go to the game but once again, we're having difficulties getting tickets. i will, however, make it to one before i leave.
speaking of leaving, i have two months left here. which is astounding to me. two months from the 22nd and i'm done with classes and exams, and it's off to travel with my family (if they get it together). so essentially, a month and two weeks of school, a week of exams, and the only thing in between that is a trip to paris, a hopeful trip to london, and a visit to a bull fight. as slow as it seems to go sometimes, i can't believe two months has passed by already. i have a feeling though that things will slow down a bit within the next month. i only have one travel weekend planned (paris - which let me explain real quickly how excited i am; this is my dream trip), but there's nothing new going on, just a lull of school, exams, and saving money haha. the situation with that is much better though.
anyway, as for tonight and chad's surprises, i'm currently responsible for coordinating all three. 1) his girlfriend sent him a package that i have yet to give him because when i woke up, he was gone already to go do train tickets and other tourism such. i would be with him but i'm "writing two papers" yah i'm watching lost and writing a blog. (that's the best part of travelling, so many good tv shows to catch up on). but 2) his dad's contacted me and is sponsoring our dinner to a sweet tapas place tonight, so that's excitings. and 3) he's been chosen to live in the "good guy room" at UVA which is located on "the lawn" it's a huuugeee honor and i'm really excited for him. he seems a little torn though, because as he explained to me, he's been planning on living with two of his best friends, and two of my friends coincidentally, from high school. sooo, he'll have to make that decision. but i can't wait.
that seems about it for now, but i could be adding anecdotes a little later.
