Second blog of the day, beginning with my trip to Toledo. Actually, let's start the night before. Avia, Haley, Sarah, Rania, and I went to a Salsa club! It was SO much fun, we took an hour and a half class, then danced with all the regulars at the club. We liked it so much that Avia talked the teachers into opening a special three week class for us! I am going to take salsa classes twice a week for the next three weeks with nine other people from my program. I am SO excited! So after our fun salsa night, we went to Toledo for the day with the program.
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| El Catedral de Toledo |
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El altar en La Catedral
This was so beautiful! The picture really doesn't do it justice, the gold leafing and
all the beautiful colors in the scenes. It was amazing! |
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| This is where the choir sits, the detail on these seats was amazing! |
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| Oh, just the view as we were walking to the bus, no big deal |
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| And the other side, so beautiful! |
After we got back from Toledo, a couple of us went to Avia's homestay for dinner because her family was out in the country and said she could have a couple friends for dinner. We went to the grocery store and bought ingredients to make a whole dinner for ourselves. We had salad, pasta, and fruit with chocolate for dessert! Avia made some really amazing pasta sauce, and we all gorged ourselves until we were about to explode. It was so fun to just sit around the table with a couple friends and have a nice dinner. After dinner, we decided to finally discover one of Madrid's night life hotspots. We went to a club that everyone says you just have to go to when you are in Madrid, and we had so much fun! Sarah and I even got these really cute black and pink plastic fanny pack/purse things for free and are really excited to take it out with us in the future :) When we were waiting for the bus home, we met some people who gave us a good laugh with their English. They were native Spanish speakers, and were saying phrases in English that were hilarious! It was a great end to the night. When we got home, we basically only had time for a nap, since we had to get up at 7am to catch the bus for our second day trip of the weekend. Avia, Sarah, and I went to Avia's host family's house in the country, near Ávila, which is about an hour by bus. The oldest daughter of Avia's host family had her first communion, so the whole family was there. The land they own had four houses on it, and was the most beautiful place I have seen since I've been here. It was straight out of a movie, big, beautiful stone homes with gardens and a pool. The weather was perfect, so we sat outside all day snacking and chatting with the family. Everyone was so nice and we were so happy to be there. We even fell asleep for an hour when we were laying in the grass just enjoying the weather. The family was so welcoming, and we got a lot of practice with our Spanish! If there is a guy in this family my age, I am going to marry him immediately because I want to live at this house. It was amazing! We finally understand why Avia's host family is gone every weekend! After we got home, I headed straight to bed, because once again, I really needed some sleep (this is a very common theme in Spain). When I woke up, I met Sarah and some other people from the program at El Rastro, which is this giant flea market in Madrid with everything you can think of. It was so much fun, and I made some great purchases! When we were done there, Sarah and I were still in shopping mode, so we headed to Gran Vía, which is the name of a street with a lot of great stores. We again made some great purchases and found some really good deals. I even bought my first romper! So fashionable :) After we wore ourselves out shopping all day, we just needed to have helado! So we stopped at the first helado place we saw, which happened to be the same chain that they have right next to our homestays, so we were super excited! It is one of our favorites. After satisfying our appetites with helado, we headed home to get back to the real world and do our homework. Monday classes are never fun, but when we finally made it through, and after a trip to the gym, we headed to an Irish pub to watch España play in the Eurocopa! We had some appetizers and watched the game with some local fans close to our homestays, and it was a great game! Spain scored in the last five minutes, and beat Croatia. We are becoming big fútbol fans! After the win, we obviously had to celebrate with helado! So we headed to our other favorite place, Kalúa. This place has the most amazing flavors, and Eve, the best mint chip I have ever had!
