A Trip to a Spanish Hospital

So I have a heater in my room and it happens to be immediately next to my bed. So close in fact that bed doesn't touch the wall because it hits the heater. It's an old fashioned water heater, and I love it. It keeps me warm at night, and on cold days I can turn it on a little and lean against it until it warms me up. So I named it Charlie. None of my roommates seem to understand that when I love something I name it. I get it from my mother. To try and explain myself I told them that I have a really nice pen that I named Felix, but this just seemed to make it worse. So anyways, they think it's hilarious that I've named the various inadament objects within our apartment. After telling Charlie how grateful I was that I was always kept warm he broke down on me.

I woke up this morning soaked in water. I hadn't slept well all night because I was cold – it turns out that when your blanket is soaked in water it can kinda chill you a bit. It turns out the little knob that turns the heater on and off started dripping sometime last night, just a steady drip drip. My blanket was soaked, the sheet was a little wet, and there was a puddle on the floor. Fun. So I pulled my bed away from Charlie and ran and got a pot from the kitchen. I cleaned everything up the best I could and walked over to school. I told Kieren that my poor heater was broken and he said the maintenance guy would come by sometime today.

While I was at school there were bigger problems. My roommate down the hall has been having some womanly troubles for the past two weeks. Today it seems she woke up and it was much worse, so much so that she needed to go to the emergency room immediately. Sian came from school and met her at the apartment, then they waited for the ambulance to come get them. The ambulance took her to the hospital where they told her that she needed to have surgery to stop the bleeding. The poor girl had never been to hospital before, let alone have surgery, and in a place where no one spoke English. So they put her out and completed the surgery relatively quickly. They then put her in a room to stay overnight so they could moniter her recovery. Sian stayed with her the entire time - she's amazing.

When I got home from school one of the girls from the downstairs apartment came up to give us our internet router. We were finally getting internet in the apartment and it was huge! She kindly helped plug it in and made sure it worked before heading back downstairs. So now we have internet and we can use it whenever we want – a luxury I took for granted before I came here.

So now that she was out of surgery she could receive visitors. That's where we come in. We are all really close and poor Natalia was frantic all day worrying about her, but that's why we love her. So at about 4 in the afternoon we figured out how to head over to see her. Kieren printed out directions for us to get to the hospital so we could find it relatively easy, very thoughtful. Natalia, Josune, Alex and I headed to the metro to find a train to take us to the hospital. It turns out we had to take this circle line that none of us had every taken before. We took about a million escalators to get to the very depths of Madrid and found an old metro train waiting for us. We jumped on and counted the stops until our station – there were 9 stops. We sat on this old, musty train for over half an hour to get to the other side of town. When we finally got there, we had no idea where we were. But Natalia was very useful with our new map and got us to the main hospital entrance. We went to information and asked for the maternity ward (they put all women with any problems in that ward); he laughed and said it wasn't here. So we looked at each other and then decided to rephrase our question. "Can you tell us where it is?" He looked at our map and marked where we should go. So we took off again. It turned out that the maternity ward we were looking for was almost exactly across the street from the metro stop we arrived at – fun.

We walked around the weirdest hospital I have ever been in. It was all glowing white, and almost entirely empty. Apparently the women here do not receive a lot of visitors. We finally found her room and she was thrilled to see us. We brought her a book and her stuffed owl which made her cheer up. We talked for a long time about how she was feeling and the excitement of being prepped for surgery when you don't know what anyone was saying. After a while I started looking around. I like hospitals – as long as I'm not the one in the bed. I opened all the drawers, there weren't that many, and they even had a tall blue metal locker for her belongings, but the lock didn't actually work. We played around with the buttons to raise and lower her bed, and took pictures together.

After a while Sian came back in to discuss some insurance information with her, so we headed over to visitor lounge. When you step into the room lights turn on above the vending machines – totally awesome. So we examined and discussed every possible item in the vending machines before deciding on a few drinks and I got an amazing chocolate bar. Then, since we were the only ones there, we did a couple of bored dance moves while we were waiting. Eventually Sian came and told us we could go back in. I messed around in her room some more and practiced reading the rules, which were in Spanish. We then tried to turn on the TV and it turns out that you have to pay to watch it. We checked the rates and found out it was only about 3 Euros to turn on the TV for the rest of the day. So we turned on her TV for her and then had to say good bye. We finally headed out at about 7 and trudged back down to the miserable subway train. We finally got to our apartment and had to run and get ready before we headed out for our tapas tour.

We got to the Plaza Mayor and met with Sian who was taking us on our tour of some famous tapas bars, this tour was through the program so we each paid 5 Euros and the school buys all of our tapas. We walked down one of the tiny alleys leading away from the plaza and reached the famous tapas street. We stopped into the first bar and each ordered a drink. I ordered a tinto de verano which is half red wine and half lemonade, which is really good. The bartender then gave us some thick slices of bread covered in a sort of chorizo spread – it was amazing. We stayed for a while and a few of us talked to Sian about different horror movies she's seen and what we've seen so that was fun. After a while we head back out and down the street to the next bar. The next place she took us to was a Basque place and famous for their extravagant tapas. We picked our own tapas to have with our drinks; I stuck with a red wine. Natalia chose a piece of salmon on toast with a relish of tomato and peppers. I ordered a slice of toast with jamon Serrano wrapped around a chunk of brie and filled with a berry jam, it was one of the best things I've had here.

Next we went across the street to a bar that is famous for their pitchers that they serve sangria and beer in. The pitchers are called burrons and they almost look like a glass bong. The top is open and there is a small spout out of one side. The pitcher is designed to be shared in a group of people, passing it between everyone. You start pouring it close to your mouth and then as you drink you are supposed to pull it further away from you. It was fun to practice and I can only assume that it gets more difficult the more you practice. Here they also gave us small dishes of thick chorizo sausage slices and a bowl of strongly pickled green olives. The spice from the tapas meshed really well with the sweetness of the Sangria.

After that we walked across the street to one of the older bars. Here we all had a drink and they brought us racciones. These are larger portions of tapas, usually served at sit down bars. We had French fries with fried eggs on top, pickled potato slices with grilled octopus slices, and chorizo sausage. After we finished our food we headed out to our last bar, and Sian had picked out an ice cream bar. This was a very fancy lounge that served gourmet ice cream. They had chocolate brownie, daiquiri sorbet, fresa con crema (strawberries and cream), dulce de leche (carmel), and a million others. When Natalia and I started getting tired we said good bye and headed back down the street. When we came to the end of the tapas street we ran into one of the many religious procession that take place in Madrid during Semana Santana.

It was rather eerie to see people in purple robes with tall pointed hoods walking bare foot through a small street. The procession is very somber to represent Christ's suffering until his death. We stayed for a while but eventually headed home. The processions are very slow and it was already 1 in the morning so we decided to take off. When we finally got home we used our internet until about 3 in the morning, it was great.

Churros con Chocolate

Today was pretty much the same as any other. But I got another package from home! In it my family sent me Girl Scout cookies, pictures, some of my tour guide books for Madrid, and lots of candy. My mom made me and my roommate Natalia Easter bags full of candy. It was pretty awesome. She also sent us some egg dying supplies – we're just not sure how that will work out with the extremely dark brown eggs they have here. Everyone is very jealous of how much love I get from my family. And now the wall over my bed looks like my refrigerator back home. Everyone loves to see what cards I will get from home because they always have funny pictures of saying.

After working on some homework for class the next day we decided to go out and finally get some churros con chocolate. We headed over to Sol and then walked a ways to a small alleyway off of the plaza mayor. Here Natalia had found a tiny little café that specializes in churros. We each ordered one and sat outside to wait for our treats. A couple sat down next to us and it turned out that they were from California as well. They had been living in Madrid since January but were both taking different courses – one half of the semester was Spanish courses and then the other half was whatever school classes you needed. So they were asking Natalia how she liked Barcelona and what they should see there. We also had a chance to talk to the woman about what we should see in Italy and also Paris. It was a fun coincidence.

When they brought out our churros I actually started bouncing in my seat from excitement. They give you a coffee cup full of thick, dark chocolate and a plate full of churros. The churros aren't sweetened with cinnamon or sugar but that makes the chocolate that much better. I ate until I was actually sick. Then we headed back home for some more studying. I eventually went to bed, happy that I finally got my churros.

Avila and Segovia

Today we all woke up pretty late and had to run around to get ready. Natalia and I were able to head out on time and had a brisk walk to school to meet the bus to Avila. We got on the bus and settled down, Kieren passed out any mail that we got – I got a card from Katie that greatly cheered me up. As we drove away we discovered that Kieren got a flip - the new, small video camera that plugs into your computer. He loves it. He kept turning around and videoing us, it was so cute.

After about an hour of driving through the beautiful countryside we arrived in Avila. We met our guide and started our walk around the city walls. We entered into the city museum and were able to walk up to the top of the wall. We saw the entire city and walked around a large majority of the wall. Some of the girls kept sitting on the wall and getting yelled at by the security guard. He hated us. After we climbed down from the wall (we used the stairs) we walked around almost the entire city. A lot of the people were having fun taking a million pictures of each other so eventually we left them to meet later at the bus.

Then we went into the Avila Cathedral which was built on Saint Theresa's birth place. She is the saint who all of the famous paintings and statues are made of – the ecstasy of Saint Theresa – it usually shows her visit from the angel and filled her with God's love. So we saw the small cathedral and then also got to see her relic. They have what is supposed to be her ring finger in a large glass container. It was pretty awesome and gross. Then we headed back to the bus.

On the outskirts of town we pulled over so we could get a panorama of the entire walled city. We took a group photo and Kieren played around with his video some more. Then we headed to Segovia. We drove about an hour and a half through beautiful countryside full of cows. Why is it that there are cows everywhere and yet they hardly ever eat beef? I thought about it for a while because this has been bothering me and then I figured that it must be because they eat cheese like crazy. O well.

When we pulled into Segovia it was an amazing site. Right in the middle of town there is a giant Roman aqueduct that splits the town. It was built over two thousand years ago and is the only Roman structure still completely intact. It is made up over 20,400 Granite stones, 166 arches and is held together by their engineering – there is no mortar or cement holding any of it together. Pretty awesome.

We got out and had about 2 hours to go eat lunch. Natalia and I stuck with Doug because he always finds the best places to eat. We walked all the way through town and deep into the center, we found a little restaurant downstairs from a hotel. Here we had a menu del dia, it was amazing. I got saffron rice with vegetables (saffron is really inexpensive here so I'm eating it like crazy) and short ribs with French fries. For desert we had a cake with a marzipan layer covering it. Almost everywhere you go in central Spain has marzipan because they have almond trees everywhere. Over all the meal was amazing.

We headed back to the aqueduct and met our tour guide for the city. She showed us the building in the city, which all have intricate patterns cut out of the cement. The poorer people used to do this because it was cheap and then the richer people copied their idea. Now all buildings that are in Segovia have to use the same ideas. We then walked to the other end of town to see the castle. The town claims that this is the castle Walt Disney used to design the castle at Disneyland but unfortunately Disney disagrees with them, it's a German castle. We walked through the castle rooms, which were very Moorish in their design which was cool. And then we climbed an extremely tiny and old spiral staircase to the top of the castle tower – 152 stairs. It was going great until we ran into a huge crowd of people trying to climb down. So I had to try and climb the tiny edge near the center of the spiral – it was terrifying. But when we got to the top and could see all of Segovia and the snow covered mountains in the background it was definitely worth it. Some of the girls danced to "Jump on it" and Kieren of course videotaped it – it's hilarious. But then we had to climb down the scary staircase.

After we got to the bottom we walked back through the city until we reached the aqueduct again. We said good bye to our crazy tour guide and got back on the bus for our long ride home. We finally got home at about eight at night. We said good night and headed back home. Once we got there we had a quick dinner and I went to bed immediately.

Odd Coincidences

Today I got to sleep in a little, and then a little more than I bargained for because last night was day light savings time. I woke up and studied for my history test all morning. One of the other girls came over and she talked us all in to going to lunch with her. She's very picky and prefers to only eat American food, so we had to go to TGI Fridays.

When we got there I was a little excited because I got to have a hamburger, I haven't had any red meat since I left California. At all people! So my hamburger was everything I dreamed it would be and made me very happy. After lunch Michelle and I had walked back to the apartment while the other girls went to see a bull fight.

I chose not to go to the bull fight because I don't think it's fair. They weaken the bull before he even sees the matador, how is that fair? I will go see a fight when the Matador's have the possibility of dying the same as the bull. One of the poor girls who went didn't know that they killed the bull every time. She thought it was just a fight, and I explained to her that yes, it is a fight to the death.

So I headed home and spent the majority of the day with Josune. It was a great day for me because she made me dinner while I sat and talked to her. We found out that both her father and my father broke their ankles and then we had to entertain them with westerns. They both prefer vacations where they drive around and stay where ever they happen to be. And they think everyone else is a fool, the only interesting difference is that my dad is in his 40s and her dad is in his 60s.

Her dad also loves to read Zane Grey books, and I remembered that I had read "Riders of the Purple Sage." When she called him later she mentioned that I had read that book. He told her that when we got home I needed to come to the house and he would give me some of the books from his collection, and let me borrow some others. He also told her to tell me that he will also give some books that are proper for a lady, not that much violence. He said that if I have read that type of book then obviously I was someone Josune should be friends with.

I then had her read an email that my dad sent me when I first got to Madrid. She loved it so much she made me read it to Alex when he got home. Both of them love my parents now and can't wait to meet them

.

Here is the email I received:

My Dearest Daughter,

I gave it a lot of thought last night and I am truly concerned for your safety. Being in a 3^rd world country has it perils! So I started thinking about your need for a sword, but then comes the total lack of upper body strength, according to the European web sites that I went to, this could be a problem. We did not talk about you carrying a lance while riding your new bull, but we can discuss this in the next few days when you have picked out the bull you will be riding (I will need to know the diameter of the horns, width and length. Spacing of the eyes is apparently very important, please keep this in mind; also something about "girth" but I think that is only if you are shipping. Shipping should not be a problem to other countries, I found that a lot of other countries have a bull exchange program, we can discuss this later).

After extensive research, I have decided that you should wear armor I can get it from Toledo in stainless steel so that it will not rust in the rain, at this point in your trip it might be something to think about. If the other girls are interested, we can get them fitted as well. The armor will take about 2 months to make, if they rush it. You will probably sustain some damage the first 2 months, but by the 3^rd month you will be on your game and the armor will come in to play (this will also allow you to hunt down the people that damaged you in the first 2 months).

Having a dagger is a must, this is something that you should pick up today at your local store.

We did not discuss carrying a hammer, but with the upper body strength issue I think we should table this for now, but I do have an alternative.

Now, this is a hammer pendant, this can be used to tap people on the head to get their attention followed by the use of the dagger. I need to know what type of metal you would like before I order this, gold and silver is too soft, they recommend staying with bronze, but this is your call. I can go with aluminum so it will be lighter, but you would have to probably tap them multiple times, again your call.

As far as the "snake dagger" it is not recommended due to trapping bits between the blades and requires constant cleaning after squirmishes, save time…..don't go with this one.

As far as a shield, the Spanish Government recommends that this be carried at all times (they do say that you have to leave them outside of bars and banks and some stores, not sure why the stores but so be it). I can order this on Monday if you like the design (they also said I can replace "Conan's name" with yours if you would like. I say leave the name, it will help instill terror.

I know that you really want to carry a mace, but it is really heavy and I say let it go unless you are going to put it on one of your pack animals.

I think that this is the style of sword that will go with the armor; light and fast moving, I say go with it……your mother I'm sure would agree.

If you let me know by Tuesday, I can go ahead and get some made up for the other girls and it will match yours (remember safety in numbers). It comes with a handy stand that you can put by the front door. Engraving is very expensive, so they will have to do this on their own. Interestingly, if you want a blood bowel to sit in the bottom of the stand it is only 5 euro's more, you can get it in wood or stainless steel (I say go with the stainless steel, cleaning will be easier).

I know that I have given you a lot to think about, but these are things that need to be taken care of as soon as possible. They need 3 full days to fit your armor as it is sent out to the local villages to be made.

Oh, KT borrowed your jeep yesterday. She said the tires seemed to be rubbing a little bit, I will take a look at it later today, I'm sure it's no big deal.

I love you Sissy and I'm thinking about you………..have way too much fun! But please, please be careful until we get you the shield and dagger as a minimum.

Love Dad

El Escorial

So I woke up this morning at seven. I was perfectly fine after last night and excited to go see El Escorial. It's a small town a little over an hour North of Madrid and it's famous for it's monastery. Stephanie, one of my other roommates, and I had a quick bite to eat and were briefly interrupted by Mandy swaying in to the bathroom. Steph wanted to know if she was sick and I let her know that no, she's still drunk. After helping her get the bathroom door back open she let us know that she didn't get home until five that morning, we then found a copy of her passport and keys on the counter. Fun.

We got to school and met up with the others, and then we headed to the Atocha station. Once we got there we bought the tickets and checked to see that we had an hour before the next train. Atocha station is actually known to be one of the most beautiful train stations in Spain. In one wing they have a large tropical garden, while walking through the garden you can see ponds full of turtles. It was so beautiful.

Finally we caught our train and headed out. Once we got there we realized that the weather is extremely different from Madrid. We were freezing! We found out which direction to go and took off. We walked through a small town until we hit a large park with one long, straight road down the middle. Unfortunately the long, straight road was completely up hill. So I had to walk about a mile up a hill in the high altitude – I almost died. But when we got close and the trees opened up we saw the most amazing view of the monastery, which Philip II also used as a palace.

We finally made it to the entrance and made our way in. First we toured the basement, which was full of the tools and materials used to build the buildings. There were also models and drawings of the construction. After that we made our way up to the art gallery, here we saw a lot of the royal painter's works. Then we toured the royal apartments, where we saw the bed that Philip slept in (really tiny) and eventually died in. We also saw a long strip of metal in the floor of one of the conference rooms that was used as an indoor sundial, I'm getting one.

We then walked back down to the mausoleum and saw all of the tombs of the royals who were buried there. A large majority of the tombs were built for the children who died before puberty. Finally we saw the inside of the basilica, which was amazing. You could stand in the center and look all the way up into the center of the dome.

After the church we walked across the small town to a small place to eat lunch. Here we found a menu del dia for 5 euros so we were pretty excited. We read through the menu and realized that though they tried to translate their Spanish into English there is some words that didn't quite make it. For instance, espegetti con crema translated into past with scum – very appetizing. I got sopa castellana, ham, egg and bread soup – which I love. And a piece of chicken with French fries. For desert we all got café con leche.

Later we headed back down to the train station to head home. On the train ride home I talked to Alex, Josune's boyfriend. He brought up that he thought it was odd that I have a Mexican accent when I talk about some things. I didn't realize that I did, but now of course I pay attention to that like crazy. I explained to him that I was raised by the Mexican family next door and that now I spend almost all my free time with Mexicans so it sounds like they're rubbing off on me.

We also were able to see the giant stone cross of the Valley of the Fallen. This cross was built by prisoners of war in the Spanish civil war and is now the burial place of Franco. It was cool to get to see it from the train because you can't really go there. It is a fascist landmark and is one of the most controversial things in Spain.

Once I got home I stopped by the store to grab a baguette and some jamon Serrano (I'm obsessed with it now) for dinner. I ran into one of the girls from the other apartment and we shopped together for a bit before heading back home. After eating my bocodillo I jumped straight into bed and passed out.

A Night for Drinking

So our roommate Mandy is pretty dramatic. Today she officially broke up with her boyfriend who she has been dating for two months. Granted, she did sign a year lease with him and move in together after a few weeks, but there ya go. I'm sure this will be a continuing saga and I don't want you all to miss.

Today after class a few of us went to grab a quick bite to eat at a small sandwich place down the street. We were talking to one of the other girls who loves to ice skate, another girl asked if she had seen ice princess because it's a cute movie. She said yeah, I was in it. She was a stunt double! Crazy huh? She got paid a ton of money that was put into a savings account that she can't get until she's 21. So now we are all dying to get the movie so she can show us her parts.

After skyping with my parents for a little bit I met some of my room mates down stairs to talk about plans for the night. It was decided that we should grab some alcohol and have a little party, just us. So I grabbed some Bacardi while everyone else was content with Smirnoff – lightweights. Josune, one of my roommates, pointed out that the Bacardi here is made in Cuba, not in Puerto Rico like at home, pretty stinkin' awesome.

So as the night went on it got more and more exciting. Mandy left to go out clubbing with some of the girls downstairs, and then the boys came over to have a drink with us. Two of them were drinking gin and tonics which I thought was very odd. I tasted one and it didn't seem that bad, but I was pretty far gone by that point. I had an amazing time, and apparently everyone enjoyed seeing this side of me. They claim that I didn't stop making jokes the whole night.

I made sure to drink three bottles of water before I went to bed and eventually I was asleep by about four in the morning. All in all, it was a great night.