Singing in Sacrament Meeting

Sunday! A day for relaxation. Lyn and I took the bus to church, which is fun because a lot of the people in our group take the same bus so we all get to sit and talk. Last Sunday, one of the ladies from the Relief Society asked us to organize a musical number for Sacrament meeting. Well, we kind of forgot about it during the week, so we decided to just improvise and sing it! We’ve all sung hymns plenty of times, so we figured it wouldn’t be too hard. However, it was in Spanish. That does make it a bit more difficult! Luckily, Sacrament meeting was last, so after Sunday School, the girls all got together and did a quick run through! It sounded great, no practice, so we just went for it! Apparently, while we were singing, a ton of people in the congregation pulled out their cell phones and recorded us! Other people said that they saw people crying because they were so touched. It was so precious! I loved it. After church, we came home, then my friend Lexi came over to the house to give Gloria and Santi a present from her friends back home. They had gone on a Study Abroad the semester before and lived with Gloria and Santi. We all sat in the living room, and Gloria made us some herbal tea and brought in cookies, too! It was so fun! We sat and talked for quite some time, and Lexi and I attempted to translate a letter that the girls wrote for Santi. Afterwards, we walked down to Profe’s house for a movie and game night with some of the group. We were a little late from talking, so I decided to just jump in on a game rather than watch the movie when it was halfway over. It was so much fun! We played Monopoly Deal in the tiny little kitchen. I just love the people in my group. They’re so much fun. Profe is great too! I love it when he likes to hang out with us. It was another one of those days where I realized I was in Spain and I got really excited all over! I realize that I’m living my dream and I feel great.  I’m so blessed! Afterwards, Lexi came over to our house again for dinner because Santi made a special Spanish tortilla and invited her to come. It was a ton of fun! I have the greatest host family. It couldn’t have worked out better! Life is good. That’s all I have to say.

El Escorial, El Valle de los Caidos, y Las Manzanares

Up bright and early! There’s no rest for the wicked, and besides, today is a day trip! Bummer day for a trip, though. The weather decided to turn cold on the one day we have a trip, when the rest of the week has been absolutely beautiful. Go figure! Today, we visited El Escorial, El Valle de los Caídos, and Las Manzanares. It was pretty nice, because they were all within an hour or so of Madrid, so we didn’t have to drive forever and a day to get there. We first stopped at El Escorial, which was a palace that’s a little higher up in the mountains. It was way cool! This one didn’t look like a palace as much because it was very uniform and not extremely lavish. It was definitely large, but not as extravagant as others. We started our tour in the library. WOW! Jaw drop. It was a huge room with vaulted ceilings that were painted so intricately and with so much detail and color, you could literally stare at it for days and days and never be bored. Not only that, but the books were absolutely amazing. Our guide told us that this is the third best library in the world when it comes to quality. That’s pretty impressive, if you ask me. The books were naturally preserved because of the system that was originally set up to shelve the books. They were all turned backwards so their pages faced outward, thus letting them air out naturally, avoiding mold and other damage to the books. They had books about astrology, astronomy, law, science, mathematics, philosophy, religion, etc. Very, very cool. Not only did this palace have an exquisite library, but also a cathedral, living quarters, a huge crypt housing many famous Spanish kings, queens, and other royalty, a vast gallery of paintings that was home to the works of famous artists, a personal chapel, and many, many other rooms. We were told that if you were to walk the entire square footage of this place, it would be over 10 miles. Good thing we didn’t, although it felt like we came pretty close. One cool thing about this palace is that you could look out the window and still see Madrid in the distance. I would probably compare it as being from Salt Lake to Riverton. On a clear day and from a higher viewpoint, you can see the city from a distance. El Escorial was one of the seasonal palaces that the royalties used, and it’s actually the one where the king said he wanted to die. We even saw the bed that he died in, then his casket. It’s kind of strange to know that you’re surrounded by a bunch of dead bodies down in the crypt, but it’s also very cool at the same time. It’s just like a cemetery, except the caskets aren’t buried. The last room we visited in El Escorial was just a passageway out into the plaza, but it had a whisper dome and a center echo spot. As can be expected, we stayed in that room for probably around 20 minutes playing with the sounds. As we were walking out, we decided to take a quick group pictures on the stairs that led up to the cathedral. Well, we didn’t realize it, but just as we were gathering to take our picture, a wedding procession started at the gates and started heading right towards us! It was actually pretty comical. I felt bad for the bride, because she was being escorted through the plaza by her father and had her cameras flashing all around her, and then all of a sudden there’s this big group of tourists right there! Ha! Sad for her, but definitely a great moment for us! It sure would be amazing to get married in a grand cathedral/palace like that. That probably cost a fortune to arrange, though! Next stop on our trip was El Valle de los Caídos. This wasn’t too far from El Escorial, so we had just enough time to eat our lunch on the bus before we arrived. This place was even further up into the mountains, but you could see it from the freeway. On the outside, there’s a humongous cross, and when you zoom in on it with a camera, you can see all the intricate details that are carved into it and around it. There are figures of apostles and other relics symbolizing Christ. You could take a tram up to the top, but sadly it was closed. You keep walking up the hill, and then you come to some granite pillars. Walk through the pillars that begin to curve around and form a “U” shape, then it leads out into a courtyard overlooking a valley. This is why it’s called “El Valle de los Caídos” (the valley of the fallen). The two sides of the “U” shaped pillars meet in the middle at a door, and at the top about 20 feet up, there’s a giant statue of Mary holding the dead Christ, and then directly above that on the mountain, you can see the cross. If you stand directly in front of it, it all lines up. It was absolutely amazing. The gloomy day made the scene look like I thought it should as well. Upon entering the basilica, I almost fell to the floor because of what I was seeing. Huge, immense ceilings that are literally carved right into the mountain and textured in a very cool manner, wall hangings that stretch across every wall containing some kind of biblical scene, organ pipes at the end of each of the wall hangings, mini chapels for honoring or worshiping a certain saint after every couple of wall hangings, and finally, to the cross section of the basilica where there’s a huge platform with an altar, then rooms off to the side. Around the altar on the walls (and also walking up to the cross section) stood four enormous statues of angels. I call them the destroying angels because they all had huge wings, hoods, and swords that were about to strike. I felt like I was in some kind of movie like “Lord of the Rings” or something! Wow. It was amazing. When you looked up to the ceiling above the main altar, you could see an intricate mosaic representation that stretched the entire length of the ceiling. To the right, there was a huge organ. I assumed that when it was played, it echoed throughout the whole place, not only because the entire building was so echoey, but also because of the organ pipes that lined the walls in the tapestries up through the straight part of the basilica (if that makes sense). Past the organ, there was another room that you could walk into that had benches and another small altar with a statue of Christ on the cross. There was another smaller tile mosaic on the ceiling, and this room even had actual candles that could be lit. In all the other cathedrals and basilicas, you insert money into a machine and it turns on a fake candle that sits and flickers for a few minutes and then goes out. This place was legit! They had lit candles everywhere. It added perfectly to the eerie, “I’m in another world” effect. There was another room like this off to the left of the main altar, and in front of the main altar lies Franco’s tomb, also with Franco’s main henchman entombed to the back of the main altar. If the sight of this place isn’t to blow your mind, knowing the history behind it will. This basilica was built by Franco in the past 100 years, so it’s pretty recent. He forced his prisoners of war to build this basilica for him. Even though he said it was only built to honor and praise Christ, there were many elements instituted to give honor and praise to himself, and to show his absolute power. If any of the prisoners of war died while working on the basilica, they would be put into the walls along with the plaster and stone to fortify the mixture and make it more durable. Intimidating, no? Franco sounds like a really great guy… I didn’t want to leave, but after we were done inside of the basilica, we went to the outside where you could see the outside pillars and building again, and also the valley. We took a bunch of pictures here, then headed back to the bus. I really wish we could have spent more time here! I was absolutely intrigued with everything I saw. I would have loved to spend more time there exploring, walking around, sitting in the basilica and admiring everything inside, then taking a trip up to the cross. I think I want to say that this has been the most impressive (and possibly even my favorite) thing we’ve seen so far on the trip. It was AMAZING! Final stop: Las Manzanarres el Real, which is a big castle in the outskirts of the Community of Madrid. This was a pretty great castle! It stood on the edge of a really cool lake and some mountains in the background as well. While we were walking up to the entrance, speakers were playing some old Scandinavian type music. It made me want to do a jig or something (I may or may not have actually done it for real!)! This was a very typical looking castle, but it seemed like it was in better condition than others. We didn’t have a tour for this one, but the castle had recently been renovated, and the inside was very modern with exhibits and signs explaining the history of the castle. I was really tired and a little bit lazy, so I bypassed those and went upstairs instead. My friends and I had a good time sitting in a little nook and talking while waiting out a rain storm outside. It was perfect! It’s sometimes nice to take a break. After we were more rested and the storm was over, we went up one more floor to the top of the castle. It was beautiful! It overlooked the mountains, the city, and the lake, and with all the beautiful clouds and mist from the storm, it was just perfect. We got to climb all over the top of the castle and take pictures for a bit, then it was back down, on the bus again, then on our way home. As absolutely wonderful as these trips are, they exhaust me! I’m always a zombie by the time we get home. I guess I’ll only be young once, though, so it’s the best time to be here!

Europe in a Single Day

Even though it was Friday, we had to go to class to make up one of the days from the previous where we missed class for one of our trips. Oh well. Class is pretty easy, so it wasn’t a big deal! Someone in the group had heard of this cool park to visit, so I decided to tag along since I didn’t have any other plans for the day. The park was two train stops and one bus ride away on our way to Madrid. The park is called Parque Europa because it had smaller replicas of all the famous monuments around Europe. It was the coolest park I’ve ever seen! In two hours, we visited the Belem tower from Portugal (which I did see in real life already!), The London Bridge in London, England, the Plaza de España in Spain, the Little Mermaid statue in Denmark, some hanging rose gardens, a Viking ship in the north of Europe, the Trevi fountain in Italy, the Eiffel tower in Paris, France, Michelangelo’s David, also in Italy, the Mannekin Pis fountain and the Atomium from Belgium, and a few other cool things. Whew! What a day of traveling. It was fun to see. Afterwards, we had to get back to Álcala because we were meeting with the group to go to a puppet show that Profe bought tickets to. We had a few minutes before though, so we got some ice cream from the delicious place across the street from the Plaza de Cervantes. Yum yum yum! I got a yogurt with candied figs and a tropical cinnamon mix. It was to die for! They have some truly amazing ice cream over here. Next, the puppet show! We weren’t really sure what to expect with this one. The show was for 7 years old and up, and we basically filled up most of the small theater! The show consisted of a man and a woman who would trade off and do different acts with puppets, except the puppets were made out of some part of their body with added costumes. It took me a few minutes to get used to the idea, but afterwards I loved it! The first act was the man, and he pulled a hat over his eyes and nose, leaving only his mouth and chin exposed, then popped two large marbles that looked like eyes in his mouth and situated them between his gums and his lips, then protruded them to make them look like they were eyes sticking out of their sockets. It was amazing!!! He manipulated his mouth to look like the eyes were blinking, staring, and even crying. Wow. The lady did different acts with her hands: one was a dancing mermaid, another of a man in a boat, one with a scene of Adam and Eve, and the final one of a chubby little boy playing with a ball. So cute! She also did an act where her two legs were a man and a woman, and they did a dancing scene. She had her legs up in the air and stretched out for a good five minutes! We all decided that she must do Pilates or something, because that is not easy to do. The best one that she did, though, was when she walked out on stage with her shirt pulled up, bra exposed and everything, and did a scene where her belly fat jiggled and talked, and her belly button was a mouth where she stuck in a cigarette! It was absolutely hilarious! I was a little weirded out at first because she was exposing herself so much, but once you got into the act and could really see the person instead of a half naked lady, it was great. Good times had by all! After the show, we all hung around, deciding what to do and being annoying Americans who block up all the sidewalks, like we do, until Lyn and I just left. We stopped at Carrefour on our way home, then just hung out and did stuff in our rooms when we got back. Super great day! I loved it.

El Palacio Real de Madrid

After class and lunch, a big group met up at the train station to go into Madrid again. At first it was only supposed to be a small group of us to finish our Madrid walk from the day before, but that’s ok! It’s always fun to be with everyone. The only problem is, we tend to get very loud on the train, and people get extremely annoyed. I always feel guilty, even though it’s not me being loud. Thos darn Americans! Once in Madrid, we finally made our way over to the Palacio, but a lot of people decided they didn’t want to pay the 5 Euro to go in. I didn’t mind! This was a palace, for crying out loud! It was either a piece of history or a scoop of helado (ice cream). I chose the former! The rest of the group, maybe 10 or so people, chose the latter! Ha! To each their own, as I always like to say. I enjoy hanging out with the group who likes to learn the history and see the sights rather than just shop, sit around and eat ice cream all the time. Those things definitely have their place, but I prefer to have a fine mix, but with more of the history and sightseeing. Anyways, after my little rant, back to the Palacio! I couldn’t take pictures, like all of the palaces, but man oh man, this place was rich. My jaw always drops to the floor when I see these monstrosities! When I use that word, it’s always in a good way. Grand staircases with marble everywhere and beautiful chandeliers, thrones literally fit for a king, ballrooms, exquisite rooms and dressing rooms filled with personalized paintings and gold leafing everywhere you look, tables for banquets that could fit at least a hundred people… You name it! This would be my choice of life, for sure. They also had a little area where your carriage could come right to the bottom of the grand staircase to pick you up and take you to the ball. Oh man. Jealous. I wanted to be a princess so bad in that moment! It brings all of the Disney stories right to life. I most definitely felt like a 5 year old again. After our tour of the inside of the palace, we went back out to the courtyard and walked over to the armory. So super cool! I felt like a princess inside, but I think this place made the guys feel like they wanted to be the knights who went off to war, fought for the ladies, and also dueled or jousted. It was so cool! They had walls and walls full of ancient full body armor, swords, first model guns, horse armor, crossbows, lances, etc. It was great! I really enjoyed seeing that part. This palace also had an apothecary exhibit. So super cool! There were hundreds and hundreds of jars of all different sizes lining the walls. Each one was labeled on the front and perfectly faced. There was also a kitchen where brews were cooked up (of course the royal family had their own personal apothecary with everything supplement they could ever need). Next on the list of things to do: got get Madrid’s best and most famous churros and chocolate, of course! What else? We’ve found that it’s best to split things like this, so Logan and I bought an order together and each ate half. I don’t think I could have done any more than that! The churros are freshly made, so they’re still hot, and the chocolate is so extremely rich. It’s kind of a mix between a chocolate sauce and a mug of hot chocolate. The Madrid guide said that if it’s really high quality chocolate, the spoon will stand up in the middle of the glass of chocolate. Ours didn’t quite to do that, but that might have been because it wasn’t completely cooled yet. Ooh, this stuff was good. So extremely rich, but definitely worth it. Of course there was a ton of chocolate left over, so of course Logan drank the rest. I had a couple of spoonfuls, but that’s all I could manage! I’m just not one for a lot of sweet. I still enjoyed it though, and it was an overall great day!

Madrid Walks

Busy week! One of the BYU professors who’s conducted a study abroad in Spain before put together a list of “Madrid Walks” for us to do when we don’t have anything else going on. Basically, she walked through the city and wrote out an extremely detailed map of things that we can see and do. Along with that, she added the history of the place or interesting facts for us, and when we’re standing in front of or inside of the building, we can read the history of it and look for the details that she’s describing. It’s amazing! I cannot even imagine how much time she put into each one of those. So cool! On the walk we did today, we went through the heart of Madrid and saw a couple of ancient churches, la Plaza del Sol and surrounding historical buildings, la Plaza Mayor, a basilica, and also a cathedral. All in Madrid! This place is freakin’ loaded with things to do. I could spend months in Madrid and still not cover everything. After walking around and reading our different historical tidbits about different buildings, we decided to go in and tour the cathedral. We’ve seen a lot of cathedrals, but I’m still enthralled every single time I walk in a new one. They’re all so distinct, yet very similar at the same time. I liked this one because it was a lot more colorful than others we’ve seen. There were a lot of wall paintings with rich and vibrant colors, which is nice because it offsets the whitish-grey of the walls and the dark shadows. This one also had extremely high ceilings. It’s hard to imagine how they even built it! There was also a mass going on while we were walking through, which was great! I got some awesome close-ups of the… I don’t really know what he was. Bishop? Pastor? Archduke of Arabia? I have no idea! I guess I should brush up on my knowledge of the Catholic church. After about half an hour in the cathedral, we discovered that there was also a crypt on the other side of the cathedral where some famous lady was buried, but when we found out that you had to pay again to get in, we decided it wasn’t THAT worth it. Maybe if it had been someone I’d actually heard of. Right next door on the other side of the cathedral is the Palacio Real (or Royal Palace). Conveniently placed, if you ask me! The Palace was closed for the day, so instead we just walked around the gardens. Love those palace gardens! I wish I could have acres and acres of beautifully trimmed hedges and trees and flowers and fountains. Maybe in the next life… After the gardens, we walked a little bit further and found another plaza next to a big opera house. How I wish I could have gone to a show! I didn’t check, but I was guessing that tickets were a bit on the expensive side and probably sold out anyways. Oh well. It was still fun to sit outside in the plaza and enjoy the atmosphere! I had another moment where I realized that I was sitting in the middle of a plaza, in Spain, people watching and loving life. Aah! What a life! I’m amazed by everything I’ve been experiencing. It’s weird to think that being in this place isn’t magical to some most people because it’s everyday life. Kind of interesting to look at things when you seen them in that light! Afterwards, metroed and trained back home, dinner, Skyped/Facebooked (essentials to my day, of course!), then beddy-bye time!

La Corrida de Toros

We started of our day with class, just like any other day, then lunch, homework, blogging, Facebook, etc. After class, though, I went with my friends Julia, Katie, and Dottie to do a little shopping!

We've found this really cheap clothing store run by some Asians, and I've been there a ton! I wanted to buy new clothes while I was here, and I've definitely been doing that! I love it! I got 2 new pairs of sandals and one new shirt in this trip, but I've bought more stuff there before. Afterwards, we wanted to buy a traditional Spanish fan (abanico) because we thought it would definitely be part of the experience! I was so excited to get mine! It's beautiful and hand-painted with a matador and a torro on the front. Love it! We met up with the group at the train station around 5 or so, then headed into Madrid.

I love having the train and metro systems here! It's so handy for traveling. All you do is hop and and back off! We literally took the metro right up to the Plaza de Toros. It was great. Ok, anyways! Back to the bull fight... There were TONS of people here, and later my host mom said that it wasn't even completely full. That surprises me, because you literally couldn't move in your seat without touching at least four other people. Yikes! Fire hazard! :) We were at the highest row that you could get to in the stadium in the sunny side, but it turned out being great because we were shaded by the overhanging balcony. The way the stadium works is you buy a seat either in the sun or the shade.

Shade obviously costs a lot more, because they can do that. I also sat in back of a large pole that blocked the sun from blinding me. Lucky! The corrida starts with a procession of all the players in the game. This includes the matadores, the picadores, the bandilleros, and the toreros. I'll explain what all those are as I go along. The procession is very formal and quite beautiful. The suits that each wear are very traditional and I believe that most are handmade. This is the part of the culture that I loved.

Once the procession was over, the fight began. The matadores, or just the matadors, start out alone in the ring and they let the bull loose through one of the side doors. The bull runs out looking a bit enraged, and then he gets to the center and seems confused by what is going on. He spies the matador waving his pink and yellow cape, so he starts to go after him. The matadors goad the bull and get him really riled up. They swing their cape around to get him going, then they run behind a little gate that protects them from any harm. A few times, the bull would run up and hit his horns on the wooden gate trying to get at the matadors. After maybe 10 to 15 minutes of this, a band of trumpets plays which signals the next round. Two men on horses march into the ring, and they're holding these long sticks with spears on the end. The horses are decked out in a sort of armor, and also

blindfolded. These men are called the picadores. If you look at the word and say it in English, you can kind of guess what they do. These were my least favorite of the whole thing. WARNING! This is where my description will start to get a little graphic. The two men guide their horses to opposite sides of the ring, then the matadors that are still goading the bull lead them over to where the picadores are so they'll see them and want to attack. The purpose is to get the bull to ram the horse so the picador can have him in perfect position to pick at his shoulders with the spear to weaken him and make him start to lose some blood. If they don't get some optimal stabs, the matadors continue to chase them over to the picador to make him angry enough to attack again.

One of the times, the bull got going so hard that it lifted the horse off of the ground from underneath and knocked him over on the ground. For a few minutes, we thought the horse had been stabbed by the horn and was dead, but an entire team of men rushed out on the ring, chased the bull away, then picked the horse up off the ground. The poor thing! It wasn't moving for a few minutes, so that's why we thought it had been killed. All of our group kept gasping and having to turn away the first time, because we really weren't expecting all of this to happen! Ok, so after the picador has gotten some good action with the bull, the trumpets play again while the riders go out, and the next group starts their turn. These are called the bandilleros. "Bandera" in Spanish means "flag," so you can start to get an idea of what this round is about.

The bandilleros run out into the middle of the ring holding two bandillos, which are mini hooked flags that they once again stab into the shoulders. However, this time, the flags stick into the shoulders and stay there to further weaken the animal for the torero. During the round with the bandilleros, the matadores are still in the ring to goad the bull and lead him over to the picadores. Once the picadores are stabbed perfectly into the shoulders, the bandillero runs as fast as he can towards the wooden gates, because the bull is usually mad as ever and chases after him.

This is also where the other matadores come in. They distract the bull away from the bandillero so he can run to safety. If the bandillero takes too much time or doesn't stab the bandillos in right and has one fall out, he will lose points and also be "booed" by the crowd. The bull fight is critiqued as an art form, not really as a sport. Finally, the trumpets play again and it's now time for the torero. This is the main event. For maybe another 10-15 minutes, the torero plays with the bull and has a red cape this time. He swings it at the bull and moves it around his body as the bull charges. The point here is for the torero to have the most beautiful form that he can manage. This is where he racks up his own points (ok, I don't really know if real points exist, but this is what makes sense to me!)and makes his name in the bull-fighting world.

After swinging his cape around and practicing his form, it's time for the kill. He's not only holding his cape, but also a long silver sword. As soon as he can find the best shot, he goes for the stab and digs it far into the animal's shoulders. I forgot to mention earlier that the bull has a set of ribbons tagged onto the small of his back as a guide for the torero. This is the best place to stab the sword that will bring him down and end his life quickly. If the torero is good, he will get it straight in and will finish the toro quickly, ending its suffering in a more "humane" manner. If the torero is bad, he has back up. A few times, the bull would just get so exhausted from running around so much and the loss of blood, so he'd decide he can't go on anymore and would collapse on the ground for a break. At this time, if the torero hadn't done his job right, the rest of the matadores still in the ring would surround the animal, usually in a corner, and one of the matadors would brandish a small knife and stick it through the forehead to debilitate the brain and the spinal cord.

I absolutely couldn't stand to watch this part. After the first time of watching this, I literally had tears come to my eyes and I had to force them away. That surprised me. I really thought I could handle it, but seeing a life end like that, so up close and personal, was really hard. Oh, I keep saying "after the first time" and phrases like this. That's because we didn't just watch one bull die, but 6 in total. They repeated this six different times with different toreros as the main show. I was a little disgusted when I found that out. I found that it wasn't as hard to watch as the show went on, though.

I think we all became a little desensitized to the whole thing, which is sad. I was really excited and in a good mood when we first got there, but as the first event unfolded, I lost all of that and was pretty somber through the rest of the show. Ah, I forgot to finish the description up til the end. After the bull was killed thoroughly, a team of two or three strong horses were led out into the ring, and the bull was hooked up in back by it's horns, then dragged around the arena and back into the gates. A clean up crew would then run out and pour new sand over the blood to make it look fresh for the next event. Pretty crazy. After the last bull was finished, the toreros exited the ring in another sort of procession. As the first torero left, tons of people started throwing their rented seat cushions at him because he had been so bad! A couple hit him in the head! Serves him right, though. He took so long to kill his bull and didn't even do it in the end. He had to have one of his helpers come out and finish it the hard way. Well, I can't say that I absolutely loved the bull fight, but I'm definitely glad that I went. I would have regretted it if I hadn't, because this is such a big part of their culture. We also learned that there are many people fighting to have the bull fight taken out of Spanish culture, but also many more fighting to preserve it and make it a bigger part of the culture. There was a man who wrote an article saying that they should let children into the corrida in order to instill the culture at a younger age and to keep it alive.

I don't necessarily agree with that one, but I guess I think a different way. It was all very interesting! Well, on a happier note, after the bull fight was over, we met up with some people from the group and headed over to the Parque de Retiro for another night of fireworks. Apparently, each of the three nights that they had fireworks was different in their show, so we wanted to see the last one. On our way, we saw many street performers, including a man who was playing a song on crystal glasses, like in "Miss Congeniality!" That one was definitely my favorite. I didn't think that the firework show this night was as spectacular as the night before, but it was still really fun to be there and to celebrate. After the show, we rushed over to the Atocha train station, then made it on the train right before the station stopped running. I ate a very late dinner, talked to Gloria a bit, then hit the sack. It was a long day!

Best Fireworks Ever!

Today was a very productive day, if I do say so myself! Started out with class, then worked on homework and wrote some postcards. Afterwards, I went to the post office and sent them, then to the phone store to put some more minutes on our cell phone. Afterwards, I walked home, ate lunch, and wrote a LOT in my blog. It's so hard to stay caught up, but I know I won't regret it. I literally did that for a most of the day! Previously, Profe Hague told us that we couldn't go into Madrid until Wednesday because there were protests and "Occupy Madrid's" which were said to be very dangerous, but also, the Festival de San Isidro was also going on. You can't be in Spain during a famous festival and not participate in it all! Each night ended with a spectacular firework show, and we convinced him to let all of us go as a group for FHE! I was so excited!

We met with the group, rode the train into Madrid, then walked over to a huge botanical garden/park where they'd be shooting off the fireworks. There were a ton of people there! It was a really fun atmosphere. We walked by a performer putting on a show, and he started juggling a chain saw, knife, and ball all at the same time! It was ridiculous. In the center of the park, there's a mini man-made lake with a statue structure in back of it. Everyone was gathered around the perimeter of the lake so they could have prime view of the fireworks once they started. We waited around for a bit for the show to start, but let me tell you, it was so worth it! This was one of the best, if not the best, firework show I've ever seen. The statue and pillars in back would change colors, and there was classical music playing in the background to go along with the fireworks, which just added to it.

At one point, fireworks shot off from the middle of the lake and looked like they were going to come right in our faces, but then they stopped right before getting to that point. It was AMAZING! From the crowd, you could hear legit "ooh's" and "aah's" as each one went off! I definitely got a bit hyper... Let's just say it was a combination of the fireworks, the fact that I was in Spain watching fireworks, and the awesome people I was with. The show wasn't that long, which was a bit disappointing. We really had to hurry afterwards, too, because the train only runs for so long, and there were thousands and thousands of people in the park. Luckily, we barely made the last train back to Alcala de Henares. Luckily, Gloria and Santi don't really care when or what we eat, so I came home, had some chocolate milk and cookies, then headed off to bed.