Blogs from District of Madrid, Spain, Europe

"Barguiarena, have you heard the name before?" I asked Marcell from Barcelona as we were smoking shish-a at our hostel in Marrakech. It's a question I like to ask every Spaniard I meet, which unfortunately isn't often enough. "Ah si, suena como nombre de Basque, no?" (Ah yes, that is from the Basque region, no?) Marcell replied. This has been confirmed by at least half a dozen travelers from Spain, our family name is from the northern Basque region. I'm ashamed to admit I have yet to visit that part of the country. Third times the charm I guess, I'll make it a priority next time I am there.I left Lisbon Tuesday afternoon to meet up with a buddy in Madrid where we were going to spend a night before we headed over to Morocco. David ... read more

(In case you don't know, there are always more photos after the ads at the bottom of the blog...and sometimes more on page 2. You can enlarge any of them by clicking on the photo) April 27th Today was Prado Day...but first, in the late morning, I went to shop at the nearest Humana store, where used clothing is sold to fund relief projects: www.humana-spain.org. I found a linen jacket made in Madrid for $4.00...! We walked to the park behind the Prado first, and the immense and beautiful Retiro was even better than we expected. It helped that the sun came out while we sat by the lake.... We had alotted 3 hours for our visit, but were getting glazed over after two. We walked through most of the hundreds of rooms, but I skipped ... read more

We got a great night's sleep: it's very quiet here (our room is on the interior "courtyard") and although the walls are paperthin, our neighbors didn't make much noise. We got up around 9:00am, had coffee in an Italian cafe across the street, and planned our walk. Starting from our hotel we walked clockwise in a large circle, taking in most of the main plazas, and many of the famous buildings in the historic center. We stopped for lunch in small restuarant, eating (as we try to) from the daily specials menu. Good food... We returned for a short siesta, and then went out again, hoping to get into some of the musuems that are free on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.... No luck: only for EU citizens, and the lines were hours long anyway.... Instead we ... read more

Še enkrat sem organizirala ter (še predno se mi je zmešalo) uspešno zaključila mednarodni plesni festival MeetShareDance 2013 za plesalce, koreografe, na vozičkih, brez vozičkov, z ali brez posebnih potreb. http://meetsharedance.com/ Ponosna sem nase ker: - sem ga organizirala sama (res velika neumnost!!!) - ker kljub bednim izgovorom tistih, ki so rekli, da bodo pomagali in ni bilo nič- nobenemu nisem primazala zaušnice ali jih nahrulila (še večja neumnost!!!) - nisem popolnoma osivela in se mi niso zravnali lasje - kljub temu, da so mi en teden pred festivalom odpovedali prostor, sem našla drugega in je bilo vse ok - kljub temu, da so mi vsi glasbeniki odpovedali en dan prej, festival ni odpadel - nismo povzročili nobene prometne nesreče, medtem ko smo plesali po ulicah - je prišla fenomenalna mešanica pro... read more

Guess what I did last night!? I went DANCING. American Haley doesn't like to dance, but my roommate made me and it was so much fun. First time in a bar/ club in America, or here. For Mom: All of the students in my program are awesome. The guys made sure to keep an eye on the girls and walked us home after. We were all really good about looking after each other, it was nice. My roommate is really nice, so far we're getting along great. We seem to be pretty similar (we're both really indecisive, but just decided to make decisions for the other one) Today we left Madrid and drove to Toledo. I'll put pictures on facebook soon, but it is an amazing city. The architecture is unbelievable. I ate this dish called ... read more

"A mitad de camino entre el infierno y el cielo yo me bajo en Atocha, yo me quedo en Madrid"Dijo Joaquin Sabina alguna vez. Ya le entiendo por que. Mercado San Miguel, La Gran Via, Puerta del Sol, Calle de las Huertas y Plaza Mayor, todos lugares impresionantes, que muestran lo mejor del Madrid de ayer de hoy. Fue triste dejar la ciudad, despues tan solo tres dias, alli, pero... "...pero siempre hay un sueño que despierta en Madrid, pero siempre hay un vuelo de regreso a Madrid."... read more