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Published: January 10th 2007
this is my 3rd time to re-write this blog so lets hope it works!
b4 we left madrid we traveled to toledo which is amazing and very old, its known as the city of the 3 cultures, christian, muslim, and jewish. thus it has important religious centers for all 3 there, we saw a few of each and it was incredible to see. the views from the edges of teh city are breath taking. the city is surrounded on 3 sides by water and the old city itself is seperated from the new one which most people enter every day. its located on top of a large rock. the streets within teh city are very hilly and very small, u have to press yourself up against the wall for cars to pass on most roads. those hills killed me but it was worth it! we also got to see el Grecos famous painting The Burial of Count Organz...those art history classes finally are paying off!
in Madrid we toured the royal palace and saw several rooms that are still in use every week...this place was truly breath taking. my favorites however were the throne room, private church, and the grand staircase...they were extremely beautiful. the rest of yesterday we drove on buses from madrid to barcelona which is several hours.
Barcelona aka Barça is HUGE! my family is very nice. i live with a woman, her name is Romi and her job is a nanny taking care of 2 cute little boys. Romi is pretty cool shes almost 50 and has a pierced nose, lol!She has a daughter erika, 26, who came over last night along with her boyfriend Jose. It was a very interesting night because they dont speak any english! only catalan and spanish. but we all communicated pretty well just kept the dictionarys handy! Romi really enjoyed her host gift, a tx photo album full of postcards of tx and some personal photos of people important to me!...and some pralines made in tx. at first she wasn´t sure about the pralines but realllllly likedthem after she tried one. erika and jose are really great and it was nice to have some people close to my age around. im living with just romi no other roommate for those who dont know. they bothed took me to the metro last night and showed me where to get tickets for several rides and we went almost all the way to my school, UAB because i have to change metro lines 3 times. i was so thankful that they helped me with that since i´ve never ridden a metro till recently. and this morning it was very easy! i even helped some kids on our trip this afternoon figure it out!...the metro really is pretty easy its just making sure when you exit to go to street level u take the right street exit! UAB my school is in a beautiful old building, with big domed ceilings, and bright painted tiles...u´ll see pics soon. ill find out my class schedule n a few days.
finally today we went to Gaudi´s park which is really really neat, he was trying to combine nature and architecture together and its just crazy i took alot of pictures! we went to the very top of the park and were able to get a panoramic view of the whole city it was really breathtaking...i could see the tallest building in spain...it shaped like a huge glass bullet, itsa water company, but its only a few blocks away from the apartment where i live...great view from our balcony. I mean i could see everythign but it was neat to be able to finally get an orientation of where i live in relation to the rest of the city. i completely unpacked last night and am pretty settled in.
i do miss everyone at home and its been interesting adjusting to not having that closeness...but its all part of the process.
food here is pretty hit or miss and so far Barça has been delicious!
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anonymous
non-member comment
oh wow everthing sounds amazing! i am soo jealous of all the beautiful scenery you are being exposed to! I am glad you are taking lots of pictures and wish we could have spent more time together before I and you left....haha and those spanish dictionaries are wonderful aye? haha Romi sounds like shes gonna be a fun lady and i am sure you are going to meet tons of really cool, cultured people your age and have a blast...keep having fun and be safe! BARCELONA...amazing you are there!! LOVE YOU!!