Weekend in Madrid

---

Hola everybody!

It’s a bit crazy that September is almost over. My last weeks since my first e-mail have been wonderful. I’ve been meeting many people my age which has been great, but most of them are heading back to college this past weekend. My Co-op at Agenda is going great. I think I expand my vocabulary a lot there… So far I’ve just been learning about how they advertise and why, prices of how much it costs to put an advertisement in any of the newspapers or magazines. Did you know that it costs around 250,000 euros For a 1 page spread in VOGE?? (I think, I can’t quite remember it’s either that or more.) Agenda doesn’t advertise in there, but for the national news paper, it costs somewhere around 30,000 euros. I’ve also been taking pictures of people that come in to model Agenda’s formal uniforms. -nothing special, but I like to think I’m a top-notch photographer anyway…

Kendra Tragaskis and I went to get a Spanish haircut. Woot!! Our cuts are pretty interesting and different for the both of us, but we like’m. Kendra and I decided to go for a mini excursion on some trails in the woods near Segovia’s castle. We probably had more of a workout when we were laughing for all the fun pictures we were taking. Oh! And there were TONS of blackberry bushes Kendra and I couldn’t keep our hands off of. I think we picked berries for like 45 minutes, not even washing them, they were SO GOOD! Ugh! There was a group of older men in their 40’s out for a run and they passed us 3 or 4 times near those bushes and more later on down the path. They were really funny, and thought we should just join them for a run. Kendra and I just laughed -we’re not exactly quite the runners…

This past weekend my group and I spent the weekend getting to know Madrid. There is so much to see and experience there, one weekend was simply not enough! During our time we went to 2 museums: Plano del Museo, where much of Goya’s famous paintings are hosted, and Reina Sofía which is filled with modern art including Picasso’s famous pieces and ‘Guernica’ -which was a painting of Spain’s Civil war in the late 1930’s dedicated to Madrid. It was really cool to see many of these paintings that I have been reading in textbooks since high school, and be able see brushstrokes and techniques.

We only spent one night in Madrid, but since Kendra knows someone from Madrid, Kendra and I were able to be treated to a night out on the town. We started our night at a quaint little outside plaza with an outside bar-shack for some drinks. Later on, we all went out to 2 clubs for some dancing and didn’t end the night until about 5am. SO much fun!

Our next day we spent walking around down town Madrid at Plaza del Sol where there are many small and unique restaurants and ‘tiendas’ for shopping. We walked all over and all day, and I was stupid enough to have worn target flip flops t h e e n t i r e t i m e.

Other than those adventures, it’s been pretty mellow and gorgeous weather here. I’d guess about 75-80º F. Except now it’s becoming fall, and it’s like 40º or less. This Friday Kendra and I head out to Greece for a week of vacation, exploration, and more once-in-a-lifetime memories. I won’t have access to internet starting 1:30 pm (MN time) on Friday until Monday October 8, but please feel free to write back.


-Luv Breez

---