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Published: April 25th 2011
So I was looking at my last entry and I realized it has almost been a month since I have written. Sorry about that. For the first two weeks of April I was just basically going to school and working on projects/studying. We went out a few times but nothing too exciting. And then once spring break started I figured I might as well wait until the end and do a really big entry instead of two separate entries. So I suggest that you give yourself sufficient time to read this since it covers basically the whole month of April.
Well as I said I had three presentations, a paper and a midterm during the first two weeks in April. So basically I was working on all of that with breaks in between for things like eating and sleeping. One day, however, Lidia, Susi, and I went to parque retiro and played cards and on the playground. That weekend we went out to Sol at night and went to a few bars but we didn't do much since we were all so busy with school.
On the 10th of April, a group of us went to El Rastro (the
outside market). There were five of us there but for the first hour or so we got separated. I wondered around looking for good deals and souvenirs for about an hour in a random plaza (see picture). We finally all found each other again and stayed together for all of 10 minutes before we lost each other again. This time I was with Sarah, another American, and we wandered around for a while. Eventually we caught up with everyone and talked about everything we bought. It was a lot of fun. I will definitely have to go back and look for some more deals.
On the 14th, a Thursday, I met up with Sarah and her mom, who came to visit Sarah during spring break, and we went to a bar called El Tigre. I had never been before but I had heard about it from many people, including my Spanish teacher, that they had some of the best tapas in Madrid. It is a well known student hangout because it is so cheap but families go there too. All you have to pay for is a drink (whatever you want) and you get a plate of tapas with
it for free. If you order multiple drinks (for example a group of people) you get more plates of tapas. It was so crowded but it was still fun. I had planned on going out afterwards but I was so tired from school I ended up just going back to my apartment and going to bed.
On Friday, I met up with some girls from school and we went to Retiro to get some sun and have a mini picnic. That night, we met up and went to a restaurant called Villa Rosa and saw some flamenco dancers perform. I completely forgot to bring my camera (since I didn't have my purse with me) but I promise I will go again and take pictures. Since Lidia went to Italy for Semana Santa I will go again with her to see it. Then we went around to a few small clubs and finally went to a botellon in a park near el Templo de Debod. A botellon is basically a big party outside for students to just hang out and drink. My friend, Serena, and I went with Susi for a little while but we didn't stay too long cause
we were still pretty tired from our busy week at school.
On Saturday, I met up with Susi and eventually Serena met up with us at Retiro. Then a friend of Susi's, Henning, met up with us and we went on the boats. It was surprisingly harder than I thought to row around the little lake in the park. It took a few minutes for Serena and me to get in sync but it was fun and the weather was nice.
The next morning was the beginning of Semana Santa (holy week). I had heard about different processions the city of Madrid had for the different days of the week (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, etc) so I decided to try and find them. The one for Palm Sunday was supposed to leave a church near the Plaza Mayor around 4 so I went. I walked around for about 30 minutes but never found the procession. So I decided to just walk back to my apartment. Lidia and I always wondered how far away it was to walk from the center to our apartment so I decided to see if I could. It turned out to only
be a 45 minute walk, which is not bad at all.
The first two days of the week were supposed to be for accomplishing my homework so I wouldn't have to worry about it but that didn't exactly happen. Both days I found myself outside walking around or in the park close to my apartment reading. I only finished two worksheets for spanish, and I still have 4 or 5 more to do.
On Wednesday, the 20th, Serena, Agata and Martyna (Polish), and Martina (Slovakian) and I went to an outlet mall in a suburb called Las Rozas. It took us about an hour to get out there and we had to ride two different buses and walk about 15 minutes. The outlet was ok but kinda small compared to the outlets in the states. Then we went to another outlet but, we discovered, it was an outlet with only high end retail stores (such as Ralph Lauren, which is even more expensive in Spain and Versace). Serena and I went in the Versace store just to say we had. The first thing we saw were shoes for only 1000 euros (so about $1500) and purses for about
400 euros. The cheapest thing we saw in the store was the jeans that were last season (oh heaven forbid anyone wear last season clothes) were 38 euros. I would have gotten a pair but they didn't have my size. After Las Rozas, we decided to go to another mall on the complete other side of Madrid. This mall was huge! It had a huge food court and was very child friendly. Just about every other step there was a store, play place or attraction for kids. But they also had some good clothing stores for us too. I got a cute summer dress and some jewelry. We were eating dinner at 100 montaditos when out of nowhere it starting pouring down raining. I am talking about the kind of storm that makes so much noise on a roof that you can barely hear the people sitting with you, and the winds were so strong the palm trees they had out front were almost parallel to the ground. We ended up staying at the mall until it closed at 10 pm and thankfully the rain had stopped by then. We were all so tired from our day of shopping we
went back to our apartments and just crashed.
On Good Friday, I was determined to find the procession. I left my apartment around 3 pm to walk around Gran Via (one of the main shopping streets in Madrid) some since it was pretty nice outside and to find some jeans (something I couldn't find the previous Wednesday). I finally found some jeans on sale at H&M (love that place) and decided to make my way towards the Basílica del Cristo de Medinaceli. The procession started at 7 pm but I got there a little before 6 just to make sure I would have a good view. The line to go into the church was wrapped halfway around the corner so instead I found a good spot across the street and waited. By this point the weather had taken a turn for the worse and was raining on and off. I stood in the crowd for almost two hours in the rain and cold waiting for this procession. Finally some of the church officials came out and told us because of the rain the procession was leaving from another place. I was so cold, tired and wet that I didn't
even care where that place was. I went back to the apartment and put on warm pjs and watched a movie. So far it was Semana Santa processionals 2 Catherine 0. The girls I went to shopping with and I had planned on going out Thursday and Friday night. But unfortunately, the rain struck again and prevented us from going out either nights. I watched some movies and read my book.
Saturday night I knew I was not going out because I had the Easter service in the morning. I woke up at 9 am (the earliest I had been awake all of spring break) and got ready. I met up with Serena and the Basilica de Almudena. It was one of the prettiest churches I had ever attended. There were all sorts of people there, from tourists wearing jeans and sneakers to Spanish families and elderly couples dressed in their Sunday best. All of the seats in the church were filled and there were about 50 or so people standing around on the sides during the service. I had a hard time following the service because there were no books and no bulletin. For communion they had about
10 different priests dispersed around the church giving wafers. I only took pictures before and after the service because I did not want to be on the of the rude people flashing their cameras during the service. The only exception was when the bishop was processing out but I turned the flash off. That is part of the reason why the quality of the pictures is so bad, I had my flash off the entire time. After church, Serena and I went and had churros with chocolate and then went to a restaurant called Museo del Jamon (the ham museum) to get some lunch. We sat outside and ate our lunch in the sun and just talked for a while. Then we decided to go shopping (yes again) and I found an adorable blazer from where else, H&M. It is quickly becoming my favorite store here, along with Shana (but there isn't a Shana in the states so I am going to try and not get too attached). Of course the rain started up when we begin shopping but thankfully it only lasted for about 30 minutes. Then I came back and talked to my family on skype. It was
hard not being with them on Easter but I am thankful that I got to talk to them and that I have this opportunity.
This brings us to today...right now. After this I am going to do my homework and then maybe meet up with a friend who is visiting from England. So that was my spring break in all its glory. Basically it was a very chill week with some fun times with great friends. But I don't mind that I didn't go anywhere because I am getting ready for May when I go to Paris and June when I have three trips back to back.
P.S. I am very glad that Lidia had the opportunity to visit her family in Italy but I just want to say that I missed her so much!
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anonymous
non-member comment
very cute! I miss youu!