Semana Santa!

So it's been a while since my last post, but I've been traveling for the past week or so with my parents and it was great. No work, family time, and fantastic food is a killer combination. We spent the first half of break in Madrid going to eat (a lot), exploring some of the art museums (the Prado is kind of overrated), seeing the royal palace and plaza mayor, and lots of other cool things. Oh yeah, and we had dinner with my host family, so it was my parents, me, my two host parents, and their son José. It was so cool to have my two families in the same room, and even though it was a little difficult with the language barrier (my parents speak no spanish and my host parents speak no english), José and I did a decently good job of translating for everybody.

After Madrid we went to Barcelona, which was so beautiful and also involved a lot of eating. Barcelona is nestled against some small mountains and looks out over the Mediterranean, so the views from Parc Güell, a park designed by Gaudí up on a big hill/small mountain, were completely breathtaking. Also, Gaudí must have been on some heavy duty drugs. In addition to various buildings and cool architectural designs in Parc Güell, we saw the cathedral of the Sagrada Familia which Gaudí also designed. It's the craziest building ever and a very modern take on a cathedral, but it's really pretty. Even though Barcelona was great, I'd still have to say that my heart belongs to Madrid.

Classes started again on Tuesday and it was really nice to see all the people from my program and catch up with everyone. And now that I've had two days of back-breaking work (ha), I'm rewarding myself by going to Lisbon after classes tomorrow/today (thursday)! I'm going to be meeting up with Fink, one of my best friends from vassar, and we'll both come back to Madrid sunday night so she can see Madrid for a few days. I'm SO excited.

Also, this is pretty unrelated to Madrid, but I know where I'm living next year for senior housing! I can't wait to live in a house with people I like where I can cook my own food and not have to share a bathroom with freshman boys who leave their shaving stubble in the sink every morning. Gross.

Also also, I'm trying to plan a trip with my friends during our 4 day weekend in May. Hopefully we'll be spending two days in Sevilla and two days in some town with a beach. I don't especially care what town it is. I just want to go to the beach.

It's a pretty rough life, huh?