Well, my real time in Madrid has come to a close. I officially finished school yesterday, turned in my paper and gave my presentation. We had our final dinner last night, and said goodbye to all my teacher and the k kids. It was a lot more sad than I thought it would be. Im really going to miss this experience, and miss Madrid. It has become a second home for me, and I am sad to say goodbye to it.
BUT
I leave for Budapest tomorrow morning! for the next ten days I will be relatively unreachable, and having the time of my life in Budapest, VIenna and Prague. I am so excited. But even more excited that for that, I am excited to be seeing my parents in 11 days. I really miss them, and cannot wait to be with them again. Plus, we are going to a ton of cool places, which shouldnt be too bad either.
Alright, my computer only has 3 minutes left before it dies, so thats it for now!

almost

im almost there! all my time now is devoted to my final project/paper. today is my last day working at Karibu, and today and tomorrow I am hoping to finish my paper and presentation, which ideally would leave my last true weekend here free. But I know that is unlikely to actually happen, oh well. Either way, its due in 4 days, and thats the end of my work in Madrid. I leave in 6 days for budapest, I see my parents in 16. Its crazy how fast this all came to an end. It dragged sometimes, but the last two weeks have been non-existent. Here I am, January is practically over, in two months from today I will be moving back into Kalamazoo.
I am going to miss living in Europe.
Yeah. Thats all I guess!

End of school, Christmas and New Years

Well, its been about a month since my last update, and tons has happened. School ended December 20th for me, and Lindsay came to visit the 21st. On the way to meet her at the airport, my laptop got stolen in the metro. It was pretty horrible and stressful, but luckily we had coverage and we were able to replace it. But lets just say I was happy to get out of Madrid for a few days. Ugh!

My host mother let Lindsay stay at our apartment here, and that was very nice of her, because it meant we didnt have to pay for a hostal. The day she came she was pretty exhausted, and so was I. We took a nap, then went with my host father to the police station to report my laptop stolen, because I needed a police report for insurance. The police officer took like an hour and typed everything I said with one finger.
Then we just took a walk to the Royal Palace and around my neighborhood, just took it easy.

Friday was insane, we did both the Reina Sofia museum and the Prado. It was incredibly tiring, but Im glad she got to see both of them. That night we went and saw flamenco, which was fun too. They didnt dance as much as they did when I went with Erin, which was a bit disappointing, but they were still good nonetheless. I hope they dance more when my parents and sister come, though.

Saturday we flew to Barelona. I loved that city, it is so refreshingly different from Madrid. The first day we just walked around, our hotel was right in the middle, on the street La Rambla, which is the funky downtown area. We just had some paella and went to bed, because it was pretty stressful getting there, we got lost on a train in the outskirts for a while.
The next day was more walking around, we went down to the ocean and took a little cable car across the water up to the mountain Montjuic. We walked around that a lot, and then headed back down. It was sunday, so a lot of stuff was closed.
Monday was Christmas, and we walked around to see all the Gaudi art there is in town. We saw the Sagrada Familia church, which was really impressive and beautiful, despite the 7 cranes surrounding it (its been under construction for over 100 years).
It was definitely wierd to be away from home for Christmas, but Im glad I was with a friend in a beautiful new city, if I couldnt be home.
Tuesday we went to the Barcelona aquarium, which was pretty neat, but much smaller than I had expected. We also went on a search for shoes for me for New Years Eve, to match a dress I bought, but we had no luck, it appears that Barcelona cannot make cute, walkable black high heels for the life of it.

Wednesday I flew back to madrid, to get ready for Brett, who flew in on Thursday. I met him at the airport, and then we went back to our hotel and collapsed for a while, because he hadnt really been able to sleep on his flights.
It was really amazing to see him, I felt more relaxed than i have in months! I hadnt even realized how tense or stressed I had been, but when he got here it all felt like it broke loose and relaxed, it was so nice.
After our nap we went out to the area where I have been working for a late lunch at a really good egyptian/lebanese/morrocan restaurant. Then we walked around a bunch, saw the palace, and the egyptian temple, went the to Reina Sofia museum, and then had tapas for dinner at a cheap bar near my house.

Friday we had lunch at my house, so Brett got to meet my family and see the apartment, which was nice. I am really glad he can actually know what my experience was like now, be able to picture the people I talk about. After that we went to the Prado for a few hours, and also walked around the huge park right nearby. We got paella for dinner, then went back to the hotel and watched a movie that brett had brought, on my new laptop, which brett also brought.

Saturday we flew to Paris, which just so happened to be the day the Madrid airport was bombed by ETA, the Basque separatist group. It was pretty scary to realize what was happening, it happened about 8 hours before we flew and thats pretty much my worst nightmare, but it was in the one terminal very far away, so it actually did not affect our flight too much, thank goodness. Its sad though, because it means that the ceasefire for peace talks with ETA is over. There was a lot more security personnel around, and our flight was delayed a bit, but that was all. When we finally got to Paris we were totally exhausted and decided to just get some Chinese take out and eat in the hotel, and watch Pirates of the Carribbean 2. (Which brett also brought)

Sunday was new years eve. That morning we walked to the Eiffel Tower, which is about two blocks from where we stayed. We just looked at it, we didnt go up it yet. Then we wandered over to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which is beautiful. We got there about dusk, so we didnt get the full effect. After that we happened upon the Jewish area of Paris, complete with excellent food including bagels. Very exciting. About then it got very very cold and started to rain, a lot, which was a bit of a bummer because it made our aimless wandering a bit less fun. But it stopped in time for midnight, which we spent at the Eiffel Tower. It glittered at midnight, which was beautiful.

Monday a lot of stuff was closed for the holiday, so we did more stuff that didnt involve actually going inside. We went on the huge ferris wheel near the louvre, and then walked to the Arc du Triomphe. Then we went back to the Jewish area for dinner, and had some of the best falafel Ive ever eaten, and drank some beer called Maccabee.

Tuesday we woke up early to try to beat the crowds at the Eiffel Tower, which failed miserably. We waited in the cold rain for about 4 hours to get to the top. But at least when we did make it up there it was incredibly beautiful, and worth it, I would say. After that we went back to the hotel and collapsed in exhaustion for a while, then went back to Notre Dame to go inside. It was really neat because they were having a service for a saint's day, and so there was some beautiful singing and nice smelling incense while we walked around. After that we went and had more food in the Jewish area (its just so good!!). I had latkes that were amazing, though they lacked applesauce. We sat near some people from Australia and talked to them for a bit, which was nice for Brett, since he studied abroad there.

Yesterday we climbed the towers at Notre Dame to see the gargoyles. It was quite the view up there, but also quite the climb! hundreds and hundreds of stairs. After that we went to the Catacombs, which was incredibly creepy (and also involved climbing many stairs). It is where millions of bodies have been stored in years past when the city didnt have enough space in graveyards to bury them. There were just hallways after hallways full of stacked bones, it was so wierd and haunting. And scary too, because you are way underground, and its cold, dark and wet.
Then we went to the Louvre, and saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory and Venus de Milo, among other beautiful things. It was so nice to finally see all that stuff, and the museum itself is really beautiful.
After that, we just headed back, and packed up brett's stuff, because he left early this afternoon.

I had such an amazing time in Paris with him, it really was fairly devastating to say goodbye to him. I feel like right now I just want to go home, but I still have two months to go. But its actually only 3 more weeks in Madrid, then Im travelling with Julia for ten days, and then I FINALLY get to see my parents again, and I am spending the whole rest of my time travelling with them. I think it will all go really fast, I am just sort of in limbo here. I dont leave paris until afternoon on Saturday, and its still afternoon on thursday. I am hoping to meet up with a friend from highschool who moved here a few years ago, but I have been having trouble reaching him. I think if i could see him I would feel a lot better, because I definitely dont like being alone so soon after saying goodbye, its a little rough.
But overall this is all going so incredibly quickly, and i am constantly amazed at everything I have been able to do so far in these 4 months.

Alright, My computer is about to die, so I need to go plug it in, but Ive got some pictures up at www.flickr.com/photos/anniemb, so you should check those out!!

Annie goes to France, Germany and Belgium!

Well! This has been quite the week. I went to visit Erin in Strasbourg, France. We also went to Baden-Baden, Germany, and Brussels, Belgium, and saw the entirety of Luxembourg from a train. It was insane, busy, tiring, and a blast. I will start from the beginning, I suppose!

Tuesday morning I went to my first class, at 8:30, and brought my suitcase with me, which was definitely an exhausting haul. After class I bolted to the metro, and met Sarah, who was also going to Strasbourg, at the airport. Our flight was uneventful, and we landed in Frankfurt, Germany, and then took a three hour bus to Strasbourg, where Erin met us, and took me to her house.
Her house is adorable. The couple she is staying with, Anne and Jacques, have the bottom two floors of a very nice house, on a river. I had a room to myself, which was nice. They are so quiet, it was amazing in comparison to the chaos that is my apartment in Madrid.
That night, we met up with other Kalamazoo kids in Strasbourg, and went to a cute bar downtown. I had their Christmas beer, which was pretty good! There are a lot of microbrews there, like in Germany, so pretty much everything I drank all week was excellent.

Wednesday Erin had to go to her ICRP, so I went to the museum of modern art, and wandered around there some by myself. I met up with Erin at a Christmas market (of which there are many, all over Europe right now, its pretty sweet). I had this amazing baguette covered in cheeses, hot wine, and a chocolate crepe. To be honest, most of my stories are going to involve good food, because I feel like all I did was eat a TON of delicious food.
After that, we took a train to a small French town, Colmar, which happens to have a church/museum that houses Issenheim’s altarpiece, a very famous work we both studied in art history. It was fun to go; it felt like a pilgrimage, going to see this famous painting of Jesus. It’s a pretty neat painting, very intricate and complicated, but its also pretty disgusting up close, because it’s a painting of a Jesus with a horrid skin disease, because it was hung in a hospital for people with that same disease. I knew it was supposed to be intensely gross and painful to look at, but up close, its larger than life, and incredibly detailed, in ways that make your skin ache and crawl with the pain those people must have felt.

Thursday we took a train to Baden-Baden, Germany, which is apparently famous for its roman baths and spas. So, of course, Erin and I were planning on finding a spa and indulging ourselves. We succeeded, and had brought bathing suits in preparation, but when we got there, we realized that it truly was a roman style bath, complete with total nudity. So, I am proud to say, we sucked it up and did as the Romans do, and spent 3 and a half hours completely naked together, and with other women. It was a ton of fun, and actually not embarrassing or anything at all. It all felt totally natural, and we felt very in tune with our “womanhood” so to speak, because we were bathing in natural hot and cold springs from the ground, and drinking water from the ground. It was great.
There were 16 “stations” that you go through. The first is a hot shower, then a hot dry air room, then a HOTTER dry air room, then another shower, then a massage called a soap and brush massage, where brisk German women scrub you down with warm soap and exfoliate every inch of you with a brush, then pat you on the bottom to signal you are done. After that was a hot steam room with giant clay ovens pouring heat into the room. Then several warm baths, some with water jets and some just plain pools, in gradually cooler water, until you jump fast into a freezing pool, then get ushered into a giant hot towel by one of the brisk German ladies. Then you dry off, and get to cover yourself in wonderful smelling lotion, and eat dark chocolate (in a room that is awkwardly all mirrors, so you can see every single angle of every single other naked lady in the room). Then, one of the women asked us if we were ready to sleep. We thought she was joking, just pointing out how relaxed we felt. So we said, yes, we are very ready, and then she ushered us into this dark room full of beds, and then literally TUCKED US IN to hot blankets to sleep for half an hour. She really did just tuck us in, totally. We were like mummies. It was incredible, and very painful to leave.
After all that, we had to trek back to Strasbourg, and go to a dinner party thing for the Kalamazoo professors who are going around all the Europe programs (They come to Madrid tomorrow).

Friday we headed to Brussels. We woke up early to catch our 7:50 train, but when we got there, it appeared that due to a strike, our train would not be running. So we took a 10:30 train to Metz, France, then from there a train to Luxembourg City, then from there another train to Brussels. It unfortunately took forever, and by the time we got there it was nearly dark, and the weather was miserable. Pouring rain and gusting winds! And we got lost, and couldn’t find our hostel, too. But then we found it, and declared that we would not let the day ruin our night.
We went with four goals: to eat Belgian waffles and Belgian chocolates, to drink Belgian beer, and to track down the Mannekin Pis, which is Brussels’ claim to fame, a bronze statue of a little boy perpetually peeing.
I am happy to say we accomplished all our goals and then some (we were able to find the Mannekin Pis’ sister, a less generally known about little bronze girl squatting and peeing!). We had waffles; some covered in strawberries and chocolate, got little boxes of chocolates from a famous chocolate store, and drank lots of excellent beer, in many different Belgian bars.
We collapsed that night, the world spinning a little, and got up 5 hours later for our train ride back to Strasbourg. It was short, but definitely an adventure, and I don’t think it could have been nearly the same, or as much fun, if it had been anyone else. It was so much fun to run all over Brussels with Erin. Four years ago I never would have guessed we would have done anything like that.

Yesterday after we got home, I pretty much passed out for a few hours (after we stopped at the Christmas market for another baguette covered in cheese!). Then we braved the cold once more, and wandered around, which was very beautiful, because Strasbourg goes all out for Christmas, and there are decorations everywhere. We went to a part of town that is called Petit France, which is one of the older parts of the city, and we had a very classically Alsatian dinner there, of tarte flambé, sauerkraut, and Riesling wine, followed by chocolate mousse at a cute little café. After that we were totally exhausted, and came back and feel asleep early.

And today I came back to Madrid! The trip was fairly uneventful, save a disastrous landing of the plane, where we dropped the last 10 or so feet to the ground, bounced, skidded, and felt like we literally were going to tip over and roll. Oy vey. Poor Sarah, I was clutching her leg in fear. But all was good; we were all just a little shook up.

The week went by so fast. And I can’t believe its already a good ways into December. This is my last week of class. Next week is exams, and Lindsay comes Thursday morning. Next weekend I will be in Barcelona with her! And in less than three weeks I will be in Paris with Brett! Time really does fly, its insane. I’m getting sad I only have a month left actually in Madrid. But that’s a good sign, I was hoping I would fall in love and never want to leave, that means I got the most I could out of it all.

Alright, its bedtime!

I can't believe its December already! Time is flying. I'm going to Strasbourg in three days, and then Lindsay will be here ten days later.

Its all lit up here for Christmas and I'm really liking it. And its finally gotten cold, which feels nice except for the very cold mornings getting out of bed, because they dont really turn the heat on too much.

Not to much is going on, actually. I go to class, which I am hating more and more because it all feels very poorly taught and useless. But thankfully there are only 7 more days of actual class, then two days of finals. That's so few, its nuts! I'm glad though, I am seriously ready to be done with going to school every day. I want to travel, and I want to work on my ICRP, which is what we do in January most of the time.

Well, I just thought I would say hi here. Much more after I go see Erin, I'm sure!

I met a really nice girl named Sonia who lives just down my street, she is also on study abroad and lives in San Fransisco. I was so happy to meet her, because now I have a friend not related to Kalamazoo at all with whom I can hang out. She lives in an apartment down the street, so last night I went over there and we watched a movie (Sahara) and ordered pizza. It was really nice. Its nice to know I can be social without having to take the metro somewhere.

Earlier yesterday we visited the European Union's seat in Spain. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, it wasnt fancy at all, it was almost run down. And there was a halfheartedly removed grafitti of a swastika on the front, which I thought was pretty horrible. They barely tried to get rid of it, so we could still tell exactly what it was. You'd think getting rid of it would be a pressing issue.
They gave us EU pens, hats, keychains and bracelets though, so that was kinda randomly cool. And the seats in the meeting room were hot pink.

I'm going to visit Erin in less than two weeks in Strasbourg, and I'm really excited. I'm glad to be leaving Spain again and exploring somewhere new, and it also was just so much fun to be with Erin in Europe, I'm glad we get to do it again.
And now its less than a month until Lindsay comes and we go to Barcelona for Christmas, and just over a month to Brett and Paris. I'm getting SO excited for the both of them. Both visits are going to be so great, and are definitely needed.

I guess not too much has been going on recently, just day in day out stuff. The decorations are really big and elaborate here for Christmas. Its kinda exciting, though Thanksgiving is making me pretty homesick, too. But it is refreshing to have homesickness be a new feeling, its not anything close to what it was over a month ago. Now I'm generally happy with occasional pangs, instead of the other way around.

ALRIGHT. I have work to do! More pictures will be up soon!

recap on the queen of spain, and annie goes to germany!

So, I meant to explain in further detail about meeting the queen, and then I totally forgot in the excitement of having Erin around. So I’ll do it now!
For our program here we have a bunch of required visits that we have to do, that are generally pretty boring. This was one of those visits, we had to visit the Congress building and just walk around it. So we wander aimlessly around the building for about an hour, listening to a guide who talks way too fast for us to understand. When its over, we leave, go outside, and see a big tent and lots of guards dressed in their traditional clothes, complete with neon pink feathers in their humongous hats. So we wander over to it, and lo and behold, it’s the Queen of Spain, holding a fundraiser for the Red Cross. If you donate any amount of money, even like five cents, she will shake your hand and give you a little Red Cross pin (it’s a little white flag with the red cross on it). So obviously we all get excited and do it. It happened really fast and I didn’t even really realize until after I was done shaking her hand and was being ushered away by a man wearing pink feathers that I had actually just met Reina Sofia. It was pretty awesome, and I feel really lucky, because I know that lots of people in Spain would love to meet her, and I just kind of happened upon her.

On another note, this past Wednesday I went to Germany to visit my friend Ariel. She is studying in Erlangen, which is a bit outside Nuremburg. It was a ton of fun. I was only there two full days, but we managed to pack a ton in. Erlangen is a really nice small city, and it was gorgeous there, because unlike Spain, Germany does in fact experience fall. All the leaves were yellow and orange, and the weather was cold and brisk; it felt so nice.

Thursday we wandered around Erlangen and then went to Nuremberg for the afternoon, with another guy I met through the JSO, named Danny. It’s a cool city, it gets very into Christmas, so decorations were already going up. It was fun to see. We climbed to the top of a huge hill to an old castle to overlook the whole city, and it was pretty amazing. That night we went to a bar and I met a bunch of the other K kids who are in Germany. The beer was really good in Erlangen, and it was all really huge. Apparently the average size of a beer in Germany is half a liter…that’s a lot! I was sooo full, but I had to do it.

The next day we woke up early and took a 3 hour train to Munich, where we spent most of the day. It was a great city, and I was so happy that we got to go. I was afraid we wouldn’t have time since I was only there for two days, but it actually worked out perfectly. We wandered around the old city, saw lots of sights, and, in keeping with the tradition I seem to be creating on study abroad, climbed yet another incredibly steep staircase to the top of a steeple to over look all of Munich, which was even more impressive than the view of Nuremberg.
When we came home Ariel cooked me a delicious meal of basil tofu stir-fry with zucchini, greenbeans, carrots and green pepper! It was sooo good, and it was so nice to eat something that wasn’t fried and pig.
I feel like I got to know Ariel a ton better, which is awesome too! I cant wait to get back to K and hang out with her outside the JSO more. And I think she’s pondering visiting me in Madrid now, sometime in January, which I really hope she can work out, because I think it would be a ton of fun.

It was a really quick trip, but it was a blast! It felt so good to get out of Spain, finally. I’ve been feeling a bit cornered in, so it was a breath of fresh air, literally. I will post pictures soon at www.flickr.com/photos/anniemb so check that out, too! And I’m still working on that Google webpage, I just never have strong enough internet to really spend much time on it, but we shall see.