if all goes well, you are hopefully seeing a few pictures, finally. One is of Bilbao's waterfront, which is really industrial but I think looks cool. Also the Guggenheim, complete with "Puppy" and a Basque separatist protest.
Then there are some pictures from El Escorial, which is monestary we visited yesterday, and also some stuff from Avila, the city with "the most impressive fortified city walls in all of Spain." Its where the Spanish royalty lived for a long time, and where they are still buried. It was neat in Avila, because they had a huge cathedral, of course, but half of it was built to look Romanesque, but by the time they finished it, the style had turned Gothic, and you can really see the transition and different from one half to the other.

this weekend has been pretty fun. On thursday Julia and I finally booked our flights into Budapest and out of Prague, so that trip is definitely happening now, which is pretty sweet. We also went to this cool little tea place called "El Jardin Secreto" aka the Secret Garden, and it was really nice, because I havent found places like that yet. It was a little funky hole in the wall with homemade desserts and lots of teas and coffees. Friday Julia, me, and couple other people went and listened to some live jazz at a little bar near the Reina Sofia. It was really relaxing to listen to live music with a feelgood crowd. Then we went to another one of those international parties at one of the brazilian student's apartments. Those are always fun, its so refreshing to not be around the same people all the time.
Saturday we had an excursion to see a huge old monestary/cathedral/palace, called El Escorial. It was gorgeous, but it felt like we stayed there too long, because we were also going to see the walled city of Avila and we only ended up there for about two hours, which was too rushed in my opinion. But Avila was really cool, we had a bit of free time so a few of us went to this relicary place next to a convent called Saint Teresa's, where they had some relics of hers, including the sole of her shoe, her rosary beads, and....her ring finger! it was in a little tube, it was pretty creepy. it was kind of decayed but mostly just dried out, there was still stuff on it besides bone, and there were two rings on the finger as well. Crazy! The only relics I had seen before this was peices of cloth and stuff like that, never actual body parts.
Last night after we got back, Julia and I went to this bar called El Cueves, or the Cave, which was a little underground place with lots of quotes from Dante's Inferno all over and a live pianist, which I loved. They only served Sangria though, and we needed food too so then we got some tapas and tea. It was a chill night and definitely the kind of weekend I have been hopign to have in Madrid. I feel good now that Im actually doing the things I wanted to do.

Oh, also. Today for lunch we had shrimp that still had the heads and legs on them, and you have to pull it off yourself. Now, this may not be that exciting for some people, but those who know me well know that...im picky and sensitive about how my food looks. the only kind of shrimp I am used to is already decapitated and de-legged, as well as gutted and cleaned. It was just a little overwhelming to walk into the kitchen for lunch and have about ten little shrimps staring at me, daring me to rip thier heads off. They eat them with mayo, too, instead of cocktail sauce, which was way different than I am used to.
The other part of lunch was these little tiny fish that they fried, whole, so you eat everything, from tail to head. Right as I took a deep breath and bit into the first one, one of my hermanas, Bea, said "be careful because you eat the bones too!" And then my madre said "Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, the bones stay in, so chew really well before you swallow." And this was all said in Spanish, so by the time I was able to understand completely what they were saying, I was already swallowing too soon and scratching my throat with bones. sigh.

Erin comes a week from tomorrow, I cant wait! I think we are going to a Real Madrid game, and hopefully to see some flamenco!!!

Besides that, its just school here, not too exciting. Its been raining for about a week straight and Im ready for it to be sunny again, though I wouldnt mind it being a little colder.

alright, thats it for now! adios.