La pagina de viajar de Kristen

Tuesday, 29 November 2005

Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Hello all! Well, I realize that I have not finished with my Madrid trip (which seems like forever and a day ago!) and I have not even started on the month of October or November, but I feel the need to write a little bit about my trip to Prague this past weekend, mainly because I think I need to put up a little variety and I want to change the map that is on my page for a little bit (I am starting to get really bored looking at the map of Spain). My trip to Prague rocked, although there were a few minor problems here and there. First of all, the trip was incredibly long... we left on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and it was 5 1/2 hours by bus to Madrid from Granada, and then another 3 hour flight to Prague. Secondly, one guy that was travelling with us (there was a group of about 12-13 of us going on this one flight) forgot his passport, and somehow he got on the flight to Prague, and immigration wouldn't let him through in Prague, so he had to take the next flight back to Spain on Saturday. Thirdly, the airline that we flew on (called Smartwings...just by the name we should've known it was shady) lost another girl's luggage, and then when they finally found it (we were in Prague by then), they were going to make her pay to have it delivered to her. However, besides these minor situations, everything went really well.

We stayed in a hotel that was about 4 Metro stops away from the center of Prague, and it was incredibly nice! The boyfriend of one of the girls on my program owns the hotel (well, his family does) and so we got an incredible deal...we got breakfast and dinner every night and very nice rooms for like 1/3 of the price of what people would normally pay. It would've probably ended up costing us the same or more if we would've stayed in a hostel, so we ended up getting a really good deal! Plus, the people at the hotel were so incredibly nice! They really helped us out with a number of things, and I think they enjoyed having us there.

On Saturday, all of us took a tour together with a tour company that we had decided on the night before. Our guide (George) met us at our hotel, and we headed to the Metro to the center of the city. The tour was so incredibly cheap that you really couldn't pass it up...we got a 6 hour tour of the city with our own guide and an authentic Czech lunch for around 30 euro! It was amazing! I will have to go into more detail and another time (when I don't have so much going on, like today), but we saw Wenceslas Square, the Astronomical Clock, the Old Town Square (which was having a Christmas festival when we there...so pretty!) the Jewish section of Prague, St. Charle's Bridge, St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague Castle, etc., etc. It was an amazing day!

On Sunday, my friend Laura and I basically just walked around Prague and checked out some of the other places that we didn't get a chance to see the day before. We went to the Museum of Communism, the Jewish Quarter (we went into this synagogue that had practically all of the names of the people who had died during the Holocaust...so sad! We also visited the Jewish cemetery and the Ceremonial Hall...), went back to St. Charle's Bridge, visited St. Nicolas Church, and then we headed back to the Old Town Square to do some shopping. After that, we headed back to the hotel to have dinner, and to get ourselves ready to head back to Spain!

(There are so many funny storie and details that I have left out because I don't have time to fill it in...however, I will probably end up writing a new entry about this sometime soon, so stay tuned!)

Monday, 14 November 2005

Location: Granada, Spain

The next day in Madrid, Laura woke up early because she had to catch the group trip to Segovia and El Escorial, while Brenda and I were lazy bums and slept in at the hotel. We woke up around 10 a.m., took showers, and got ready for the day. We quickly realized that we had woken up too late to catch breakfast in the hotel, so we went to a little convenient store close to the hotel and got some breakfast, which consisted of bananas, this package of marble cake slices, and a carton of piña y uva juice (our favorite!). We were just going to go back up to the room to eat, but what's the fun in that?!? We first decided that we were going to eat our breakfast outside of Palacio Real, but since we had already eaten dinner outside of there, we decided to move on to Plaza Mayor to eat. It took us a little while to figure out where we were going, but eventually we found the Plaza (we entered from a different way than we had before). Plaza Mayor was really hopping on a Sunday morning! There were all of these tables set out, and there was this little makeshift market going on. Brenda and I sat down on a little bench in the Plaza and basically just "people watched." There are some really strange people out there... While we were sitting, there were all of these painters that kept on bugging the two of us to pose for a painting. At first, we were really flattered, but we realized that they would end up trying to sell us the painting and making us pay for sitting there and being bored, so we told them that we weren't interested. After finishing our breakfast and taking a few pictures of ourselves in Plaza Mayor, we started our journey towards the Thyssen Museum (which is basically across the street from the Prado). The Thyssen Museum was very cool! It had all of its paintings organized by date and movement, so you could really see the progression in art from the earlier centuries to modern art. Plus, the guards were not as stingy as they were at the Prado, and around many of the paintings there weren't any ropes or guardrails, so you could get as close as you wanted to some of the paintings without any problems. Very cool! There was also an incident in the bathroom between Brenda, myself, and one of the guards, but I will leave that for another time... ;)

After we had hung out at the museum for a couple of hours (and seen practically every painting that the museum has to offer, which is a lot!), we headed over to this park in Madrid that is very popular with both the people in Madrid and visitors to the city (for some odd reason, I can't think of the name right now... I will have to look it up). It is a beautiful park, with green grass and big, bushy trees (very hard to find that in southern Spain, where I live), and in the middle of the park, there is a lake with a huge monument in the background, and on the day that we were there, there were tons of couples out on the lake in rowboats just soaking up the sun. I felt like I was in a painting! It was so beautiful! Brenda and I sat on a bench close to the lake for a little while and just took everything in. However, after a couple of minutes, our stomachs started to yell, so we headed over to this little cafetería in the park to get some bocadillos. We had sort of a picnic lunch in the park...we found a nice sunny, quiet spot to sit and eat, and after we were done, we decided that we needed a little nap to rejuvinate (sp?) ourselves. Oh...we didn't go back to the hotel, but instead, we just sprawled out where we had eaten, set the alarms on our cell phones, and drifted off to sleep. After about 1/2 hour or so, I woke up to this strange little Chinese man standing over me with a sign. It scared the crap out me! I had no idea where I was when I woke up...I was like "Am I in Hong Kong? I don't remember travelling to Asia..." However, I quickly realized that I was still in Madrid and the guy was asking me if I wanted a massage (which I would've taken him up on if I didn't have to pay for it). Brenda woke up quickly after, and since it was 3:30 p.m. and we told Daniel we would meet him at the hotel at 4, we decided to head back.

We got the hotel with like 5 minutes to spare, so Brenda and I utilized those 5 minutes as much as we could to prepare ourselves for the RealMadrid game that night. We met Daniel downstairs in the lobby, and the 3 of us head off on the Metro to met Coqué and Pilar for the soccer game. It took us a while to find Pilar by Corté Ingles, but eventually we did, and we started to make our way down to the stadium. There were so many people going to the game!! It was incredible! All of the sidewalks and the streets surrounding the stadium were full of people!! If it was a popular game (such as RealMadrid vs. Barcelona) I would've expected, but they were just playing Mallorca. However, the Spanish are very passionate about their soccer players and soccer teams, so they must go and support whenever they can. Brenda and I stopped to buy scarves for the game (because apparently that's what you do...you have to have a scarf that says RealMadrid somewhere on it), and then we headed to the stadium to meet up with Coqué. We started to make our way up to our seats (which was quite a hike!), and all of a sudden I was being pulled back by somebody. I saw that there were officials outside of the doors, but I thought that they were just checking to see if we actually had tickets, so I showed him my ticket and moved on. I thought I was being detained or arrested or something, and I had no idea what I had done. However, the guy just wanted to check my bag to make sure I didn't have any guns or explosives (I forgot to put them in that day...jk!), and then he smiled and said "Gracias."

The game in itself was very cool to see, however, I was a little disappointed by the opening! I was expecting all of the grandeur that you see in the States with the SuperBowl, but there was nothing like that. The players just ran out on the field, and the announcer introduced the players, they sang some kind of song (which I assume to be the Spanish national anthem), and then the game started. I really enjoyed watching the game, even though I didn't understand a lot of what was going on. However, I got to see David Beckham live and in person, so what else really matters?!? The 5 of us had a great time at the game! We shared snacks and cheered really loudly whenever RealMadrid scored a goal (they ended up winning 4 to 0). Brenda pointed out a section down close to the field that was constantly singing and chanting, and she told Coqué that the next time she and I came to a game, we were going to sit there. Coqué told us that it was a dangerous section to sit in because most of the people are completely drunk out of their minds and there is always a fight, and Brenda and I changed our minds.

After the game was over, the 5 of us walked a block down from the stadium and ended up going to TGI Friday's for dinner. It was amazing! I had no idea how much I missed eating American food! I just ordered the nachos as a meal, and they were so good. Then, Brenda and I shared this Oreo dessert, which was also amazing. However, I couldn't help but feel a little out of place then because it was Coqué and his girlfriend, Daniel and Brenda (who are practically dating), and then me...alone. I felt sort of like the 5th wheel or the single friend that everyone invites because they feel sorry for you, but oh well. Also, I felt bad because yet again I was incredibly tired and just did not know what to say at dinner, so I really didn't say much of anything. I know everyone was looking for me to talk more and get involved in the conversation, but I just couldn't get myself to do it. After dinner, we all decided that instead of going out on the town (which we had planned to do, since we didn't do it the night before), we were going to go back to Pilar's dorm room to hang out and listen to music. Coqué and Daniel went in Coqué's car, while us 3 girls went to the University in a taxi. It was really interesting to spend time in a Spanish university...it is very similar to American universities, except the dorm rooms are very spacious and immaculate (at least, this one was). Of course, there were tons of students running around the hallways, and there were all of these mini-parties and drinking games going on. It was really active that night because people were just moving back to the University (school doesn't start until October here in Spain). Well, the 3 of us headed up to Pilar's room, and she showed us her room, things that she had just bought, photo albums, etc. I think all of us were just trying to find things to talk about until the boys came...finally, after like 20-25 minutes, the boys showed up, and we just chilled and listened to music on Pilar's computer. Coqué tried burning us a c.d. of popular Spanish music, but when we returned to Granada and tried to listen to it, it didn't work...I was a little bummed! After about 1/2 hour or so, all of us realized that we were completely exhausted, and Coqué drove us back to our hotel. We all hung out in our room for a little while (there was a mini-party going on in there...nothing wild, just watching t.v.), and then went to bed because we had a daytrip to Toledo in the morning.