An Attempt at Summary

I've gotten really sick of seeing my writing seemingly uncontrollably barfing out onto these pages with every excruciating detail of my life, and I'm sure you have too. So, I am going to make bullet points instead, of all of the important things I have done since spring break (it's already been about 3 weeks):

• I've been roller skating (twice) at the Bath Pavillion. The first time I totally herped and derped, but I only fell twice! The second time I only herped, and by the end I was feeling pretty confident! It was so much fun. I had forgotten how much fun can be had doing something so simple as putting on a pair of shoes with wheels and running around in them for a couple hours. 
• At the Porter last week, Sarah and I stumbled upon a random Ska concert that was actually decent! It was the greatest surprise I've had in a long time. The band was just setting up when Sarah and I had wandered downstairs, and here was my train of thought: "Is that a saxophone? No...too good to be true...wait...that is definitely a trumpet...OHMYGOD IT IS AN UNDERGROUND BRITISH SKA BAND! They were pretty awesome, if only for the complete wonderful randomness of stumbling upon them like we did. 
• My house (the best house) hosted a Murder Mystery Dinner Party, which was, I have to say, a complete success. Never have I laughed so much while accusing a person of murder. The boy playing the medium was one of our favorites, because he would stop conversations, put his hands to his head, and get messages from the dead, keeping a completely straight face, and using hilarious voices.  We're planning another one, this time for 19 people because so many people want in. I was a British Shakespearean actress last time, this time I'm going to be a vagrant. Exciting, huh? 
• We went on a gorgeous 7-mile hike along the Dorset coast. Challenging, but absolutely worth it, and the views were amazing. We sang Disney songs as we hiked. My people are the best people. On the way back, we stopped at Corfe Castle, which was absolutely amazing, and we sensibly ignored the rules and climbed the heck out of those ruins.
• Kaylee turned 21, so we celebrated by baking brie and eating it with baguettes while watching A Knight's Tale and mooning over Heath Ledger. All in all, a good time. Then on Tuesday we went to Cheese Night at Moles to celebrate in true 21st birthday style. That was also fun. 
• I went to the Well's farmer's market with Hilary. I absolutely love farmer's markets. I bought everything. It was crazy. Total haul: 1 loaf of bread, 1 scone, 1 eclair (for Laura), 1 bottle of apple juice, 1 box of raspberries, 1 jar of rhubarb & ginger jam, and 3 grapefruits. Yeah. I think that's it. Oh. And some cheese. 
• I went to a Bath Rugby game! We beat the London Wasps 17-12 or something like that. It was so much fun! I felt like such a local, cheering on my team with a pint of cider in one hand and half a smuggled-in sandwich in the other. 
• I went to London for the day to see Patty, Eric, and Abby, my cousins, who were in London, and for once I let someone else think for me. We wandered around Harrods, and went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The best part is? I didn't have to plan a thing. (Except the train tickets)
• I went back to Glastonbury so that I could climb up to the Tor. Definitely worth it, very cool. 
• It seems I have friends at my internship! And with only one week left. Want proof? Check out Herman, my friendship cake. Similar to sourdough bread, he requires a starter aka you need a friend to pass one on to you. He sits on my kitchen counter for 10 days and I periodically "feed him" and stir him. On the tenth day, I cut him into four pieces, give two away, keep one, and bake one! My co-worker Felicity gave me one of hers. Strange as the gesture may seem, it really did make me feel like I was part of their office community. Next week is my last week, so I'll be finagling for some free swag (aka pop-up maps).

Have some pictures! 

He's little now, but just you wait

Corfe! It's the castliest!

A fond farewell

Amazing Dorset coastline, students too exhausted to notice

So that has been my life. Pretty awesome, I would say. Also, a pretty successful and concise summary. So that's good. Hopefully this will be more entertaining than long-winded accounts of spring break trips.

Madrid, or THE DAY OF ALL THE TIRED (and the rest of the trip)

So remember how cheerful I was about saying goodbye to Barcelona? Keep that in mind as we progress.

We went to bed that night in Barcelona at 10pm, but it didn't do any good, because it was way too early to fall asleep. Bleary eyed after about 30 minutes total of sleep, we got out of our beds at 2:00am, packed up in the dark, took our 3:00am taxi to our 3:30 bus to our 6:50am flight. It was hellish.  I left IAmNotANugget (my water bottle) at the Barcelona bus station. No. It was hell. RIP.  When we arrived in Madrid, we took the subway to get to our hostel. We were two hours early to check in to our room. Hell. At least the woman let us leave our bags with her until we could put them in our room. Disconsolate, we wandered Madrid aimlessly in the pouring rain. We wandered into a cafe and had a real brunch, which was the first step in bringing our spirits up. Finally we staggered back into the hostel, and were greeted with a welcome sight. When we were booking this hostel, little did we imagine the joy that would be pumping through our veins at the sight of our private three bed room with its own bathroom. Each bed had covers AND sheets (a rarity in hostels) and we had an amazing view of rainy Madrid. Laughing deliriously, we fell into our beds and slept and slept and slept. I was so tired that in my journal all I wrote about our pre-hostel wander was "Oh, we did go to an art museum...something of San Fernando." Then I went on to whine about how wet my shoes were. Look how happy we were in our room!

Looking back, the museum was very nice, and there were Goya and Ruebens paintings which we especially enjoyed staring zombie-like at.

LOOK YOU GUYS TWO DAYS IN ONE BLOG POST

Thanks to the fact that we pooped out all of our first day in Madrid in our hostel room, I have room to tell you about our next day! We found an all you can eat breakfast buffet for 5 euro, so that alone made the day wonderful compared to the previous day. Then we went to the Archeology Museum. It was closed. Thankfully, the National Library happened to be right on the other side, so we had a look in there instead. It was their 300th Anniversary, so, kind of a big deal. There was an exhibit entitled "Biblias del Sefaredad," accompanied by an image of a boat that looked like it had come out of an old manuscript. Well it looked cool, and it was free, so we headed in. The first couple manuscripts on display were really old Torahs, which was so cool! And then...the next were Jewish things too...and I started to wonder. I took out my pamphlet, which was in Spanish, and read enough to understand that wait a minute, this was not an exhibit on old sailors, but one on Sephardic Jews! I enlightened my friends, and the rest of the gallery made a lot more sense. It was actually really cool, and I recognized a lot of the names (Rashi, Maimonides) from Hillel and from Jewish school.

Next stop, THE PRADO. It's in big letters cuz its important, guys. The Prado is one of the most important art galleries in Europe, if not in the world. So naturally, Hannah B. had to be sent home after about an hour. But Hannah C. and I enjoyed ourselves immensely, proving to the world that I was grown-up enough to actually appreciate art! We spent 4 hours there, and still missed about 1 1/2 floors. 4 hours was enough though, and it stopped pouring rain long enough for us to walk back to our hostel! Annnnnd that's about it. We took it a lot easier in Madrid, partially because it was raining almost the entire time, and partially because we had exhausted ourselves running around in Barcelona. Next stop, Toledo!

Edit: This used to be two blog posts, but I am consolidating...I'm learning to be concise...yeah right. 

Alright, we are here to complete (finally) the tale of my spring break.

Skyline

So.  Toledo, a quick high-speed train ride from Madrid. It was absolutely gorgeous. We were promised rain, but luckily for us it was completely dry all day! While there are not too many "tourist" attractions, the place is still filled with tourists because it is just s'darn beautiful. Medieval and Renaissance architecture abounds in this fair city. Sidenote: there is a street called Calle de Toledo, Ohio.

We made a stop at the oldest synagogue in Europe, which was pretty neat, and I have to say, quite a nice change from all of the old churches we have been seeing. The cathedral was actually closed, because it was Good Friday, so we missed out on that. It was more of a Jewish day. We celebrated Passover instead of Easter, you might say.

Jesus in Madrid

Upon returning to Madrid, we stumbled upon another Jesus parade, this time for Good Friday! That makes one in each city! I gotta say, we picked an excellent time of the year to experience Spanish culture.

The next day was our last in Madrid, and boy did we make the most of it. It was definitely our best Madrid day. We started out at this cool little museum that was basically this guy's private art collection. When he died he was like "look, you can have my stuff, but you have to keep it all together in this house." So now its a really cool museum. His chandeliers especially were fantastic, although I suppose the famous artist's paintings were pretty cool too. 

Seriously though...

After the house museum thing, we wandered past the royal palace, which was suitably royal, and then hopped on the metro to la Plaza del Toros. This was definitely my favorite Madrid destination. The bull-fighting arena, still in use today, offers English-language tours as well as Spanish ones. We took an English tour, and it was definitely worth the 7 euro. It was fascinating! Our guide explained in intricate detail the process of raising, training, and killing a bull. Did you know that if the matador fails to kill his bull within the allotted time, he goes to jail for the night and has to pay a heavy fine? They take this stuff really seriously. And it is so dangerous! Imagine fighting a bull with a skinny little sword that you have to place at a certain point in his back, only accessible by an actual leap as he charges at you, in order to kill him correctly. The statue in the courtyard is of the man who invented Penicillin, because of the amount of matadors' lives it has saved. Just sayin'.

Anyway I guess that about wraps it up! Thank god! Now I can move on with my live, and tell you about the present. Spoiler alert Liza: I finally went to Jamuna today! It was sooooo good.

*Barcelona Pun Pending*

Hello neighbors! (not really (well really hello but not really neighbors))

I was going to try really hard to squeeze multiple days into one blog post, because I'm sure you are as sick of my spring break as I am, but then I looked back at my journal for today, and A LOT HAPPENED. So...sorry about this, but hopefully you will find it entertaining or educational.

Note the scaffolding 

We woke up a little later than usual because Hannah C. and I had only gotten home at 4:30am (see last blog post for shenanigans).  First up was La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's famous unfinished masterpiece. Construction began in 1882, and check this kid out, it still isn't finished.  My personal pictures of La Sagrada Familia aren't really blog-worthy, because it was pouring rain while we were waiting in the long long line which wound all the way around the outside. So, I am off to the internet to find a suitably jaw-dropping photo.

It really is spectacular, inside and out. I've never been one to moon over architecture, but Gaudi's work has really amazed me. He builds these structures that look like they somehow belong there, like they have grown up from the landscape and have been there for eons. La Sagrada Familia was no exception. The inside, forgive me Doctor Who lovers, seemed somehow larger than it should be, especially considering the cluttered feeling I get from the amassed tombs and monuments of most cathedrals. The way the light and stone worked together created this wonderful spacious feeling, even as columns branched down from the ceiling at correct intervals. I could definitely see people worshiping here.

On our way to our next destination, something honestly terrible happened. Hannah B. was pick pocketed. The thief was an expert, truly there was nothing she could have done to prevent the crime. Still, that does not make it feel any better when your entire wallet is snatched right out of your purse. We ducked into a nearby supermercado while she called her parents and cancelled her credit cards. After a suitable mourning period, we turned to practical questions. Since there was nothing really we could do to recover her stolen goods, we had three options: 1. Find a police station and file a report that would most likely do no good since we had no information about the thief and he/she would not be able to use Hannah's credit cards. 2. Go back to the hostel and sulk. 3. Go to the chocolate museum.

Don Quixote, in chocolate

As I hope you will have guessed, we went to the chocolate museum. I mean honestly, could you hope for a better place to be pick pocketed right next to? We walked in, got free admission with our Barcelona cards, and were each handed a bar of chocolate.  We walked through the museum blindly and got through the exhibit in about the time it takes to eat a chocolate bar. Roughly. At the gift shop we bought more chocolate, and walked out feeling much happier than we could reasonably expect to after such an afternoon.

For dinner, we met up with Liz and Liz our friend, my roommate and a friend from back in Bath! We found this great little vegetarian restaurant and got some real nutrition into our bodies. It was wonderful to see friendly faces who also spoke English. We traded stories, and I took a picture!

The Liz's and the Hannah's!

Everybody say Adios, Barcelona, because tomorrow we are off to Madrid!