Wow… What a long last two months it has been… I’m currently in Toledo, Spain and will be traveling to Barcelona (9 hour bus ride.. sigh.) tomorrow. Since I haven’t updated this blog since the end of October, I figure a mini-update of sorts is due.
I turned 21 Nov 3rd, and promptly made my way to AC that next weekend. I had the greatest time of my life while I was there ( a huge thanks to everyone that ended up coming down and even those that surprised me down there!), but quickly learned the shitty feeling of losing money and came down a hefty sum. But like I said, I loved every second of what AC had to offer, and I’d do it all again in a second, as I plan on doing this summer. By the way, craps is the sickest game alive… the swings are huge and the action/energy surrounding a table is amazing.
So, with November passing by and once the Turkey Day weekend’s festivities concluded, December game bustling along and consisted of finishing up school, scrambling around to get everything ready paper-work wise for Spain, and the holidays etc. *Insert : I love the holiday season, because I get to sit back, relax, and enjoy time with family I don’t get to see much. If it’s one thing I’ve learned to really appreciate, it’s spending invaluable time with family and friends.*
Then came good ole January 7th… the day I left for Spain. The worst part? Saying goodbye to all my friends/family… I won’t lie; it was hard to not get choked up watching my moms eyes fill up with tears, etc… Ima miss my fam/friends more than I care to think about right now, but I can’t deny that studying in Barcelona will be the time of my life.
So, my flights consisted of 7hrs to London (Easily the most turbulent flight of my life… we were shaking around the sky for a solid hour over the Atlantic... not fun), and then 2 hrs from London to Madrid…
We get to Madrid alive… meet a few people from the same program that were on our flight, and we all head to the baggage claim… Our group consisted of 7 people, and out of those seven, the airline had lost 2 students’ luggage. Out of the entire ISA group of 80, a total of 7-8 people had their luggage lost by the airline… Amazing that airlines in Europe are terrible with luggage. Anyway, we had arrived about 40 minutes before the bus for our program was to pick us up and drop us off at the hotel. Baggage didn’t even start rolling out till about 10 mins before our deadline, and after finding out that we were missing bags for people, we didn’t end up leaving the airport for about 2 hours… We ended up (7 of us) renting a shuttle that cost us like 7 euro each, which wasn’t too bad.
Speaking of Euro’s, the dollar sucks. Plain out, sucks. I exchanged 100$ USD and received 70.34 Euro’s. Sigh @ America fcking me over in Spain for 4 months. OH YA! That reminds me… My bank (or soon to be ex-bank) decided to keep it a secret from me that I can’t withdraw money from ATM’s using my ATM card in Europe. I had told them about 2 weeks before departure that I was going to need to make sure my card worked over here etc. They assured me everything would be normal/fine. I get here, and nope. Nada! Mom calls bank, and screams at them for a solid half hour and nothing changes. SOOOOOO, I’m stuck borrowing money for now until my parents withdraw all my money from my account and wire it here… sigh.
We were in Madrid from the 8th-10th, and are currently in Toledo until tomorrow. Besides the obvious language barriers making it a bit tough to get around, Spain itself is absolutely breath-taking. The architecture and colors are amazing. The cathedrals were so intricately built, you just have to stand there and wonder how it was possible to build these buildings hundreds of years ago.
While in Madrid, we had the opportunity to visit the Prado museum. Simply amazing. Seeing the worlds of Greco, Vazquez, Dali etc… again, simply breath taking that these pieces of art were hand made such a long time ago and still look pristine to this day. I had my camera out for Madrid, but forgot to grab it this morning for our tour of Toledo, but expect pictures to be up on facebook in the least, and hopefully on here when I figure out how to embed them.
I’ve been in the hotel lobby writing for a solid hour, so I think I’m going to call it a wrap. Keep in touch through facebook/email (gregdejesus@yahoo.com) etc and stay tuned to the blog! The plan is to be blogging every other day if I can find a stable internet connection... otherwise, as often as possible.
If anyone reading has any suggestions of things to do/places to see etc., don’t hesitate to get in touch with me!
Until next time, adios. Miss and love you fam/friends!
Greg
