Picking Up Loose Change

Before.....

So I have just started my venture for Semana Santa aka my soon to be incredible spring break trip to the Grand Canary Islan

ds. My trip is a little complicated. I am taking a bus from Granada to Madrid, taking a metro to the airport, sleeping there for a few hours, and then flying from Madrid to Las Palmas.

So I am leaving from the bus station at 7 and get there a good forty minutes early. It takes about 5 minutes to check in and get on the bus, so i figured i would have plenty of time. I walk up at 6:50 to the driver, hand him my billette, and wait for him to let me on. He says no and laughs a bit, so I think he is just being funny. I laugh with him, and then he proceeds to say no again. He tells me today is the 24th and my ticket is for the 23rd. The woman at the counter messed up and didn't give me the right ticket. AHHHHH. I try not to freak out, because i know that won’t help & ask if there is anymore room on this bus. He looks at the list, says there is plenty, but I have 5 minutes to go get a ticket. I literally SPRINT up the stairs with my bag to the ticket counter, where there is about 500 people in line.

At this point i think my trip is ruined & there is no way I’m going to make the bus. But... then i remember there is an automatic bill station thingy, and run to that. There is about 15 people in this line. I start asking every person- Puedo pasar, tengo tres minutos hasta my autobus esta saliendo. I get yeses all the way up to the very first person in line! I go to one of the machines, and it wont take either of my credit cards. At this point its about 2 after 7 and my hands are starting to shake. I switch machines and put in cash instead and Viola! I have a ticket. At this point i don’t really care about the 3 extra euro that has fallen to the bottom of the machine. This nice spanish guy, cute by the way :) sees a damsel in distress, and starts to help me. I am dropping money all over the place, and don’t try picking it up. He picksup all my dropped coins off the floor and hands them to me. As I start sprinting away I yell graciasgraciasgracias!!!!

The bus driver is patiently waiting for me and is laughing as I run down the stairs and out the door. I tell him he isn’t funny & we laugh for a few seconds before i catch my breath and get onto the bus. I am hoping my trip is going to be just as exciting as my last 10 minutes in the bus station.

Here is a God thing for you; I took a taxi to the bus station because it is not much more money & it takes about 30 minutes less. I went to the ATM and was only going to take out 20 euros, but took out 50 instead just in case. If i would have only taken out 20 euros, i wouldn’t have had enough to pay for my taxi (5.25) and my new bus ticket 16.68. My total would have been 21.93 aka not enough to pay with a twenty :)))) Just a cool little tidbit I thought I’d share.

After....

Madrid, Toledo & Valladolid

So I have been a slacker on my blog! I’m sorry. :((

But I am back and ready to fill you in on some cool stuff. Since i blogged last, I was able to go to Toledo and Madrid, watch Sarah Baras ( the best Flamenco dancer in Spain) and visit a friend from home in

Valladolid, Spain.

At the end of February I took a little vacation to visit a friend from high school who is also studying abroad in Spain this semester. Lauryn and I are birthday twins & we thought it would be super fun to have a weekend together. I took a long 8 hour bus ride to get to Valladolid, but it was well worth it. It was so nice to be 6000 miles from home & see a someone from Ripon, let alone someoneyou are friends with. Lauryn played tour guide for the weekend and showed me around her pretty town. We went out for tapas with a spanish friend of hers, and one of the nights I was there, we went to a salsa bar. I was really tempted to dance, but they were so good i didn’t want to embarrass myself. The weekend was very relaxing and Lauryn and I got to catch up which was really nice. So much has changed for the both of us since high school, so it was neat to see where we both were at in our lives.

A few weekends later my program took us to Madrid for a weekend, and it was a blast. We left on a friday morning and drove to a place called Toledo. Toledo used to be the capital of Spain, so it was really neat to seeall the history. It was a gorgeous place, and I am hoping to maybe take a day trip back so I can look around the city a little longer.

After Toledo, we traveled until we got to Madrid. We checked into our 4 star hotel & went out and wandered around for a bit before getting dinner. I was staying in a hotel room with 3 other girls and it was a blast. We all decided we wanted to go out to a nearby discoteco, so we got ready and as we were about to leave the hotel, the receptionist gave us free passes to get in! Yes!! I love free things :)) Joy, the discoteca we went to was having an event sponsered by Coca Cola, so it was packed. There were people trapezing from the ceilings & people on stilts, and people in crazy costumes. It was super fun.

The next day we were taken to the Royal Palace and then had the rest of the day free to explore. A few girls and I went shopping and then we met up with some of the boys in our group to go out to dinner. Yes we were in madrid, but there was a Hard Rock Cafe. We get to HardRock and order a plate of nachos as an appetizer. Let’s just say this massive plate was gone in less than five minutes. Half of us order hamburgers the sizes of our faces, ant the other two got ribs & chicken. The rest of Spain doesn’t know what ranch is except for HardRock, so we took complete advantage. I think our waitress brought 6 or 7 cups of bbq sauce and at least the same if not more ranch. It was great.

We could only finish half of our burgers, so we took them home for later. It was the best meal I have had in Spain thus far. is that sad?? Maybe. But sometimes it’s so good to have something familiar.

After dinner we were taken to a spanish theater production. To be honest the acting was not that great, and they were a bit hard to understand, but it was an experience. I may or may not have fallen asleep for a few minutes. :))

My favorite part of Madrid happened on our last day. We got to go to the Prado Museum. It was absolutely incredible. 3 floors of the most important Spanish Art. Goya, Velazquez, Picasso and more. Caitlin and I decided we wanted to see every room & every piece of art in the place! I think we were in the museum for almost 4 hours. It was incredible.

There was one painting that i stopped and stared at for about 15 minutes. Jaw dropped and everything. It was a painting of Jesus getting the crown of thorns put onto his head. But in the painting, the crown isn’t being set nicely onto his head, the man putting the thorns no Jesus is putting all his force into the task. There is blood, there is pain, and there is anger in the faces of the men surrounding Jesus. It was so moving, I had tears in my eyes.

Never before have i cried over a piece of art. One day I will have that somewhere in my house.it doesn’t have to be big, but it will be there. It is a good reminder of a sacrifice someone made for me, even though i am undeserving.

After the Prado, Caitlin and I picked up a straggler in our program who got a bit lost in the museum, and went out to lunch.We found a tiny italian restaurant and thought it would be fun to try. It was delicious. After lunch we walked back to the hotel to get on the bus and make the journey back home. It was an incredible weekend. Whenever Veronica takes us somewhere, it is never a disappointment!