The Metro.......

....is seriously honestly probably definitely one of the best places in the world... especially when it comes down to collecting totally bizarre stories.

Today, Emily&I experienced the best sober metro ride EVER.

So, we got on at Sol, and then a couple of stops later someone jumped on with a guitar. Not going to lie, he deserved our stares. We liked his face. Anyway, I was hoping that he was going to crack out his guitar and show us what he was made of, and he TOTALLY did. Amazing. But it gets better...

He came over , and asked Em if she wanted him to play Bob Dylan, which is three hundred times funnier than you can ever know! Basically, this seems to be a common occurrence for Em, as only last week did she have a different Spanish boy singing Bob Dylan to her! Fantastic. So of course, Bob Dylan was chosen over flamenco, and off he went.. wanting us to join in (we definitely didn't) and kept pausing and laughing at us. I'm pretty sure usually when he gets onto a carriage and says 'would you like me to play Bob Dylan?' he isn't faced with two faces of absolute shock and then fits of giggles.. but then again, he's never asked us before.

After a beautiful rendition of Knockin' on Heavens Door, and about 4/5 stops (which is awesome, buskers usually stay on for 1, although that's a good thing usually) he said thanks to everyone and we felt we really really had to give him some change so we did, but then he missed the doors so he had to get off the next stop... so we got flamenco AND Bob Dylan, what a star. My fave was that he actually walked off the metro playing his guitar then he turned around and smiled at us, brilliant.

So I already felt like I was in a dream and then strange man turned around and asked where me&em were from.. and then so continued this TOTALLY bizarre conversation in broken english and broken spanish of him seemingly giving us all sorts of strange advice and telling us totally random things like.... you have to be careful of sharks, English girls are paler than Spanish girls, America is the New World...and some strange sproutings about Jesus as well...


Basically.....awesome & the experience deserved to be written down.

Madrid, I'm going to miss you ....

BARCELONA

I attempted to write this blog yesterday but cleverly managed to lose it, I didn't really think I was going to give it another go but since I'm sat in the sun, dangling my feet in the pool and listening to Kasiuss, I reckon I'm in a good enough mood to try again!

Em&I kicked offf the weekend with a very romantic evening.. watching the sunset by the Temple de Debod together. We'd all gone down on Thursday morning after being out to watch the sunrise.. but it turns out that the sun just rises behind some buildings, so it's not quite so impressive.. my bad! Anyway, so we enjoyed the beautiful sunset surrounded by happy couples then set off to Lavapies to find somewhere to have our romantic dinner for two. I absolutely loved this barrio, it was so alive and full of people. One street was lined with restaurants (mainly curry houses etc) and completely full of tables and chairs, we made our pick but getting a table outside was impossible. However, inside the curry was just as cheap and gorgeous... how incredibly spanish of us!

Then it was time to head to the bus, which we were catching at 1am to arrive in Barcelona 8hours later, oh the joy. HOWEVER, we totally had the 'best seats in the house'.. haha.. no seriously. We had the seats behind the stairs therefore meaning we had tons and tons of space, awesome. Still, it didnt really help to put us in the mood to sleep and I'm pretty sure that we annoyed every single person on that coach with our lovely giggling and gossiping.. sorry! Thankfully, the eight hours went crazy fast, and soon we were in Barcelona...

We dropped off our bags at the hostel, went to get breakfast, freshened up in the toilets (pretty sure the waiters thought we were taking drugs or something), and then decided to walked up La Ramblas. This was totally insane.. it made Puerta del Sol in Madrid (the main tourist area) look like a locals favourite hangout! We saw some strange things on this street.. In particular one being that game where there's 3 matchboxes and you have to say which one the ball is under. . it was so clearly a con but people still seemed to be falling for it. We saw two games, the first we saw got broken up by the police before we could work out what was even happening, and it seemed like an Italian girl had lost about €90... idiot. The second game we watched for a while until they all split up, and it seems that there's a gang of about 4-6 people all in on it, and then probably a few people over the street looking out for signs of police to break up the games.. Bizarre, I really don't know how people fall for it, they try to convince you to bet with €50 as well, and only grudgingly take €20. I've since found out since watching it that this game is totally illegal, and you can get fined €3000 for just participating, I'm assuming this is based on gambling in the streets.. not just specifically this game.. I still really cannot understand how people fall for it, or don't realise that handing €50 to a clearly dodgy complete stranger in a street that is renowned for crime.. is never going to be a good idea.

The other excitement on La Ramblas was definitely the little pet stores, absolutely loads and loads of them!! Hamsters, guinea pigs, lizards, rats, ferrets, rabbits, tortoises, chickens, canaries, and a gazillion other bird varieties too! Mental. Although it was kind of sad because on some stalls there was loads of each animal in one cage, more things. However! The cute tiny baby hamsters has totally relit my desperation for a little grey hamster called Aldo... one day.. one day..

Back to the hostel about 130 for a 45minute nap.. we woke up 3 hours later at 430. Shit! Totally stressed at the waste of thre hours I forced Em out of bed and we showered and left to go visit the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's church that started to be constructed in 1882, and work on it has continued since his death in 1926 (pretty sure he was run over by a tram, gutted).. and at the minute it's expected to be completed in 2026, 100 years since his death, but really chances are it will never be finished. I was both impressed and disappointed at the same time. I think I've got a bad habit of really building things up in my mind so that they could never live up to my expectations.. although I don't really know what I expected with the Sagrada Familia. Some bits were awesome, and really impressive, and it is totally crazy that it is STILL being built.. some bits were just average, and it really was too big to take in as a single structure.

Back at the hostel we finaly bumped into Jeremy! Me and Em cracked open the trust 95c wine and started on making our delicious pasta for dinner. To be honest this was a massive fail on my half, I think all I did was put salt in the water and I added the mushrooms and pasta, sorry Em! We watched a bit of the Champions League Final but to be honest I really wasn't that into it, I couldn't care who won, so we scampered back up to our room to decide what to do that night and polish off some more wine. When we went back to watch the last ten minutes of the game we decided on settling for the bar crawl as we were told loads of people were going on it.. awesome idea!

Not so much, we only had five minutes to get ready. Absolute panic. I don't think I've ever got ready for a night out in five minutes in my life.. I didn't even have time to decide I didn't like my dress and change! Bizarre. Totally bizarre. However, I ended up looking exactly the same as I do when I spend 90 minutes.. so maybe this is a new me? No.

Anyway, it turned out to be an unexpectedly awesome night and definitely a fantastic choice. Despite the first bar being scary and confusing because this was the WRONG pub crawl (where is gary? why isn't it free? where are we going! where are the transvestites? haha...) things soon looked up..apart from my absolute failure at taking pictures, I have 17 and half of them are rubbish. Not impressed. Nevermind.. memories will have to do..! I love love love how we were looking forward to being able to go to bed whenever the hell we wanted, and not having to wait until 6am for the metro to open.... Em&I finally got to sleep at about 730, and for some bizarre reason we decided to share a bed (to be fair Emily was on the top bunk, pure effort!!) & witter excitedly about our nights until we realised if we weren't careful.. we would miss free breakfast!

OK.... so that was Saturday, & I've already written too much.
I've decided Sunday deserves a post of it's own.
Less than 2.5hrs of sleep, and excitement, and sun, and hangovers definitely lead to the funniest day of my life.
Oh, Barcelona, thanks!

sunset :)

Temple @ night...

Jack!

Sagrada Familia

Fish..

Ohh.. Aldo ♥

Yum :)!

Fantastic.

MADRID, I LOVE YOU.

Four weeks today and I'll be at home (depending on the volcano!), this makes me ridiculously sad.
I honestly love it here, okay sometimes living with a host family can be awkward and there are down sides (creepy bus drivers being one of them..) but I couldn't be having a better time!

Today, there was nearly a massive crisis, we were having lunch and I had my phone on the table, a tramp came up asking for money from us (which is incredibly common, especially on the street that we were on, also known as 'prostitute street', cute) but then placed his newspaper on our table, to be honest I thought he was asking for a leftover sandwhich we had on our table, but no. Em saw that he'd picked up my phone when he picked up his newspaper-seriously a good job she saw it, none of the rest of us had any idea, just a bit confused and wanted him to go away! But Em saved the day ;)

Done quite a lot since last post, sort of. Went to the Royal Palace last Wednesday. It's free on Wednesdays for EU residents, and we got there super early so that we didn't have to queue for a silly amount of time-there was actually -0% queue and we just walked in. Unfortunately you're not allowed to take any pictures when you get inside, which is annoying because it's really absolutely beautiful. I loved it! It didn't take us very long to get around it, (I've discovered I'm not really the type of person who can stand and look at something for ages, I see it, I appreciate it.. and then I move on!) but almost every room we walked into got a 'wwooowwwww!'. I liked the throne room.. I honestly don't think I've ever seen thrones before, and this one honestly reminded me of Narnia. Love!!

Also, Saturday 15th was San Isidro day, who is the male patron saint of Madrid.. or something. He looks after us all here! So there was heaps going on. A few of us went to a picnic in a park, which was full of people and it was a total festival atmosphere, then we left to go and see a flash mob. Well that was the plan, I think the fact I'd heard about it showed it wasn't very secretive, a lot of people knew about it! And it wasn't a flash mob at all, it was a group of people dancing on a stage, and a group of people following them. Oh well. Oh and then we nearly died getting out of the crowd... there was about a five second time period where I honestly thought I was going to die... everyone just started pushing and running for no apparent reason, scary! My life didn't flash before my eyes, all I could think was that I needed to get into Corte Ingles!

After the absolute excitement of the 'flash mob' we headed to Burger King & Maoz to get some food down us. Then sat at the fountain drinking our boxed wine until the pub crawl started at 11. We totally were NOT feeling it, having already been out the house since 3pm, and the prospect of having to stay out until 6am... I was lacking. BUT as always, the pub crawl didn't let us down! It was actually just the 4 of us and then the bar crawl leaders.. who we've got to know a bit so it's all okay! So yes, at 10pm we were worried about having to stay up & out until 6... I actually ended up geting home at 1030am. Honestly, Madrid is the best. AND I still stand by the fact that the metro early in the morning is the funniest place of the entire world...

Well, fair enough since then I've not done much. Hanging out in the city, walking around, eating and enjoying the sun. Currently sat outside with Anabel 'teaching'. Nobody wants to work in this weather! But we are , like good little girls. We're also on facebook/tuenti/taking pictures/discussing music.. but she's managed to complete an English paper, so all is well!

Barcelona this weekend, and going to 'Pacha' tonight :)

4 weeks left it's already 19th May ... how is it possible this year is going so fast?

Might have broken a laziness record...

So, I got home at 830 this morning, it's currently 0030.
I've so far left my bed twice.
Awesome.

Last night was a strange one, the weather was absolutley awful. Stupid rain. But we managed to haggle and we bought an umbrella for just €2! Wow.

We started the night looking for somewhere to eat, there's a food market thing near the Plaza Mayor which is meant to be good for tapas and things.. but it was packed, and to be honest none of us knew what to do! We ended up at the trusty 100 Montaditos, seriously it's my favourite place ever, I'm gunna miss it heaps when I'm back in England.

Then we did the classic looking for promoters to give us free drinks! This usually works fantastically, the other week we struggled to AVOID them, literally walking out of one bar and being dragged to another.. we had to search a bit harder last night though, clearly the rain had driven them away!

It was time to head of to Kapital, oooooh. Exciting. I'd heard a lot about it, and it's supposedly a pretty famous night club. In my opinion, it was totally over rated, and totally over priced. It was €12 for a mixed drink..I can't think of any situation I'd ever be happy with paying that amount of money.. especially when an entire bottle of vodka costs less than that, the cheek! There were seven floors (including a kareoke bar!) and I guess it's all super nice but it just wasn't anything special. Not to mention the crowds were barely dancing, and the music was bizarre.

Glass breaking and dropping drinks was definitley a theme for the night..! In one bar I offered to take a picture of these girls, and literally the second after I said it her drink was on the floor.. not entirely sure how it happened, and I am pretty sure it was nothing to do with me.. but yes. Second time was definitely more my fault, I'm still not sure what possessed me to do it, but in Kapital the table span around, so I wanted a picture of this.. I actually moved the drinks into the table so that they would be safe... but unfortunately they weren't! Bye bye free drinks. The best thing about this scenario is that I think Em actually caught the exact moment Steph and Martina's drinks went flying off the table... and all over Emily, whoops. The final incedent of the night was Em dropping her €12 cocktail all over the floor as soon as she picked it up from the bar, nice work. The bar man was nice and replaced it for her though, lucky ducky.

Well, I had an great night overall, especially Em and I going crazy at the bus station this morning :)

Abzxo

MAYO?! QUE?!

Not entirely sure how it is May already, nevermind May, infact the first week in May has already happened. WHAT!

Tomorrow is a really important date-it's my half birthday! Yaaay. Only six months left of being a teenager, eek.

The past week and a half has gone ridiculously fast. I've spent a lot of days lazing about doing nothing, hungover, and a vain attempt to save money however I've somehow ended up spending more than usual?! Also visited the bull fighting museum, got hyped for a Lady Gaga night, bar crawled for the 3rd time, helped lost Irish tourists, stayed up for over 24 hours at least twice, fell down the stairs, had lunch at 100 montaditos (again), had my first 3D experience with Alice in Wonderland, celebrated cinco de mayo with tequila shots (but without lemon or salt, eurgh), said 'hasta luego' to possibly the best person in the world, moped at the irratating results of the general election, took Anabel to the movies.. and now it's today.

A day to tidy my room, update my diary, and decide what to wear tonight..... xoxo

Cinco de Mayo

3D !

Retiro at 7am, lovely.

Bar Crawl

Anabel

Hangover cures.

<3!

Chocolate&Churros. 5am?

Cheryl Cole Love!

Boats & Montaditos

Another lovely day! So we headed to Retiro park to have a go on the row boats.
It was a disastrous start, but we soon got the hang of it.. sort of. It was quite nice and empty-ish on the lake as well, so that limited worries of bumping into other boats.. it totally happened loads though.
After boating we walked up to 100 Montaditos which is definitely one of my favourite places to have lunch ever-especially on a Wednesday! The idea basically is tiny little sandwhiches , which are yummy, and on Wednesdays everything on the menu is €1 (apart from salads, these are €2). Exciting! This picture is just a boring looking pollo with some sauce. My faves are pollo con césar, pollo con bravas y chorizo y queso brie :).
So basically, more GORGEOUS weather and food.... and tomorrow Lady Gaga tribute!

free ice cream and soaring temperatures...

So I thought I may as well update whenever the thought crosses my mind!

Today we went to see Goyas Tomb, which was pretty cool. I don't exactly know much about it, it's like a dome chapel, and he painted the roof etc with fresco, so it's sometimes known as 'Goyas Sistine Chapel' but probably about 1/8 as impressive. It was pretty, but not really awe inspiring. He is buried there as well, and without a head! I haven't really got to the bottom of this story yet.. but if anyone knows.. let me know!

We then decided to nip up to Sol (where else?) and we discovered it was free ice cream day! Yaaay! So we got to Ben & Jerrys and waited in line for half an hour.. for one scoop of ice cream. SO worth it though.. especially since one scoop is €2,90 usually! Crazy. I had baked alaska, then we went for lunch, came back and had caramel chew chew.. or something. Yummyy yum.

We went to lunch at 'Maestro Churrero' as it's Felicia's last week, and her favourite place to eat. I had a ham&cheese sandwhich (so similar to those you get at Anahi/Mirasol, yummy) and we paid an extra €1 for the privilege of sitting in the sun! Crazy. Soft drinks were €3,30 so we sneakily nipped across to a small shop next to the cafe to get a can of fanta for just €0,85.. living like a student already? loves it.

Emily made a friend on the metro today, totally awesome. She did a me and just took a seat because standing up isn't too fun, next to this guy with the cutest dog, and it basically fell in love with her. Tried to eat her bag alsoo...She had thoughts of snaffling it into her bag but no :(.

So now I'm home, sat in the garden , struggling to see my screen with a schweppes naranja straight from the fridge. Yum. I love Spain.

Abzxoxooxox

It's been a long time.....

So like diary writing... blogging is just not for me apparently. Sorry! I do feel guilty!! I just left it too long and now there is just too much to update and I'm too lazy... so I've decided to start from NOW and maybe update and fill in from the past month as time goes on.. Also, all my pictures are on facebook, as for some reason I can't seem to add them to my blog, so facebook also lets you know what I have been up to :) BUT I'm not too good at putting captions on the pictures.. sorry again.

Since March 23rd (the date of my last post!?!?) things have got even more awesome here in Madrid. At the beginning of this month we had about ten days of sun, and then the rain came again, but now the sun is back in full force and I'm loving it!! I compared arm tans with Anabel yesterday and I am winning. I'm sure that as soon as she spends one day in the sun she will overtake me though..! That makes it sound like Madrid is now awesome because of the weather. How very British of me.... The weather is fantastical.. but the people beat it, just. I really have met some very wonderful people, and now the goodbyes have started, and it is definitely not cool.. but I'm so happy and lucky to have met everyone and contact will be kept!

I've adventured all over Spain since the last post as well! Bilbao over Semama Santa, then Granada and just last weekend back home to Salamanca. Loves it. I love the excitement of booking, the hostel searching and I've grown to love the horrendously uncomfortable bus rides.. just because it means excitement is around the corner! Apart from one particularly awful bus ride back from Granada, I swear I literally thought I was going to die! Roxy & I were sat right at the front (which was totally amazing for people watching, couples saying goodbye at bus stations is heart wrenching and equally entertaining!), but the excitement of this disappeared as soon as we pulled out of the bus station, for some reason my entire body decided to be really mad with me and everything started to ache, loverlyy. And then to add to the wonderfulness we had about 1/2 of the normal amount of leg room, and the driver kept his window open the entire way, what a babe. I have heaps of bus stories actually! I spend a hell of a lot of time on them.. so various exciting things happen on them. Today, I stole a newspaper someone left on the bus to cover the bathroom floor whilst I dyed my hair. The most annoying bus story is definitley from Friday just gone, as it cost me €20. For some reason two buses just did not turn up at all, causing me to miss my bus to Salamanca, and having to buy another ticket! Very sad. Silly buses.

A couple of weekends ago, Sheila, Brittni, Roxy and I pulled two all nighters in a row.. Fantastic. I lived like a vampire for a weekend, and forgot what it was like to go to sleep when it was dark.. not at 8am in the morning! The first night was the most bizarre night to date, complete with stalker spanish boys, crazy hair and painful feet.. but we got through, strangely sober. The second night, we watched the Real Madrid v Barcelona game (felt totally let down by this.. not even slightly as exciting as I hoped, but good tapas in the bar!) then we decided to just go wherever the promoters told us to! It was an good night, and we still typically ended up in La Fontana killing an hour or so waiting for the metro to open, giggling over the compulsory spanish couple in the corner, practically on top of each other making out. Which leads me to the metro at 6am in the morning.. I love it. That is all I can think to say on the matter!

Anyway I could write forever but I don't want to and I am sure you don't want to read forever :)!

hasta luegooo besosxo

St Patricks Day, Las Fallas + Sunshine!

So basically, last wednesday night was just awesome. Brilliant people, brilliant memories. Chocolate y Churros in the early hours of the morning, then watching the sunrise as you wait for a cafe to open at 7am, then the bus journey home trying desperately not to fall asleep and miss your stop! Lush. AND to make everything just that little bit more exciting, we got free hats! Which is amazing. AND I tried guiness, and I liked it. Be proud! The other exciting thing which happened, was on the way down to the metro Felicia very cleverly managed to kick her shoe off, and narrowly missed hitting two or three people on the head! Funniest moment ever. Ever.

So that was Wednesday night and Thursday morning, which obviously meant Thursday was spent in bed, all day. Beautiful. I feasted on diet coke and chocolate :) Friday was looking to be another exhausting day, so I thought I should get my rest... and I was right!

We took the bus at midday to Valencia, planning to meet at the bus station 11am I set off proudly ten minutes early to catch my bus.. waited.. and waited.. then realised that it was Fathers Day+El Día de San Jose.. so a public holiday.. so a different bus timetable, oops. Thankfully I was only 30minutes late! And we were all there on time to catch the bus. Exciting. Sarah and I were on a different bus to the rest of the group (luckily for them!) we entertained ourselves by talking loudly, laughing and general ipod singing along! Classic. The bus ride was 4ish hours long, and then a half hour stop at a service station, thankfully.

When we finally got to Valencia we were sort of a bit disorientated, no idea where to go, however we did get free maps.. but they weren't much use! We decided to follow the crowd and we stumbled upon our first tastes of Las Fallas, which really were nothing at all compared to what we were going to experience later that day. All over the streets people were setting of fireworks, throwing Catherine Wheels up in the air, basically there was noise everywhere. It was crazy.

We decided to head in a different direction, towards a section of the city wall we'd spotted earlier. Along the way we bumped into way more fallas. Each time they seemed to be getting bigger and bigger! The amount of work that is obviously put into them is astonishing.. just to burn them to the ground. Why bother!? Later on we also stumbled across the winning Falla, which isn't burned, it's saved and put into a museum (although actually they do burn it, just save one little bit of it to put in the museum, I should've been able to work this out, the size of the building they'd need to keep one every year.....!).

So after a LOT of walking, and not much food, we decided (mmkay I nagged) to get some food. It was decided Paella should probably be the choice of food, since we were visiting it's home! So we found a cute little cafe, sat and watched the world go by, and munched on paella. yum.

After this it was getting a bit dark, so we set off in search of some possible fire. We found a small falla that had already been burnt, and just along the road was another one, that we were told would be burnt at 2130. We arrived at 2115 and thought brilliant, not long to wait. However in true Spanish fashion, things didn't get started properly until 2230ish! It was incredible though, I really wish I could explain it but I just can't do it justice. They poked holes in it then added explosives, poured fuel all over it, wrapped firecrackers around it. Quite exciting to watch really. And then they brought six big boxes infront of it (they appeared out of nowhere thinking about it....!) and the show was ready to start! They set off the impressive fireworks which signalled the start, and when the fireworks had stopped going off they lit the firecracker fuse. Wow. It went BANG. Like, really really really went bang. We'd been warned it was going to but honestly nothing could've prepared me for it! Amazing. Then a scurry back to get away from the incredible heat of the fire, (we were stood surprisingly close to it...) laughter, screams.. and we thought it was all over. But oh no, just as we were getting ready to go, thinking that was it now, there was another totally unexpected bang! Which made everyone jump all over again.... and that was just the small one!

Afterwards we went toilet hunting (okay again, in reality I nagged everyone that I needed the toilet, isn't it nice to know I'm still the same person?) and then just walked around for a bit longer. We saw a few more impressive fallas and then the hunt was on for the cheapest chocolate y churros! We never found the place we were looking for where we'd stopped earlier to watch, but there was really a LOT of options, although some places were ridiculously expensive... €6 for JUST the churros, no chocolate?!!

We then went to a big fallas, of a magician with various things surrounding him. I pretty much loved him, he was really awesome and scary looking! The build up to this was more or less the same as the smaller one but obviously on a bigger scale, and there were a lot more people milling around infront of the fences. Unfortunately after all the fireworks went off (although they were very impressive) this falla didn't seem to catch on fire as easily! But when it did, the smoke was black, very black, creating a totally eerie look around the magician, who was already creepy! Loved it. No surprise bangs this time though, but a very big and very hot fire!

After watching this we headed to another big falla just up the road.. however after waiting for over an hour (and Jeremy sat in a tree) we decided it was time to give up and leave. It was about 0230 and nothing seemed to be happening much. And it was freezing. We headed back to the bus station and remarkably they changed our bus tickets from the 0630 bus to the 0300 bus-no hastle and free of charge! Incredible.

The bus journey home was actually disgusting. I was too hot then too cold. Tired then wide awake. Hungry then thirsy. Awful! I was so happy when I got into my bed on Saturday morning... and just collapsed.. for about 36hours!

Anyway, was going to write about what I've done since then, but to be honest I wrote more than I thought I was going to then.. and I'm tired, and I want to get some reading done, and I need to sleep at a normal time tonight!

All you need to know, is the sun has been shining.

:)

I'm not sure blogging is my thing...

I always start posts and then get bored! But I'll try finish this one.
I'd also love to say I haven't updated my blog because I've just been tooooooooo busy but I don't like to lie!!

When I arrived the weather was pretty miserable, it had been raining constantly but it stopped when I arrived, but was still pretty rubbish and cold, but this week it's totally turned around, and the Spanish sun is finally making an appearance :)

So far I've met lots and lots of people, and everyone is very friendly and helpful and nice. I guess either they are in the same posistion of just arriving, or they remember how scary it was to arrive in a strange city all alone!

Last week I spent one day just walking around the city on my own, getting my bearings. I really enjoyed it, I think the city as a whole just has a lovely kind feeling to it.. strange. Everything is so pretty, and it's actually quite impressively clean! I proper love the metro system.. Ha I sound like such a geek!! But really, it is just amaaazing. Loves. It.

Also visited the Cathedral last Thursday, or was it Wednesday.. anyway. Visited the Cathedral (it's free, we like free things). Very pretty, it's a relatively new cathedral, wikipedia tells me construction started in 1879! Lot's of white and gold, v catholic.

Friday was my first night experience in Madrid, brilliant. Lots of free drinks, shots and dancing :)

Spent the weekend being tired and pretty much doing nothing.. which was good.. everyone knows how I like to relaxxx! Sleep and watching TV online- fantastic.

Yesterday went into the centre to meet Sarah, and we went searching for a form so that I can apply for the travel card here. I've got the form now, and my passport pictures.. just need to fill it out. Something I can put off although I really shouldn't... so not sure when that's going to get sorted!

Today we tried to visit the Palacio Real, but irratatingly it was closed for some official ceremony so we couldn't go in. I'd read that they sometimes close it.. but I didn't expect it to be the day I wanted to go! So instead we set off to Parque del Buen Retiro for a picnic, got a picnic at the museo del jamón, €2 for a bocadillo, drink and fruit-bargain! It was the perfect day for a picnic, absolutely beautiful weather, about 18 degrees I think. Sat in the shade by the boating pond talking about everything ever.

Home now, teaching and then heading out for St. Patricks Day.

Hope everyone is well :)

Estoy aquí!

Can you believe it? Second post in two days.. what's going on!

I am safe and sound in my new home for the next 3 months and the family are absolutely lovely although I am slightly terrified.. but excited because I know it's going to get easier and funnerer :)

I do however miss Nerja.. another thing to add to my long line of things to miss! Anyone want to pay for me to go back in summer?

The train journey was scary! Well not the actual journey but waiting in the station. I had my suitcase, a small hand luggage suitcase and my big red handbag! It was such effort to go anywhere and by the time I got onto the train into my seat-crikey I was tired...!

Anyway, sleepy time now, I'm absolutely knackered as 1-Couldn't sleep last night and 2-Didn't go home til 230 when I planned to be in bed asleep by 130!

Buenos noches!

Last few hours in Nerja!

So today is my final day in Nerja.. packing is an absolute nightmare. Thank you times a GAZILLION to Grandma+Pamps for their help.

Had a very good weekend last weekend, although I spent most of it extremely tired/hungover and still don't think I've recovered! It was a 3 day weekend because of Andalusia Day on the Monday. Went out Friday/Sunday night then spent the days relaxing. It was really quite sunny over the weekend, especially Monday so spent quite a few hours on the beach.. no sign of a tan though. I think I'm paler than when I left England!

I've really enjoyed classes this week, I really can tell my confidence has improved ten fold and all the grammar I'd forgotten seems to have come flooding back, I really didn't think that was going to happen!

Because of not going back to school til Tuesday this week really has flown by, I'm really struggling to remember what I've done!

Anna came to mine on Wednesday after school and we were planning to go out and do something but when we got outside WOW the rain. It was bouncing off the pavements everywhere I couldn't believe it!

I'm really sorry this post is all over the place.. I just keep remembering things that I haven't added!

Anna and I did go for tapas last week, we went to Sevillanos + El Pulguilla. Was nice/exciting. Anna had never had real tapas before! The waiter spoke to us a bit in Sevillanos and we saw him in the street another day and he stopped and talked to us-it was like being at home bumping into people!

Forgot to mention in the other post I'd been for lunch with a Spanish Host Family.. I guess it was an interesting experience but I wouldn't say it was a new experience. It was a bit strange though- it's mentioned all the time that lunch is the main 'family meal' for Spaniards but they didn't seem to be family orientated at all. They pretty much just sat turning around to look at the TV.. which I guess I was grateful for because it was the Spanish version of Come Dine With Me! However they all did seem really nice, and the food was no different to things I'd experienced in Salamanca.. so... you know. I left full as a pie but not satisfied! (I'm not sure if 'full as a pie' is a phrase-someone please let me know what you can be 'as full as'!)

Also forgot to mention the excitement we experienced at Grandma and Pamps' apartment! A flood! Of sorts. I've actually just realised that to explain it it is going to sound boring and weird but really, it was exciting! Basically when we were going back to G+Ps, we noticed there was water on the floor! And that it seemed to be coming from an apartment across the corridor! Eek! So we rang the bell and knocked but unforunately no response.. So off we popped downstairs to try find help. We did, and then we returned back upstairs and there was water everywhere!! I can't really explain how much there was unless you know the place.. but it was everywhere! And we spent the best part of an hour and a half mopping up (wet feet!) and getting the water out of g+p's apartment!

Oh.. everything is happening in Nerja.

ANYWAY. I need to go do thingss. I shall update when I am settled in Madrid/when enough of you start hassling me!

WISH ME LUCK. KEEP SAFE.

besosss, abbie x x x x x

GIVE ME CHANCE!

So, is there anyone who hasn't been giving me grief about not updating my blog regularly enough? Remember I am in Spain... nothing can be rushed here! It'll get done.. eventually.. calm down ;)

Anyway, I think now is the time for an update, I actually have things to tell you all! Sort of..

I've had a week and a half of lessons now. Last week I had group lessons and this week (and next) I've got three hours of individual lessons each day. I think today was the best day of lessons I've had so far. In the conversation lessons I actually just thought/spoke in Spanish for the entire hour.. Wow. It helps that my teacher is really nice, and she also adores Dr House, so we have common ground! So my confidence is slowly but surely improving.. even if I have bad hours and it is still practically impossible to understand the locals! Not sure I need all this practice to speak Spanish, I just need to know a few words and then mash them all together whilst moving my hands a lot and shouting (I think the shouting is the most important bit), one day I'll get the hang of it!

I've just booked my train ticket to Madrid for 6th March, which is very exciting and scary at the same time. The RENFE site was an absolute pain! And just discovered there's actually luggage rules which I will be about 12kg over?! But I've heard the rules are never applied so hopefully all will be okay. If not I'll be camping out in Malaga train station, which as I learnt yesterday is amaaazing (full of shops.. and a Mcdonalds... what else would I want?) so even that won't be too bad!

Last Friday I went out with Anna in Nerja, it was a bit of a crazyy nigght and I am VERY proud to say bedtime wasn't til 6am ! I was incredibly surprised by the amount of people out for a cold winter night in a small sleepy town, but the schools are on 1/2 term this week (they called it 'semana blanca' which i like!) so I think a lot of them were back from Malaga for the week. V interesting. My favourite part of the night was definitley the jamón y queso bocadillo, yum! Or maybe getting the DJ to play Starstrukk.. Ahh I love it.

Anyway! Yesterday me and Anna went to Malaga. Hurrah! Anna's decided she will buy a new pair of shoes in every city she visits.. I think this is the best idea I've ever heard in my life and I wish my luggage room/bank balance would allow me to do the same.. the shoes from Malaga she got were absolutely to diee for and I am veryy jealous! We went after school (my classes finish at 230) so we didn't arrive til 4.30ish but we had a nice time walking around in the SUN(!!) and then caught one of those tour bus thingys where we sat right at the back up top looking quite the tourists! It took us all around the city which was lovely, there's not exactly much to see/do but it drives you up to this Castle thing on the top of a hill and you can see the whole city which was cool/scary..! Also saw Picassos birth place... wooow.

Think a tapas tour is in the pipeline for tomorrow... Anna still has to sample real tapas, yesterday we ordered patatas bravas and got greasy chips+spicy ketchup. not impressed! However I liked it because it gave us an excuse to go to Mcdonalds... some things never change, and my love for Mcdonalds will never fade wherever I am!

Have to go now, laptop battery is going to die. Hope this is up to everyones standards!

Missing you all, love you lotss, have fun in the slush snow and I'll enjoy breakfasting on my balcony :)

besosssssssssssss!abbie


pictures to follow when i charge my laptop..

Granada+first day of school

So, 11th Feb I took a trip to Granada with mum+dad... the weather was horrendous but was an exciting day.. the excitement started when we drove into a zone that was only for buses and taxis... interesting.

When we eventually found a car park (which we THINK we were allowed in..) it was underground which was pretty exciting too! The excitement just keeps coming.. We then went to the Cathedral on the Gran Via which was massive and beautiful, so much white+gold.

Then we walked (in the rain) up to Albaycin which is a UNESCO world heritage site- tiny tiny streets which is still basically how it was in the Moorish times, and very pretty even in the rain.

Then it was time to try out some real tapas! Which is apparently a must do in Granada, we eventually found a Tapas bar which we liked the look of but inside was a bit intimidating! The lady behind the bar was a bit scary and not very smiley but she sort of smirked a little when I spoke with my best spanish!... patatas.. salchicas...por favor.. ha.

afterwards we went to the bull ring which was nearish where we had parked.. we paid three euros for a 'tour' which was less of a tour and more of a walk around the ring.... interesting exciting scary and boring all at the same time! there was some blood on the walls which was a bit spooky.. i'm hoping to go to a bullfight in madrid.. i think theres a fiesta on when im there in which there is a bullfight everyday. i cant remember where i heard/read this though so i might've made it up.

Back in sunny sunny nerja (it had been lovely weather all day there...) and the arrival of Tracey, Carl, Megan and Lucy. Had a nice night enjoying the last of the warmish weather.. it's meant to get better soon.. apparently.!!


14th Feb- today was moving in alone day, not valentines day! was very sad saying bye to mum+dad and think everyone sprouted a few tears! Megan and Lucy were very cute trying to hug me when they saw that I was upset. Then everyone came to see my new holiday home! .. Spanish home numero dos! It's very pretty and cute and it pretty much does feel like home strangely. Watched the fireworks from the funeral of the sardina from my balcony, they were incredibly loud! They scared all the birds off the trees near me so added to the jumps from the fireworks I was jumping away from the birds flying past me!

Today (15th) was my first day at the language school-pretty scary but hopefully it will be very useful. already feel slightly more confident. In the grammar classes it is only me and a German girl called Anna, and then in the conversation classes a lady from Holland joined us. Went home.. did my homework.. watched Friends.. and here I am now! Going for dinner with Grandma, Pamps, Tracey, Carl and the girls tonight. And then hopefully an early night..

Nerja-rain+food

So, I haven't updated my blog because really.. I don't think I've done anything worth writing about! Has been a lovely week so far though.. involving mainly eating and sleeping and relaxing! Basically the update would be about what I've eaten, which trust me is a lot. But it's all good food so yum. To be honest I do need to give a special mention to the Duck in Orange Salsa I had on the first night in 'La Teja' literally, amazing!

On Tuesday went to market which is near San Juan De Capistrano which is where we stay in Summer, so went for a peek up there and to visit our restaurant.. who knew what I wanted to order, bit embarrassing!

The weather has been a bit rubbish, well we've had a few nice days but today has been literally AWFUL. rain rain wind wind. I'd just like it to stop now! But it's above 5 degrees so I'm not going to complain too much...

Went to Granada yesterday with mum and dad, but that was actually an interesting day! So that's for another blog.

Anyway.. my ermm .. food is here.. ha. Gambas Pil Pil yes please!

Eating time ... again :)

Less than 24 hours to go!

So it's Saturday the 6th February.. which means I leave tomorrow! I really can't believe how quick it's come round. It still hasn't quite hit me that I really am going, and for 4.5 months... but I'm sure it will on the plane/some time next week!!

Finally packed this morning/afternoon, and to my surprise I only had to take out one hoody, two pairs of shorts and one playsuit to make it fit... and quite a lot of jewellery! However I'm sure everyone will be pleased to know the 8 pairs of shoes are all coming with me hurrah!

After having such an amazing week it's kinda tricky wanting to leave! But thank you so much to everyone who has given me an awesome week and come to say goodbye-you're all amazing and I will miss you all lots! I won't name people cus it's pointless but you know who you are I think :)

I've emailed the host family I'll be staying with in Madrid today so hopefully will hear back from them soon, exciting timess... Weird to think at this stage I don't even know what they look like but I'm going to be staying with them for so long!

Anyway, there are things to be done, people to be seen, vegemite+toast to be eaten. I'll try add a few pictures from all my goodbyes! Adios chicos. Abbie X