They're not Mexicans.
As I promised, Spain.
This is us finally getting away from the airport and searching for our hotel. From left to right, it's Suleena, Kaitlin, and Stephen. I'm sure I've mentioned them all before. It was just us four that went. Our flights were at horrible times too, but all in all, it was a fun time.
So this was our hotel from outside and our hotel room. In that last picture we're all in one bed watching the Olympics. The hotel was sweet. It was a gigantic room and literally right off the center of the city.
Speaking of the city center, this picture is of my feet at the exact center of Madrid. The whole city was built around that point and if you look at a map, it's really obvious.
Here's some Spanish tagging. It was a little more common than in the other cities I've been to so far.
Here's one of the street signs. Most of the small streets have pictures like that and shit. It's really neat. If you can't tell from the picture, this is Elbow Street.
Here's a picture of a plaza in Spain. We took a walking tour and you can see the guide in the red shirt there talking. The tour took three hours, but it was really fun, considering the fact that I don't really like tours. Luckily, the tour guide was from Manchester, so he wasn't hard to understand. He was also really funny and he basically said that he'd remember me because he just started the job and I cracked up at all his jokes.
There's me in the middle of the plaza.
This is a picture of my loose tobacco, an ash tray, and a cigarette I rolled. I started rolling my own cigarettes a few weeks ago because they're just so damn expensive here in Madrid. They're not too bad in Spain though. Spain's a bit neat because they still allow smoking indoors. Most large and crowded places, like our hotel and the airport, will have indoor smoking areas. Most bars and other places you can just smoke inside whereever you want.
Here's the menu at McDonald's and the meal I ordered. Spanish food actually sucks. McDonald's and Burger King are what we decided to settle on for lunch the days that we were there. If you look closely at my meal in the second picture, you can see that I was ordered a beer. Both McDonald's and Burger King sell beers. Nothing fancy and just the cheap Spanish kind, but they cost the same price as sodas. Like you can just ask for a beer with your combo the same way you'd order a coke.
Here's me in a bullfight cut-out. I didn't make it to a bullfight because it was on Sunday and there wasn't time for it because of our flight out. I actually only really wanted to go because Hemingway fell in love with them. I did manage to drink at a few places he did though.
This statue is of a bear leaning on a tree. It apparently is the symbol for Spain. The tree represents the church, while the bear symbolizes the state, or something like that.
So this is Madrid at night. Spain is famous for its nightlife. Basically, people start going out to eat around 10PM for dinner. After that, you go out drinking and then end the night at a club. It's so weird seeing people still lined up for clubs at 2AM.
This is a group shot of us trying to find El Prado, which is a famous museum.
This is Stephen trying to find us our way. He usually takes the role of navigator, thankfully. He also is the one who did most of the flight planning and hotel booking for our trips. In this picture, the sun is shining down in full force. Almost to the point where I really didn't want to walk around. Nights are really warm too. It never got cold enough for me to wear a jacket while I was there. Lucky too, since I didn't even pack one.
Here's me and Stephen by some pillars somewhere in Spain.
This is our myspace shot. Kaitlin's pretty much my best friend on the program.
I like this picture because she looks so sad.
This is the biggest park in Madrid. People were rowing boats out in the middle, but it was too damn hot for me to even try.
In Spain, people drink in clubs, but since it's so expensive a lot of people just drink on the street. I'm in the back of this picture trying to speak to ask some Spanish girls where they bought their liquor. The picture's so blurry because Stephen was taking it but the looked over at him and he got scared.
Here's a picture of the biggest open market in Spain. It's also the pick-pocketers capital of the world. The whole thing spread for about three entire city blocks. The place was huge. Most of it was what you'd find in any regular swap meet back home.
This is us playing kemp in the airport. We played for four hours waiting for our bus back to Cambridge.
Here's the shot from us walking back through Cambridge after our bus dropped us off at 6AM. I ended up sleeping through the whole day and missing all my classes.
That's it for Madrid. I actually do have a few more pictures, but they weren't really necessary for telling the story. Those are all on facebook though, so you should check that. We actually spent a weekend in London too, but the pictures on my camera were deleted somehow. There are enough pictures that everyone else posted so I might use those to make a post on that. I still have tons of pictures of my time here in Cambridge too. I don't know when I'll get around to posting that. This was my last true weekend here in Cambridge. I have a final tomorrow that I should have been studying for this whole time, but oh well.
I think I've finally managed to completely finalize my travel plans for once I'm done with classes. My last day here is Thursday, I'm pretty sure. My flight to Rome from London is either on Friday or Saturday. I'll be there until August 26th, when I fly out to Paris. I'll be headed to southern France from Paris by train or by plane on September 1st. After visiting two or three cities, I'll be somehow end up in Venice, where I'll be flying to Greece on September 4th sometime in the morning. I'll be flying back the night of the 5th, only because it's $100 cheaper than flying out the day of the 6th. The day of the 6th, I'll be spending in Brighton Livy. Livy is a TA here in Cambridge. She's not really a TA, just a Cambridge student that acts as a guide for the American students. Anyway, she's my favorite TA and from Brighton, so things just worked out that way. My flight back to America is on the 7th and it's to San Francisco. I have to talk to my Ninang about when my flight from there is. I'll most likely be back in L.A. the night of the 8th or the morning of the 9th.
I also updated my profile picture. The last one was years old and at least in this one you can see my face. I'm also changing my layout. I've finally made the switch to S2. I haven't come to a final decision yet and I'm still figuring out how to change colors and shit. I'll figure all that out when I have more time though.
Anway, it's study time.
-Joseph
This is us finally getting away from the airport and searching for our hotel. From left to right, it's Suleena, Kaitlin, and Stephen. I'm sure I've mentioned them all before. It was just us four that went. Our flights were at horrible times too, but all in all, it was a fun time.
So this was our hotel from outside and our hotel room. In that last picture we're all in one bed watching the Olympics. The hotel was sweet. It was a gigantic room and literally right off the center of the city.
Speaking of the city center, this picture is of my feet at the exact center of Madrid. The whole city was built around that point and if you look at a map, it's really obvious.
Here's some Spanish tagging. It was a little more common than in the other cities I've been to so far.
Here's one of the street signs. Most of the small streets have pictures like that and shit. It's really neat. If you can't tell from the picture, this is Elbow Street.
Here's a picture of a plaza in Spain. We took a walking tour and you can see the guide in the red shirt there talking. The tour took three hours, but it was really fun, considering the fact that I don't really like tours. Luckily, the tour guide was from Manchester, so he wasn't hard to understand. He was also really funny and he basically said that he'd remember me because he just started the job and I cracked up at all his jokes.
There's me in the middle of the plaza.
This is a picture of my loose tobacco, an ash tray, and a cigarette I rolled. I started rolling my own cigarettes a few weeks ago because they're just so damn expensive here in Madrid. They're not too bad in Spain though. Spain's a bit neat because they still allow smoking indoors. Most large and crowded places, like our hotel and the airport, will have indoor smoking areas. Most bars and other places you can just smoke inside whereever you want.
Here's the menu at McDonald's and the meal I ordered. Spanish food actually sucks. McDonald's and Burger King are what we decided to settle on for lunch the days that we were there. If you look closely at my meal in the second picture, you can see that I was ordered a beer. Both McDonald's and Burger King sell beers. Nothing fancy and just the cheap Spanish kind, but they cost the same price as sodas. Like you can just ask for a beer with your combo the same way you'd order a coke.
Here's me in a bullfight cut-out. I didn't make it to a bullfight because it was on Sunday and there wasn't time for it because of our flight out. I actually only really wanted to go because Hemingway fell in love with them. I did manage to drink at a few places he did though.
This statue is of a bear leaning on a tree. It apparently is the symbol for Spain. The tree represents the church, while the bear symbolizes the state, or something like that.
So this is Madrid at night. Spain is famous for its nightlife. Basically, people start going out to eat around 10PM for dinner. After that, you go out drinking and then end the night at a club. It's so weird seeing people still lined up for clubs at 2AM.
This is a group shot of us trying to find El Prado, which is a famous museum.
This is Stephen trying to find us our way. He usually takes the role of navigator, thankfully. He also is the one who did most of the flight planning and hotel booking for our trips. In this picture, the sun is shining down in full force. Almost to the point where I really didn't want to walk around. Nights are really warm too. It never got cold enough for me to wear a jacket while I was there. Lucky too, since I didn't even pack one.
Here's me and Stephen by some pillars somewhere in Spain.
This is our myspace shot. Kaitlin's pretty much my best friend on the program.
I like this picture because she looks so sad.
This is the biggest park in Madrid. People were rowing boats out in the middle, but it was too damn hot for me to even try.
In Spain, people drink in clubs, but since it's so expensive a lot of people just drink on the street. I'm in the back of this picture trying to speak to ask some Spanish girls where they bought their liquor. The picture's so blurry because Stephen was taking it but the looked over at him and he got scared.
Here's a picture of the biggest open market in Spain. It's also the pick-pocketers capital of the world. The whole thing spread for about three entire city blocks. The place was huge. Most of it was what you'd find in any regular swap meet back home.
This is us playing kemp in the airport. We played for four hours waiting for our bus back to Cambridge.
Here's the shot from us walking back through Cambridge after our bus dropped us off at 6AM. I ended up sleeping through the whole day and missing all my classes.
That's it for Madrid. I actually do have a few more pictures, but they weren't really necessary for telling the story. Those are all on facebook though, so you should check that. We actually spent a weekend in London too, but the pictures on my camera were deleted somehow. There are enough pictures that everyone else posted so I might use those to make a post on that. I still have tons of pictures of my time here in Cambridge too. I don't know when I'll get around to posting that. This was my last true weekend here in Cambridge. I have a final tomorrow that I should have been studying for this whole time, but oh well.
I think I've finally managed to completely finalize my travel plans for once I'm done with classes. My last day here is Thursday, I'm pretty sure. My flight to Rome from London is either on Friday or Saturday. I'll be there until August 26th, when I fly out to Paris. I'll be headed to southern France from Paris by train or by plane on September 1st. After visiting two or three cities, I'll be somehow end up in Venice, where I'll be flying to Greece on September 4th sometime in the morning. I'll be flying back the night of the 5th, only because it's $100 cheaper than flying out the day of the 6th. The day of the 6th, I'll be spending in Brighton Livy. Livy is a TA here in Cambridge. She's not really a TA, just a Cambridge student that acts as a guide for the American students. Anyway, she's my favorite TA and from Brighton, so things just worked out that way. My flight back to America is on the 7th and it's to San Francisco. I have to talk to my Ninang about when my flight from there is. I'll most likely be back in L.A. the night of the 8th or the morning of the 9th.
I also updated my profile picture. The last one was years old and at least in this one you can see my face. I'm also changing my layout. I've finally made the switch to S2. I haven't come to a final decision yet and I'm still figuring out how to change colors and shit. I'll figure all that out when I have more time though.
Anway, it's study time.
-Joseph