Last week in Madrid

Ok these pictures are from the last few days I was in Spain. This is a picture of my apartment from the street. The white building is where I lived in the 4th floor, the 3rd window from the front corner.
This is Plaza Mayor in the afternoon.

This is Gran Via, near Plaza de Espana where I lived. It was a beautiful day and I miss seeing that street already.
This is from inside Starbucks one day. This is overlooking Plaza de Espana.
Will they ever learn how to spell my name? Its really not that hard...I guess I will have to go back someday to teach them. :)
Plaza de Espana
This is a street that connects to our street and I usually take it home from Gran Via or one of the metro stations, depending on where I am coming from.

This is me and my roommates on one of our last nights in Madrid. We were walking around at midnight just being goofy.
Blanco is a store for women and this one was not open yet but it is going to go there. Too bad we missed it because this is in Sol and I always wished there was a Blanco in Sol, now there will be one when I am gone.
This is in Sol...we were "doing a little dance" according to Jenni.
This is at school after exams on Monday. The last time we would be at this school, so we thought we should take some pictures or something. :)

This was at the Farewell Dinner with our school. We went to a spanish restaurant and had traditional food. It was good but the tables were separated with walls so we couldn't talk to everyone.
Me and my roommates again


This is in Sol again, by the statue of the bear; the symbol of Madrid.

This is me going into our apartment, and Katie is being her usual weird self. :) I don't know why she put her scarf on her head but we started calling her Gretel because of that.
Here I am by the Plaza de Espana metro stop. This was the stop that was closest to our apartment, but this particular entrance wasn't close. There are multiple entrances to each metro stop and the one by our apartment was like a 2 minute walk and it was an elevator, so we were special. :)
This is in Plaza Mayor when we went to a restaurant, the oldest one in Europe.
Here we are at the restaurant

This is in our aparment building on the stairs

This is a sign on the street at a cross walk that says that one in every three deaths in traffic accidents happen on foot and that we are all pedestrians. I don't know why I took a picture of that, but I just thought it was funny and I don't think it stops people from crossing the street whenever they want.
Here we are again in Plaza de Espana the last night I was there. It was sad and we didn't want to go home because then we would have to finnish packing to really go home.
This is Plaza de Espana at night. I will miss this sight.

El Escorial y Valle de los Caidos

This trip was with my program, to El Escorial and Valle de los caidos. This picture is of El Escorial. It is a monestary/palace/cathedral/school. It was built by one of the kings, and the purpose was for the king and monks to live there, but the kings lived like monks and the monks lived like kings. I can't remember which king it was but he was a particularly religious king and had his bedroom built next to the catheral with an adjoining door so that he could hear the mass in bed. (he was old and sick and couldn't get out of bed) This building was built in the shape of an upsidedown grill, with the idea of and upsidedown life for those who live there. It is an incredibly huge building, which is why I could only take a picture of the corner. We couldn't take pictures inside, but it was cool. Most of the Kings and Queens of Spain are buried in the basement along with other members of the royal family of the past.
This is a view from the inner courtyard. El Escorial also has one of the oldest libraries in Europe, with some of the first books ever written in Arabic and Hebrew and Greek. It has manuscripts similar to the ones that were lost in the library at Alexadria. So it is very famous. There are even books there that were forbidden during the Spanish Inquisition and still survived.

This is Valle de los caidos. Translated, it means the valley of the fallen. It is supposed to be a war memorial to the people who fought and died in the spanish civil war, but it was built by Fransisco Franco and he made it more of a memorial to himself than anyone else. He used prisoners of war as slaves to build this memorial, which goes under the mountain into a huge cave with a cathedral and hallway. It also has the graves of Franco and his first General. This is a very controversial monument because many people don't want it to be open to the public because it was built under Franco's orders and by prisoners. It is still an interesting part of history and interestingly enough, people actually have weddings here. I wouldn't want my wedding in a cave with Franco's grave, but whatever.

This is me and my roommates by the monument entrance. As you can see, it is massive. The inside is incredible with huge tapestries and beautiful stonework. We also couldn't take pictures inside, but believe me that it was cool. You have to go there to see it for yourself if you really want to know. :)

Valladolid, Espana

Hello from Michigan everyone! Yes I am home, but I was told that I should finnish my blog so that you all can get the full effect..or something like that. :) So this was the second weekend before i left spain. I went to Valladolid to visit Angela, who was an exchange student with Melissa a few years ago. Valladolid used to be the capital of spain and it is a very important city so it was interesting to tour it. This picture was at a tapas bar. If you don't know what Tapas are...they are like little appetizers that you get with a drink. I just had water but these were little sandwiches with cheese and ham. They were good..and the girl with me is Angela.

This was me and Angela and her friend waling around one of the nights...I think the first day I was there.
On sunday it rained so we had to take a car tour of the city after going to tapas, and this is walking home from tapas after going to mass. Yes these pictures are a little out of order, sorry.
This was one of the displays in a roundabout. It is all signs with "hello" in different languages. It was pretty cool and we stopped to find some different languages.

This was the day I got there and we stopped to get a drink...pop and juice of course ;)
Me by a fountain in the center of the city.
Down one of the main streets.
Angela and her family and me.

These are just some of the buildings in the city...this was a cathedral.
This is the house where Rey Felipe II was born...Kind Phillip II was a very important king because when he was king, Spaiin was at the peak of its empire. It was like the golden years for spain when they had conquered most of the known world.
This is an operahouse...yes I went to an opera. It was called Alcina, and it was in Italian.
This is an interesting facade because it is very similar to the one in Salamanca..I think i have a picture of the salamanca one on that post. Anyway, its the same style of architecture and its really beautiful and old.
The river that goes through the city. Its really brown there because it had just rained and it brought all the dirt from that...that is what they told me so I guess its not usually that brown.

Another fountain.



This was by the science museum. We didn't go to it but we walked by it and obviously took some pictures.