Hola, 

Quick update on the rest of our April and beginning of May. We both finished teaching and I finished tutoring as well. They were both great experiences for us. 

We also went on another excursion! We took a bus to Atepuerca and visited a geological site. We saw and touched real life fossils and learned some cool stuff about how this site was where they found the oldest Europeans ever. Then we went to Burgos. A city in Spain. We visited a cathedral and the evolution museum. We stayed in a nice hotel and had interesting meals but an a,axing breakfast. We walked part of the Camino de Santiago. It was beautiful. We saw many people doing the actual walk complete with giant backpacks and we said "Buen Camino" as they walked passed us.  

We finished class. It was very sad saying goodbye to our teachers. Especially our teacher Mari Mar who was utterly amazing in every way. 

We had our last pinxto pote with our USAC friends. It was an unforgettable night filled with good food and drinks, laughter and many photos. 

We were visited by Paul and Cindy, Tara's parents and we spent a few days showing them our San Sebastián life. We took them to all the best pinxto bars as well as all the beaches and the scenic hike to Jesus. They also joined us and the rest of USAC at a last cider house trip! We went to a very authentic cider house where the food was impeccable and the cider and txocoli (San Sebastián sparkling white wine) were free flowing. We had such a good time and even got a special surprise from the owner. He is a champion wood chopper and showed us his skills. Don't worry, I brought a piece home. He would have beat anyone in New Meadows. Our last night with our new friends was irreplaceable filled with many photos, jokes, speeches and lots of love. 

After a tearful roommate goodbye Tara and I left San Juan 8 for the last time and caught our taxi to the train station. Tara, her parents and I spent the next five hours sleeping on the train to Madrid. We spent the next day and a half showing them everywhere we knew in Madrid. We saw an amazing flamenco dance and ate some delicious paella as we sipped on calimotxo and sangria. We also Spent a good amount of time walking through the beautiful park, saw the outside of the palace and walked through the market. We showed them all the places we went to while we were here the first time in January and it was cool to see now much we still remembered. 

Staying in the same hotel as we did when we arrived in Spain and spending our last day in Spain in Madrid was really cool. We ended where we started and all of the memories in between are priceless. 

We will forever remember the wonderful five months spent in Spain. We made so many amazing new friends that will stay in our hearts forever. 

Its not goodbye its see you later. 

Semana Santa

Hello, yes we are still alive and kicking. Our blogging game has definitely been off, but here we are back in action. It is April 23rd, we have been home from Spring Break or as the Spaniards call it, "Semana Santa" since April 7th and we now have 25 days left until our return to Boise.

Before we talk about anything else we would like to tell you about our AMAZING 17 day spring break of traveling Europe. Armed only with our backpacks we set off on a remarkable journey starting Friday, March 22nd. We won't bore you will all the details but instead paint a picture of the incredible time we had together for those 17 days.


Friday, March 22nd-Overnight bus to Paris

Saturday, March 23rd-Paris for the day, sightseeing, walking tour, Eiffel Tower, crepes for dinner.



Sunday, March 24th-Visited the Palace of Versailles, the "best ice cream in Paris," tried seeing the Arc De Triomphe, "French" French fries for dinner, outside of the Louvre.

 Monday, March 25th-DISNEY PARIS! and Walt Disney Studios. We came, we saw, we conquered. We have now been to two out of three of the happiest places on Earth. See you soon Florida!

Tuesday, March 26th-Flew into Milan, Italy. Met our friends Michael and Spencer for dinner and gelato. The coolest and best part of Milan was Milano Central Station.

 

Wednesday, March 27th- Train to La Spezia, in different compartments. Took another train to Levanto and met Michael and Spencer again for some sightseeing, dinner and of course, gelato.

Thursday, March 28th-Spent all day touring the five coastal towns of "Cinque Terre." Our other friend Lauren joined us midday. After seeing some of the most beautiful towns, more pizza and gelato we repacked our bags ready to leave the following morning.

Friday, March 29th- Took the train to Florence, saw the Duomo, the old bridge, statue of David, dinner, gelato and drinks at some really cool Italian bars.

Saturday, March 30th- Lauren rejoined us in Florence, had amazing sandwiches for lunch, I bought a real Italian leather purse, went on a wine tasting tour in Tuscany. More amazing dinner and gelato.

Sunday, March 31st-EASTER! Seperated for the morning. I went to a church for Easter. Tara and I had Easter Brunch complete with me trying berries and to Tara's great surprise I liked them! We walked around Florence, found a cool market, climbed a hill to see the famous view of the city and had another dinner and gelato.

Monday, April 1st- Happy April Fools Day! Too bad we were to busy going to Rome! Stayed in the worst hostel ever! Saw the Colosseum, walked around the area around it filled with other Roman Ruins, dinner and gelato. Michael had to head back to school in Madrid so we said bye to him as well!

Tuesday, April 2nd- Saw the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, delicious coffee shake, met another friend from USAC Sam and her new friend from here hostel. Dinner and gelato.

Wednesday, April 3rd- Went to the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, another great sandwich place, St. Peter's Cathedral, random castle, hung out with Sam and hung out by a street market and watched a free concert. Gelato Shakes! An amazing dinner and a night on the town.

Thursday, April 4th- Said bye to Sam and headed off to the airport. Caught our flight to the Netherlands. Landed in Amsterdam. Had mexican food for dinner. BED.

Friday, April 5th- Visited the Secret Annex where Anne Frank and 7 other people hid for over two years during WWII. Heineken Experience, rode ferris wheel, ate Wok to Walk.

Saturday, April 6th- Canal tour, Subway for lunch, shop that only sold fries, best bar in Amsterdam, has over 250 different beers, Ben and Jerry's and general city seeing which included a very beautiful park.

Sunday, April 8th- Home, Home At Last! We arrived in San Sebastian around 8:00 pm. Met with our roommates and went to bed hoping to prepare ourselves for the next day of class.





So, as you can see, our spring break was definitely a trip of a lifetime. Let's make something clear, whenever we said "ate dinner" in Italy it was ALWAYS pizza and/or pasta. Everyday that we were in Amsterdam we went to Starbucks. EVERYwhere we went EXCEPT Amsterdam, it rained.

Getting back into the swing of things was difficult. We both had eternal stomach aches for the first week, our theories ranged from drastic diet changes to our body missing the constant influence of gelato. Our lack of Spanish speaking through the trip did not go unnoticed by our professors. Tara started her surf class and is almost pro by now. We finished yet another class and are now in our final class of the semester.

Our new plans for the end of the semester are very exciting. Paul and Cindy are heading to beautiful San Sebastian on the 12th, just in time to wish us luck on our final exams. After a few days touring the city we will all head to Madrid for some more Spanish debauchery. On the 17th we take seperate flights back home, ours stopping in Seattle for the night. Tara gets to hang out with her dearly missed brother, Russell for the evening and I get to see my long lost aunt, uncle and cousins. We will join back up at the airport and be back in Boise by the evening of the 18th!

That's all for now.
It won't be this long before our next post, promise!

Until next time,

Tara and Taryn

Bilbao

We only hoped the sunshine would last forever. This week was dreadfully cold and rainy but we still had a great week of cafe studying, teaching, pintxo pote and walking through the rain. Our roommates all were out of town this weekend so the apartment was ours. Friday after class we attended a lunch put on by USAC and one of the Basque Gastronomical societies in town. We had salad, tortilla de patata, pan and some random cookies. We learned a little about the societies as well. They started in San Sebastian during one of the wars and they were the only place that people could speak Basque freely and cook meals together. The catch is, only men were allowed to be in these "clubs" women and families were occasionally invited but they weren't allowed in the kitchen. Seems backwards from what we are used to huh? We don't think our food was actually cooked by the guys there but we were just able to use the space as an example of what the Gastronomical society looks like. After lunch we went home, cleaned our kitchen and worked out in our small bedrooms. Doing jumping jacks, burpees and planks is more difficult when you have to watch out for pointy desks while doing them. We also tried a new recipe for some teriyaki crock pot chicken. Since we don't have a crock pot we figured that putting a normal pan on low for a couple hours would do the trick. We learned that it definitely isn't the same thing. Our chicken was so dry we couldn't finish it which was rather sad because the taste was amazing! We will surely be trying this recipe again without letting it simmer as long. We also made banana icecream! It was amazing! Who knew that if you froze bananas then put them in a blender with peanutbutter you could make such a delicious (not to mention healthy) treat!

On Saturday we slept in, made breakfast and then headed off to the bus station. We bought our tickets to Bilbao and took a nice nap on the hour and 15 minute bus ride. Once we got there we didn't really know what to do so we just started walking trying to find stores that were open to browse. Of course we got there during siesta so nothing was open. Then, the best thing happened, we turned our heads and saw a real life MEXICAN RESTAURANT!! We of course immediately decided it was lunch time and this is where we would eat no matter what. The staff was friendly, the atmosphere was fun and the enchiladas we got were superb!! Since Mexican food is both our favorites, this was one of the best meals we have had while being abroad. After our meal we walked around found some more stores and then went to see the Guggenheim Museum. It is famous for its modern architecture. There was a giant dog made out of flowers in the front that was our favorite part of the museum.

We had "natural" gelato that was quite scrumptious and then walked around for a few more hours before returning to San Sebastian. After making dinner, watching a movie and making a powerpoint about Easter (for teaching) we headed to bed. This morning we went to a Spanish church with our friends Brian and Dannae. It was really cool to be able to worship because we knew what the songs were saying and could sing along. The sermon was a little harder because there were a lot of words we didn't know but all in all it was a great experience. We met a really nice lady, Mary, who is originally from Indiana but resides in San Sebastian now. She invited us to come have lunch or supper with here in the next few weeks! After church we made brunch! We had fruit salad, banana pancakes, a smoothie and I (Taryn) made my first homemade batch of tortilla de patata! It wasn't perfect but it was really yummy for my first try!

Our roommates came home from their trips and we all enjoyed some more banana icecream before bed.

This week is really busy! Getting ready for our midterm on Friday, another composition, teaching like normal, presenting a dialogue in conversation class, packing for Spring break and of course...pinxto pote on Thursday.

We will try to blog one more time before heading off on our adventures for spring break, but if not we will try to keep everyone updated about the next few weeks!

Until next time,

Tara and Taryn

Just another week in Paradise

The week passed by as normal but with the exception that the weather was beautiful every single day. Friday after our final exam we headed to the beach to spend the day with literally almost all of USACers. Our friend Max played live music for us and there were people surfing, volleyballing and passing the football around. Food and drinks were shared with lots of fun conversation and the sun brought out everybody's good side. That night we watched The Dark Knight Rises with our roommates while drinking amazing hot chocolate.
Saturday we joined some friends and hiked to a nearby town. With lots of detours and pauses to enjoy the landscape the hike in its entirety took about 4 and a half hours. We then grabbed some food and rode the 20 minute bus ride home. The scenery was breathtaking and it prompted lots of conversing about just how lucky we are to have a hike like this right in our back yard. Another topic that came up a lot is American Food. Taco Bell, Sonic, Chipotle, McDonalds, Red Robin etc were the main points of interest. We really are Americans. And proud of it!
There were a lot of stairs and steep hills that gave our muscles a work out. It was perfect weather, sunny but not too hot.
After showering and changing we went to our first cider house. If you remember from our first excursion to a Basque Farm House, cider was/is an important "staple" of Basque Culture. There are many cider houses throughout the Basque country and the one we went to was small but really interesting. There were hollowed out barrels to sit in and normal tables as well. The whole idea of a cider house is you pay a certain amount and then get unlimited cider and a four course meal. The meal includes two fish dishes, steak cooked "vuelta y vuelta," which literally means seared on one side then seared on the other. The whole middle is rare. Tara and I being the "tiquismiquis" of the group (picky eaters,) made ourselves try everything. We both liked the first fish dish because you couldn't taste the fish, neither of us enjoyed the second fish dish and Tara was not about to eat more than a few bites of raw steak. I on the other hand was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved the steak even though it was rare. The cider was actually pretty good and Tara loved the walnut dessert.

Today was spent on the beach again hanging out with our roommate Dylan and her family who is visiting. After another concert from Max we all had lunch together and then went our seperate ways. We had another group meeting tonight and watched a sermon from our friend Dannae's church. It was a good meeting although we were missing a few people.

This week is supposed to go back to sad gloomy weather but only 12 days until Spring Break!!

Until next time,

Tara and Taryn

A weekend away

So after class on Friday we went home, showered and packed for our weekend adventure to Barcelona. Knowing we didn't want to miss the bus this time, Tara let me make us leave as early as I wanted. Thinking our bus left at 3:00, I decided 2:00 would give us plenty of time to go to our favorite bakery for a bocadillo and walk to the bus station. When we arrived at the bus station at 2:35 I looked at my ticket and read that our bus was actually not scheduled to leave until 3:40...and Tara knew the whole time but didn't want to be in charge of time. So we waited in the beautiful sunshine for an hour. Once we got on the bus and sat down the bus ride was very enjoyable. We even had two really loud men sitting behind us that were playing games, taking phone calls amd smoking in the bathroom. The ride took about 7 hours including a half hour stop. When the bus stopped we grabbed our backpacks and walked into the station, later finding out we got off at the wrong stop.. Once we figured out which way our hostel was we hit the metro and were off! 

Our first stop in all new places it seems is a pizza place. Pizza must be a comfort to us bevause it is always the first food place that seems logical to stop into. The pizza we had was far from extraordinary but the service was great and the waiter even told us which way to walk to our hostel. Once we found it and went inside we were pleasantly surprised. The guy showed us around and then told us we could use the wifi, computers and printers for free as well as all of the kitchen supplies. There was a ton of juice for us to drink and yogurt, muffins, croissants and toast for breakfast. We both brought towels with us, which was unnecessary because we had a towel, a pillow and a comforter on our bed waiting for us. The whole place was really clean and it was way less sketchy then our last hostel experience. 

As you know from our London experience we are expert metro travelers. The metro in Barcelona was no different and we maneuvered through the huge city easily. Saturday we got up had breakfast and then Ericky (hostel guy) showed us where we should go while staying in Barcelona. First, we took the metro across town and then walked up levels and levels of stairs, sidewalks, and okay escalators too..until we reached the top of Park Guell. Here you could see the whole city below and it was truly beautiful. There were a lot of people around and it had a large population of trees surrounding the hill. After hitting some shops we took the metro back to another part of town. Here we spent the day walking around this huge area. First stop was lunch and then walking around a big mall. We saw the Museo Nacional d'art de Catalunya, Torre de Calatrava, Palau Sant Jordi, Estadi Olimpic, took a sky trolley to Castell de Montjuic, and finished that area with a fantastic light and water show at Font Magica de Montjuic. Basically we saw some cool buildings, walked into the stadium where the 1992 Olympics were held and jammed out to Disney music in Spanish while watching water do tricks. It was a great day. After this we went down by the beach for an ocean front dinner. We shared paella and a bottle of white wine, it was superb. 

Sunday we first went to the Sagrada Familia, a huge church in the city. It was so amazing. The outside and the inside were incredible and it was well worth the time in line as well as the ticket. There was mass going on downstairs and areas where you could go and pray as well. After this we walked around some more and found lunch. The next few hours were spent at Las Ramblas. A really long street full of vendors. We both bought Barcelona jerseys and had delicious gelato. We spent an hour on the docks basking in the sunlight and watching and old man feed the seagulls. After walking up and down the roads and seeing all the museums and buildings Ericky said we should see we walked back to our hostel and got our stuff together. We had a really interesting dinner, Tara had carbonara, "ain't like mama fixed it," I had a tortilla de patata sandwich and until this night I didn't know you could make a bad batch of tortilla de patata. We all learn the hard truths sometimes. Barcelona was a really great city, it is a definite place to visit and spend a week but we are still 100% happy we chose San Sebastián as our city to study in for the semester. 

We have a really busy week ahead of us. We both teach this week, we have a presentation on Tuesday and our final for our second class this Friday. Our roommate Dylan's family is coming to visit as well so we will probably hang out with them. We will also be finalizing spring break plans because the countdown is on...18 days! Did we mention we bought our tickets for Disneyland Paris!? 

Until next time, 

Tara and Taryn 

 

Carnaval

So we basically suck at blogging this past week, but if you knew how nice the weather was this week you would totally understand! Anyways, last weekend we went to Hendaye, France with a few other USACers and participated in “Carnaval.” It was a blast. We took the train there and walked until we found the meeting place. Once we figured out they spoke Spanish we figured out what we were supposed to do. They dressed all of us up in different outfits and then we walked to a big meeting square and basically watched all of the floats that were in front of us go by then we started walking. All in all the actual parade was two hours long with stops along the way to watch other floats sing and dance. Tara, Michael (a fellow USAC student) and I all wore big heads. And when we say big, we mean big. They were huge and we had to have a chest guard to keep them secured to our bodies as well as really strong shoulders. After the first 45 minutes it was really hard to keep them on but obviously we made it through the whole parade. We could partly see through the mouth of the head but it was really difficult to get the perfect angle that wasn’t painful to your shoulders but where you could still see where you were going. Once it was over we went back and took off our costumes. It felt so nice to have the giant heads off! Since we were starving we went to one of the few places that was open with a few other USACers and ordered some personal pizzas.  We didn't know they were going to take them out of a freezer box sitting right next to us and microwave them one by one. They tasted awful and were smaller than a normal personal pizza. And yet they still cost 8 euros along with a water. But despite the food it was a really awesome experience and here are a couple pictures to show the greatness of it all….

Sunday had great weather and Tara, Michael and I went on a four hour walk. Up and around the small mountain thing we have near our house, then to the other side of the city and beach, then back down to the middle of the city and soccer stadium up hills and through side streets before finally retreating back to our apartment for bible study. Dannae brought us McDonalds French fries and we are embarrassed to say they were gone rather quickly… The whole week was beautiful weather and we walked to and from school almost every day. Our roommate Dylan bought rollerblades so I went on a blade/run with her one morning and it was super fun. Tara has been sick the past few weeks so she finally went to the doctor and got some medicine that makes her lungs itch, as well as make her feel a lot better! It was one of our friends birthday this week so we got to celebrate with him by making a cake and taking an extra-long break in class. Pinxto Pote this week was also just too much fun. Friday was spent window shopping before taking an extra-long nap then going to an AMAZING Italian restaurant with some friends. After retreating home with gelato we spent the night giving ourselves facials and watching tv. The boys are in Paris for the weekend, so it is an all-girls all weekend movie extravaganza. This week includes a presentation, a midterm and next Friday, a trip to Barcelona for the weekend. Now that you’re all caught up we will try to be better about keeping up with our exciting lives here in beautiful San Sebastian!

London

We came up with a lot of titles for this blog post throughout the weekend in London. We couldn't decide on one so we used the generic, go to "London." Here were the other possibilities:
London: Comfort Costs
London: Doesn't seem so big when you're speeding through it underground
London: Where dreams of being a princess go to die
London: The place you should vacation with your parents

Anyways, our trip was awesome!! We had a test on Friday morning then spent the rest of the day enjoying our clean and empty house. Our roommates had left the night before so it was just us. Our bible study group came over and we talked for hours and hours before we finally called it quits so we could pack.

Saturday morning we left the house to catch the bus to Biarritz, the French town we flew out of. We were about thirty seconds too late and the bus driver drove away while we chased him down the parking lot. They refunded our tickets and we walked to the train station to try and find a train instead. We walked to the wrong one. Finally, we made it to the train station and bought a ticket to a town in France where we had to get on another train to Biarritz. We had to wait at the train station for two hours and once we got to the airport we waited another two to leave. We wouldn't have been able to make it if it wasn't for a really nice old French lady and a boy who caught the bus from the train station to the airport for us. After all of that plus a two hour flight, we finally made it to the Stansted airport. After exchanging our euros for pounds and buying a bus ticket we rode a coach bus for an hour ish to a bus stop in London. After another half hour walk we found our hostel. It was super sketchy. It was around 7:00 and everyone in our room was asleep so we decided to walk around town. We didn't want to leave our stuff in the room so we walked with our backpacks and it sucked.

The next day we got up early had a really delicious breakfast of white bread and corn flakes and headed on our Britain adventure. We walked through Kensington Gardens and went inside Kensington palace and spent an hour in the gift shop looking at all the wonderful things.
After that we walked to the National History Museum and spent literally the entire day open to close looking around. We only saw 3/4 of the museum but we also had a really delicious lunch there and learned a lot of cool things. After the museum we walked around that part of town and found an old English Pub. We obviously had to get a beer in a british pub so we both got guiness and we also had a delicious dinner there. Next to our table there was a baby shower going on, weird place for that kind of celebration.

Monday was a busy day. We bought a tube ticket for the day and headed off to our first stop. We bought tickets to Wicked and then saw the changing of the guard at Buckinham Palace. It was really interesting to watch and the band was playing even though it was snowing. It was a lot longer than we expected so we warmed up inside the giftshop before going back to the tube. For those of you who don't know the "tube" is the underground railroad system. It is really efficient and cheap. We were pro status halfway through the day. The days travels included: St. Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben, The London Eye, The London Tower, and Harrods, the biggest store ever. If we did the trip again we would have definitely spent more time and money going through the cathedral, riding the London Eye and touring the London tower. Harrods took us an hour to walk through and that was barely scanning through each of its 7 floors. After all of this it was finally time to go to Wicked! The musical was magical and we had such a great time watching it. The performance was great and the atmosphere was really fun. After that we took the tube to Kings Cross Station and saw Platform 9 3/4, the most magical and perfect moment of our lives. We also walked around Piccadilly circus and then had dinner at a weird cafe next to our hostel.

The final day of our trip we walked through part of Hyde park and enjoyed the massive amounts of oxygen given off by the thousands of trees. Caught the bus and got back on the plane back to our home here in San Sebastian.

Speaking of the plane....There was a whole rugby team on the same flight as us and three boys behind us kept grabbing our hair and touching our arms through the seats and playing music loudly and asking us if we knew French. At one point they tried to give us suckers which we politely declined until finally they wouldn't take no for an answer so Taryn chucked it back through the seat and grabbed their cell phone from between the seat. That shut them up for like a whole thirty seconds. After that it was love, and they asked for our phone numbers...

Excursion

Hola!
Happy February!
We have had a really busy last couple weeks, but today marks exactly one month since we left the United States! Time sure flies when you are having fun right?

Last week was basically the same as normal, finding out we did really well on our first test, two of the three higher grades in class, Tara's was obviously the highest! No suprises there:)

On Friday we didn't have school! We had an excursion instead so we all hopped on the bus and drove for a while until we reached Caserio Igartubeiti  and saw an old farm house. This place was so crazy. The farm house was ginourmous and in the middle of the house there was a giant apple press so they could make cider. The only place in the house that allowed fire was the kitchen, so the only place that had light was the kitchen. They had a couple bedrooms with twin or full size looking beds that usually slept four or more people at one time. These buildings were very complex. To get the perfect shape and size of the wood someones great great grandpa would have had to start planting a tree, start shaping the tree and then every child after that had to keep up the tree until it was finally the right shape and size for building. There were no nails or screws in this building, as every piece of wood fit perfectly together. It is two stories, the bottom of the press starting in the middle of the house and upstairs is where they would gather the apples to press and make cider for their family and for the town. All over Spain there are different cider press farm houses.
After the farm house we went a little higher up the mountains to Aranzazu and went to a church and to lunch. The church was different than any other one we've seen in Spain. The inside looked like a mountain and it had so many pues. We only spent ten minutes or so here before walking up the hill to lunch.
Lunch was amazing! Our first dish was vegatable paella, something we have been meaning to try. It was delicious. For the main course we had chicken and french fries. It was also really good. The dessert was stupendous! It was vanilla icecream with a hard chocolate shell. There were a few people next to us that didn't like icecream so we definitely got our fair share of icecream. We then went to a town along the coast called Zumaia. It was really beautiful but smelled like cow manure. It was actually just goat manure. Everyone on the West coast commented on how the smell reminded them of home and everyone from the East coast looked appalled. A geologist took us on a walk around the beach and up on a cliff. He showed us rocks that were really really old and told us how this part of Spain used to be under water. It was pretty interesting but most of us were more interested in the breathtaking view.
Our weekend was fun filled, we met a few kids studying in the nieghboring city Bilbao and on Sunday we had our first bible study at our house. It was really interesting to hear other peoples point of view and we are having another one tonight.
This week was our first week of teaching! The school wanted teachers that were already friends so they could use the same lesson plans for the classes as they are very similar. The USAC people of course chose us. The school is a 20 minute bus ride from the center of town. The school is a German and Spanish school, and most of the students speak Basque and are learning English. We each teach for two hours, one on Tuesday the other on Wednesday. This week was just an introduction week so we talked about ourselves and our lives in America. Most kids awed over the giantness of Tara's sorority house, how close Idaho was to "Caly-fornia," and how different Boise State's blue field was. They asked us lots of questions and we can't wait for the rest of the semester.

Today we took our final for our first class. Spanish 211 is done. We have a four day weekend because it is another festival, Carnivales. We aren't participating in it because we are flying to London tomorrow! A weekend spent pretending we have british accents and staying in our first hostel!

Talk to you after London!
Tara and Taryn

If everything goes as planned, it isn't an adventure it is just an event

Well, this week was relatively normal. We went to class, had our first test, walked around town, saw a movie, the usual San Sebastian activites. We decided that we wanted to venture out this weekend, so we grabbed a packet in the USAC office on how to get to a small nearby city in France. The city is called Biarritz, it is an hour and a half away by train or bus.
So, this morning we got up at 7:30 ate our breakfast and walked (in the rain of course) across town to the bus stop. We didn't really know where to get the ticket but after talking to a few locals we found the small shop to but them. We also got a cappuccino from a machine for ,50 and it was so yummy! We stood at the bus stop trying to figure out which was bus 3. We tried getting on a bus that had the number three and they said it was the wrong one so we went to another one with the number three and it was correct so we sat down and rode for an hour and a half. They told us to bring our passports, but nobody checked them so we didn't even get a stamp:(  It was 10:30 when we got there, gloomy and it sort of looked like a ghost town. We stopped by the tourism building and got a map and tried talking to the lady there about what was good to do there.
Our first stop, The Chocolate Museum, which was on our list of things to do there. We walked for about a half an hour trying to find it and when we did, the museum was closed. The store was still open though, so we went inside to try to find something yummy. There was a bunch of random chocolate in boxes, in bags and just some chocolate on shelves. I picked up a back of chocolate melts and the lady told me "chocolate, don't touch," uh okay? So we looked at more stuff and then saw a laminated pamphlet about chocolate making. We picked it up and started looking at it, not being able to read a thing because it was in French, and the lady came over to us and showed us the sign that said how much the pamphlet was. Apparently you can't look at things without buying them first. We ended up buying a little bag of mixed chocolate melts to share. They were good, but nothing too special.
We then walked around by the ocean for a while and then back into town. There was finally a few people outside. We became really hungry and decided that pizza is what we wanted. After asking two women in stores that spoke English where a pizza place was, they both answered "pizza, uhh no?" We decided to trek around town for another hour in search for pizza. We finally found a place that said pizzeria, and it was closed. So we walked longer. Finally we found a restaurant that said pizza on its wall. We walked in, sat down and looked at the menu. It was all in French so naturally we picked the pizza with the least amount of random cheeses and ingredients on it and ordered some orange juice and a sprite. The pizza came really fast, we watched them bake it in a brick oven ten feet away. It was amazing! So delicious. It had ham and mushrooms on it. We ate it with a fork and knife, like the rest of the people in the restaurant did. After lunch everyone had dessert. We kept seeing these really yummy icecream things go by so we ordered one that had three different types of caramely flavors. It was incredible! The yummiest thing we have had in days! (hard life right..) Anyways after that we sat and talked for awhile, paid then left for more exploring.
Apparently after 2:00 everybody is outside! The shops were busy, there were people on the streets and on the beach. We walked around down by the ocean through some rocks and then to go back up to see the lighthouse we had to walk up 176 steps. When we reached the lighthouse it was closed because it was too windy. We sat on a bench and soaked up the amazingly warm sunshine. When the sun began to go behind the clouds we realized it was time to start walking again. We couldn't find the Museum of the Sea before this point, so we decided to keep looking. We walked for about 45 minutes and then decided to walk over to this area where there is a bridge going over part of the ocean onto a big rock formation with a statue. The whole thing is kind of like in a cove where people were playing around in the sand and climbing the rocks and taking pictures. As we walked to the bridge, to our right was the museum! We finally found it! YAY! First we had to go take a picture of the statue on the other side of the bridge. Walking onto the bridge Tara got out her camera and I was looking at some other people taking a picture of some weird rock formation. (That wasn't even cool.) As I turned to look at the statue 50 yards away(we were only 7 feet onto the bridge,) I saw a lot of ocean water spraying up close to the people. I started to say "I don't want to go over there, it looks like you could get wet," as I finish saying that a huge wave plummets over the side of the bridge devouring Tara and me as well as another couple. Everyone started laughing. We were soaked from head to toe. Salt water in our mouths I started to cry, Tara started to laugh so I stopped crying to laugh, and we decided the next best move was to take a picture. The best picture we will ever take. After being laughed at enough, we walked into the museum and asked for the bathroom. The kind lady at the desk was trying so hard not to laugh at us as we stood there soaking wet trying to ask for the bathroom in English. We tried to dry off but we didn't do that much. After realizing that both Tara's camera and ipod were broken, we began to walk to the tourism building.
As we arrived, still soaking wet and waddling, the lady at the desk didn't understand that a wave had hit us and couldn't tell us where to buy cheap clothes. She directed us to a large department store, similar to Macy's. We searched and searched but couldn't find anything that was cheap enough to buy to just wear one time, and we couldn't take off our clothes to try on new ones, because they were never going to be able to go back on. Defeated, we walked around in search for a cafe to warm up in. Nowhere to be found we walked into an American 50's diner in the middle of the city. It had dr.pepper and rootbeer, sodas not usually found in Europe. We ordered fries and tried to warm up and dry off before riding the bus home.
When it was near the time to go home, (two hours after we got soaked,) we walked to the bus stop and waited, and waited and waited. Once it turned 6:45, the time the bus was supposed to leave, we kind of freaked out. I asked another bus driver if he was going to San Sebastian and he told us no, the other bus was around the corner. Frantically, we waddled over to the other side of the block and saw it turning the corner. It stopped, we bought our ticket and sat down thanking God we didn't have to stay in this town another minute longer.
When we got home, we had another 15 minute walk home. Still wet, we practically ran home to change our clothes. Finally, 2 hours later, our bodies have warmed back up, but our feet are still wet. (Even after putting on new fuzzy warm socks and slippers.)

Even though half of our day was spent in misery, we are still very glad and thankful for the oppurtunity to get to go to France for the day. We can't wait to go back!

Until our next adventure,

Tara and Taryn

La Tamborrada

Today, January 21st marks the recovery day from the 24 hour festival that is La Tamborrada. Every year the city all celebrates the Patron Saint, San Sebastian for an entire 24 hours. Saturday at midnight the city crowds in a square in the old part of town and watches the flags being raised. For the next 24 hours the band of drummers march through the city. A band of children also have a performance for their families. Everyone in town dresses up or grabs something to drum, whether it was a big bucket, or a flat piece of wood.
This whole week we heard the drummers practicing. One of our roommates saw a drummer mess up during practice and start crying in the street. Apparently messing up during la tamborrada is not taken lightly. Being woken up by the drums each morning at 8:00 was not ideal but today we finally got to sleep in with absolutely no drums in the vicinity.
All our teachers, intercambios, and USAC directors told us that the 24 hour festival would be tiring and to make sure to prepare. On Saturday we slept in, lounged around, napped and slowly got ready trying to prepare for the festival. We are not allowed to have people over to our apartment, mostly because here in Spain social events are not usually inside the home like in America. Today was a generally loud day so we decided this was the one day we could get away with it. A group of USAC kids and a few locals hung around our flat for a few hours before the festival began. With our echoing apartment our "party" was really loud. We also did not have enough cups for everyone or nearly enough Fanta! Everyone drank all of Tara's limon fanta and we couldn't find anymore at any of the stores. At 11:30ish we all trekked to the square near our apartment. It was pouring rain so everyone in the square had their umbrellas up. We couldn't see anything that was going on but basically they played music, the whole town sang, and they raised the flags. After the ceremony everyone goes from bar to bar and socializes with the rest of the city. It was super crowded everywhere we went. We couldn't even get into some places the lines were so long. We ended up getting pizza at a really yummy place at one point of the night and lost and refound our friends many times. From midnight to 5 am everyone in our apartment came in and out at different times. It rained harder and harder as the morning progressed and even the locals told us to go home. We all slept in until the afternoon as more drums woke us up. The group of drummers walked past our street and through the rest of the city for the rest of the day. Our apartment was pretty dirty and we had a lot of dishes to do so for about an hour all five of us swept, mopped and scrubbed the heck out of our apartment. When we finally felt like our apartment was liveable, we went to lunch at a restaurant near the boulevard. It was sort of like a diner and had a bunch of American license plates, including one from Idaho. 8B, does anyone know what county that is from?  Our roommates got burgers, Tara got a really good chicken sandwich and I got a ham, egg and cheese sandwich. They were all really delicious and we drank some coca-cola with it. After that we hung out for a few hours and then around 7:00 we decided to get out of the house. It was a nice non rainy night so we walked around the city. Around 9:00 a bunch of USAC kids were going to meet at Molly Malones, the Irish Bar that the Americans hang out in to watch the American football games. It took awhile for most of the people to show up but once they did it was pretty fun watching the game together. There is not a really good area for a large group of people to sit and watch so we were all split up into groups. At 11:30 we left with our friends, Spencer and Lauren back to the square in the old part to watch the closing ceremonies. It wasn't raining this time so the sky wasn't filled with umbrellas and we could actually see the stage. They drummers played songs and the locals sang and at one point the kids in front of us actually pushed the crowd all the way over to one side during part of the song, sang a few more words then shoved them all back to the original spot. It was really funny, but also scary because they almost took Tara with them. The flag lowering ceremony took about ten minutes and the locals kept singing and jumping around for who knows how long after we left. The four of us went back to Molly Malones to watch the next football game. We left at half time to go to bed, which was at about 2:00 in the morning. Most of the USAC crew is excited for the Super Bowl, even though we will have to go watch it at 3:00 in the morning on a school night.

Today we slept in, walked around town and down by the beach and are currently doing our pile of homework. This week we are going to research places to travel and make our plans, have a meeting with the directors about teaching English, and get our bus pass.

Adios,
Tara and Taryn!

Our First Day of School!

Today was our first day of classes in Spain. We didn't have our first class until 1:30 in the afternoon. Neither one of us has started a school day that late. We got up, walked over to our favorite cafe and got some cafe con leche, a loaf of bread, and four eclaires. At home we made scrambled eggs with onions and ate them with our delicious bread. We each tried a small piece of each eclaire. There was chocolate, vanilla, caramel and cappuccino. They were very delicious. After we got ready we got on the bus and headed to school. We first went to the USAC office to give our director our phone number, and ask where our classes were. After that we signed up to teach English in a local school and got our bus pass form.

Our first class was a conversation class. There are five of us in the class, three girls and two boys. Our teachers name is Inaki. He doesn't speak any English. Basically we just talk the entire time. We don't really have to take notes or anything, just try and speak Spanish as best we can. He was really nice and funny and the class is going to help our Spanish so much.

Our second class is about a 7 or 8 minute walk away from our first class, but we only have 5 minutes. Our teacher was waiting for us outside and she gave us a speech about being on time to class. When we told her our situation she understood and said we could have five more minutes. She is really energetic and nice. She told us that since we are roommates we cannot sit together in class. Imagine if she knew we have been bestfriends for forever...
Her name is Mari Mar and she doesn't speak English either. She says her English is horrible but she says most words she knows pretty well. This class is three hours long every single day. Throughout the semester we are taking 12 credits with her. Each class is about a month long so every two weeks we have a midterm or a final. She says we will be fluent by May! Today we didn't have homework, she said today was free time but tomorrow we will have a lot, and everyday after that.

School was great and we are super excited to improve our Spanish speaking skills.

On a side note, textbooks here are way cheaper than in the U.S. We each got 7 books for less than 100 euros. Yay!


Today marks our one week anniversary in Spain. It doesn't seem like we have been here that long but then again it feels like we have done so much. Something we have learned in this short time is that smiling is not something you want to do here. It is kind of like a sexual advance. If you know us, you know that we smile...a lot. So it has definitely been hard. One time at the supermarket we smiled at an old lady and she look horrified and turned to her friend and started freaking out in Spanish. This is definitely something we are working on. So if we come home looking grumpy all the time, it is just because we learned not to be creepy here.

Hasta pronto!

Tara and Taryn 

Our New Home

 

Hola!

We finally made it to our new home. On Monday we woke up and put our bags in a room in the hotel and ate breakfast. This breakfast was 100 times better than the ones before. There were different types of bread, cereal, yogurt, scrambled eggs and sausage as well as ham. It was so delicious. We then walked to the University and went to Part 1 of Orientation. We got a couple maps, some information and a really long repetitive presentation. After that we took a placement test. We are supposed to be in track II because of the amount of Spanish credits we have taken but after taking the written (85 questions) and oral test we figured we would be doomed to be placed in track I. This would mean no Spanish minor for Tara and both of us having to find another class to take instead. Putting this out of our mind we headed for our apartment. The hotel called a cab for us and when we got in we said our street and the apartment number. The cab driver looked at us blankly and said "which hotel?" We kept trying to tell him no, not a hotel, an apartment on our street. He was super confused until we said Parte Vieja, which means old part of town. He began driving and then dropped us off on the main street in town. We walked down our street and passed shop after shop until finally we saw apartments. Our number is 8 and all we saw were 7, 9, 11..etc. Across the street is just a giant building that is definitely not an apartment so we kept walking for another block and then finally we saw the 8 across the road. Figuring out how to open the door with our key was another story. To open up and lock doors here you have to turn them all the way around twice and then usually another little bit to really unlock it so you can push it open. There aren't numbers or anything on the doors in the halls so we had no idea which door was ours. We stuck our keys in a door before finding our door. When we walked in we were amazed! The first thing we saw was a bedroom and a really long hallway. Our apartment is huge! We have four bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and 2 full bathrooms. (One is a full bathroom, one has just a shower and one has just a toilet.) Our kitchen is where are washing machine is, but we don't even have an oven. Just a stop top, a giantly tall fridge and freezer and a microwave. We have three other roommates. Dylan who goes to school in South Carolina. She is really cool and people think she looks like Hermione Granger. Our other two roomates share the bigger room and their names are Andres and Rob. They both go to school in New York. Andres speaks Spanish already and Rob is just a beginner. Andres really helped when our landlady came and talked to us. She is really nice, her name is Pepa. She brought her daughter with her and another USAC student who is her homestay son, Michael. She showed us the ropes of how to work the washing machine and the heater and gave us all her families numbers and email incase we had a problem. We paid her and she left. Her and her daughter were the first people that we got to do a proper European hello with. A kiss on each cheek. It was weird. Slash it made us feel like we were getting to know the culture better.

Today was part two of our orientation. When we woke up the wind was whistling through our apartment and my (Taryn's) balcony doors opened. It was pouring rain. Since we didn't have any food yet we went to a little bakery and got some breakfast. Between all five of us we had some bread, an eclair, a scone, some sandwiches, and we all got cafe con leche. Coffee with milk. Everyone drinks coffee here so we decided we better do it to. As our director always says, "When in Spain, do as the Spaniards do." It was actually pretty good once we added some sugar to it. It will probably become a daily thing for us. We then walked over to the bus stop. The first bus that came for us to get on told us we couldn't get on with our coffee so we had to chug it and wait for the next bus. It helps that the cups we get are only about 6 ounces. We got on the next bus and asked a man where to get off. We were disoriented at first but found the USAC building just in the knick of time.
After another hour of orientation we were free to go until it was time to meet for the walking tour. We went to the back of the room to check what track we tested in to. We walked up hesitantly, both prepared to see our names on track I. There are also two different groups in each track so we were hoping to be in the same one. At first glance our names were not on the list for track II, but as we looked harder we realized we were both placed in track II and in the same group. We could breathe again! Excited and relieved we walked upstairs into the USAC office and grabbed every single paper we could. We signed up for our intercambios. Intercambios are Spanish speaking partners to practice your conversation skills with.
Our walking tour was at 2:45 and when we left the university it was about 1:00. We decided to walk back because it wasn't raining anymore. Without looking at the map we headed in the direction we figured would have nice scenery and busy streets to walk through. It did have scenery, a lot of trees, but no busy streets. We basically walked on the highway until we were so lost we had to go into a hotel and ask how to get downtown. Thats when we realized how far away we were. Just so you know, walking from one side of the city to the other takes 45 minutes. We had already been walking for an hour. We took some curvy roads. Finally, when we only had 15 minutes until the tour and we were still nowhere close, we asked someone at the bus stop how to get to downtown. She said to get on bus 28. So we did. We asked someone on the bus which stop to get off at. She went on and on in Spanish that we were on the wrong bus. We were still supposed to be on bus 28, but just going the other direction. We got off this bus and walked across the street to the other bus and paid another couple dollars to ride to downtown. By the time we finally made it to our meeting place it was 3:00. They were gone. No group walking tour for us. Defeated, we walked to the same bakery we had breakfast and grabbed some pizza and fanta and sat in our apartment and ate. We hung around our apartment for a few hours until our roommates came home, then decided to try and go shopping.

We first went to the cellphone store and bought a cheap pay as you go minute phone. It is probably the coolest thing ever. It is so light and has the teeny tiniest screen and we had it put in Spanish so we have no idea what we are doing when we click on buttons. After that we went to the underground supermarket and went grocery shopping. After about an hour of wandering the aisles we got bananas, oranges, yogurt, eggs, milk, chips, chicken, fanta, (orange and lemon), cotton balls, conditioner, and lettuce. All of this only cost 25 euros! We hope that is actually a good deal...
We then had to walk home in the pouring rain carrying four bags of groceries. It was super super fun. We love being sopping wet when we finally arrive home. We reorganized the kitchen with our groceries and our roommates and now we have food for the week!

This weekend is a festival so all the stores will be closed! Since it is a festival weekend, the marching band has been practicing everynight somewhere relatively close to our apartment. It is very festive.

Our adventurous day is coming to a close as we make our first home cooked meal together as roommates, get ready for bed and prepare for our first day of school tomorrow. Did we mention class doesn't start until 1:30 tomorrow?

Until next time,
Tara and Taryn

 

Madrid

Day 1 of the Madrid Tour-
Today we visited the Prada Museum and the Royal Palace. We all ate breakfast at the hotel, there was a choice of croissants, rolls, or bread for toast..sensing a theme here? They really like bread. There was also a choice of ham, cheese, kiwi and yogurt. They had coffee, milk, juice and water. We walked together to the museum, which was not very far, and had a lovely view of a bunch of really cool buildings. Once we were there we split up into three groups. Our tour guides name was Ana and she was SO KNOWLEDGEABLE. We walked downstairs and were given a one way walkie talkie that looked more like a skinny remote. Ana talked into hers and then if we put ours up to our ear we could hear her loud and clear. It was really nice to have this because otherwise we never would have been able to hear her. The art was very interesting and risque. A lot of naked bodies, in paintings and sculpture form. Ana knew so much about each piece of art and about the artist, plus a million random other things. We spent three hours in this museum. Listening to the stories was cool, but we spent a long time at each exhibit and didn't get to see the whole museum. The two artists we learned most about were Greco and Goya. Both who painted for the Royal Family and are very famous in Spain.

Next we walked back the opposite way and went to the Royal Palace. Just walking into the square was magical. If you didn't know, the royal family does not live in this palace, they have their own palace on the outskirts of the city, but it is used for royal processions and events. There were 2800 rooms, we didn't get to see them all though, obviously. The rooms were so intricately designed and beautiful. My favorite room was the throne room and Tara's was the ball room. I liked the throne room because it was so regal and elegant and just being in there made me feel like fairytales are real. Tara liked the ball room because it was amazing and she wants to go to a ball. All of the ceilings had a different design. And we aren't talking like textured, these were painted, carved, molded and full of history. You could lay down in a room and stare at the ceiling forever. They had rooms for ridiculous things. One of the past kings had a three room chain that was basically a man cave. The first was a billiards room, the next was a smoking room and the last room was to chill in. (We are sure they called it something more royal.)

For the rest of the day we were free, our guide and directors left us at the palace to spend the day as we pleased. This also meant finding our way back to the hotel. Thinking we would be shown the way back from the fieldtrip, neither one of us or our roommate brought our map. After a few hours, a slice of pizza and an almost panic attack from me..we made it back to the hotel! Haleigh is our roommate, by the way, she is going to Alicante, is from Boise State and is really cool.
Once we finally made it back to the hotel the kids going to San Sebastian had a meeting to learn about our housing. Tara and I each have our own rooms and possibly share the apartment with two other kids from USAC but we weren't entirely sure.

After our meeting Haleigh and I napped while Tara looked at our pictures from the day, fought with the hotel wifi and waited for us to wake up from the dead. We walked around for a while and were so starving we decided to get a snack because it was too early for dinner since the Spanish locals don't start eating until after 9:00. The three of us shared nachos and had margaritas and mojitos to drink. We walked around even more and could not find a place for dinner when it was actually dinner time. Two guys asked us if we were from USAC because we looked American and they thought they recognized us. They had already eaten dinner but went with us to a little cafe and bought us all sangria while we ate dinner and chatted with them. We walked around with them for a while and were planning on going out to the clubs, but after a few hours at dinner and an hour at a small bar it was still too early to go to the clubs and too late for us to be awake. It was one of the kids birthdays so we kind of felt bad for being lame, but a girls gotta sleep.

Day 2-Segovia and the Valley of the Fallen
Today we once again ate our fill of bread then got on the bus to go to the Valley of the Fallen. Our bus driver was amazing. Apparently all the good women drivers are in Spain. Bu dum cchh. Anyways, the Valley of the Fallen is a Catholic Church built literally inside of a mountain. There is a huge cross coming from the center of it that can be seen from kilometers away. The main alter is directly underneath the cross. Inside of the church inside the walls are at least 30,000 tombs of fallen soldiers from the Spanish Civil War. It was kind of creepy, especially when two of the tombs people were stepping on when we walked next to the alter. The inside was so big, but we learned that it isn't the longest Catholic church because according to Catholicism, the St. Peter's church in Italy has to be the biggest. Even so, it was quite large. The outside of it was just amazing as well. It had a lot of concrete around it so it looked like a giant patio. We decided it was the prime place to get married. The view of the forest below was beautiful and our visit there was unforgettable.
We got back on the bus and drove 45 more minutes to a small city called Segovia. The streets were cobbled together and very narrow. The aqueduct is very famous and many people come to see it. It was built with no cement, just stacks and stacks of large stones. It is still standing and could work as an aqueduct if they still needed it to. We had a walking tour that led to a castle on the highest part of the city and then back down to the other side. The palace was just as amazing as the first one we saw, but a lot smaller in size. After that we were set free again. It was rather chilly and we were rather hungry. They gave us a map that had places to eat on it. We set our sights on a creperie on the edge of town. After a lot of hassle of figuring out the menu, we each ordered three things for one price. A salad, a lunch crepe and a dessert crepe, as well as water. The salads we ordered were amazing. The first fresh fruit and vegetables we had gotten to eat on the trip. Both our lunch and dessert crepes were delicious and we finally felt full and satisfied. We got back on the bus and drove back to our hotel. When we got back we slept for three or four hours. Haleigh and I could have kept sleeping if Tara didn't want to get up so badly. We went to starbucks and ordered some water so we could use their wifi. It didn't work that well and that is the reason why we couldn't post anything on our blog. After an hour and a half of trying to get it to work we went to dinner at a place called Nebraska. It had pretty decent food but we were there a lot earlier than most locals. After that we went and got ready to go out. And by ready I mean we put different pants on and changed our shoes. Walking through the halls and talking to other USAC students we realized that this was not the proper club attire. Deciding that we didn't care, we left and went to a placed called Hawaii Bar. Everyone here was drinking from really long straws out of a big volcano. That is what we ordered and we were given snacks with it as well as a lei, a flower and a paper umbrella. It was a really fun atmostphere besides the older couple making out at the table next to us. After that we went to a club called COCO that was right across from our hotel. The music was really loud, really Spanish and really awesome. The lights were really fun as well. Everyone was dancing, but their dancing is a lot different than in America. We found ourselves copying a lot of the funny hand motions the locals were doing. At 3:15 am we decided to leave even though there were still plenty of people coming into the club. It was a really cool experience and was a lot of fun. We went straight to bed after showering away the smell of the club. ( A lot of people smoke in Spain and in this club)

 

 

 

Day 3-Toledo
We woke up at 8am and were VERY sleepy. Another round of a bread filled breakfast and we were on the bus again! We had to drive around the whole city so we could get a panaramic view of the city before going inside. There was an Old Toledo, which we were visiting and a new Toledo, which was built outside of the walls. We had to take three really long escalators to make it up to the outskirts of the city where the tour started. The streets in this city were built long ago and were made for horses, not cars, but like everywhere we have seen so far, the sidewalks seem to also be the streets. We went inside another huge Catholic church and we were allowed to take pictures inside this one, but with no flash, so our pictures didn't always turn out that great. It was really big and amazing but once again had a lot of tombs inside of it. We are glad that none of the churches we have attended have tombs in them. The one weird thing about this church was that it was not able to be heated well because of the massive size and stone everywhere, but it did have working wifi. A lot of the people that had their phones with them were distracted with the working wifi during the tour. Our favorite part of this church was the treasure room which held the most magnificent crown along with a few other interesting treasures including a bible handpainted with gold. On the way to the Jewish Mosque we stopped at a small church building with Grecco's masterpiece. It looked to us like a bunch of vampires and we decided that the movie directors for Twilight must have gotten their dressing ideas for the Volturi. The Jewish Mosque wasn't that amazing but was still pretty cool and Ana told us a good story about it. This city was like a maze so they walked us back to the main square and let us have free time. We found a place to eat and then walked down the main street in search for skarves and any other souvenirs. We ended up finding a good deal on skarves and Tara and I each got one. We also got some pretty sweet presents but we can't divulge that information for surprise purposes.
We took a short nap on the bus ride back to our hotel. We went to Churros and Chocolates and had as you can guess, Churros and Chocolate. It was delicious! We then walked down to Retiro Park. It was huge. We got there just as darkness had hit the city, but there were families and lots of people roaming through it so we figured it was safe to walk through. There was a large pond that you could rent boat rides on during nice weather. We walked all the way to the other side hoping to see the Crystal Palace. We did see it, but only in the dark. It was still really cool and hopefully we will get to go back on our way home in May. We walked back to the hotel and sat around for a while. When it was finally close to dinner time we walked to a place down the road. It looked really nice but wasn't too expensive. Our waiter was super rude and made the experience even worse than it already was with our lack of sleep. We did have a good dinner of Carbanara even with his bad attitude. (Don't worry Cindy, yours is still the best.) We returned back to the hotel, packed our bags, showered and went to bed ready to leave in the morning!