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!

 

 

Getting there

¡HOLA!
At 2:20 p.m mountain time Devin and Kyle dropped us off to a very empty and sad looking Boise airport. This would be the first and only time (so far) that we were babies and cried. Checking our suitcases was really fun, my (Taryn's) bag was .4 too heavy and the lady would not budge. I had to remove my hairbrush, some bandaids, a shirt and a stick of deodorant. All would fit in my backpack, but Tara nicely let me put my deodorant in her suitcase and she still had 2 pounds to spare.
Our flight to Seattle was on a small plane and had more turbulence than we had ever experienced in our lives. We were not feeling it. The plane ride was almost two hours long. We had a short layover in Seattle where we had just enough time to grab our bags, re-check them into our international flight and then head over to our boarding area. We met a nice guy who was cleaning his french horn and he took a picture of us heading off on our adventure!

This plane was HUGE. It was double decker and had Club World!!! Club World is the British International "first class" They basically had little cubicals for every person and the chairs could recline and they had blankets and pillows and water bottles and every other cool thing you needed. We were in a normal coach class but we still had a pillow, a blanket, headphones and a toothbrush on our seats. Tara had the aisle and I had the window, there was a boy in the middle but we asked him to trade us and he did. He was a nice kid from Stockholm. Our seating situation was actually really comfortable when we started our nine hour flight.
We started the night off with a movie, Taken 2 to be exact. We decided we could learn some helpful tips by watching it before we went to Europe. We didn't actually learn that much...
We had dinner, a tray full of spicy ravioli, a cute salad, a roll with butter, a water bottle and some carrot cake. It was decent. We were starving so it filled its purpose. After dinner, things went downhill...
We tried and tried to sleep, with no results. Although, everytime I was awake, Tara was fast asleep, and vice versa. The next six hours went by VERY slow.
In the "morning" we were given a breakfast box full of a grown up danimals yogurt and a weird gross muffin thing. We just had the yogurt. Tara tried a weird muffin ball hole and I drank the milk that they gave us for coffee. It was the best part of the breakfast for me.
We arrived in London and were super confused where to go. We had to ride in a train to customs and go through two rounds of security and passport checking. Once we finally were through we wen't to go eat. This is not our proudest moment so far. We went to a place called Giraffe and Tara ordered a chicken sandwich and I ordered a bbq quesadilla. I didn't love mine, Tara enjoyed her sandwich a lot. The waiter was preoccupied and did not give us our waters for a long time and I finished mine in one big gulp. We were so thirsty but never got any more water. Our bill was 19.00 in what we thought were Euros. We each put in a ten and walked away to catch our flight. The waiter ran after us to let us know it was actually in pounds and we owed him ten more euros. Hence, a very expenseive US dollar meal. That was our very first lesson of the trip. It was embarrassing but oh well.
After sitting at a empty gate for twenty minutes a really large group started to conglomerate around gate 23. Most of these people were students like us going to Madrid! We all got on the plane and flew for two hours. Tara and I slept the entire time including through the food which was rather disappointing when we realized. Trying to find our way to our bags was another adventure. We have seriously never been on so many escalators or taken so many turns, it was like a maze. After getting our stamp of approval from the grumpy police/border patrol guy we finally got our bags and met our USAC representatives. They took us on a big greyhound to our really nice hotel in the middle of downtown Madrid.
We are super super super exhausted and are going to bed at 11:20pm whatever time this is here..

Until next time,
Tara & Taryn

On our way!

After hours and hours of packing we finally are about to leave for London and then off to Madrid. We will tell all about our airport adventures as soon as we have a few more minutes of down time. Until then, we love you all and adios!