i should've bought this tshirt..

I just can't stop smiling because this is so cute, but then I instantly feel sad because the chick now has one less friend. And Heesun made me eggs (sunny-side up) for dinner tonight. So delicious.

The Makuto Hostel

I've heard good and bad stories about staying in hostels. All of my experiences thus far have surpassed my expectations.

The first hostel I stayed at in Madrid (I think it was called Mufasa?) was clean for the most part. Breakfast was included (which was actually just toast and jam). The only thing I didn't like about it was the bed, which was extremely uncomfortable. I don't think I got a good night of rest there (plus, Steph talked in her sleep).

The one in Amsterdam was like a hotel. It was spotless, modern, and there was even a flat-screen tv in our room.

When my friends and I book hostels, we try to find the cheapest ones with ratings above 80% on hostelworld.com.

The people you meet at hostels deserve another blog entry. There's so many characters from all over the world. Some nice, some rude, some drunk, some inspirational.

The Makuto Hostel in Granada reminded me of the Berkeley hippies.

It had its own bar.

And delicious meals every night for 8 euros. 

We had "homemade paella created by this Vietnamese man born&raised in Germany all tatted up and barefoot." (quoted Tina)

the stove

Hammocks. They ask that we "remove our shoes for hygienic reasons before using the hammocks." I feel like they might as well ask us to shower first before use.

Hang-out spot with DVDs, books, and hookah.

it even had a tree house!

our room. 

The kitchen. free coffee and tea all day!

"the cave"

Speaking of caves, this is the receptionist. Another guy who works here told us that the receptionist lives in a cave 15 minutes away. A CAVE. all of our faces changed from confusion to shock to awe. Apparently the caves are public and anyone can live in them, you just have to hold down your fort every now and then. There's no electricity or water, but it stays relatively temperate all year round. 

So we were imagining a brown cave, like the ones you see in cartoons with cavemen.

We took a walk to Sacramonte to visit these caves.

They actually look like this. with doors and windows.

This was a bit closer to what we imagined.

Cordoba, day 2

El dia segundo, we went to visit the Mezquita.

Right when you walk through the amazing doors,

you'll encounter the orange courtyard with many fountains

There were tons of people washing their hands and faces in this fountain. AND also drinking from it!

Then I saw this sign, as a woman was washing her mop with the water.

The inside of the Mezquita was just amazing. 

I tried to sketch the arches, but Tina thought they looked like cacti. So I stopped.

After Tina covered every inch of the place with her camera, we took an extremely long lunch break to kill time before heading off to the bus station.

The waiter called us "Angeles de Charlie"

Kinda wished I had bought one of those paintings, pero esta bien. I have this picture of Annie.

And, of course, I couldn't leave Cordoba without trying some SNAILS at a corner stand!

I'll spare you the close-up pictures. I actually only ate a couple because it really creeped me out that the heads were there. (The snails that I've eaten before did not have antennas sticking out of their heads.)

Córdoba

Córdoba was a must-see for me since I associate the city with Zoe's study abroad experience. So for our 4 day weekend, Annie, Tina, and I embarked on an epic journey from Madrid, which began with missing our bus at 9AM.

So we bought tickets for the next bus at 11AM. While we waited in the Estacion de Autobuses, I allotted 15 minutes for "sad time." Basically, we felt sorry for ourselves for missing the bus and talked about our depressing futures, but only for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes were up, we had to be optimistic, which was kind of difficult once Tina and Annie realized they forgot to pack towels, adapters, and other stuff that just kept coming up.

Well, what do you get when you have 3 Asian girls who get motion sickness quite easily who don't know Spanish? A very upsetting 4 hour bus ride to Cordoba! We stopped at a rest stop, but of course, we didn't know that. We just followed everyone off the bus, which left us! After some intense eavesdropping, I found a couple who spoke English. They told me that we were in the outskirts of Cordoba. I started panicking because we were 30 km away from the center of the city! I couldn't believe that the bus would just drop us off in the middle of nowhere and expect us to get to the city like that! But, alas, the bus came back for us after taking a visit to the gas station next door.

And we arrived in Cordoba STARVING in the middle of siesta time, where all the kitchens were closed, and the weather was 40 degrees Celsius. WHOOHOO So we dropped our stuff off at Hotel Riviera, and wandered around in the heat.


Found this nice little area on the side of a huge wall.



I stood there for a second and wondered if Vatman could be related to Batman. Then I realized. VATMAN = BATMAN! (In Spanish, "V" is pronounced with a "b" sound.) I R SO SMART.

Then we noticed that there was this entryway, so we walked through. and BAM! in another world...

(Tina loves to take pictures of us walking. She thinks it's very candid. I'm ok with that because it's proof that I've been walking a lot.)

We were pretty desperate for food, so we ordered this:

Fried calamari, fried bream, and fried something-that-tastes-like-ham

We all felt like we didn't digest that until the next day. 

There were many cute little souvenir shops. While the girls were looking at accessories, I kept myself busy:

Hello Kitty - international nuisance

Wandered around and saw our first sight of the Mezquita!

So our photo-shoots began...

(more is on facebook ahha)

Then I saw these cute little girls and I just HAD to follow them (I actually wanted a picture with them)

We followed them to the Congress meeting place, but we were denied access. So we looked at these ceramics instead.

Then we walked back to our hotel and passed out. We're grandmas, but I like that :]

traveling feet

So some people think feet are absolutely disgusting. After this trip, I agree haha. My feet are swollen and dirty and deserve better treatment. No matter how hard I scrub, they still look kinda dirty (don't worry, I won't be posting pictures of my feet). My leg's scabs are getting stabbed by some weed stems in Amsterdam are actually scars now :[ (Just kidding, I actually just scratched my leg with my bike's pedal in Amsterdam)

I should've invested in some comfortable sandals before I came here. My roommates and I have been on the prowl for some cute sandals to make our feet feel pretty, but they seem to hide from us (or when we see the price tag, we immediately put them down).

European roads, especially ones that are made of uneven stones, are very harsh on your feet, ESPECIALLY if you barely have any soles.



NO BUENO



Toms were comfy enough for Tina.

So lesson learned. When traveling, always bring a pair of comfortable shoes, a pair of sandals to let your toes breathe, and a bottle of peppermint foot spray.

My vans + insoles served me well, and I conquered the hills of Granada!



(those are my grungy shoes hiding in the corner because the flats the girls bought are extremely cute, and I kinda wished I bought them, too)

No comprendo!

To help with my Spanish, I changed my Facebook settings to Espanol. It's actually not very helpful because I've already memorized where the buttons are. I think the only things that are prominent to me are the like buttons:

"me gusta" - I like

"te lo gusta" - You like this

I can't seem to make google search everything in English. It'll switch back and forth between Spanish and English, which is frustrating because I don't know a lot of Spanish! Same with this blog. I keep clicking the buttons and they'll be totally different from what I wanted to do, like post a new blog.

Michael's having the same problem, except with Russian.
We're such a worldly couple.

getting around, round, round, i get around

I kind of forgot to account for the time I had to fend for myself to get from the airport to our hostel when I first got to Madrid. Thank goodness I printed out directions before I arrived. By taxi, it would've taken ~30 minutes but like 60 euros. I chose to take the metro, which took ~45 minutes (walking time included) and it was only 2 euros. 

Each time you use the metro, it's 1 euro, really cheap compared to BART's system of charging you by distance.

This is Madrid's metro system:

As confusing as it looks, it's pretty easy to navigate. Would've been EXTREMELY easy to navigate if only there were more escalators and elevators. (Trains come every 3 minutes. BART needs to take some lessons..) 

This map is definitely not drawn to scale. Sometimes, the distance between two stops (~1-2 minutes) is actually a 5-10 minute walk. Other times, it's a 20 minute walk.

My apartment mates and I use the metro to get to school every morning. 

my bible

I found this in a cabinet in my Madrid apartment. 

There's a chapter called "Ten Phrases That Make You Sound Fluent in Spanish."

¡Qué pasada!

Excursion to Segovia

On Friday, the program organized an excursion to Segovia, which is a beautiful city an hour away from Madrid.

So according to Michael, every historical city has an aqueduct, a castle, and a Cathedral. uhmm yeah pretty much it.

BUT here's a history lesson :]

Segovia's aqueduct is the tallest in the country.

There were hundreds, perhaps thousands (who knows, I'm not very good with math or estimating), of little black things flying around screeching. I thought they were bats, but it turns out they were swallows. Nobody knew why there were so many of them flying around the aqueduct, but our tour guide believed it's because of the unpolluted air there. uhm they were gone when we left. where did they come from?!

So these are buildings built outside of the fort. Behind the mountains is Madrid.

Our tour guide mentioned that in Segovia, people are very tough and hard-working, unlike Madrid, where people party, take too many siestas, and lounge around. 

I couldn't hear most of what the tour guide said because of her soft voice and long stories. She also started every sentence with, "This is very importante." She was telling us several legends explaining the woman lying down on the mountain. Can you see her face and impregnated belly?

I really like the decorations on the facades of the buildings. Each building has its own style.

(totally found a tutorial once on stumbleupon on how to make some 

of the decorations out of toilet paper rolls!)

Juan Bravo 

(Johnny Bravo)

The Jewish Living Quarters

American tourists

This Cathedral took 200 years to build! 

It's pretty magnificent to see in person. 

Gazebo in the center of Plaza Mayor

Pinwheels in the sky!

All the lions had their tongues sticking out.

It's like Sleeping Beauty's castle.

The "shoes" are pointy to kick unarmored horses.

Yeah no more pictures inside the castle because I started to get a headache. 

Queen Isabella was pretty bad-ass.

The apartment-mates minus Armine

More pictures to come once I steal them from other people's cameras...