the rain in SPAIN falls mostly on the plane

Mark, Jess, Me, and David at Toledo


A view of the moat around Toledo


Palm trees in Sevilla!

View from the top of the cathedral in Sevilla


Jess, me, and Dustin trying to portray how warm and fabulous it was!


I beleive Eliza Dolittle was wrong because there was absolutely nothing but spain sunshine shining on us all week! It was GORGEOUS weather...such a nice change! We just spent a week in Madrid, Spain for our Educational Feild trip! It was such a great trip. We got to indulge in the fact of being as touristy as we wanted seeing as we were with a group of 60...so we lived it up without a care in the world! I really really like Spain, I can't say that Madrid is one of my favorite cities because my favorite parts of the trips were spent in smaller towns.





Our hotel was extremely nice! We were told that our hotel was right down the street from El Corte Englis (a HUGE 7 story department store which housed a supermarket). We all went to check it out because we had kitchenette and were so pumped to cook. We looked like a bunch of 5 year olds running around Toys R Us. Everyone had a dazed smile just in awe of all the food we could purchase! Needless to say, when in Spain, buy TONS of mexican food! So, my roomie and I bought a nice little stash of guacamole, salsa, queso, chips, pida bread, frozen burritos, eggs, tropicana orange juice, and chocolate (duh). We looked like such nerds, everyone running around smiling and laughing in awe of this magical place. I can proudly say that I only paid for one meal in Madrid...the rest of the time we cooked! One of the boys even made Steph and me omeletts one night!





The rest of our trip consisted of a bus tour of Madrid, eating paella (a very famous spanish dish consisting of rice, chicken, calamari, and other random things), and singing acapella as we parade down the streets. We visited Toledo, a small town surrounded by a wall and a moat, which is known for making gold things including intense swords that we got to play with! The next day me and 3 others went to the southern town of Sevilla. The weather was absolutely amazing and the whole town was full of orange trees and palm strees. It also is home to one of the biggest gothic cathedrals in Europe, and Christopher Columbus's tomb is inside. We climbed to the top of the tower (33 floors) and had an incredible view of all of Sevilla. We met up with my friend David's friend who studies there, and she and a few of her friends showed us around. They were all from Texas Tech so it was fun to talk to them! I had a funny experience on the train ride back including wine in a box. Picture me drinking wine out of an orange juice carton while playing gin rummy...it was a pretty funny sight! The next day we visited a monastary..but by this point we were all getting a little tired of planned tours. We visited a few museums in Madrid and saw paintings by Picasso, El Greco, Goya, Rembrandt, and Velasquez. We also went to an symphony which was okay, and a flamenco dance which was so cool to watch!





All in all, Madrid was an amazing trip..not only was Spain amazing, but being able to spend an entire week with the whole house was amazing! Comparing it to our EFT last semester, we have all grown so much closer which made it all the more fun. Well, time for our Sunday night dinner at Essig. Bye!!