Madrid, Toledo, and Our New Home

It has been awhile since I've been able to make a post. We haven't had much Internet until now. Luckily I am finally at home in our apartment and we have wifi, which I was really happy to see! Where to start?

Our flight went well, it was all students flying to Madrid. There were students from ISA Valencia, ISA Barcelona, and a program in Toledo with the U of M. So, it was nice for our connection in Philadelphia. The bad part of our flight was that I didn't really sleep at all, and they kept asking for a doctor on the plane-- so it was a really long day. Once we landed we found ISA and they took us to our hotel.

In Madrid we spent most of the time wandering around the city. It reminded me of New York City but in Spanish. The first day we went to a couple bars and had tapas and cerveza, which was fun. The second day in Madrid we went to el Prado Museo, which has some of the most famous and oldest paintings in the world and then (after a group of us got slightly lost for 20 min) we went to the Royal Palace. The rest of the day we wandered around and looked at parks, plazas and then we chilled in a cafe.



The Royal Palace.


After Madrid, we went to Toledo which is the oldest city in Espana. It had some really beautiful buildings. After a bus tour and then a walking tour, we had some free time to wander around. We had some sandwhiches and sangria and then we looked at shops. We bought lollipops, looked at shoes and swords. Aparently the guy that made the swords for Lord of the Rings is from Toledo. The shops all had the Lord of the Rings soundtrack playing in the background, which was kind of funny. Then we made our way to the hotel. I went exploring the hotel with some girls, and the bottom two floors were really sketch- as in there wasn't any light and we thought it could be haunted. Haha. But then we had a long meeting for ISA and then we went to a supermercado and bought bread, cheese, oranges, water, and some cheep wine. So, our dinner was 1 Euro/person, which was really cheap!




A courtyard in a church in Toledo.



A view of Toledo.

Today we had a longer bus ride from Toledo to Valencia, and then we met our families. I'm staying with an older lady, Elvira. She seems really nice and her apartment is beautiful. Tomorrow we have our placement test and start orientation. So, all for now- more to come!