On Wednesday I went to Toledo. Another exchange student from Oregon, Ariel, and I took an AVE (Spanish high speed train) from Madrid to Toledo. The train ride was only 30 minutes to cover the 70km or so down south to Toledo. There we spent the day walking around and seeing the sights and sounds of the ancient city. Toledo is really small. We were able to walk every quite quickly. We saw the alcazar, the cathedral, the puerta del sol, and much more in the city. It was pretty and old. Below are some pictures. Today I had my last day of school until Semana Santa, which is Spanish Spring Break. Now I have no school until the 14th of Abril. I don’t have any big plans to travel or go anywhere during this break, but we will see.

Italy! Wow! It is difficult to know where to begin. I also know that regardless of what I write, I won’t be able to explain how amazingly awesome the trip was. The trip was one of those tour trips where you pay a flat price and you get a strict itinerary with hotels, meals, tour guides and bus included. We were 22 students living in Spain for the year in from different parts of the world. While we were mainly from the States, there were 3 Canadians and one Brazilian. We went with the Rotary Secretary who lives in Madrid, a calm yet bad-ass Alejandra who did an amazing job.

On the Monday, 16th we met up in Madrid’s Barajas airport and took a direct flight to Rome, Italy. There in Italy we got our luggage and went to our hotel. The hotel was a mediocre place named Sisto V. Sisto the fifth, not Sistov as we initially thought.

On Tuesday we took got on the bus and went through Rome. We had a Spanish tour guide who spoke to in Spanish, even though all but one of us spoke English fluently. From the bus we were able to see many of the ancient Roman ruins around the city. Later we got off the bus at the Colosseum and went inside. This was a spectacular sight. It was really incredible that it still stood so big and so tall after nearly two millenniums. Afterwards we walked nearby the Roman Forum and down ancient Rome to our restaurant where we ate for our time in Rome. I will digress to unfortunately inform y’all (there is no vosotros, or a you plural, in english) that the food was included with the trip and so it was at these restaurants where we all had to eat the same thing and it seemed to be slightly cafeteria style. I think that when you go to Italy you should be prepared to spend a lot on the food, because it will be worth it. I did eat some meals in the streets and those were delicious. Anyways, after dinner we took the bus back to the hotel. The following day we went to another country. The Vatican City is legally a country of its own with all citizens having dual citizenship (usually with Italy). Also, interestingly, it might be the only country where you can enter without any form of identification. The Vatican is really just a huge museum. It has soo much art. Really the whole thing is art. From Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel to sculptures and even to remains from ancient civilizations before the Romans, the Vatican is one big museum. St. Peter’s Basilica was really cool, and even bigger. It had inside it a comparison to other churches in the world which are all smaller in terms of largest interior. That afternoon we had some free time around Rome and saw the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain.

The next day we left the hotel around 6 AM and went to Naples. This was a long bus ride but we made it fun and it went by quickly. In Naples we drove around a little to see the panoramic of the bay and then took a boat to Capri. Capri is beautiful. It is a little island about 30 minutes away from Naples and very touristy. Really everywhere we went was very touristy. We saw some beautiful sites and spent the afternoon walking around. I even dipped my legs in the water, although the water was nearly frozen. We returned to our hotel in Rome that night and next went to Assisi.

Assisi is the town of St. Francis who was a friar and the founder of the Franciscans. The town was green and beautiful with a nice church and tomb where St. Francis is buried. Then we went on to Florence. Florence was nice but the weather was cold so the day was a little more calm because of that. We took a tour and had the afternoon free. I went and saw Michelangelo’s David which really impressed me. I was wondering before I went in if it was really as good as people said it was. And it is! Pictures can’t explain it at all. The size and perfection of it is just astonishing. We were in the Academia, the museum where it is housed, for almost an hour, and most of that time was just spent staring at the David.

Next we went to Pisa. And the tower is leaning quite a bit. Like a lot. Like it might fall soon. It was built on marsh land and one side is sinking. There is also a nice cathedral in Pisa. We spent the afternoon relaxing there and laying on the grass in the sun. It was a really nice afternoon. Then we continued on to Venice!

We took a boat to Venice in the morning and spent all day there. Venice is really beautiful with its canals and bridges. We took a Gondola ride through the canals and walked around the city. There are so many tourists that I think it would be annoying if you lived there. There is very little green, just a lot of blue. There are no parks or cars. There is public transportation in the form of a boat that goes along the grand canal every 10 minutes, but people mostly walk. Overall, a really incredible place.

In the morning we left our hotel at 5:40 and went to the Milan airport for our flight back to Madrid. It was hard to say goodbye to the other exchangers because we had grown really close. After 6 months of exchange we have so much in common that in a short 9 days we become really good friends. I hope that I can stay in contact with them and visit them in either Spain or North America. Now that I am back in Spain I feel that I have not much longer left. Next Thursday is my last day of school until Semana Santa, or Easter. Then we have a 10 day break. After that I will have less then one month until school ends on May 15th! I am planning on staying another month after that until mid June when I will return to Oregon.

Tomorrow I will be going to Italy. While I don’t get to do a cool eurotrip with all the other Rotary exchangers here in Spain I do get to do a cool Italy trip. We are flying out from Madrid tomorrow to Rome. We will spend 8 nights and 9 days in that aforementioned country seeing cool stuff. I think the trip includes going to Venice, Florence, Naples, Capri and Milan, in addition to Rome. It is going to be a really touristy trip with a guide and everything already planned out. But it will still be super fun. Well, I will write more when I get back the 24th.

This weekend seemed to be non stop. On Friday I had the aforementioned trip to the Spanish particle accelerator and spent the afternoon in Madrid. I made dinner with my 11-year-old host brother and afterwards went out with some friends. On Saturday my family and I had dinner with some family friends. They had daughters around the same age as me and it was nice to meet them. Saturday night I went with some friends to a big and well known discoteca in Madrid called Kapital. There, I met two American kids from Minnesota who were traveling around Europe like the typical 19-year-old travelers. It was fun to meet some Americans on the streets and speak a little English.

On Sunday I went with my family to Soria. Soria is the region of Spain north of Madrid. It was about a two hour car ride. My host Dad’s mother was sick so we went to visit her. I met my host Dad’s brothers and saw some of Soria. While my host parents were visiting with my father’s mother my host brothers and I went around Soria. There was a soccer game in Soria that day and we went to the stadium to check it out. We walked up around the back and saw some other people standing on big garbage cans watching the game. So we went up to some other garbage cans and stood up on them and were able to see the game. So we watched the second half of the game between Numancia de Soria and Valencia. Now I have seen one and a half soccer games here in Spain.

On Friday I had a excursion with my physics class to a science research site in Madrid. The place was called CIEMAT which stands for Center for Investigation of the Environment and Technology in English. Or something similar to that. We meet up at 8:00 at the train station and went down to Madrid. From there we took the Metro with the thousands of other college students going to Madrid’s Ciudad Universitaria (University City). Once there we went to the CIEMAT area and were taken into the section dealing with photovoltaic cells and solar panels. The researchers were doing some things with solar panels and some other things trying to harness energy from the Sun. There was some research that was completely new with the researcher having to create everything from scratch. This was a device that uses mirrors to focus a lot of sunlight on a specific point. I noticed that this opportunity was only available to me because I was going to a normal school, it wasn’t something I could see as a tourist. Although it wasn’t super interesting so if I was only a tourist I don’t think I would choose to see it. Anyways, afterwards we went to another part of the CIEMAT area where they are doing research about plasma with a particle accelerator. This was a lot cooler and actually what we were told we were going to see on the excursion. However, the accelerator had a problem and they were fixing it so we couldn’t see it. We were able to see the control room and get a talk from an engineer who works there though.

When the tour finished the teachers left and we were able to hangout in Madrid. We had lunch in a university cafeteria that was decent for cafeteria food, but nonetheless still was cafeteria food. Then we went down to Moncloa in Madrid and got some ice cream and walked around a park. Later in the evening we went out around Villalba as a class which was fun.

Today I finished me second trimester of school. Because I am in the senior class we finish a month earlier than the rest of the students to have time to study for the big test in June, the Selectividad. Today we had our last test that will count for this trimester. Now, we have this weekend as a slight reprieve before it gets really serious as we head towards the end. On March 16th I am going on the Rotary trip to Italy with the other Spanish exchangers. I am really excited for this trip. We will be going to a lot of places including Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan. It is one of those touristy guided trips so I will just sort of go along with the flow.

Right now I am watching some X games show on TV in Spanish. It’s like the skateboarders on a huge half pipe doing crazy tricks. It’s amusing to hear the commentators say the English names of the tricks with a thick Spanish accent. Lean Front Side 540 and things like that.

Well that’s all for now.

My host mom and I were talking the other day about the Spanish school system and she gave me a great and humorous description of the it. The Spanish system is a bull fight: you are the bullfighter and every exam is another bull. She was saying how this begins when the students are very young, and that Nacho, my 11-year-old host brother is already facing his tests like bulls.

On Monday I went with the visiting Americans to Segovia. Segovia is a very nice and touristy city relatively close to Madrid. We got on the train in the morning and after about a 45 minute trip got off in Segovia. We saw the ancient Roman Aqueduct, probably Segovia’s biggest attraction, then the cathedral, and lastly entered the Alcazar. These were all things I had already seen, although that didn’t take away all of their coolness. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in Segovia and then came home.

On Tuesday we went to the city hall of my town, Collado Villalba, and took a tour of the building and then met with the Mayor of the city. This was a short little event but some of the local media came and took pictures. By the time this was over we only made it back to school for the last class. After school we went to a big mall in a nearby town by bus. Nearly all of the Americans have cars in the states and aren’t used to public transportation. When we went to catch the bus back to Villalba we were a little late and missed the bus. We had to wait for another 25 minutes until the next bus came. Public transportation is actually really nice once you get used to it, but I think some people have trouble adjusting to the idea that they can’t just get in a car and go immediately. We did eventually make it back to Villalba.

At 9:45 we met up for dinner at a Chinese buffet restaurant. This is the normal time for dinner here in Spain. Well, I actually usually eat at 9:15 give or take 20 minutes but when you go out it is later. This was with all the Americans who came and the Spaniards who will be going to the States in April and some Spanish exchangers from years past. Altogether it was a nice dinner and last day. Today they left and went back home.

On Friday I went with the visiting Americans, the Spaniards who will go to the US for their exchange, and a few teachers to Madrid. This was the necessary trip to Madrid that all new comers need. However, after 5 months here the normal, tourist path isn’t super exciting. I did, however, enjoy the company. We took a train to the center of Madrid, and walked through the streets to the Palacio Real. There we saw the Palace and the Royal Armory, something that I hadn’t seen before, and then continued on. Next to the Plaza Mayor and Sol. In Sol we had lunch and had some time to walk around. Afterwards we went to the National Library and eventually returned by train. The mixture of Sol, Plaza Mayor, and the Palacio Real are pretty much the core elements of any tourist trip to Madrid. While for any Spaniard, and me too, these aren’t very interesting, if you are coming to Madrid for the first time be sure to see them.

On Monday we are going to Segovia, another place I have been to a few times. But I will enjoy the company, and maybe see something new. I’ll detail the touristy parts of Segovia in my next post.

I have written before about the exchange between my Spanish high school and a high school in Boston. 10 students from there have arrived here and are staying for 10 days. Later, during spring break the Spaniards are going to go to Boston to do the same. It is nice to see some other Americans and speak some English. While I have spoke English with my family and some other exchangers I haven’t spoke much in groups. Group conversations are probably the hardest things in Spanish. While I am improving a lot it is nice to speak a little English. They are going to Barcelona tomorrow and will be back Thursday. We are going to go on a few trips around Madrid and those should be fun. I’ll write more after we go.