Time passes...

Ok, so it's been a while since I've written something here. I guess that's just because there's been a lot going on lately. Well, Isabel has come and gone. She got here on Wednesday, the 21 I think, and that day I just kind of showed her how to get around, and took her to her first hostel, which, unfortunately, was on a kind of bad street in Madrid. The place was only ok, and everyone was glad when she went to her other hostel, which was more expensive, but thus much nicer and most importantly in a better neighborhood. So then, on Thursday we went to the Palacio Real, aka Royal Palace, and walked around inside, which was pretty awesome. I do have a lot of pictures, its just that since I'm using another computer that doesn't have a wireless card and only one USB port, it takes a lot more time to transfer and upload and all that. Well, tha palace is huge and we did a lot of walking, so our feet were tired. On friday, we decided to go to Toledo, which is a smaller Romanesque city about an hour outside of Madrid. We met at the bus station, and took a bus there, and then to whole rest of the day was walking. We thought our feet were tired the day before! Well, this city was ridiculously hard to navigate through because the streets had no pattern whatsoever. We got lost a couple of times, but evetually found our way around. Unfortunately, lots of the cities attractions were closed, like the castle and the house of the famous painter El Greco. We did spend about 2 hours or so inside the cathedral there admiring the general splendor. We also went to a monastery there, but we didn't get to see the beautiful façade because they were restoring it. Well, I'll just say that by the time we got back to the bus station to leave we were certainly ready to go and slept most of the way home. On Saturday we went to this old nunnery called Descalzos Reales, which means royal barefoot nuns. Well, we went on a tour of it, it was lovely, but the narration was in Spanish and I asked the guide if he could go and talk a little slower becuase I had to translate and he like went into some tizzy about how we had to go in complete silence and translating is absolutely forbidden. Well, when we were in the monastery everyone was talking anyway and I got to sneak the most important information to Isi. Then we spent the rest of the day at the Prado, which was awesome, but not necessatily the best idea when your feet are about to fall off from the past few days. It was awesome to be able to see in person some of the most famous works of art and things that I have studied here in my Art History class. So then came Sunday and we wne to the famous Rastro market, which is just like an open air flea market kind of a thing. Oscar told us to be careful with our purses so I was, but apparently I didn't keep enough watch over my pockets because my lovely telephone was stolen. That kind of ruined the day, which was sad because Isi had to go later that day. Well, we enjoyed our time together at home because I didn't really feel like walking around anymore. So I had to call vodafone, which is the carrier I have here, and cancel my card, and then go to a store and get a duplicate made. Right now I am using an old phone they had here, and old Nokia, those ones that everyone had a couple years ago. I'm fine with that, it works, and it has snake on it, which is a major plus :) but its definately not as nice as my razr. Well I'll just have to wait until I find a good deal on a phone to get one, seeing as I don't really have money right now.
After Isi left, I've been pretty much doing nothing, relaxing at home. I do get bored, so I decided to check out what classes the cultural center has. They have painting and ballroom dancing which I would like to do, but I just have to figure out if they cost anything and if I need supplies. Well, I don't have school for the next two days (exam time for the real school people) so I'll give them a call. I hope everything with you all in SLC is fine. I hear you've been having snow, which is a pity because the weather here for the past few days has just been gorgeous. Well, enjoy yourselves and life. Much love to everyone.