Home Sweet Home... away from home

The past 5 days have been a complete whirlwind, to say the least.

Despite a nearly missed flight to Madrid, we made it there safely and met up with the ISA crew. Petty bureaucratic meetings aside (which Gabe is still seething about I believe), the program is a good one. Our fellow students are nice, and we will no doubt be getting to know them better over the coming months. It also was a pleasant surprise that the girls appear to outnumber the guys by about a 2 to 1 ratio. Lucky us.

Onto Madrid, though. Although we didn't get enough time as we might have liked to explore the city due to the ISA schedule, we did see some great sights. Possibly the highlight was the Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos, where Francisco Franco is buried. Everything about the mountainside church is impressive, most notably the enormous monk statues- their bulging muscles, dark hooded cloaks and swords combine to form quite an imposing image. It was all we could do to resist from acting out some sort of epic Lord-of-the-Rings-esque sword fight in the church, but more on that later. Other Madrid sights included the King's palace and the museum that hosts Picasso's Guernica, also very impressive. The museum also had adequate bench space, always a plus.



Food here has been somewhat of an adventure. On night 1, we adopted the "leave it to chance" method with local tapas, and after attempting a cold anchovy sandwich (which the waiter found a curious order, now we know why), we found ourselves basking in the familiar glow of the golden arches. Forgive me, Mom and Dad. On night 2, we did considerably better, but the portions were just too small. Back to Mickey D's it was. Don't worry, from then on we stuck to our guns: cheese croquettes have quickly become a group favorite.

After Madrid we spent a couple of nights in Toledo, which was a blast. It's hard not to enjoy the scenery when you're surrounded by a medieval castle, even though our tour guide was less than inspired: he took his "bathroom break" to sit in the corner of a cafe and sip on some red wine. At 11:00 am. Will and I, however, were so taken in by the mood that we convinced ourselves to purchase real combat swords. Soon afterwards, we knighted each other and dueled to the death. No fair maidens yet, though. Another night worthy of mention was our somewhat sacrilegious time at a monastery bar- only in Toledo, I suppose.

After a rude awakening the next morning at 9 am, we headed to Barcelona, where we arrived shortly after 8 p.m. Cramped legs and all, we hauled our stuff to our home for the next few months But our spirits were quickly lifted; the apartment is great, and we have settled in very nicely. After the inaugural grocery run today, the place is feeling like home already. We also hope to meet up with Tunji shortly, who has had a couple of days to settle in before our arrival.

That's all for now, time to practice our espanol. Buenas noches.