Winter Break in Paris and Germany

Bonjour! This weekend was our winter break from school and me and my roomies decided to go to Paris France and Cologne Germany! We had off monday and tuesday from school but since none of us have class fridays we left thursday evening. Its about an hour and a half flight from Madrid to Paris so it went by nice and fast and we were eager to get to an other country finally. We arrived right on time at about 9 and had to figure our way to our hostel. Paris has two airports and one of them is about an hour outside the city and thats the one we had to fly into so it was an other hour that way then our hostel was kind of on the outskirts so that was an other 30 minute metro ride. Luckily it went by quickly and our hostel was definitly worth it. We stayed at the St. Christophers and Id highly recommend it to anyone going to Paris. Its huge, really clean, and has a fun bar/ hang out place downstairs. We stumbled in SO tired and my roomies got dinner but I decided to turn in early and get some sleep!
Friday:
Since we only had 2 days in Paris we had a tight schedule to stick to to make sure we fit it all in! Luckily one of my best friends/older sis figure studied there last year and gave us all the top info on where to go and what to see! Friday morning we woke up early to get a head start on the day at Versailles! I was so excited to visit here because i am obsessed with Marie Antoinette, shes my favorite person from history and i love big palaces and sparkley things so it was going to be a good day. We had to take a special train to get there and with all the metro stops and everything it took about an hour and a half since its outside of Paris. I am still amazed at how HUGE that place is! The french royalty sure knew how to do it right. It was everything i imagined and more, the palace itself was massive, the outside gardens never ended, and Marie Antoinettes petite chateau and little village in the back was very picturesque. Let me tell you though it was swarmed with tourists, especially a certain type you find everywhere in large sworms. Not trying to be rude but man o man they were annoying. we started with the main palace, then took our time exploring the gardens (even though it was freeeeeezing outside), then ended at Marie Antoinettes estate which I was estactic to see. She created the cutest little village back there and it was like something youd see at Disneyland, it had the same kind of magical feeling. I probably used up half of my photochip card on Versailles but it was worth it. We probably walked around the grounds for a good 6 or 7 hours just to see everything. By this time we were starving for some lunch, after a little break we were ready for our trek back to Paris on the train. we were luckily able to catch a little siesta on the way back to get our energy back. As soon as we got off I had one thing on my mind: a crepe. It was beyond necessary. I ran to the first place i saw and it was heavenly, freshly made with nutella and banana mmmmmm perfecto. Plus i was still ice cold and it warmed me up. On Fridays the Louvre has free entrance at 6 until closing so we were all over that. But we got back around 4 and had sometime to kill and decided to walk to see the Notre Dame. It was about a 20 minute walk but we were able to see more street views of Paris, walk along the river and get some beautiful views of the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately we didnt have time to go inside but we took some time taking pictures and walked a litte in the latin quarters before heading back to be at the Louvre right at 6 for some serious sprinting through the Louvre. Since I'm in a Renaissance art history class I wanted to be sure to see all that I could relevant to the class and see all the masterpieces necessary. We got there right on the dot and went to work on finding everything we could. I literally mean we ran through this ginormous place. Now at this time wed walked all of Versailles and half of Paris so we were tired little pumpkins let me tell you. After sprinting to all the major masterpieces such as Mona Lisa, Michaelangelos Slaves statues, and a ton more we took a little break in a random room in Flanders Renaissance art history. This little break turned into half an hour of not being able to move because we were so dead. It took a lot of motivation (food) to get us moving again. It hadnt really hit us how tired we were until we sat, there was our downfall. We ventured a little more seeing Napolean's apartments and some old Egyptian art but then knew we were done and headed for the metro. We decided to wait and eat till we were closer to our hostel so we could hobble home nice and full and pass out. We found a cute little lebanese restuarant that looked promising and headed inside. As soon as we spoke English, since none of us know French, we were greeted with a big hello of: "you're americans?! I love you!!" And knew wed picked the perfect place. We sat down and took about 2 minutes before being sold on falafel, hummus, and other delights of the sort including THE most amazing pita bread that was so fresh and wonderful. Not a single plate was left with anything on it. It was so perfect words can even describe. Upon leaving our new friends they told us to "say hello to president Obama!" Will do amigos. After here we hobbled back to our hostel to sleep and rest for more adventures.
Saturday:
After eating breakfast at our hostel, which made had little nutella packets=heaven, we had purchased tickets to the top of mr.eiffel tower. It took about an hour on the metro to get there and then we had to wait in line in the freeeezing cold again. My poor shoesies have been through so much walking they are falling apart, literally the bottoms are torn and seep water in so when it rains it blows because my feet are soaking. But we took the long elevator up to the tippy top and got an amazing view of all of Paris. It was a little overcast and up on top it was snowing! Kind of an other magical feeling. We defrosted a little by the heaters in the bathroom, got our touristy pics, and headed back down to keep exploring. We walked across the back of the tower to get to the little platform (im not even sure what this place is technically called) but its where everyone takes their eiffel tower pics so we were all over that! From here was just an other short walk to Arc de Triomphe which helped warm us up. We took more touristy pics and walked down the streets filled with lots of shopping, aka window shopping for us. We had to catch a bus at 3 to Germany so we had to hurry along and see everything and we were all on a mission to get a crepe before so we were power walking again. While on this adventure my bag broke, of course so i was left holding my purse as we hurried along for crepes. But we found them and even had time to sit peacefully and enjoy the eiffel tower, it was a precious moment i must say. We all got nutella and banana and it was heavenly again. After our little lunch break we had to book it back to our hostel, grab our bags and hurry back to the bus station. We made it with plenty of time and thankfully got good seats onthe bus because it was packed! Not even one open seat. We were in for a long 8 hours. But after 4 it stopped in Brussels where majority of people got off thankfully and we could sprawl out and try and sleep a little. We got in at about 1130pm and were planning on taking the metro to our hostel. Well funny story is that every sign was in German and none of us speak a wink of German soooo while we were all standing there freeeezing we all just looked at each other and agreed on a taxi. Finally safe and sound at our hostel we just wanted to sleep and as we open the door we discover we have a roommate! Just one. A guy, not really sure his name because we never actually talked to him he was on the phone when we walked in, smoking (ew) so we just got ready for bed where i thought i was going to suffocate because of the cigarette smoke but somehow managed to sleep.
Sunday:
We luckily got to sleep in a little more this morning since we didnt have set plans and we had an extra day to explore. We woke up and had a feast of a breakfast at our hostel. It wasn't included but it was worth the investment because it was all you could eat and needless to say i beyond took advantage of it! They had endless amounts of chocolate muesli so i was basically in heaven. After a delightful breakfast we headed out to explore Cologne! It was really cold here as well but all the walking helped keep me warm. We first visited the tourism center for maps and ideas. Cologne has a chocolate factory musuem so duh that was numero uno on the list. It was to die for, located right on the Rhine river it was a factory built only to serve as a musuem but so cool! You learned about the history of the cocoa bean and how its processed and made into chocolate! Its a Lindor chocolate factory and inside is a huge chocolate fountain where they give away free samples...mmmm. Then they had the factory where all of it was made and showed how they made the bars, truffles, etc. Then it also had a lot of the old chocolate advertising and artifacts from central and south america where cocoa is originally from- so cool! You also got a little chocolate when you bought your ticket. After walking through with my mouth watering the whole time I obviously hit up the store on the way out and got the most delicious dark chocolate Lindt truffle. Heaven. From here we walked along the river a bit and decided to visit the Nazi musuem next. The Holocaust has been my obsession since about the third grade and I was so excited to see a musuem in germany! Ive seen quite a bit in the US but this was bone chillingly real. The musuem was an old Gestapo prison during WW2 and located in the basement were the cells. The second you walk down there you get an eerie feeling and we were all silenced because its so sad. Along all the walls in the cells prisoners had written inscriptions- either about their lives, letters to loved ones, some even drew pictures. They have a kot of backgrounf stories into a lot of the people as well and there were people telling their stories from when they were imprisoned on the walls as well. The walls were literally covered with a wide assortment of all different languages and stories- absolutely chilling. i was loving every moment of it because for some weird reason or an other i find this period of history more fascinating than anything else. How all of the suffering and damage done could of happened boggles my mind. Unfortunately we didnt get a chance to make it far enough out there to visit a concentration camp but its definitly high on my bucket list. The upper levels of the musuem were unfortunately all in German and we couldnt understand what the signs said but it was about Cologne during ww2. Somehow the Cathedral made it through tons of airraids on the city which is amazing to me because that thing is huge! The pictures showed absoulte destruction all around it but somehow the cathedral stood tall still. After a very mixed day of happiness/devastation we were starving and headed out to find some food! We came across a little restaurant called Istanbul and decided to head in to find more Falafel! Once inside our servers spoke no english so it was fun pointing to random items on the menu to decipher and pick what we wanted. But it was delicious! After stuffing ourselves we decided it was time for a siesta it was sunday and had been a long morning of walking. After a nice nap we decided to keep exploring the city and went walking. Cologne has over 12 Gothic cathedrals and tons of old ruins all over the city so it was so cool to see. The rest of the night was just spent walking around and we called it an earlier night again because we were pooped!
Monday:
Woke up to have our delicious breakfast again! Delish. After that it was time to head out to buy myself a new bag since my one had broke in Paris, tisk tisk. But Cologne had amazing shopping and it was no problem and definitly cheaper than Spain! After a successful purchase it was time to take on the cathedral! The cathedral is known for having the largest facade worldwide! Its 509 steps to the top and we were all about that. We started inside-which was somehow colder than it was outside? And explored inside the beautiful Gothic cathedral. It was started in 1298 but took over 600 years to complete because work on it was so elongated! Slow pokes. But it was beautiful inside. Id gotten so used to seeing the cathedrals built during the Renaissance and everything it was a nice change of pace. The walls had gold paintings and the floors were covered in beautiful mosasic tiles. Inside the cathedral they also claim to have the remains of the 3 magi who visited Jesus in a huge golden box. After exploring inside we decided it was time to take on the tower. It was filled with circular stairs heading straight on up to the top. We got really dizzy really quick and had to make 2 stops along the way but we made it up pretty quickly and made it out to the top. It was ice cold and windy up there but you could see all down the river and into the German country side so it was very cool! Then we headed back down which was a lot more terrifying to me but made it out! From here we were on a hunt to find our roommate the perfect beer stein which was her goal while in Germany. Also pretzels! We asked to tourism office and found out that pretzels are more popular in the south such as Munich but we succeeded in finding some at a bakery nearby! They had cute bunny ones for Easter too! We hit up the major souvenir shops and found Kelsey a perfect beer stein with decorations of Cologne, spelled Koln in german, and Germany all around it! We also passed the original place where Eau de Cologne was made, interesting. We spent the rest of the day walking around looking at the citys little places- they are known also for the Cuckoo clocks and had lots of cute little shops where they made them that was fun to see. The next morning we had an early bus ride back to Paris to catch our flight and we were pooped from all the walking so we decided to head back and get some sleep!

Tuesday:
Oh tuesday, how I wish to never repeat this day again in my life...
So we wake up at 4:30am to catch our 6am bus because a) we're too poor for Taxis so we had to walk across town b) we didn't want to be late and c) we wanted to claim good seats on the bus of course. So we're somehow manage to wake up and are ready to go, step outside, yup its raining. Fun. So we walk 30 minutes with all our luggage in the dark to the bus station- yay we make it. Get on the bus, claim the back row and try and catch some sleep. After a long 8 1/2 hours back due to traffic from the rain we are finally back in Paris! From here we have an hour metro ride to the other side of the city to take the bus to the Paris airport on the outskirts of town. We make that just in time to catch the bus back for our flight. This bus ride is an other hour out there, so it's been a long day and we're ready to go home. Oh and here's where the real fun begins. We pull up walk in- Flight Cancelled. Turns out there was a strike by the French Air Traffic Control. Awesome. So there's a ton of people who are MAD and we get in line with the rest of them and see what we can do. Well, turns out the flight to Madrid the next day is fulled booked, fun. So after waiting 2 hours in that line we just say put us on a plane to anywhere in Spain and we'll find a way home. That night at 11 was a flight to Girona, about an hour outside Barcelona. We jumped on that opportunity. So then we proceed to wait in the crowded airport as that flight was delayed because of all the problems caused and finally get to Girona at about 1am. I thought we were going to die about 10 times on the flight into Girona because there was so much turbulence and we plummeted to our almost death way too many times. So we finally land and all we can do now is sleep at the airport because the bus into Barcelona to catch a bus to Madrid doesn't leave till the next day. More awesomeness. So we find a little corner and try to sleep. The ground was freezing because it was marble and I'm not a good sleeper as it is so I maybe got about 2 hours. But it must of been a hilarious sight because we just took everything out of our suitcases to sleep on and try and keep warm with! But we all woke up at around 5 because sleeping was just kind of impossible. At 8 the bus ticket office opened to get to Barcelona and we were first in line for that! Then at 830am the bus finally left and it was about an hour ride into Barcelona (which I will be in next weekend ironically enough). So we get into Barcelona at about 945 and run to the bus station ticket office where we find out theres a bus leaving at 10am so I beggggged with the guy to let us (note: there was about 9 of us) on. He was a nice guy said yes and rang us all up so fast, we all sprinted down to the bus to tell the driver to wait and somehow we all made it on and the bus pulled out right on the dot at 10am. Glorious we were FINALLY getting back to Madrid. We all passed out as soon as we sat down and 8 hours later, back in Madrid at about 6pm...just 24 hours later. But we made it after quite the adventure- granted 1/2 of us had midterms that day we had to miss (luckily I didn't) but we were able to email our professors to try and figure it all out. That whole 2 day fiasco felt like a dream probably because I hadn't slept and was delirious. Looking back it's funny- and I'm sure will be hilarious in a week but man at that time we all looked like zombies- literally. We were all in shambles to the Nth degree by the end of this. Me and my roomies ran from the metro stop home, showered and everyone was dead asleep by 9pm- heaven.

It was an amazing week (by accident) vacation! I'm home this weekend, thank god, and then gone every weekend for the next 7 weekends and I'm pumped!

Thank you to everyone who reads these long posts I hope your enjoying my stories :)

Carnaval in Cádiz

This past weekend we went with a group travel agency down to Cadiz, located in the Southwest tip of Spain right on the ocean! Every year around this time they have their Carnaval celebrations, which is similar to Mardi Gras in the states. Everyone gets dressed up in crazy costumes and stays out walking in the streets all night long. I'd never even experienced Mardi Gras before so this was a whole new experience for me on many accounts. The group we went with was with about 200, mainly students and mainly from my school, left on buses down to Cadiz EARLY friday morning. We were supposed to leave at 8am, but because people can't be on time we didn't actually end up leaving until about 8:45, already a sign it was going to be a long day. Most people were way too excited to sleep and the buses were pretty loud for the first couple of hours. We made our first stop after about 2 1/2 hours which were the longest 2 1/2 hours of my life considering I was about to pee my pants as usual. But, finally made a much needed stop for a way too long 40 minutes, we were all eager to get down there! We were kept occupied by movies at least on the way down which definitly helped pass the time. We finally made it into Cadiz at about 5 pm, after two other LONG stops. I guess they were necessary for the amount of people we had, but I was beginning to lose it on that bus. We all got checked into our hotel quickly, which was a beautiful resort only 5 minutes from the ocean. It was definitly a treat to stay in such a nice place with a huge shower and although there were 4 of us to a room we all got our own beds. That night the group had rented out a club for our group to go to so we only had minimal time to rest a little and get settled before the night. We left at about 10, which is early on Spanish times, but had a fun night dancing with friends and decided to come home early, for Spaniards, at about 1am to be fully rested for the next days adventure. We got free breakfast and since we're living on a dime over here we made sure to set alarms to wake up for this treat. It was so worth it, we were overwhelmed with all our options: any type of fruit you can imagine, eggs, every type of bread I'd ever seen, muesli (my new obsession- minus the dried fruit), cereal, yogurt, pastries, crepes, and more that I can't even remember. I definitly succeeded in eating my body weight because I was not taking this opportunity for granted. We all stoked up on treats for the rest of the day then went back to bed. It was pretty rainy and cold, well in the 60s but wasn't exactly sunny and warm. After sleeping a few more hours I got up for a little gym time since my legs hurt from sitting so long the day before. Then a group of us headed down to the beach and (they) played some football and I just ran around trying to keep warm, the wind was so strong! I stuck one little toe in the water and thought it was going to have to be amputated it was so cold! But looked beautiful, I didn't realize how much I'd missed seeing an ocean and it's smells. mmmmm homey. Then after a nice break in the sand we wanted to make sure we had time to eat and start getting our costumes ready! I had this really ambitious dream of making my hair in a bow similar to Lady Gaga and I wanted time to practice. After sitting there for an hour playing around with it I'd had about enough and settled with however I could get it best at that point-not the best I'd ever done but some people actually understood so I was happy! My other roommates were a Mardi Gras princess, devil, and an other Gaga-esque figure like me! Aka we just wore crazy clothes and did crazy makeup. We all had fun putting on crazy makeup and for me tons of SPARKLES my fav. We had a bright mixture of colored eyeshawdows, face paints and mixture of clothes going on, we were quite a sight. After taking pictures we were ready to get this show on the road and headed down to the buses. Carnaval takes place in downtown Cadiz which is about an hour bus ride from our hotel so we had to be patient and luckily they had made good CDs to help the time pass. We got into town at about 9pm and were ready for the festivities to begin!

It was definitly unlike anything I'd ever seen in my life. The streets were filled with people dressed up in every kind of costume you can imagine-it was like a Halloween parade. The streets were filled with bright flashing lights and street venders lined the roads as well. They let us off right on the outskirts of the downtown area and we had to walk our ways into the plazas. It was exhilarating walking down the streets with all these people singing chants, dancing, and being dressed up in some of the most ridiculous outfits I'd ever seen. You had to walk in a straight line with your group to get anywhere and everyone was so squished in those narrow streets. We were in a group of about 9 or 10 of us and we had to keep tight grips on one an other because if you got lost or lost anyone here there was no way you were ever going to find them again. We manuevered our way to the main plaza in front of the Cathedral. It was filled with people, a stage where there were singing groups performing, and street venders selling food. Advice for anyone planning on going- it's nearly impossible to get anything because the lines are SO long but if you're patient and really hungry they have all sorts of foods- all the bars were open and they had stations of mainly greasey foods and alcohol. We walked around observing everything- there was so much/ so many people to look at it was quite amusing. At around 11 we decided it was time for some dinner and we headed off to find a restuarant to eat at. I was suprisingly not very hungry but managed to snack on some crackers the restaurant gives as appatizers, called Picos, which are an other little Spanish obsession of mine. After some rejuvenation we were ready to keep going and walking more of the streets. We headed back out to the Plaza and somehow kept running into people we knew, which was funny because this place was FILLED to the brim with people. People got creative with their costumes I saw a mix of it all: bumblebees, nuns and priests, cows, Christopher Columbus, gypsies, lots of people with wigs, masks, face paints, candies, foods, the list goes on and on. People definitely didn't hold back with their outfits- it was awesome. You could really just throw on a bunch of random stuff and you'd fit right in- which was my plan and luckily it turned out ok! I had on a grey sparkely shirt with a black sequency skirt with my "liquidy" leggings as I call them and my knee high boots with lots of face painting and my silly little hairbow- which I hairsprayed the heck out of. While in the plaza we met tons of Spaniards and I got an excellent chance at practicing my Spanish, while they were all trying to practice their English with me. We were each speaking and responding to each other in a mixture of both languages it was hilarious. Our group had two buses going back to the hotel, one at 2am and the other at 4am. Before we knew it 2am had already passed and we were going to have to make it till 4am. We were having so much fun we didn't even realize the time pass by! But sicne we wanted to make it back with time to spare and find the bus station we started walking back at around 3:20ish. After pushing our way through the masses of people still out and the streets which were now disgusting with trash and an assortment of other things we made it back to the bus. The walk back was sooo cold, it was already cold this night but by this time the wind picked up and especially since we were right on the water we felt the chills. I was too much of a baby to even think of not wearing a coat so I definitly rocked my "puff puff" as I call it all night- it's at least a bright color-red- so I felt it would be ok and boy was I happy I had that on all night or else I would have FROZE. It wasn't Madrid cold but it was chilly! We finally made it to the buses with time to spare, but ended up sitting on the bus waiting for a good 40 minutes because people FAIL at being on time, I was annoyed but just fell asleep luckily for the whole bus ride home and was home before we knew it. We ended up getting home at about 5:30 but were still feeling the vibes from the excitement of our night and were up talking about it until about 6am. We set alarms to be sure and not miss out on that glorious breakfast the hotel gave us. After 2 hours of sleep I got up, ate my body weight again, and was so happy to go back to bed. We weren't checking out until 2:30 and was definitly going to nap since it's impossible on the bus. I took a nice shower and slept until about 12. We were dreading the bus ride and knew it was going to be a looong one. But luckily we had tons of movies and succeeded at watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Old School, and Notorious (which was the best one and we didn't even get to finish it because we got back to Madrid). We got back to Madrid at about 12 which was earlier than I thought we'd make it back at and I was so happy to be home. We just had a short metro ride back to our little pisa and we were in heaven to be home! I was greeted with a lovely little package from home with some much missed foods :). Now we're getting ready for an other week of classes and woke up to...SNOW ahhh its so cold here I thought all the snow was over but apparently I was wrong, guess I'll be wearing 9758947 layers to class today. Seeing the snow shoots down any motivation for anything but I will be spending this week resting up because Thursday we are headed to Paris and Germany for our 5 day weekend!

Carnaval was amazing and truly an unforgettable experience- definitly a pinch-me-is-this-real weekend :)

Avila and the rotting finger

Friday ended our week with a trip to Avila which is located northwest about an hour and a half outside of Madrid. After a whatfeltlikethelongestbusrideverbecauseweallhadtopee bus ride we wandered our way within the ancient city walls to explore the city. The city was once the home of St. Teresa de Avila the founder of the Carmelite nuns. It's famous for it's relic of her rotting ring finger and we were all pretty excited to see this 500 year old delight. The only problem was that none of us knew exactly where it was located in the city so we were definitly the blind leading the blind. We started off by visiting the one thing possible to find in every city in Spain, a cathedral. Unfortunately once inside a lot of it was under construction and it blocked a lot of the view but we were able to see up by the altar, but like most cathedrals it was FREEZING inside. They also had a little musuem part showing a lot of old paintings, including one by El Greco, old songbooks, and the robes the priests wore back in the day. After this little excursion we wandered somemore to find the convent, hoping her finger would be in there. Wandering the streets of a city none of us had ever visited, with no map, was suprisingly a fun adventure, even in the rain. We eventually stumbled across the convent and it's musuem only to find it closed for siesta, of course. We took a little break ourselves and decided to have a nice Spanish lunch. Well since my options here are ridiculously limited I thought a sandwich called "sandwich vegetal" would be safe right? So wrong, it came out with a huge plop of Tuna soaking into the bread and everything. Gross. But I was hungry so I sweetfully asked for a new one and was granted my wish. One of our friends Caitlin is also vegetarian and doesn't eat fish either and so when we both ordered this we were heartbroken, but the problem was fixed and our sandwiches came back fish free and although not the best thing I've ever eaten, worked. After lunch we ventured back to the convent in our hopes for finding the finger. We first tried the museum, which was actually a very cool musuem of her life located in the crypt of the church. But, the finger was no where to be found. From there we assumed the church would have it on display right? Wrong. So wrong. Almost desolate and ready to give up we saw a sign for the convent part of the church's plaza and wandered over to a sign for the relics, aka her finger. It was located in the most random of places, first you have to walk through a gift shop where you then enter a room filled with other random relics of her such as her clothes, walking stick etc, and in that same little room is a case with her finger. Ew. It was hard to see because the room wasn't lit and the glare off the glass was bad but it was black looked like it had skin pieces coming off. But it was pretty cool to see, its about 495 years old exactly and it looked the part. It's kept in a gold case in some type of preservative to keep it lasting. Finally our long journey was complete. Oh and heres the best part, we had to pay to go the cathedral and the musuem, only to discover the finger display was actually free, of course. But it was worth it I would have paid to see that nasty thing anyways. Unfortunatly we couldn't take pictures and they had none of it but it's forever engrained in my memory. After happily finding what we were just looking for we walked around town somemore and one of my friend's mom's had told her about these little desserts called yemas. We didn't know what they were but they're desserts so how bad could they be? ha ha ha....Well after buying them and opening the package a little yellow squishy thing covered in sugar is revealed and my friends facial expression after she stuck the whole little gooey in her mouth was priceless. She immiedately spit it out and had never looked so miserable. We found out later it's supposed to consist of an egg yolk and sugar or cinnamon. The egg yolk definitly wasn't cooked much and it was literally the only ingredient. Needless to say I definitly didn't try it. From there we found an entrance to go up top of the city walls and were very excited. It was a steep stairwell but the view was priceless. You could see the countryside of Spain in one direction and then the whole city and cathedral on the next. It made for some great photo ops. We were able to wander around up there for a bit but then had to meander our way to the bus station for the ride home. Somehow we were able to find our way back for a not as painfully long bus ride home.

The rest of the weekend was spent exploring Madrid as always. Much time spent in Sol, which is the heart of Madrid and finally making it to El Rastro, or the famous flea market, which was disappointing or just not what I was expecting at all. But I was able to find some exciting running paths right past the palace which was perfection :) Now if it would start warming up a little more we'd really be talkin....