Day trip to Madrid to see the sights-9th May

Hola Teresa y la clase de 9C de Onslow St Audreys,
This will probably be my last blog post as I have exams coming in the next 2 weeks so I do not have a lot of time left. I wanted to tell you about my really great day out in Madrid to see my Swiss friend Adrian (who I met at the summer school in Barcelona) and who happened to be studying in Madrid for the second semester. When I arrived in Madrid the weather was really hot. My friend Adrian came and met me in the centre of Madrid and we stopped off at the tourist information office so I could get a map. Then he took me around the city. Here are some photos of the sites I saw on the way:

The first place my friend took me was a place he said he had always wanted to go inside but had not got around to seeing-which was the Carlos VIII palace. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos once we were fully inside so I only have photos of the outside and the staircase before we went in the rooms. The Carlos VIII palace was amazing though-each room was a different colour and it was very luxurious and rich. Halfway through that visit though I started to feel really ill because it was really hot in the palace and I was getting hungry-so we left after a little while. I have attached some photos of the outside-but if you ever visit Madrid it is really worth seeing inside. I have also attached a photo of the Almudena Catedral which was opposite the Carlos VIII Royal Palace. 

Almudena Catedral

Me outside the Carlos VIII Palacio

View from Carlos VIII Palacio

Inside Carlos VIII Palacio

Inside Carlos VIII Palacio

Carlos VIII Palacio (Inside)

View of Almudena Catedral (from Carlos VIII Palacio)

Carlos VIII Palacio (from the other side)

After visiting the Carlos VIII Palacio we went to get lunch as I was feeling hungry and unwell with the heat. We had tried earlier going into the Almudena Catedral but there were still having mass then so we had to leave. My friend Adrian took me to this vintage-style restaurant that served burgers-To give a sense of how vintage this restaurant was, they gave us the bill in a video case. The burger was really nice. Adrian then took me to the Parque Retiro as I said I was interested in seeing it as I had never seen it before. Once we got to the Parque Retiro he took me to the Glass Palace inside the Parque Retiro which when we were there had (inside the Glass Palace) a tent made of different multi-coloured duvet covers. Unfortunately I felt really hot again despite changing my clothes to be cooler so there was no time for me to take a photo (and it was very crowded under the tent)-we went straight to the cafe to get cool drinks. We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the shade cooling down and relaxing-and talking about what we had been up to since the last time we had seen each other. Then we walked a little bit further in the Parque Retiro and I took more photos. Then I realised it was late and I had to go back to catch my train back to Valladolid. Overall it was a really great day and Adrian was just as nice as I remembered from when we were studying in Barcelona last summer.
I have attached photos of the Parque Retiro below so you see how amazing it was:

Parque Retiro

Parque Retiro

Parque Retiro

This last photo was a photo of the sculptures inside the museum in the Parque Retiro which I thought was crazy. I have 5 exams in the next 2 weeks so I will be very busy studying for the next 3 weeks.  In case I get too busy with my exams to write another post before I leave Valladolid, I wanted to say I have really enjoyed my time in Spain. I hope to see the Casa Cervantes, Casa Zorrilla and a few other smaller sights in Valladolid before I leave but I am not sure if I will have time to put up photos in time for when you break up for summer. 
Overall to summarise my whole experience studying in the Universidad de Valladolid I would say that it has been a realy good experience and would recommend it to anyone. It was not easy to begin with getting to grips with my Spanish in a place where no one speaks English (although there are more English people this semester) but I have managed it. I do still have a English accent when I speak Spanish (which I think I will maintain for life) but I speak much better Spanish than when I first came here and have successfully managed to live in a foreign country for 6 months. Now it is coming up to when I have to leave Valladolid, I have mixed feelings abut returning back to England. On the one hand I am very happy to be coming home as I miss my family and my friends back home, as well as English food. However, now I will miss the friends I have made here, especially the two Spanish girls I met this semester Marta and Angela, as well as my friend from the Basque Country Nahikari who I will leaving behind. I think I will also miss the freedom I have here and it will feel strange going home. 
Espero que estéis bien y hasta vosotros en Junio cuando volveré a Inglaterra

Becky

ESN Trip to Bilbao and San Sebastian 18th-19th April

Hola Teresa y la clase de 9C de Onslow St Audreys,

Sorry about how late this post is-I have been so busy recently with all my university work and all the reading I have to do. 2 weeks ago I visited the ‘El País Vasco’ (The Basque country) with the ESN. The Basque country is a region in the North of Spain where they have their own language Basque but they also speak Spanish there. They also have their own cultural heritage.

Saturday 18^th April:

On Saturday we left at 8:00 from Valladolid but we arrived later than we should have. This meant that we had to put our bags in a room and check-in later as the Museo Guggenheim closed for lunch that day. After we dropped the bags off, we got back into the bus to go to the Museo Guggenheim as our hostel was outside the centre of Bilbao. The modern art in the Museo Guggenheim was quite interesting and I have attached some photos of the museum and of the sculptures outside which were quite strange (as we were not allowed to take photos inside). One of the sculptures outside the Museo Guggenheim was a giant tarantula which was terrifying for me-as I am scared of spiders. 

Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao

Sculpture outside Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao 

Sculptures outside Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao

Museo Guggenheim

Me outside Museo Guggenheim

Giant tarantula sculpture outside Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao

Museo Guggenheim

Giant dog made of flowers outside Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao

Me outside Museo Guggenheim

Giant dog outside Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao (close-up)

 After we had visited the Museo Guggenheim we took a walk through the city to get Pintxos (which is the Basque equivalent to Tapas) for lunch. I learned that the work for Hello is Basque is Kaixo and the word for goodbye is Augur. Then we had a city tour with a guide of the local group of the ESN Bilbao about the city and its history. I have taken some photos of what we saw-my favourite place from the tour was the Parque Iturriza Doña Casilda:

Parque Iturriza Doña Casilda

Parque Iturriza Doña Casilda

Parque Iturriza Doña Casilda

Parque Iturriza Doña Casilda

During the tour we went inside a Church which unfortunately I am not sure of the name of it as they did not say at the time what this church was called. This is inside the church in Bilbao:

 We also saw this statue in Gipuzkoa Plaza:

 And this sculpture at the part of Bilbao near the sea:

Sculpture by the sea in Bilbao

We were very lucky with the weather as it was supposed to be rainy the whole day in Bilbao. However, the only time it rained was when we were in the Museo Guggenheim. Afterwards we had free time to get dinner and get ready for the ‘botellón’ at 11:00 before going to the nightclub in Bilbao. My friends and I went to the supermarket to buy alcohol for the ‘botellón’ and we decided to buy microwaveable pasta dishes for dinner and eat it in the hostel so we would not have to try and look for a restaurant. I chose a Spaghetti Bolognese and my friend Cristina had a Pasta Carbonara. In the hostel we had to wait a little bit as the two microwaves were in use. There was a group of Basque boys who were also having dinner as well as a group of French girls from our group from Valladolid. The Basque boys were very friendly and one of them even gave me and my friend Cristina beers. I gave my beer to Cristina’s friend when she came down as I do not like beer very much but it was still very nice of them to give us drinks. Finally we got ready to go out and after the botellon near the metro station (which was right near our hostel) we went on the metro to the nightclub FEVER Disco. This was not my most favourite club and I had to stop off on the way to use a toilet so me and a small group of people were later than the others. It was very crowded in the nightclub with everyone on the first floor and I even saw one of the Basque boys from the hostel in there. Despite this it was still a very fun night.

Sunday 19th April:

The next day I go up at about 8:00 and had a shower and went down to breakfast. Breakfast in the hostel was very nice and they even had hot chocolate in the hostel which I have not found in any of the other hostels I have been to before. We checked out a little after 10:30 from the hostel and put our suitcases in the bus ready to go towards our next destination of San Sebastian. San Sebastian was only 1 hour from Bilbao but unfortunately my friend Cristina threw up on the bus so when we got there I let her out first and stayed with her during the city tour.

Once we arrived at San Sebastian, my friend Cristina was able to have some fresh air and we had a city tour all around San Sebastian. San Sebastian was huge and luckily for us the weather in the morning was quite sunny while we were walking around. We did not have a local guide here so the ESN just took us around and gave us the tour instead. Here are my photos of all the things I saw in San Sebastian:

I did prefer San Sebastian to Bilbao as there was much more to see but I liked both of these places and would definitely consider visiting ‘El País Vasco’ again when the weather is warmer. After that we went to eat more pintxos (Basque equivalent of tapas). I split off from Cristina and went with a group of Italians as the first pintxos place was too crowded and was very cramped. At the second pintxos cafe I had 3 pieces of tortilla filled with cheese and bacon which was delicious.  After the pintxos we had the option to go on a longer walk by the beach or to meet the group later. Me and the Italians that I was with decided not to go on the walk by the beach as our feet really hurt from all the walking we had done earlier and the sun had gone in. We had already seen a lot of the beach earlier during the city tour. It was quite windy and cold in the afternoon once the sun had gone in, not unlike a day at the seaside in England. We thought it would be colder by the beach so we stayed in the pintxos restaurant for a bit and then my friend Beatrice and I decided to go in search of tourist shops and see if we could find postcards. I decided not to buy a postcard of San Sebastian as there was only one shop that had postcards and there was not very interesting pictures-there was only photos of the beach of San Sebastian and not of the other attractions. However, I did buy a fridge magnet of San Sebastian which was very nice. After we had been to the tourist shop we went in search of McDonalds (as we had seen it earlier on the tour) and we found a McCafe inside so we both had hot drinks-I had a hot chocolate and my friend Beatrice had a coffee.  We stayed in McDonalds until we had to go back to Valladolid with the group. We had to meet the bus in front of the Teatro Victoria Eugenia and as we left San Sebastian at just after 18:00 it started to rain. We arrived back in Valladolid at after 21:30pm. Overall it was a very good trip and despite my fears over what the weather would be like (it had forecast rain for both days originally) the trip was a complete success. I would definitely recommend visiting these two places in the Basque country. 

Hoy el tiempo aquí en Valladolid hace sol y hace viento al momento. No soy seguro cuando fuera mi próximo ‘post’ a mi blog pero intentaré para escribir pronto. Espero que estéis bien y que haga buen tiempo en Hatfield, 

Becky