Glamping!

Hola Amigos!

MalPal here for your most recent update on our adventures. Although it is Laura’s turn to post, she announced that she did not want to take a break from her vigorous studying and I gracefully stepped up to the plate. We are still loving life and such here in Madrid even though we’ve had some obstacles. For starters, Renatta and I BOTH have had massive complications with the banking systems not allowing us to withdraw money (Mom, I promise it’s not all for shopping). We were notified today that after weeks of poor signal, the school’s tech department had changed our weefee (wifi in Spanish) account name and password last week and for some reason neglected to tell us. Not complaining though because now, with this fabulous Usain Bolt speed of wifi and Netflix (shoutout to Kaliegh Barret) we can feel a little more at home. Speaking of home, we are currently participating in a “Glamping” take on residency. Today, January 27, 2014, marks the fourth consecutive day of the water in our apartment being completely shut off at 8pm and not turned back on until mid-morning the next day.

Have no fear; lack of aqua does not dull our sense of adventure! Bright and early on Saturday morning we once again fumbled with our metro maps and somehow made it to our bus to take us on the hour-long journey to Segovia.(Again, we resided in the back seat)

In glorious Segovia we saw the famous aqueducts and breathtaking views. We walked along the cobblestone streets and found the beautiful Cathedral de Segovia. Happy to report that next we found the castle named Alcazar. According to my two year old nephew, castle hunting is what I’m doing these days. After way too many obnoxious photo ops, (I kid you not when I say there was a Sound of Music reenactment done by Laura) we wandered into a little café. Famished, our Spanish was subpar to say the least when we attempted to order our food. Impressed with our effort and mostly out of pity, the kind waiter offered to give us free fries. However, the nice man wasn’t sure how to say it in English, resulting in “its..uhh, I’ll put them there.” Consequently the “gratis papas fritas” were smothered in the Godlike Spanish Ketchup and demolished.

 

us, once again blocking a gorgeous city view

Cathedral de Segovia

Sunday, we donned our money belts and headed to meet some friends to explore El Rastro, a huge flea market in Madrid. After a somewhat sketchy entrance, (referred to as a “garage sale” by Meghan) we made our way through the crowd in search of a bargain. We found multiple vendors that we liked and are excited to go back in the future! After the market we headed to Puerta de Sol to soak up some sun and searched for lunch. We somehow ended up in a Chocolateria with a lunch and churro special. Once again, after record timing meal consumption we were surprised with (yet another) free plate of chocolate covered mini churro delights aka heaven on a plate.   

          This Thursday, we will be heading to Lisbon, Portugal and could not be more excited! For now we will continue to ration our water and count down the minutes until dinner.