Madrid and Life!

Hi guys, sorry for the slow updates. I think this is part of getting used to life here. I thought life would be freer here, but now I'm trying to take advantage of travelling for the weekends, and juggling homework/uni and getting into new church =) and living by myself...

Madrid Trip (its a big long, I'm trying to write down everything so I don't forget!)
So I left for Madrid on Thursday morning, with a 5 hour bus trip! We basically ate a lot on Thursday, and walked around. I had my first churro! I have a picture below, it was at the shop called St Gines. When we arrived, it turned out that we had booked a hostel in the wrong city (in spanish) and had to get a last minute room! But luckily there was one about 100m down the road, so that was good, even though the hostel was a bit dodge. There are a lot more fast food chains! We have one Macdonalds in Pamplona, but we saw 2 upon arrival!
On Friday, I walked around the plazas, like the Plaza del Oriente, and shopping.  I visited the biggest park in Madrid - El Parque del Retiro - it's beautiful, (the Crystal Palace is there, its lovely) but it would be stunning in summer/spring when flowers are actually open. After, the others went to the Palacio Real - home to Spanish royals up to the Republic. Since I had already been there, I went to la Plaza de Espana - it has a monument to Cervantes, and it's beautiful. Along the way, I visited a little cathedral, and the luxury and detail of the decoration is crazy. Then I headed to the Prado museum! It's home to paintings from the Old Masters: Velasquez's "Las Meninas", Goya's "Saturn devouring his Child" - it had a room full of paintings from his dark period (it was amazing, but so depressing - like scenes from hell), Rembrandt, el Greco, Ribera, Raphael, Titian.... It was crazy. I was there for 2 hours, but only managed to see half the rooms. It was really intense. The others had found a Nebraskan bar, and we went out to an Irish pub. It was very expensive, and I went home a little tipsy after only two drinks!
On Saturday, I went to the 20th century art museum La Reina Sofia with the others. It was amazing as well! But I was so tired from Friday, it was difficult to concentrate properly, and I wanted to sit down all day! It was home to Guernica by Picasso, and his other works, Richard Serra, Joan Miro, Dali, Antonio Tapies; and I finally saw stuff by the movement Situationists (I had studied this group in uni a few years ago). It was awesome to see art by all these people I had only heard about, and even artists I didn't know - they had some cool stuff. Someone had taken a portrait of different people from birth to 100 years old. So 100 portraits after, it felt like I had experienced a lifetime.
On the last day, Sunday, we visited a huge street market called El Rastro that sold everything. It was cheap and cool.

Madrid is an enormous city, with a great public transport system (the metro). But I found it too big, dirty and busy for me. But I loved the art museums there. I still didn't get to the visit the last of the big three museums. But they were so intense, it just wasn't possible to see everything in two and a half days.

I woke up during the bus trip and saw snooow! I was so excited!
But there was no snow at all in Madrid =( I didn't get to touch it

Street Performers in la Puerta del Sol

Churros at the most famous churreria in Madrid- St Gines.
It was really good. Drinking the chocolate at the end was even better.
But it was so busy, that there were no seats (this was 4pm in the arvo!)

The Spaniards are loco for ham!
El Museo del Jamon - The museum of ham. They just have rows of legs of pork hanging from the ceiling

El Parque del Retiro. I didn't realise I look like a complete idiot, I'm actually just trying to copy the statue on the fountain

The Crystal Palace in the Park
El Palacio de Cristal

In La Plaza del Oriente in front of the Royal Palace - Palacio Real

Inside a church next to the Palace: it was amazing
Cripta de la Catedral de Madrid

Back end of the Palacio Real

The Prado Museum!

Big streets of Madrid

Amazing ice cream and cake for breakfast! haha

Sunday Markets
El Rastro

I returned from Madrid on Sunday night, and back to uni from 10am-10.15pm on Monday =( and prepared for a Spanish presentation today. Please pray for me that I stay healthy, and pray for people around me to get better. Three girls from the Madrid trip have gotten sick save me and another girl.

The most exciting thing this week, was the bible study in Spanish last night. I'm really excited to join the ministry/church by American missionaries to go to their church for the first time!

There is an international documentary festival this week called Punto De Vista. So hopefully I'll go to one of the screenings tonight, then a farewell party starting at midnight (for another erasmus student who arrived in September), and go to a small town called Olite with some girls on Saturday, then church on Sunday morning! Very excited for this weekend =)

Here are some pictures from my daily life in Pamplona!

New culinary delights! haha
If anyone has any good tips for keeping food fresh, or basically eating nice food without cooking every day, let me know!

hahaa, it's a brand of bread and biscuits

Spaghetti Bolognaise with cheese =)

Downside of having australian and hong kong electric goods in europe.
Thanks to Yuan for buying me the adapter!

English Club and Madrid!

For some of you, you know that I have been having a hard time looking for a church. Lately I found a missionary's blog in Pamplona, and emailed him, and he replied yesterday, inviting me to an English Club! So it's conducted in English, but biblically based. I'm excited to have met some Spaniards and several American missionaries. They will have a special scavenger photo hunt this Thursday at Universidad Publica de Navarra (my uni), and evangelistic church events on Saturday night, and church service (in spanish) on Sunday morning. I'm really excited to be linked to a church finally! And I found another christian girl in my erasmus year, I'm so excited that God's revealing so many believers and places to serve at here.

But I'm going to Madrid tomorrow, so I will miss all of this until the next English club on Tuesday night! But soo excited about the church ^^

I'll just leave you with a picture of one of my classes! Conocer el Vino:

Conocer el Vino! 
The Spanish boys next to me finished their glasses!
The Spanish girls were a bit more prudent, haha
some things are the same

Festival en Tafalla 13 Feb

It has been a while, but I handed in a 2000 word reflective essay to my home university yesterday =D All I ate was bread the day before it was due, so it was cruel seeing the awesome Japanese food my boyfriend was enjoying in Japan on facebook =( 

Despite having it due on Monday, I still went to a festival in a nearby town called Tafalla, only 30 minutes away by bus. Sunday was the last day that it was on, and it was eye-opening (even though I only had a few hours of sleep from doing the assignment). I went with other American girls, and it was the best fun ever. The funniest and weirdest thing were these things called cabezudos (I only found out the name from my flatmate). Here are the photos from the day! 

Outdoor Market Mercadillos
Notice how the branches are joined? It's really quite beautiful
They're plane trees, grafted together so theres a canopy in summer

Selling Cute Flamenco dresses
Imagine a little spanish girl in one of those!

This was in the indoor market, which sold many hand-made products
These are walking sticks chiseled from wood,
the same guy who was selling it, was working on one in front of us! 

Hand Made Puppets

We emerge from the indoor markets and there's a Vintage Car show!

The Town Square

Lots of food stores in the Town Square

Mmmm

These are the Cabezudos
They have big masks & costumes and notice the little satchels they carry on a stick

Notice what they do with it. Yeup.
It's a tradition from this province of Navarra, they hit everyone.
Kids, adults, me =(  But they turned out to be the best fun! It was hilarious seeing them chase kids down the street.

Te Canabis! jaja

Haha, the Cabezudo is just eyeing my American friend.
To hit or not to hit, that is the question. 

The same vintage cars doing laps around the city.
They actually work, haha.

More food in the outdoor markets in the Town Square

This festival was amazing. It happens on the weekend closest to 9th February every year, and I was so surprised to see the Cabezudos, not having heard anything about it, and seeing them hit everyone on the street: on the head, bums, shoulders, back... We thought it might mean good luck, but even locals say its just for fun. It was definitely an amazing experience. 

Details of Life in Spain

Simpson's Cereals!

I wanted to show you the type of fur coats old women wear in Pamplona

Supermario!!

My own recipe of spaghetti bolognaise, haha

Day Trip around Navarra - Part 2

Sorry for the late update, this is actually Part 2 of the images from 5 Feb 2011! The province of Navarra in Spain has a really beautiful, lush landscape.

Mouth of the Cave

At the end of the Caves
The left was an oven from many years ago

The caves open up into a magical opening =) 

These homes are so sparse, they grow their own vegetables

Bunch of Erasmus

This cute cross between horse and sheep, haha
No really, they're horses

At the Park at the Valle de Baztan (I think)

Beautiful lighting close to sunset