Segovia Otra Vez and Final Days in Madrid

After spending a couple more days in Madrid, we decided to take a day-trip to Segovia, a nearby city, on August 11, 2010. Segovia is well-known for its Roman aqueduct as well as its cathedral. However, my favorite place in Segovia is the Monastery of Parrel, on the northeastern edge of the city. We visited all of the places that I visited on June 5, 2010, as described in my previous post. The second trip to Segovia went as well as the first, except that we were able to find our way around the city more easily this second time. The change in climate was clearly visible from June to mid-August. When my friends and I first visited Segovia in early June, the entire area was green and flowers were blooming. On the second trip, everything...

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Posted in: Casa del Campo,English,J-Mad,Madrid,Segovia,Spain

Busing to Barçelona

August 8 - 10, 2010 In addition to seeing Madrid and Toldeo, we wanted to see more parts of Spain. On Saturday night, we took a midnight bus to Barçelona. After the eight hour ride, we made it to Barçelona. Our hostal, Hostal Mont-Thabor, was located on Calle de las Ramblas, a main street running through the city. The hostal was small, but nice and affordable – we were easily able to rent a private room with our own bathroom. After dropping our belongings off at the hostal, we hiked up to the 1992 Barçelona Olympic Stadium. We were able to get into the stadium for free because one of the side entrances happened to be open. After walking around the stadium and the surrounding park, we took the Teleférico (cable cars) towards what we...

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Posted in: Antonio Gaudi,Arc de Triomf,Barçelona,Casa Batlló,Castle Montjuïc,English,hostal,J-Mad,Las Ramblas,Park Guell,Sagrada Familia,Spain

Last Week of Work and MSU Program

The week of August 2, 2010, was my last week of my internship with the municipal agency in Madrid. Our last day with the center was Thursday, August 5th, and the last day of Michigan State’s program was Saturday, August 7th. During this same week, my mother and sister arrived and I was able to take them around the city after work. Some of these visits included the Royal Palace, Botanical Gardens, La Caixa Forum, Plaza Puerta del Sol, Calle Gran Vía, Plaza de Cibeles, Chueca district, and the Prado and Reina Sofia museums. On Friday evening, after seeing several exhibits at the Reina Sofia, including Picasso’s Guernica, we found an excellent Thai restaurant near the museum called Restaurante Pad Thai, at Paseo del Prado 40. Saturday...

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Posted in: Chueca,Cibeles,English,Gran Vía,Guernica,J-Mad,Madrid,Museo del Prado,Palacio Real,Picasso,Real Madrid,Reina Sofia,Santiago Bernabéu,Sol,Spain,World Cup

Weekend in Morocco

For one of our last free weekends to travel, I went with six other Michigan State students to Marrakech, Morocco. We all wanted to travel somewhere entirely different and had heard that Marrakech was one of the nicest cities for tourists to visit in Morocco. Since US citizens do not need visas to enter Morocco, we grabbed some RyanAir tickets and spent the night before our early flight in the Barajas airport. We arrived in Marrakech bright and early around 9:00am on Friday, 30 July, 2010, where it was already as hot as Madrid is during the daytime. After exchanging my euros for the second time this summer, we bartered with a taxi driver to get to the hostel. Since tourism is big in Morocco, we had no trouble finding people...

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Posted in: Bahia Palace,English,Hamam,J-Mad,Jemmaa el-Fna,Koutoubia Mosque,Madrid,Majorelle Gardins,Marrakech,Morocco,mosque,Riad Massin,Saadin Tombs,Souk,Spain