Well grab a coffee or a coke, take a seat, and enjoy what will probably be a looong blog about my weekend.

This weekend we had our last excersion to Madrid and Segovia. It was A LOT of fun. We left at 8 oclock in the morn on Friday to head to Madrid. From Bilbao it is about 5 hours by bus. Half consisted of ipod in the ears and looking at the back of my eyelids...the other half consisted of Ish, Michaela, Joy and I playing would you rather/ 20 questions....its very entertaining. For example, Would you rather go swimming in a pool full of snakes or break your leg, or if you had to only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? You get to learn a lot about a person this way....haha. Once we arrived to Madrid we checked into our hotel and settled down. Michaela Joy and I shared a room....we have awesome luck. We were the only ones on 8th floor out of the whole group and we had a laaaarge room. The first part had a sitting area with a tv and bunks beds...then that was seperated by a half wall and the other part of the room had a big king size bed with tv and such...and then a bathroom of course. Did we use the bunkbeds? of course not!!!!! we all fit so swell in that giant bed:). After getting settled we headed down to lunch. We ate most meals in the hotel...they had a nice buffet.

After lunch we went on our walking tour of Madrid...and of course it poured the whooooole time and of course I didnt wear the proper boots. Lets just say there was so much water in my boots, fish could have survived. But it was a fun time so I tried not to care. First we went to the Palace. So much history, loved it. After the Palace we went to the church that is right next to the Palace, so beautiful. Then after the church we continued our outside tour around Madrid...we went through the older part and it was really pretty...very wet...but pretty. Then the last thing we saw was the marking of the 0 Km. of Spain that is in Madrid. After that we had free time, so Robert, Joy, Michaela, Javier, and I went to go get churros at the place where Joy has gotten her first churros the last time she was in Spain. Appearntly its the place to be, because it was packed. After that, since it was still pouring rain and my feet were close to prunes, we headed to the metro to go back to the hotel...had supper there and then went back to the room and hung out.

Saturday: Early morning...up at 730....in the bus at 9 headed to Segovia. Segovia is only about an hour away from Madrid, so it was not a far ride...although we were all tired so it was shut eye time. One time during the ride i opened my eyes and I am not even kidding I could have been in Nebraska during a winter snow storm...it was white EVERYWHERE and still snowing....and of course just like the boots, I didnt bring my winter coat on this trip...just a sweat shirt and a jacket so at this point I realized it may be a VERY cold day. So I closed my eyes, said a little prayer for warmth, and fell back asleep...When we arrived and I woke up it was sunny and there was no snow to be found! We got off the bus to walk to the Roman Aqua-ducts and it was not that cold at all. It ended up being a very nice day. After taking pictures of the aqua-ducts we walked through the town awhile...bought some postcards...and then went on a tour of a castle that is in Segovia...it was really pretty. We went throughout the rooms and then when we were done with the tour, we could go up in the tower to see the view of Segovia if we wanted. So my friends and I headed up there...the way up was quite interesting...it was a very tight, stone, circular staircase with high steps.....it was quite the workout for us...and it seemed never ending. Also it was a 2 way path that should have clearly only been one way...so half way through we had to squish against the sides to let a family pass by. Once to the top it was totally worth it. It was so gorgeous. We took more pictures, caught some fresh air, and then headed back down. Going down was a mixture of being claustrophobic and wanting to vomit but we made it....Michaela led the way...and once we saw light we were very happy. Exiting Michaela, being a whole 5 feet tall, did not need to duck at any point of this...well forgetting that we needed to duck on the way in and not seeing her duck on the way out because she obviously didnt need to, I nailed the stone arch exit with my head pretty dang hard...basically the 5 or 6 people behind me all heard it weather they saw it or not. Lets just say it didnt feel very good. After telling my dad this he asked if it knocked some sense in to me.....my guess is no haha. After that we headed to a little cafe for lunch. It was the normal lunch....bread, some sort of soup/stew...mystery meat, and then dessert.

I would now like to take a little break and talk about some food that I have consumed in the last week or so....lets just say this should make my momma proud. So first last week, Amelia called me in for supper....she began laughing as soon as I got in there because of what was on my plate. It was allll black and inky looking. She started laughing I suppose because she wasnt sure what I was going to say. Turns out I was having octopus in its own Ink (they use the ink as the sauce) for dinner. It wasnt horrible, but the fact that Amelia was telling me how she takes the little sac out of the octopus and pops it to get the ink while we were eating made it a little hard to swallow. But what doesnt kill you makes you stronger.

The second thing was on accident..while on our Segovia day trip, our first corse at the cafe was some sort of soup. We couldnt really tell what was in it besides giant beans...so after discussing what might be in it, most of us decided to try everything...one thing was really chewy, but not thinking much of it we moved onto the next corse....a little while after that, one of our friends from another table came over and said oh hey guys did you try the pig ears in the soup. Yep pig ears...dont worry, it did stay down even though I was thinking it should come right back up. Then someone else at the table said well at least it wasnt blood sausage...and I said ohh whats that? and someone said its this round sausage looking thing that is really just packed with rice and blood....I may have dropped my spoon i dont know...but I realized that Amelia serves that to me quite often....I wasnt to fond of it, but it was awful...I guess next time its on my plate I will just have to chew faster haha. Im usually not that picky, but I would have to say Spain has def made me step out of my comfort food box....first mushrooms, fish, and green olives..and now pig ears, octopus, and blood sausage.....I beginning to think that my mom should meet me at the door with grilled cheese and tomato soup :).

After eating, we all got back on the bus and headed back to Madrid. The plan was to drop us off downtown so we could have some free time to do what we wanted before we had to be back at the hotel for supper. Javier, Joy, Ish, Michaela, Robert and I decided to go to the Archiology Museum first...it was very interesting and neat to see. It is currently being re-done so the selection they had displayed wasnt huge, but neat non the less. After that we went to the Sophia museum where Picasso´s painting of Gernika/Guernica is displayed. It is soooo large. We couldnt take pictures, so we litereally just stood there for 15 minutes and stared at it. It was really neat especially since we had been to Gernika and knew the history behind it. OHHH I forgot! On the way to the Sophia Museum we stopped by Starbucks to get our very first American coffee....it was glorious. Felt so normal to walk around down town with a coffee in our hands. After the Museum we headed to the metro to head back to the hotel for dinner.


After dinner we went to go get prettied up because tonight was our going out night. A lot of us decided to go to the famous dance club there called Kapital. It is a 7 floor dance club and each floor is a different style. I almost cant even put this into words...I have never experienced such a thing (although my Uncle John said there is one opening up in Omaha but it closes at 10 pm....bahahahahha...dont take that seriously). We left the hotel around 12:45am and headed that way...it is open until 7am or so...so we were right on time lol. We got there around 1:45am and I have never seen so many people in a club...I mean I know its huge, but still....there where people from all over the world...a lot of Americans which for some reason surprised me ....but def people from allll over. Aftering getting a drink some girls and I went to the first floor. It was pretty sweet...it was the ¨main dance floor with a stage in front...sometimes performers would come out on the stage and do different kind of dances...mostly breakdancing....but the floor was shoulder to shoulder with people. We danced down there for a couple hours....ohhhh and the coolest thing about it was about every 3 to 5 minutes a huge burst of dry ice and something else could come out of the ceiling so much that you couldnt see who was right next to you and it was a large cooling device...would cool you right off...so awesome. After being down there for awhile we decided to go back up stairs and find other people. We finally were able to find Joy, Michaela and Ish on the top floor because we had been split up earlier....for Joy and I it was basically a running hug haha....stayed a little bit longer and then decided to get a cab and leave at 530 am. Got back to the hotel, washed my face, brushed my teeth and hit the pillow with the intentions of getting up in 2 hours.

The next day all we had planned was the Prado museum and then home. As you would probably guess most of us were pretty wiped from the night before, but the museum was good to see...lots of paintings with lots of history...pretty neat. Then after a couple hours there we loaded the bus up again and headed back to good ol´Bilbao. Its weird how coming back to a home away from home feels sooo nice.

Well it is now Wednesday...and it was been cold allll week....sleated/snowed on Monday and its supposed to snow again tonight or tomorrow. I am not sure what happened to our 65 degrees, but Im thinkin it should return....reallllly sooon. I have another test tomorrow so I need to continue to prepare for that...classes have been good...I had a midterm last Thursday and I think I did really well on it. Other than that, not much new there.

This weekend will consist of some going out, some Egypt planning, and some homework. Sounds like a winner.

My friend Chris leaves for the Czech Republic on Sunday....so it´s exciting that we will be in the same continent even though we are a couple countries apart....Hope travels and arrival go a little bit better for him than they did for me haha.

Well other than that not much more....

Hope God is in your heart in the preperation for Easter.
Live, laugh, love and enjoy life

Peace out

-Mel