halfway?

So now that midterms are done things have calmed down once again...last Friday we went on a class trip to Escorial and saw the Palace that Felipe II had created...it was HUGE. Gigantic library, church and palace all in one. But it was really beautiful! After that we went to the Valle de los Caidos which was constructed by prisoners during the Spanish Civil War for Franco.

After that we spent the weekend celebrating one of our friend's 21st birthdays here in Madrid. I feel like even though we have been here for two months now, there is still so much in this city left to do and see!

Saturday we found a store called Taste for America...it has food shipped in from the states. I bought peanut butter, Pop-Tarts and a bag of small 100 grand bars. I spent about the equivalent of 24 bucks on all of it. Ridiculous? Absolutely. Worth it? Absolutely.

Then Saturday night I experienced my first Spanish cinema. There is a movie theatre right behind our flat so we walked over to see the movie Celda 211. It was actually a really interesting movie that has won a TON of awards here in Spain. Too bad I didn't understand most of the conversations between the characters...but I understood the general idea of it so I think that's good enough.

This week was just another week of classes...and then last night we actually went to a "zarzuela" with our class which was kind of like a spanish musical...It was called Dona Francisquita and interestingly enough, our program coordinator's grandfather was the writer of this very famous spanish zarzuela so our program coordinator owns the rights to it.

Gretchen's best friend is in town this weekend from home on her spring break so we are just staying in Madrid this weekend...this actually is going to be one of our last full weekends in Madrid because next week we will be in the north of spain/south of france and then we have spring break. So the semester is going by wayyyyyyy to quickly!!