San Sebastián, Spain.

So this was a while coming, but I journeyed out to San Sebastián this weekend with a couple of friends to enjoy some fun in the sun. San Sebastián is a little beach town in the north of Spain, just a little bit further south of France. Just like in Barcelona, San Sebastián has their own language, Basque, that is different from Spanish, but unlike Barcelona, it is completely unrelated because it doesn't share Latin and Greek roots.

Haha, we were too cheap to pay for a hostel (it is actually pretty expensive there!) so we took an overnight bus on Friday, arriving on Saturday morning just in time to catch most Spaniards our age making their way back home from a night of fiestas. Since the town is so much smaller than Madrid, we were able to see most of the important sights in the morning while it was still cloudy and then just hit the beach once it got warm and toasty.

I hope you are all super jealous of this. I had to sit on a bus for 5 1/2 hours and paid an arm and a leg just to get here, haha!

When you don't get a lot of sleep on the overnight bus thanks to some crazy bitches behind you, this is how you do at 7am

Old school-looking vista of the beach town

What would a trip to another Spanish city be without a visit to a church?

JESUS CHRIST! ...Really

Enjoying the calm before the storm. Except there was no storm that day, yay! Can you tell which one is me?

Right before we went to the beach, we stopped at what seemed like a music school,

where it seemed like

everyone and their mother

was taking wedding pictures that day, so it only seemed natural

that I had my own informal wedding photo opp!

Speaking of weddings, we ran into two bachelor parties that night - the French'll cross the border to kiss away single life!

San Sebastián is famous for their tapas - called pintxos en Basque - that they just lay out on the bar and a lot of your tab is based on your honesty and/or the number of toothpicks you collect

So that is the tale of my 36 hour journey to San Sebastián. I thought my bus trip there was a real nightmare, but that was before I got on to go home. Just as I was falling asleep, the bus pulled over to pick up more people, two groups of which decided that it was totally fine to continue to fiesta on the bus. Everything was jolly until one chick started yakking in the back. At least that shut her up for the rest of the trip. By 2:30am, I was jonesing to use the bathroom, but we never made any pit stops like we did when we came. Didn't realize there was a port-a-potty-esque thing on the bus until 4:30am, so I had to use that. Unfortunately, my friend saw me get up but didn't realize I was still on the bus, so she was telling the bus driver not to pull away without me. So there I was, squatting over the dinky plastic when I hear this lady scream, "ESPERA, NOS FALTA LA EXTRANJERA!" Basically, "WAIT, WE'RE MISSING THE FOREIGN CHICK!" It was just dandy hearing this in the stall. Other than that, though, I loved San Sebastián!

I know all of you guys only reached it to the very end because you thought I would give you another glimpse of a topless beach, YOU SICK PERVS. In case you were wondering, though, it was a top-optional beach! Hahaha, psych! Have a great week!

Barcelona, Spain.

This past Thursday was a holiday for Corpus Christi so a girlfriend and I trekked to El Escorial, home of a crazily huge monastery that is also home to a lot of artwork. Like a lot of what I've seen of Spain, it was an overwhelming plethora of sheer architectural genius.

Just arrived
In the courtyard

The view from within the building looking out into the gardens

Paying attention to my audio guide - definitely don't want to miss anything educational about the monastery :)

Later that week, we went out to the east coast of Spain to visit Barcelona. We took a bus ride at midnight on Friday so that we could get there on Saturday morning. Barcelona is in a territory of Spain called Cataluña that actually has its own language called Catalan. I didn't understand a lick of it, but it's pretty easy to read - a little bit of a cross between Spanish and French. Catalans are fiercely proud of their language and are notorious for responding in Catalan even if you speak to them in Spanish. Although as a tourist, I never really got that from them - because you know, clearly, I just look SO Spanish! We were lucky because the two girls I went with's host mom's brother (haha, got all that?) happened to live in Barcelona so he let us crash on the couch, saving us a night's worth of a hostel. Cool beans. He was also nice enough to drive us around and show us some important Barcelona sights.

La Sagrada Familia - a huge, unfinished temple that is still a work in progress and slated to be completed around 2022

Chanel! Lots of high end shopping in Barcelona - haha, like the way I'm dressed next to the models? :)

With a lion in one of the many ports of Barcelona. FIERCE.
Two "living statues" of fairies - donate a little change and you get a free photo op!
The Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña, where we saw the Fuentes de Montjuic, a crazy water show that puts the Bellagio's to shame
At El Parque Güell - lots of architecture designed by Antoni Gaudí, the mastermind behind la Sagrada Familia - the park is kind of like a trippy, adult Alice in Wonderland
How much do Catalans love us? Enough to draw a huge mural about us
A replica of Homer Simpson at the Museum of Chocolate in Barcelona
I didn't know until this weekend that tops are optional at the beach. Like I say about the pools in Vegas - just because you could, doesn't mean you should =/

Well, that's it for now folks! I think I'm starting to get the hang of this whole blogging debauchery. Only 37 more days left in Europe!

Oh. And I guess since I'm from Southern California I'm supposed to give a shout out to the Lakers. For those of you who religiously practice in the Holy Church of the Los Angeles Lakers, you would be warmly welcomed here in Spain, where the country is whole-heartedly unified in the name of Pau Gasol, their Barcelona-hailing, basketball-playing NBA champ.

Don't tell me I didn't try to find a good picture of this guy. It's not my fault the press just seems to hate him and exclusively catches him in his least photogenic moments.

Toledo y Segovia, Spain.

This weekend I was in Madrid where I made a couple of day trips to two other nearby cities, Toledo and Segovia.

Toledo was the former capital of Spain before the monarchy moved the court to Madrid. It has a very long history of Catholicism that resulted in a lot of churches in the small city, which is apparently where we get the phrase, "Holy Toledo!"

Except I never say that. Because it just sounds silly.

Their main cathedral is huge and took 400 years to complete. Can you imagine working on a project your whole life, knowing that you will never see the final product?

Before getting into the actual city

400 years in the making
An arc of swords. Spaniards have this slightly terrifying thing for anything with a blade. It actually kinda freaks me out.
In front of one of Toledo's claims to fame: marzipan =)
You can't go anywhere without seeing one of these!

That same night, after taking a little siesta, a couple of girlfriends and I went out to do what people in Madrid do best - fiestar. We started at an Irish pub that was not Irish at all in any way, shape, or form, and then hopped to a tapas bar later on. When 12:30am rolled around, it was time to move on because that's when the discotecas started to open their doors, and there we stayed until, um...late. Good time to be had.

That's a tinto de verano. Red wine + lemon Fanta. It tastes better than it sounds, HAHA!

The next morning, my friend Jenn and I decided to go to El Rastro, a huge flea market in Madrid where you can buy things relatively cheap - but don't forget you're on the Euro. The first leg consists of newer items like clothing, toys, souvenirs, and such while the back end is more obscure with antiques, trinkets, and some genuine crap. If you look hard enough, you can pretty much find anything there.

The market before it got crazy busy, shoulder to shoulder

See? You can buy remote controls, a hairdryer, a flashlight, AND a pistol all in one stall!

That same night, I went to the last night of a tapas fair that was going on in Madrid. In Spain, it's common to receive tapas - or little appetizers - when you go out. It's the Spanish version of peanuts and such, but there's a lot more variety, they're oftentimes complimentary, and they taste a lot better. Spaniards would pee in their pants if they saw how our happy hours charge for beverages AND vittles.

It's like being back in Vegas in an expo or trade show!

I wrapped up this weekend - no class today thanks to the generous cancellation by my professor - by taking a trip out to Segovia with a classmate. This place is famous for its huge Roman-style aqueduct and cochinillo - roast suckling pig. Again, another city rich in religious history, so the tourism guide was littered with churches and cathedrals. The highlight was Álcazar of Segovia, a gigantic castle that's rumored to have been the model for Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland.

The biggest monalith of an aqueduct I have ever seen in my life. Not that I had ever seen one before today.

The view of the cathedral from la Plaza Mayor
PRETTY! =)
Think Walt really copied this?
What would a castle be without a knight in shining armor? :)

And that pretty much sums up my second weekend in Spain. Only 47 days left! Hope everyone enjoyed the pics because my technophobe self pretty much just gave up an hour and a half of my life for your viewing pleasure.

Madrid, Spain.

My wallet was stolen less than an hour after landing in Madrid.

That was the welcome I got from this city. Even the French treated me better in the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when I was there in transit for four hours, haha!

I was taking the subway from the airport to the hotel and in the mix of exhaustion, awe, and being caught in rush hour on the Metro, I just wasn't paying attention to my bags. Luckily, I caught it almost right after I got to the hotel, so I was able to cancel my credit cards right away without there being any activity.

And I was lucky too! Really, pickpockets here in Spain are just looking for cash, so everything else valuable in my bag was left in tact - iPod, camera, cell phone, and PASSPORT, thank the Lord. Losing my passport would have been a whole different ball game...

On the upside, Madrid is AMAZING! It is so different from anywhere I've ever been, and I actually see a lot of other cities I've been to all here - I see parts of LA, NYC, Boston, Taipei, and Central America all in Madrid. It has old school culture but is still very hip and modern at the same time.

I am taking classes at la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos at the Vicálvaro campus. With my abono mensual - monthly travel pass - I take the subway to and from school. The Metro, other than being pickpocket heaven, is incredibly convenient and there are stops everywhere. I forgot where I heard it from, but Madrid's Metro is among one of the cleanest and most efficient subway systems in the world. Most of the time, the subway comes by every four minutes, and only a little bit later after 11pm. Quite a difference from dirty New York City's and Boston's slow-running T, haha! Even so, I walk EVERYWHERE. As much sunblock as I put on everyday, I can see that I'm noticeably tanner, and I'm not sure I like that! =)

One thing about Spain is that this place runs LATE. What time do I eat dinner? No earlier than 9:30pm. EVER. What time does the subway stop running? 1:30am. And Spaniards in Madrid go out EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Not even Vegas can catch up with this town! At least in Sin City most of the industry slows down on Mondays and Tuesdays to recover. Not Madrid. You can be out any hour of the day, any day of the week. It is insane.

I am living with a host family that consists of a 51 y/o single mother, Pilar, and her 25 y/o daughter, Mónica. There is another daughter, Maria Teresa, but she's married with an adorable 2 month old son named Carlos, so she lives with her husband - but only ten minutes away so she's over pretty much everyday.

Sorry for the lack of photos in this post - more to come later. It took me a while to even get this post up because I've been computer-less for about a week. Spain has a different electric socket so I've been running around Madrid looking for a converter. Or adaptor. Whatever. The thing that changes the shape of the socket.

Oh. And just thought you'd like to know that there are a ton of Chinese people here. Again, this is pretty much like everywhere else I've been. Apparently we just love to leave our home countries and settle down elsewhere. I'll bet you $1 to guess what kind of businesses the Chinese own here.

If you said, "markets," you win. But no $1 for you, haha. The euro is so much better than the dollar that I feel like I'm flushing cash down the toilet everyday when I spend money. Back to the markets. Yep. A lot of them own little convenience stores or dollar stores. Er, I guess I mean euro stores. Haha, so as much of a novelty as I still am here in Europe, at least I know I'm not the only one!