fish cake

Hola a todos-

So right now I´m sitting here recovering from the first really terrible meal I´ve had here. On the menu: Leftover mushroom ravioli, and something orange and potent that the housekeeper described to us as "fish cake." Oh, and yogurt. That´s all. The orange fish cake tasted about as bad as it sounds like it would taste. You should have seen the faces we were making! It was hilarious. We were trying to sneak back in the kitchen when the housekeeper wasn´t looking to dump it in the trash. Esperanza couldn't describe to us what it was at first, and so we thought it was pumpkin or yams or something (because of the neon orange color!)... no such luck.

Toledo on Friday was fun, the weather was HOT! Toledo was a lot like Segovia, but bigger- and the views were amazing, as always. We didn´t get to tour the Alcázar (castle) here, but did go into the cathedral and also a synagogue. The cathedral was huge, and beautiful (but crowded full of rude French tourists). I think I may have said this before, but the Spanish feel about the French kind of the same way we feel about Canada... they just kind of sit there and do nothing too important.

Colin went to Barcelona this weekend, so it was girls´ weekend with Ashley, Mavi, and I- even though Ashley and I slept most of Sat. and Sun. morning and Mavi went back to the mountains to work in her garden. We booked a hostel in Sevilla for the weekend over at Audrey´s on Saturday afternoon, and then met her and 2 other students for a jazz concert that night. We almost missed the last metro train home- everyone in the metro station was SPRINTING towards the platform, and I was attempting to run as well, (although in heels it wasn´t working out so well... oh the stories my blisters could tell) but we finally made it home without having to take a taxi! Sunday afternoon Ashley and I went and toured the Real Madrid soccer (fútbol!) stadium, Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. It was HUGE, but probably one of my favorite activities we´ve done so far- we toured the seats, went down near the field, in the trophy museum, and in the visitor locker room. I wish we could go to a game! Breathing the same air as David Beckham- definitely worth ten Euros!

Then, last night, Mavi took us two to a movie, which was relatively terrible, but it was cool to experience Spanish cinema nonetheless. At movie theaters in Madrid, your ticket has an ASSIGNED SEAT! I can´t imagine having assigned movie theater seats at home. The theater itself was also much smaller. On the way to the theater, (we walked to Cuatro Caminos) I SWEAR I saw the man who swiped my wallet- maybe it wasn´t him, I don´t know, but it sure looked like him. This man that I saw was standing in a little alcove on the front side of a building in a cardboard box hanging up clothes. It was weird. I will be very happy to return to Winston-Salem life after being here!

Well, the internet café is crowded and there are angry looking Spanianrd schoolchildren breathing down my neck waiting for a computer, so I will wrap this up and hopefully write again tomorrow or Wednesday.

Erin