Running around with a camera.

Snapped some pictures when I went running today.

Top: street outside where I live

 

Apartment where i live. 2nd story window

 Park where I went running today. Had to bring my camera to show how nice it is.

 Chipping greens, one mile long track going around the whole park. Watched some soccer games for a bit.

Pacha Ibiza

Tonight was interesting. Fights, dinner, dance, everything.

Dinner was a soup with broth and a nooodles again. Main course was chicken drumsticks (4 pieces) and a sauce with tomatoe pieces and other veggies. Ana said to Gregorio (husband) that I had no problems at all (and i never talk to gregorio) I'm pretty sure that im Ana's favorite. dessert was a peach and whipped cream. Very refreshing as always.

Tonight we went out to to a place called Plaza ibiza to walk around. We ended up meeting some people at a discoteca. Cheap and fun, we got to meet more people from our school and listen to some meringue/ salsa/ American Music.

Except one Irishman who didnt like Americans. This guy was so mad at me for being American. I kept on asking him why, which I now regret, as it just got him more enraged. He was probably drunk and just wanted to make something interesting, (the physical embodiment of the Irishman stereotype). Upon exiting the club, one of his pals rang me a blood nose. I can give details later but the best part was when we were done, we exchanged names and hugs amid our bloody mess! If i could have imagined being in a fight with a drunken irishmen, this is exactly how I would have pictured it. Im sure we would have went for a Guiness pint if it weren't 6AM.

Apart from ruining one of my favorite shirts,  the other guy who got me when i exited the discoteca got what he had due, he got hauled off by the authorities and I was the star of the crowd outside the discoteca. His Irish friends said he was sorry for him. I think I'm really popular now so we will see what happens on Monday on campus. Good thing I got in "daily kitchen brawls" and "Early Morning wake up/ Beat ups" with Ted or who knows what would have happened.

Bring it on Madrid!!!

ANYWAYS, good time,  I just wish I dont have to draw so much attention, But i guess I cant avoid that being a "Ramage." Cant wait to tell my Mom this.

Tomorrow is homework/ Project/ dressing my wounds!

Love everyone,

Nick

P.S.: I am completely fine and laughing about everything.

P.S.S: It wasn't really a bloody mess, and im sure i wasn't the star of the discoteca. Just added that for dramatic effect.

P.S.S.S: I won big time

Tonight's dinner, Bacon burger with fresh tomatoes, lettuce, onions and mayo. Sooooo good. served with Home made fries. Soup was chicken broth and noodles. Dessert: Ana's flan with whipped cream and Strawberry milk.

The other night we had my favorite dinner to date. It was Chicken "drunk with wine" as Ana would say in Spanish. Stuffed inside was what made it so good. Scrambled eggs, apricots, raisins and a nut. I wish I got a picture of that.

Classes ended at 2:30 today so i started to walk around. Walked inside of the Super Mercado "Super Sol". Upon entering, you can almost notice the pungent air before the hanging giant squids and fanged fish.

Salamanca

 

not my picture

Left around 9:30 AM. Bus was late by one hour. Took us about 3 hours to get there including a quick pit stop. Lot of grazing cattle and unused farm land separated by rock and mortar walls. Saw the Sierra de Guadarrama (Mountain range) right outside Madrid on the way out. Within the mountains there was a massive pink cross that was viewable to those driving on the highway. The valley of the Fallen (Valle de los Caídos) is a monument/graveyard from the Spanish civil  war between the military and government. There is also a basilica built within the mountain underneath the cross. 

We stopped at the gated city of Avila for a little bit. The guide said that the city walls are the worlds largest illuminated monument. 

 This was called the Cuatro Postres (four posts) where people would pray before entering the city of Avila.

 This was what entering Salamanca looked like. Its mostly city run by its ancient college but the main attraction is the cathedral.

 West front of the New cathedral (It was built as a part of the old cathedral). The Old cathedral is gothic style (16th cent.) and the New one is Baroque (18th). The outside of the cathedrals are laced with extravagant designs and curvilinear forms from nature., (art nouveou).






When something gets restored like the carving on the right, the artist is allowed to add something that makes it his as well. Mind you this is a centuries old cathedral. There was another with a dragon eating an ice cream cone.






We saw a whole bunch of other stuff. Went to lunch at a really nice place for a 3 course meal for 14 Euro. When we sat down we then noticed that Lil' wayne was on a plasma screen right behind us. 
I got macarorni con Bolonesa and then a plank steak. dessert was a fruit bowl with some sort of syrup on top.  Wine and bread were also served with the meal. walked around a little bit more and then we headed home. 


Got home aound 9ish. Ana made us veggie soup again with bread and apple sauce for dessert. For the main we had a fish that was really good. It was cooked with some sort of mildly flavored something on top that turned brown on top when it cooked. (cheese or maybe an egg)??

To tired to do anything but still walked around Opera for while. Stopped at another Irish pub because thats where all the non Spanish speakers go.


Been wearing the same pair of jeans for the last four days. I think Ana lost some clothes on the clothes line hanging from the apt building. 

Saw Gregorio, Ana's husband, for the second time.He doesnt talk to us and snores constantly. Doesnt seem to like me and dean.

Starting to get cold here again. Trying to find cheap flights for somewhere next week.


Whats going on with the Orange?
Nick

Parque del Retiro Parkour

Had another late night last night (7AM) cause we missed the metro which closes at 1:30am and opens at 6PM. Probably another reason why Madrilenos are called Los Gatos. Went to the biggest discoteca in Madrid. 7 floors with each playing different music(karaoke, salsa, rock etc.).Went to the Parque del Retiro today and whole bunch of other places we walked to. The place had a sundry of different sculptures which would pop up everywhere. Really nice place and its right outside the Prado Museum.  Did a lot of climbing and other probable illegal things to take some pictures. Here are some of them..

                                       

 Professional Photograph. There was a sunset in back

This was the center of the park.

Where the creator of Dots got his idea.

Pigeon on the lions nose

Group of people who decided to get in my picture

3 games of soccer going on at the same time on stone steps outside the Sofia Reina museum.

We went to a corner place for some tapas! Got a very, very mundane ham and cheese sandwhich for 4 euros. Walked around more of madrid again tonight, didnt get lost this time. Dinners are still top notch by Ana. (soups, maincourse, and dessert). Spaniard spaghetti with chunks of bacon and mushrooms, Salmon with lemon grass, seafood paella with monster shrimp and mussels, and tonight was tortilla ( kind of like potatoes and egg omellete.) and delicious mystery animal meat that Dean couldn't translate on a stick.




Still eating voraciously.

Trying to stick to a workout regimen of 40 pushups everytime I go to the bathroom. 

Salamanca tomo!

El Rastro

El Rastro, a huge flea market replete with street performers and stalls. People were selling all sorts of things from car parts, dolls, antiques, to just plain, unwarranted junk. It was really hard to see everything as the narrow streets packed the crowds like sardines. We had to check our wallets every so often because of all the shady characters we were rammed up against. The whole neighborhood smelled like incense intermixed with distinctive Spanish body odors. It takes place every Sunday since "hundreds of years ago" . I took some photos.












These were a couple of the junk sellers. I saw things like door knobs, wheels to grocery carts, phone chargers, rusty cheese graters etc.

This guy was playing that one really popular Beethoven symphony on crystal glasses. The one that everyone can play on piano.

These guys were playing these horns, you hear these guys playing African-like beats throughout one of the rastro plazas here. You can see saliva spilling out from the horns.








Saw a whole bunch of jovial singers like these guys. They were singing something upbeat. The fat lady started pointing at me to donate cause we were  listening for a while. I gave her a quarter on purpose.

I had to make this one large so you could see the expressions on their faces. The trolls would make a spitting-like noise and hit you with one of their sticks and scare people as they walk by.

These guys were amazing and drew the biggest crowd, the one guy in the middle with eyeliner was hilarious.

Tired from walking. Lots of unique smells on me.

Dinner consisted of legume and sausage (churrizo?) soup. The sausage isn't spicy like it usually is back home, but had a mild pepporni taste to it. Next we had a breaded and pan-fried hard boiled egg with tuna stuck inside of it, had a very peculiar taste, but delicious none the less. Dessert was a microwaved granny smith apple (i think). The skin was peeled back to see the intact molded insides which were piping hot. Ana gave us the "Ramage maple syrup" I gave her to use on our apples, very good. We had the syrup for breakfast as well with our tortitas (Pancake).

It's become a daily regimen for me and Dean to return to our rooms and hunch over on our beds and moan about why we continue to gorge ourselves beyond the limits of our stomach capacity. I'm blaming Ana if something happens to her plumbing.

El Skoolio tomorrow.

Nick

Madrid Metropolitan and University area

Started the day with a late breakfast. Dean likes to go to sleep with the shades down so no light whatsoever can come through our window when the sun rises. Corn flakes and fruits like always. Ana was telling me of some other Universities in the area so i went running and explored.

Almost got lost again, I told my self I would go until the sun came down, but its hard to find your way back home when half the streets don't have street names and your running route consists of whichever way you think has the better view. Anyway, found a bunch of soccer games being played on concrete courts, I stopped a little bit to watch. I even saw the ending of an Ultimate Frisbee game.

Since Ive been here I feel like a person could be walking in a tiny Madrid alleyway about two arm lengths across and within a couple steps you could be in a huge plaza right before your eyes. Went through the City university of Madrid, a campus of Salamanca University and Mayor College. They almost all looked the same, except a lot of graffiti going on at the city university of Madrid. (Their entrance-way sculpture was a horseman covered in spray paint.) I'm noticing now that no one wears hats, or baseball caps for that matter, in Madrid. I probably stood out like a sore thumb with my backwards cap on.

The sun came down and I started to have to ask people how to find the main streets. Im getting very confident in my simple Spanish sentences so I never actually felt like I was getting lost, though I probably have a bad accent. Got back before dinner at 9pm tonight.

Dinner was a Spanish dish. Started out with a broth based soup with fish, carrots and potatoes. Didn't get much fish in mine so I cant say it was better than last nights meal. Next course was a chicken piece with melted mozzarella cheese. I noticed that the cheese here is much more tastier, or maybe its fresher. Not sure but it tasted really good. Had some leftover "milk with rice" from last night with cinnamon and a "ladyfinger-like" cookie.

Walked around one of the main streets tonight, Gran Via. I wanted to check out a jazz lounge that was close to the metro stop. It was pretty packed so we just walked around until we found a cheap wine bar. We got some complimentary olives with our orders. Left again and found ourselves back to Puerta del Sol. Noticed that the Pitt-Balt game was on and got to watch the last 8 minutes of it at a place called O'Reillys. ( a ton of Irish pubs here where we noticed a lot of Americans hang out and eat American food.) Would have liked to see the Ravens win. Left for home before the Metro closed at 1:30AM.

Going to El Rastro tomo (Thieves Market), a flea market. Maybe find some cheap souvenirs for everyone. Probably going to get some tapas after and then the Prado Museum to get the Sunday student discount.

Probably get some marvelous photos at the market and Prado. I hope my knowledge of art history serves me right here.

Go 'Cuse