Weekend's In Madrid

So for the rest of that weekend and the following weekend were spent in Madrid so I will touch on some of those highlights.

The RANCH

Okay so John and I had been in Madrid for a few weeks now and with our dinners being pretty hit or miss, we really wanted to try and find a good burger somewhere. Sarah and Theresa had told us they had spotted one called "The Ranch". John and I thought we were golden because it sounded pretty American. So we headed over there hoping that some english would be spoken there. Nope. All Spanish. John and I struggled to get our food ordered and we weren't really able to communicate how we wanted our meat cooked... so we ended up with some pretty red burgers. It had bbq sauce so I was able to eat with not many problems. John tried a beer that really wasn't that good. So overall kind of a bust, but the first burger in Madrid had been eaten.

Royal Palace

So after are average meal, I wanted to go explore and see if I could find the Royal Palace that we had talked about in my Art History of Madrid class. The whole place was just WOW. When you enter the palace, you first walk on to this enormous plaza. Felt as big as a football field. Then it had this cool look out that you could see a lot of Madrid from so that was pretty neat as well. Then we went in the palace and it was just extravagance everywhere. Not an inch of floor, wall, or ceiling that was not decked out in decoration and glamour. It was crazy imagining living there. My favorite rooms were probably the dining room and the thrown room. The dining room had this super long table that reminded me of the movie Richie Rich where you would basically need a phone to talk from end to end. The thrown room was just cool thinking about royal Kings and Queens sitting there. Also, fun fact. The main staircase in the palace has extra wide steps. This was so that horses could walk up the palace and deliver the King and his guests to their rooms. Isn't that crazy?

Lookout from the Plaza

One of the view pictures I was allowed to take inside the Palace

Sunset at the park

Life in Madrid is pretty chill so why not spend the late afternoon reading in the park and watch the sunset? That's exactly what I did. I grabbed my book and headed to the park and just kicked back. It was pretty freaking great. And then later Sarah and Theresa joined and we all watched the sunset over Madrid. Pretty freaking sweet. Nothing beats a solid sunset.

Fast Forward to the next weekend

Prado day/Day with Theresa

#selfiewiththeprado

So for our Art History of Madrid Class we had an assignment where we had to go to the Prado museum and pick our favorite Gothic art and write a 2 page paper on it. So Theresa and I made our way to the Prado museum. Theresa had already been there once with Sarah, but it was my first time. I really like the Prado museum. I think it has a really cool range of paintings and art. Also, having taken my class it was fun to see pictures that I actually knew something about. Much better then going and just staring at a bunch of paintings that you know nothing about. Theresa and I picked out our favorite Gothic art pieces and then  we roamed the museum for a bit longer checking out master pieces from all eras. I wanted to stay longer and just enjoy, but we decided to head out. We then made our way to find some food. I felt pretty funny. We sat outside at a pretty classy restaurant in Sol and ordered the classy Sangria. And then we proceeded to order nachos, chicken wings, and potatoes with this spicy sauce haha. Quite the fancy meal for two fancy people. We kept spoiling ourselves by heading to Starbucks afterwards and just chatted for a couple more hours. Before we knew it, it was getting close to dinner time so we decided we should probably head home. It was just a nice relaxed day enjoying art, conversation, and quality time with a special friend.

















Sierra Hiking Club Trip

SLU Madrid has a hiking club that goes on trips every couple of weeks so I thought it would be fun to get to go on a hike. John came a long as well as we headed to Pico de la Miel which is about 40 minutes south of Madrid. My other friend Nicole went on the trip to so I had a good time talking and catching up with her as we scaled up the rock. I have learned here that hikes are more than just walking. They are more rock climbs. This hike had a pretty serious incline and lot of the time felt like we were just climbing up rocks. After a lot of heavy breathing and some aching feet, we finally got to the top for some incredible views and some prime photo ops. There were some sweet rocks that you could climb when you were at the top for an extra sweet view. It was beautiful. That's what life is all about. Being outside. Beautiful views. Amazing friends. Doesn't get much better. The only downside of this trip was that as I was trying to have lunch at the highest point, I lost my pepperoni over the side of the rock :( sad day haha. Other than that tho the trip was absolutely fantastic. Was so wiped out afterwards tho. Definitely got a quality nap after that trip.

So many great views

We made it to the top!

Such an incredible view!

Chicago Bears

So these two weekends were actually really great  for the bears. Were able to pick up two victories. One vs the 49ers and the other vs the Jets. The even better thing about these games was that they were at 2:30 in the morning. Gotta love it. Was not about to miss them though. Bears fan for life baby. #Beardown


International Church of Madrid

So I was talking with my friend Merette about how I was looking for a church to go to and she thought about how she had some family friends in the Madrid area and it turned out that they worked at this church. Crazy small world. So I was like sweet! So I ventured off on my own to find this church. I found it with no problem and everyone there was super nice and great. Finally got some quality worship and got to sing. Singing is one of my favorite parts of church. I got to meet Merette friends and talk with them for a bit and it was super cool to connect like that.


So yeah those were some mid September weekend highlights. Next up is the trip to Malaga!!

Peace

Erik

TOLAYTHO

SOOOO another week in the books and Sarah, Theresa, and I decided to take a trip to Tolaytho (Toldeo). My art history of Madrid teacher pronounces it really cool. The day started with a metro ride to the train station. We had given ourselves plenty of time just in case.

We got to the train station and went towards the ticket machines. We were all ready to go until none of our credit cards were accepted… whoops. Luckily Sarah was thinking on her toes and we headed towards the actual ticket counter and were able to get three seats next to each other on the train we wanted with no problem.

The nice thing about Toledo is that its super close! It was only about a half hour away from Madrid so it was a nice speedy trip.

Now I really had no plans or idea what we were going to do. I was just ready for adventure and ready to wonder and learn all about Toldeo.

I guess when we got there, Sarah and Theresa were ready to have a more planned out day. However, they forgot the magical book which told us all about what to do in Toldeo. So we had a map that the train station gave us and that was it J

Adventure time. So we stared at a really poor map for a while and tried to figure out where to go. We knew the two things that we definitely wanted to do was see the Cathedral and see El Greco’s painting of the Burial of Lord Orgaz. Other then that we did not know what to expect. So we decided to basically just start walking and hope for the best. We soon realized that the train station was basically on the outskirts and that after walking for a little ways we would be in the heart of Toldeo so we had made the right decision.

We first go to this giant arch and bridge that led us in to Toledo. Toledo is pretty sweet because it is has a river that surrounds it and then there are mountains outside of the river. It makes for some pretty cool views and scenery.

So we made our way across the bridge and then found this little tower. There was a small door that was open so my curiosity was being tapped. Theresa had already headed up so I decided I wanted to see what it was all about too. It was a super tight stairway and then I got to a certain spot and there were guys working there speaking Spanish and it definitely didn’t feel like I was supposed to be there, but I continued up. Finally got to the top of this tower and found Theresa. It was pretty sweet and was definitely higher than I had originally thought. We enjoyed the view for a bit and then headed back down. When we got back down we looked at where to go. The options were up, up, or up…. So we went up.

 

Toledo is very hilly and full of cobble stone streets. So we had a fun time walking/hiking are way around Toledo. After checking the maps a few times we finally made our way to the Cathedral.

The Cathedral was unreal. So massive. So Beautiful. So much art. So much decoration. That Golden altarpiece tho? Incredible. I think we spent 2-3 hours just walking around.

Probably the scariest moment was when we went to a tomb room and I started to lean against a lamp and it started to move and I saw myself going face first into a tomb… Yikes that would have been bad haha. Luckily I was able to stop myself.

They also had this room just for all the gold gifts they had collected over the years. Unreal. It was quite the place. Probably could have stayed longer to just admire all the beauty of the place, but my feet were getting tired and my stomach was starting to get rumble.

We found a nice place for a nice lunch. I think the best part about it was just getting to sit after the crazy hills of Toledo and meandering the Cathedral. I went with a delicious pizza and a water (SO DEHYDRATED). Much need refuel. Funny part of this stop was that the bathrooms were weird and not that well labeled so I almost had Sarah convinced to go into the guys bathroom where there were only urinals, but she figured it out at the last second. Dang it. :p

We continued on our journey in search of EL GRECO. I’m kind of an art noob so I didn’t really know what was happening, but when I saw the painting of the burial of Lord Orgaz I was blown away. El Greco was a genius. Super beautiful painting with a depiction of the earthly world and the heavenly world. The lighting of it was super interesting as well. So much dark violet color in contrast with bright colors. Super unique. So we admired that for a while and then were on our way. We had knocked off the two things on our list and still had a good chunk of the day to spend in Toldeo. The tickets we had bought to return to Madrid weren’t until 8 or 9. So we went in search of a park so that we could relax for a while and play some cards. Well we never really found a grassy field to sprawl out in, but we did find this cool look out point that had a beautiful view of the rushing river and the majestic mountains. We then found this wall/bench to sit on and we proceed to play uno for quite sometime. After a good rest we started up on are journey again, basically just wondering taking in Toledo. Toldeo makes and sells a lot of swords. Toledo is a very interesting historical town because it served as the Islam capital when Islam was in control of Spain, but the Catholics reclaimed it in 1085 so you can find influence from both cultures, but a lot with the Catholic knights as you can find swords and statues everywhereeee. I even picked up a sword at one of those stores… knights must have had superb upper body strength. Would have been tough to swing around with accuracy and power.

 

We stopped at a little coffee shop to get a little treat and basically just wait for our train. I got this delicious frozen lemonade drink while Sarah and Theresa got more chocolate and churros. We played yahtzee on Sarah’s phone which has become a go to in times of not knowing what to do/ being too tired to do anything else. So we relaxed there for a bit and enjoyed our treats.

On the way out of town we found a picture of the burial of lord Orgaz where you could put your own face in the pictures. So of course we couldn’t pass that up haha.

Overall, very tiresome and awesome trip to Toledo with two awesome friends.

Some other highlights of the week was the Mass of the Holy Spirit on Thursday. Really great service and nice start to the school year. President Pastello of SLU was even there so that was pretty cool. Of course he reached out his hand to Sarah to introduce himself to her…. Only Sarah Nash. So awesome.

More basketball was played in the evenings.

More Sangria. More cards.

Thoughts about the MCAT and scheduling classes crept into my mind

Classes going well.

Figuring out a place for service while here in Madrid.

And yeah basically just enjoying life J

Possibly the Weirdest eating experience of my life

Weekend. It was finally here. The four day weeks here are pretty snazzy. Really makes it seem like the week flies by. Friday, John and I slept in big time. We were still having a problem with the jet lag, so we were falling asleep pretty late most nights. I’m pretty sure that first week I struggled to fall asleep before 4am. So Friday was definitely a relief to sleep in past noon, although I don’t know if that really helped the jet lag… Anyway we woke up with the intention to go pay basketball with SLU Madrid. The school has intramural basketball on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays and since we both have class during the times of Tuesday and Thursday, we really wanted to go Friday.

So we strolled over to SLU probably around 1:30 and got there around 2pm. We got there and there were a few guys hanging out so we chatted for a bit and then headed over to the gym.  The gym was a little way away so that meant Erik got to go on his first metro ride woohooo!!!!! After a small struggle of figuring out how to work the ticket machine, I was able to make it in. Everyone who went abroad before always raved about the metro system being fantastic and now I know why. It really is quite great. Very clean. Very organized. Very timely. Big fan of the Metro. Feel like a seasoned pro now haha. Anyway, we went a whopping one stop over and got off to head to the gym.

It was a pretty sweet deal. Had a whole gym to ourselves to play basketball. What more could you want?!? For those that don’t know, my ankle has been giving me issues ever since Easter time. I’ve been in and out of a walking boot, I have gone to physical therapy, had X-rays, had an MRI, and I have seen my podiatrist so may times. I have gone from thinking I was okay, to thinking I have a torn tendon, to who knows what. Before I left though, the doctor said that I had tendonitis in my ankle and that nothing was torn. Basically meaning, your ankle is going to hurt and swell up if you work it to hard. Great… So he gave me a brace and basically said good luck.

But I was in Madrid. I had my brace. I wanted to play basketball. And that I did. Three great hours worth. We started with three on three and then the guy who coordinates intramurals, Cesar, who is the man just so you know, had some friends that we got to play full court 5 on 5. It was a blast. Had so much fun. Was so exhausted and tired though. That was the most physical activity I had done since mid Spring basically. Ridiculous. Felt good to be running around again.

One sweaty metro ride and one amazing shower later, we were back at our place resting happy in our beds.

Soon after the ladies called saying to come meet them for dinner. So  we got ready and headed out towards sol to go meet them.

WOW. Sol was freaking hopping. So many freaking people and things going on. Mickey Mouse was even there. We met up with them and started walking.

My dreams came true and I got to see the “el oso y el Madroño” or the bear and the strawberry tree. It is the symbol of Madrid! SO many bear connections. LETS GO!!

Of course I had to get a picture. 

We weaved are way through the streets of sol. I was super turned around, so thank goodness for friends with phones that know directions.

Now here begins the infamous tail of this restaurant. Sarah and Theresa had spent the day in sol walking around and had spotted a restaurant with very cheap sangria so we attempted to find this restaurant again. And oh boy did we…

 

This place was called Taberna Pompeyana. I don’t think my blog post will do it justice. I think the best way I can describe it was a Greek, satanic, sex dungeon, death filled. torture chamber. There was graphic pictures of people participating in sexual activities. There was torture devices hanging in on the ceiling. The further into the back of the restaurant you looked, the darker and darker it got until you couldn’t see. Felt like a black hole. And sitting next to us was a lovely progression of pictures of a man growing older losing his hair through the years while also losing the function of his male genitalia… yup that happened.

And we stayed throughout the whole dinner haha. I think the whole place freaked everybody out and people were ready to get out of there. I found certain humor to the whole situation. The fact Theresa and Sarah completely missed all the weirdness and eeriness of the place the first time around and were solely focused on the sangria price I find hysterical. And plus when was I ever going to be in such a weird restaurant ever again. I was probably laughing the whole dinner.

Sangria was SUPER good. This was my first actual sangria so that was exciting. It was my first time eating out in Madrid so I was a little hesitant to order anything too exotic in fear of an upset stomach so I played safe and got a barbacoa pizza with jalapenos on it. SUPER YUMMY.

Another funny order was when Theresa was trying to order a salad with tomatos on it… or so she thought. The waiter came back with a plate of 3-4 tomatoes cut into wedges… hahaha no lettuce. Just tomato.

We finally had enough and went to go redeem ourselves by getting some of the coveted churros and chocolate. We found the most authentic spot called Chocolateria. DANGGGGGGGG SOOOOOO GOOODDDDD. I’m not a huge desert guy, but wow that was good. Just hot melted chocolate in a cup. Life doesn’t get much better.

Solid finish to a solid day.

Saturday brought more awesomeness. John and I had signed up for one of the day trips that SLU offers early on in the year. The trip was to a Monasterio de Piedra and also involved some hiking around water falls. It sounded awesome. I was excited. We woke up early and made our way to SLU to go meet the bus. We had a long two and a half hour bus ride which was spent sleeping by some. I spent most of my time staring out the window at the landscape of Spain, still not truly believing I was really here.

We finally arrived at this really cool place. The last part of the drive was pretty sweet. We kind of wound are way up this mountain and looked out at giant lakes and small towns. Really unique looking landscape.

John and I were excited to go hiking and check this place out. We were eager to just get going and head out on our own. What we didn’t realize was that our guide was going to give a guided tour of the Monastery first and wouldn’t give us our tickets to the rest of the park until he was finished. This made some people restless and impatient, but I was just happy to be there. I though the monastery was pretty sweet. The people there basically had this whole underground wine production going on that was really cool to hear about and just the scale of the whole building was crazy to take in.

But yeah, I definitely think the nature aspect of the hike was the highlight of the trip for me. WATERFALLS. So many beautiful waterfalls. Probably the largest I have ever seen with my own eyes. We even got to take our shoes off and go play around in one. Not sure if we were supposed to do that… but we did anyway J

The whole hike was just beautiful. Lush greens and rushing water. Felt like heaven. I just kept saying wow to myself over and over again. Another cool part was this giant cave where the opening was the water fall and when you walked through it opened up into this deep cave. That was so cool. Got to play in some caves. No fear just walked right in. One with nature. And then the finish of the hike we walked around this large body of water and rock. Very pretty as well. Quite the experience. I was wiped tho. As soon as I got home I hit the bed and was out.

Next up Sunday.

I headed out for church with Sarah and Theresa. We checked out this Spanish church and the whole mass was in Spanish… I was sort of lost, but definitely felt God’s presence which is the whole point of going to church. Taking time out of your day to just be solely with God. We then grabbed our Bible and headed to the park so that we could read the readings in English. We also grabbed some pastries from a local baker. Yummy Croissant. Then we decided to go check out this market. I was able to find a cool Madrid shirt and I think Sarah found some cool shades. We then walked over to the park that Sarah and Theresa had found the day before to check out this amazing view of Madrid and temple that given to Spain by the Egyptians as a gift. I then spent the rest of the day taking it easy working on some homework until it was time for the BEARS GAME.

First game of the season baby. I was so excited. The first drive looked amazing. Cutler was on fire. But then the defense also allowed a touchdown right away so I was quickly brought back down to reality. The rest of the game was rough with lots of stupid mistakes and the sad part was the bears found a way to lose to the bills at home. Completely inexcusable. HUGE let down. Sad Bear. But that was it.

First weekend in the books.

Oh Yeah... We are Here for School Too

First Week of School!!!

Syllabus week is never that glamorous so I will just give my first reactions of my classes.

Art history of Madrid: Yeah, I know. Not your typical Erik Hoaglund kind of class. My art skills are quite lame and primitive, but I needed an art elective and I thought a history class would be interesting and would save me the embarrassment of having to draw. All jokes aside, I really enjoy this class and it might be the class that I am most excited about going to every week. The teacher is really nice and passionate about artwork and the history of Spain in general. I have also found it to be super interesting in getting to learn about Spain's history and how the power in Spain has transferred quite often. First you had the Romans, and then the fall of the Roman empire led to Visigoths claiming their stake in Spain. Then you had the Arabs who were on their mission to bring and spread Islam, and then finally the Christians retook all of Spain after 8 centuries. Pretty interesting stuff in my opinion. Also, I had to laugh on the first day because she showed an example of a famous abstract painting by Picasso and called me out and asked the stereotypical art question. "What do you think of this picture?" All I could muster was "interesting" because the painting was all over the place as only Picasso could. So my art knowledge was already being put to the test. Theresa is also in this class which is fantastic cherry on top of an already sweet class.

Cross Cultural Psych: Probably the class that I have the least amount of strong emotions towards. I really love Pscyh, so I really find any psych class to be interesting just in its own right. The teacher is really nice, but her presentations lack a certain pizzazz which tends to make class seem a tad long. John is also in this class which is a huge plus. Always nice to have friends in classes.But yeah it should be a good class and should definitely learn a lot, but nothing super interesting or exciting to report as of yet.


Introduction to Global Health: This class though. Wow this class has already been a crazy adventure. First of all, after switching my major to public health last winter, this was officially my first class in public health ever. So I was ready to get rolling. Ready for anything. Just wanted to get my public health life started! Well I walk into class and what do I see… about 10 girls. Yup. Erik and the ladies as per usual in my life. I have just grown to expect that I will most likely be surrounded by women regardless of whatever I'm doing. Just a truth of life. Haha no complaints. Anyway, I sat down next to a girl named Melissa and got chatting with her for a bit before class and I learned that she was from Uganda. World is a pretty small place. Crazy. Well the teacher finally arrived and we went through introductions and everyone was surprised when they heard the deep voice say "here". Yup thats me. The dude. haha As the teacher got talking about the class, I soon realized this was gonna be a super interesting class, but also super intense. The teacher was really into transformative learning and having us lead discussions for the whole class and figuring out the readings on our own. All about being able to adapt and think on your toes in this ever changing. I thought this was an Intro class? Sure didn't feel like. We were gonna be jumping in to the deep end. No floaties. I was a little nervous, but hey always up for a challenge. BUT, all that being said, thats not even the crazy part. I came back the second time for class, and half the class was gone!!! What?!?!? Never have I experienced that. Now there was only 5 people left including me. The whole dynamic of the class changed. I was so surprised. Guess everyone else got scared off. Their loss. I'm still super pumped for this class and eager to learn!


World History: I have had such a mixed bag with my history experience. I have had the best of the best experiences with APUSH and Panderson and then have had history 111 at SLU which was just dull and dry lectures. Definitely interesting, don't get me wrong, just not presented in the most exciting way. So I was going in hoping for the first experience and I was not disappointed. While he's no PAnderson, he is definitely much closer to him on the spectrum of history teachers. He is this crazy guy named Kevin from Scotland and find him to be a lot of fun. He came in and gave us this quirky questionnaire that asked questions like, if you could go meet anyone in history, what would you ask him? What would you want written on your gravestone? Just weird, fun stuff like that. To top it all off he called me Erik the Viking the first time he called on me. He understands the k. Good man. So that made me happy too. Also, Theresa was able to transfer into this class too so I get to enjoy his awesomeness with her. Woohoo!!!




Last but not least, Public Health and Social Justice is my last class. This class is unique because it only meets one time a week, but… unfortunately that one meeting is three hours long which can get to be a bit much. But this was my second public health class so I was again bringing a positive mindset. Class is only eight people, but I have Micah friends as well as friends from my global health class so I was just fine. The teacher is a bit strange and has a pretty good accent so he isn't always the easiest to understand, but he seems to be fun enough. The format of the class is that he gives a pretty lengthy reading for the week and then we come in on Thursday and give student led presentations on the readings and topic of the week. The first class was pretty bizarre because it took us what seemed like an hour to figure out how to divide 12 weeks into 8 students. So that was pretty ridiculous so the teacher dynamic and the fact that it is a thursday evening class should make for some fun times. All I know is that the first reading was incredible. It was all about community and how true community is achieved. I thought it was incredible. More readings like that please.

So yeah thats the classes. Not too shabby. And no Orgo in sight. Thank goodness.


I'll finish this post with random thoughts and happening of the first week in Madrid.

I craved lemonade. I don't know why. I don't even drink that much lemonade when I'm home. Just nothing sounded better than a cold refreshing lemonade.

The sweat life was real. Temperatures were touching triple digits and I could barely walk outside without starting to perspire.

I have grown to appreciate water here more than I ever have in my life before. I get so dehydrated here so fast. One of my first purchases here was a water bottle at the super cool 7 floor shopping mall close to our house where the whole 7th floor is sports gear. Such a valuable purchase.

Lots of bball was played. John and I played basically every night of the first week. That court close to our home is super sweet. We even got to play with locals a few nights and got to talk with them afterwards so that was fun and they didn't tease us too much about our lack of Spanish.

Dinner with the host family has been pretty hit or miss. First couple nights were great. Meat, rice, potatoes. But then one night of the week, we just got a giant bowl of beans in broth… uhhhh that was a rough dinner lol

Had my first sips of Sangria. Pretty tasty

SO MUCH BREAD. Bread everywhere. It is fantastic.

My lunch has consisted of getting a loaf of bread, pack of gouda cheese, some pepporoni, apple, and a powered from the local supermarket named super sol. It is simple, cheap, and delicious.

And lastly Thursday night we ventured out in search of gelato with our friends Amanda and Gretchen for a great end of the school week treat. I finally got my lemon fix when I got my lemon gelato. YUMMMMMMM soooo gooddddddd

Found a New Balance store in honor of my my Dad and I's love of new balance

Victory Arch in Moncloa near my house. Built in honor of the Spanish Civil War. Learned about it in my art history class!! SO COOL

Orientation Day

Monday Morning.

Can't believe it's already that time of the year for school again.

Isn't crazy enough that we are abroad?!? Do we really have to do this school thing?

Ok so it wasn't that bad. It was just orientation day. And actually I was really looking forward to the school year. Spring semester had really left a bad taste in my mouth. Orgo and Bio nearly drove me insane. Abnormal psych quickly became a joke of a class, and stats and social psych were okay just not the most exciting of classes. So yeah I was really looking forward to my new schedule. Plus physics this summer went really well so I had gained back some of my student mojo. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Orientation day.

So getting around Madrid, a city I did not know whatsoever was going to be a challenge. I had my phone data turned off for the semester so when usually I would just whip out my handy dandy notebook, just kidding iPhone (blue's clues reference) to find directions, I could no longer do so. The night before I had made sure to take a picture of the directions so that we would have a fighting chance of finding the school for the first time. So John and I embark on the endeavor of finding the school for the first time. We start walking in the right direction and then make the first turn with no problem, but then we start walking and find ourselves at an intersection with a lot of different options of where to go and I can't find the road that is on my directions so it was definitely an "well shoot" moment. Two American guys with no clue where to go. Luckily John still had access to his map on his phone and got us going in what we hoped was the right direction. After a few turns and small roads I was very turned around, but luckily we found groups of students being led by people in the famous SLU blue polos so we felt like we were in business. We tagged a long for the last leg of journey and finally saw some friendly faces in Theresa, Sarah, and Steph. We had made it to school haha. We grabbed a sticker that told us what room we were in, mingled for a little bit outside, and then in we went.

For those that don't know, SLU Madrid is a fairly small campus that consists of just three buildings named Padre Arrupe Hall, Padre Rubio Hall, and San Ignacio Hall. For the orientation we were going to be in Padre Rubio Hall which I consider to be the main building, not sure if it actually is, but it's in the middle of the three, has most of the classrooms, and houses student life.

So I was expecting orientation to be really informative because I had no clue what was going on. I had just gotten off a plane in a completely different country just the day before andI didn't really feel ready for anything. I also figured since it's SLU, everything is going to be organized and make sense….

Well not really, orientation wasn't that great or helpful. Went over a lot of basic stuff like logging into your account and how to work blackboard, the SLU online homework site, which being a billiken. I knew all about. It was definitely more towards students that did not attend SLU, but it was ok. I remained patient and got through it.

The weirdest part though was that they said there was going to be a snack, so I was thinking yes finally a chance for some water or lemonade… but no. all they did was dump out a bunch of chocolate bars. Chocolate was the last thing I wanted. One thing about Madrid at least for me, is that I get dehydrated so fast. I don't know what it is. Either the dry air or the fact I'm walking everywhere, but I am always wanting water it seems. And not knowing anything like I said, I did not pack a water bottle among the 80 lbs of luggage that I probably brought with me. So no water for Erik or lemonade which is something I soon started to crave here.

So with the presentation being over, that was basically the last organized orientation thing I took part in… yep thats all folks. The nice thing about the rubio hall is there is this awesome patio in the back that is very good for chatting, relaxing, chilling, reading. It is very pleasant. So everyone ended up milling around there afterwards not really knowing what to do. They did have a table set up for grabbing your Id and health insurance card so I did that and then just mingled, meeting new people, talking with familiar faces from SLU.

Strange thing happened. Me and John had just met this girl and mentioned that we liked basketball and then out of no where this girl says, yeah I know someone that knows somebody on the US team….
We were both like who?!?! and she didn't know which was lame, but the even stranger part was that she offered us free tickets to go to the championship game in Madrid… What ?!?!?!? We had just met this person. It was nuts either she was being ridiculously nice or had no idea what she was offering. But in never panned out… dang would have been sweet.

We got some lunch in the cafeteria and then decided to go to this public health and physical therapy meeting that was on the schedule to see what they had to say. It was kind of sill though because they had nothing prepared and were just staring at us to see if we had any questions. Nobody did. But they did talk about this unique hands on/shadow experience that I believe John and Theresa are going to take advantage of so it wasn't a complete wash.

We (John, Theresa, Sarah and I) then broke off from the rest of the group we had been walking with so that we could go in search of school supplies. We found this place near SLU called Carlins which had a ton of stuff to choose from. SO that was a clutch find.

After that I believe we headed home and rested for a bit as we waited for dinner. And then the night was finished with another basketball session. First full day of Madrid in the books,

Next up SCHOOL!

Here are some shots of my new school!!!

Good Morning!… no I think you mean Good Evening...

Sooooooo yeah…..


We passed out.

After a crazy day of traveling and not sleeping on the plane and I think being up for about 23 straight hours if I did the math right, the crash was definitely well needed and deserved.

I think we ended up sleeping for about 7 hours. So much for not having jet leg. It was now 6 pm and we were staring at each other, trying to come up with the courage to go chat with the family that we just met briefly before falling asleep. Team effort we both head out to the family room and see whats up. We meet the younger brother Guiellermo and his friend who was over watching soccer, or futbol. Gotta call it the right thing or people will get confused. We chatted about sports for a bit and then they headed out to meet with some other friends. So John and I were just chilling by ourselves in this new house. No one else home No sign of the Mom. She told us before we fell asleep that dinner would be at "ocho". It was about siete now so we decided to go for a walk and see if we could find the park that we knew was really close to us.

However, after shutting the door behind us, we realized we had no way of getting back into the house…. nor did we know at the time how to get out of the gate…

So we were stuck walking in circles for 5-10 minutes, contemplating whether or not to jump the gate, but luckily someone finally came so we could get out.

Boom. There we were. First time walking the streets of Madrid. Pretty crazy feeling. We walk down a little bit and see this huge park. It looked very intriguing . However with dinner being at ocho, we decided we didn't have enough time to explore the park and had to head back home. We luckily saw a guy going through the gate so we were able to get by without a key once again. However, when we rang the bell for our place, no one was home. So we sat on the step for a while until we saw our host Mom come home. She kind of looked at us strangely and then realized we didn't have keys. When we got inside we were able to get our keys so we weren't trapped inside anymore.  YAY FOR KEYS!!!
She told us dinner would be ready in five minutes…. so a half hour later we started eating lol. Having a hard time thinking back to what the meal was. Pretty sure it was a meat with rice on the side. It was really delicious I remember that! These two girls kept hassling us when we were going to be free and said they were really really excited to see us. Imagine that :) It was SARAH and THERESA!!!! So finally we were done with dinner and were going to go see them. They are literally right around the corner from us. How perfect is that?!?! sweet deal. So we finally met up with them at the corner. There was a lot of skipping, some giggles of excitement, and of course huge BEAR hugs all around. WOW that was such a happy moment. So great. Four great people with one great place. Pretty incredible.

We headed back towards the park that John and I scoped out a little earlier in the night and decided just to lay down in the grass for a while and just look up at the stars. We got to hear about some of the Germany adventures Theresa and Sarah had. It was crazy to hear those stories and think about how I was soon going to have my own!! After laying down for a while, we went deeper into the park and found a ball court! WOO HOOO!!! So John decided to run back and grabbed the ball and we played a little two on two action.Theresa and I vs John and Sarah. It was super late, but we still had a great time playing. Sarah and John took round 1. Bummer. haha still fun. And then after that we headed back, said goodnight, and went back to our places. Our host mom had a rule of no showers past 11 since the bathroom is right next to her room. So we had to air dry that night and look forward to morning showers. It was a very hot night. No air conditioning here so it was a true battle. Even with the window open, tough to stay cool here. So after a lot of squirming and tossing I was finally able to fall asleep.

ORIENTATION TOMORROW!!!

The day that just kept on going

Game Day.

Well ok, more like Travel Day.

Day starts with Dad and Casey (the dog) barging into my room around 7 am. All happy and excited. They always get up early and go for walks together. Nothing new with today. I have heard that people that get up and start their day earlier are generally happier people. My Dad and Casey would definitely prove that to be true.

So I finally roll out of be around 7:15am and stand up, look in the mirror and say "Well, this is it."
I start going through my morning routine of brushing my teeth, taking a shower, and start thinking this is the last time I'm going to be doing this here for a long time. I saved packing up my backpack for the morning of, but I at least had everything I wanted to bring somewhat in once place. As I start putting things in my backpack I start thinking, dang my backpack is starting to get heavy. Note that I was shooting for a relatively light/empty backpack so that if the opportunity to buy fun things abroad were to happen, I would have a lot of free space. But somehow my backpack filled up so I will have to get creative packing up because I'm bound to at least find a few cool things while abroad.

Backpack is ready to go which therefore signifies that Erik is indeed ready to go. It's a little after 8 and the plan was to leave at 8:15am so I am right on time. I do the nostalgic closing of my bedroom door and saying goodbye to my room that I will not see for four months and head down stairs. My parents are both ready to go. Well physically. Emotionally probably not.

Do a couple last second checks. Make sure I have the ever important passport and into the car I go. Mom, Dad, Erik, and Casey on the way to the Airport. I don't really think I had any noteworthy thoughts or feelings on the drive. Just tried to soak in that last drive with the rents. Enjoying petting Casey for the last time in a while. Thinking about how crazy it was that I was going to Madrid. Thinking how crazy it was that my summer was over and that the day to leave was finally here. My parents were making sure that I was going to contact them as soon as possible. No tears from my Mom though on the ride there. Proud of you Mom.

O'hare airport. Oh baby what a place. We pull up to the departure gate and the car stops. Giant exhale from me and I open my door to get out. One last, huge hug for both my parents and smile and I head out on my way. I do the classic look back as I walk through the doors to go into the airport. Wave one more time and off I go.

So not to brag or anything, but I feel like I am a pretty beast traveler. Whenever I'm at the airport with my family, we always make it look like a breeze never any problems so I was feeling pretty confident strolling up to the sign in/check bag station. So I go to put in my reservation number and quickly get an error message saying my itinerary does not match my ticket. I laugh at myself and think wow not even a minute alone and I already have a problem haha.  However, it really was nothing. I got help pretty quick and the lady said that my return flight had changed so thats what caused the error. I said ok and continued on.

Security had a few more bumps. A lady started talking to me about my boot when I was trying to get my stuff ready to go through security and I got distracted and forgot to take out my computer and plastic bag full of liquids so my bag had to get searched. Whoops. Oh well not to big of a deal, but I think I lost a few points on my beast traveler meter.

SO I was in. My first order of business was to find a gift for my host mom. I was going to make a picture frame and decorate it with things that I like, but I unfortunately ran out of time and had to create a nice gift from the airport. I think I managed fairly well with some classic Garret's popcorn and a nice postcard of Chicago with Buckingham Fountain and I wrote a nice note as well.

So la la la I make my way to the gate. Eat a breakfast of champions that consisted of a pepperoni pizza and a Sprite… ehh not so good, but it sounded good at the time haha.

I make my way onto this tiny plane. The smallest one I have been in a while. Luckily I got this super great guy that sat next to me so I got to make a friend. His name was Amir and he is from England. So that was pretty sweet. We got talking a little bit and he asked if I could help explain American football and baseball. YESSSSSS!!! Spent pretty much the whole flight, granted it was only an hour and half to DC, diagramming football and baseball with airplane napkins and cups. It was quite perfect :) He even taught me about cricket. Makes a bunch more sense now! We landed in DC. We both looked out the window in search of the White House. No luck :( We wished each other well as we both moved on with our adventures and off he went. When we got off the plane, we exited onto the ground, something I have never done before so that was exciting.

I made my way into the DC airport, now knowing I had 4 hours to chill, waiting for my plane to Madrid. No worries tho. I found a Wendy's at the airport (score!) and had a nice lunch. I then talked to my parents for a bit, called my bank letting them know I was leaving for a while so that my credit card would work over here, and listened to a lot of the fray :) so great. Magically all that time passed and it was getting to close to boarding…

I SEE JOHN!!!!

Finally I got to chance to say hello to somebody instead of goodbye. Such a great feeling to see him and know that we were going on this adventure together. Last second bathroom break, a little food for John, a little bit of a delay to fix some oxygen tanks and we were off to Madrid!!!!! HOLY COW!!!!!!


The plane was a 757 and I got the middle seat… #roughlife. But not really. It ended up being fine. We sat down and another husky gentlemen such as John and I sat down beside of us. I would put a lot of money on our row having the most total mass haha. But besides being elbow to elbow and everyone in front of us reclining… come on now, we were seriously pampered on the plane. Couldn't believe it. We got to watch multiple movies of our own choosing. We got got a free dinner and a free snack towards the end of the flight and the drink cart came by at least five times. I couldn't believe it. I gotta do this international flying more often haha. So all in all the flight was really smooth. Didn't sleep, but it went by pretty fast. Well as fast as a 8 hour flight could go.

Before we know it, we are landing in Madrid. WOWOWOWOWOWOW. We were here. I think we spent a good portion of the walk to the baggage claim laughing about how crazy it was and joking about the time deference and how it was morning. Got our passports checked with no problem even though John thinks the security guys were making fun of him. haha who knows. We picked up our bags and then set off to find terminal 4. We started following signs and then ended up outside and realized there were no more signs… thankfully we asked someone and they pointed us upstairs. We then realize that terminal 4 isn't even part of the building and that we have to take a bus all the way over to T4. So we do and hit the roads of Madrid for the first time and finally make our way to T4. We spot the SLU madrid guys and they sign us in and fetch us a cab. Next thing we are in a cab going to our house. So crazy. I still think the cab driver was trying to cook us in the backseat. SO FREAKING HOT. We curve and wind around a bunch of city and finally the cab driver says this is it. We both stare at the building and have no idea how we knew it was the right one.

I somehow manage to press the right button for the apartment. Everyone lives in apartments here. No houses. Interesting difference. We get through the first gate and then we hear this mysterious male voice say "press it again". So we do and we are finally into the building and I knew we were on the right on the bottom floor.  The door was open so we walked in, praying it was the right house.

We receive a very warm greeting from Pedro, one of our hosts Mom's sons and then we we meet our Mom Isabel and exchange hugs and kisses. We somehow manage to fit our bodies and all our stuff down the tiny hallway to our room which we are sharing for the semester. After just sitting down for a second and taking a breath we are quickly called into the kitchen and shown are breakfast options. John and I then sit down to have some cereal, which was quite delicious. After finishing up, we get called back to our room and our shown where we should put everything by Isabel. So we get unpacked, get our clothes hung up, get are desk organized and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz