Monday, December 3, 2012

Thanksgiving in Madrid!







Hola! (So that’s the extent of the Spanish that I know)


The Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, school provided us with a Thanksgiving dinner, made by our adorable mensa ladies (mensa is Italian for cafeteria). Besides having mashed potatoes, corn, bread, and turkery, we had fresh cranberry sauce, vino of course, and pumpkin ravioli-which is up there on the list of some of the best things that I have eaten while I’ve been here. It was so cute. The tables were arranged into one big table, and you could tell by the decorations that they were trying to make it feel as warm and homey as possible. 

Wednesday morning we left bright and early for Madrid, Spain. It was crazy that we had just gotten back from Venice and Verona, had one day of class and were already packing up to go on our next adventure! Not much down time. Three weekends of traveling in a row is exhausting! But I’m glad we are cramming a lot in here at the end. There’s so much to do and see, but it will make going home just that much more relaxing. 

After landing in Madrid, we headed on a free walking tour of the city. Caitie and I were planning on meeting up with our friends for lunch after, but without cell phones, we weren’t sure how that was going to happen. As fate would have it, while we were walking on our tour, we ran into Rima and Rhythm. We are always just meant to find each other because we always stumble into each other at the best times. They were on their way to the Palace, so we ditched our tour guide and went with them to see the Royal Palace. We did manage to see a couple places on our tour, and we learned some cool stories about Madrid. We saw Plaza Mayor (which is where markets, bullfights, and public executions during the Spanish Inquisition took place), Puerta del Sol, the longest running restaurant in the world, and the original walls of the city. The Palace was stunning and the second largest palace in Europe after the Louvre Palace. It was a shame that we couldn’t take pictures of the inside of it. 


Wednesday night, we got tapas and sangria for dinner, which are like appetizers- delicious. That night we went out for Rhythm’s 23rd birthday! The nightlife is so much different than in Rome, and it’s safe to say that I don’t think I would have been able to handle it for a whole semester if I had studied there. They don’t eat dinner until after nine, don’t hit the bars until after midnight, and don’t get home until the early hours of the morning. It was nice getting so many free drinks for the weekend though, promoters will chase you down and give you free mojitos if you make an appearance at their bar. 

Roommates at SLU and abroad!

Thursday (Thanksgiving) we slept in. For lunch, I had some turkey...on a subway sandwich. Caitie and I met up with Rima and walked around the city, taking in some more sights and doing a little shopping. We saw this really cool temple that was a gift from the Egyptians to Spain. Thursday night we went to a club that had no cover charge for Americans since it was Thanksgiving (holla!). We had a blast and danced the night away. 

Temple
Friday during the day, Rhythm and Rima and I went to Retiro Park, which is so beautiful! That night we went to a live Flamenco show with a live band and several dancers. I’m so glad we did this, it was such a cool experience, definitely something to see, and something I never expected to see. 
My Gandhi sisters at Retiro Park 
Flamenco Show 

Saturday, Caitie and I said our goodbyes to our SLU Madrid friends and headed on to our next destination: Lisbon, Portugal. Lisbon was such a fail. It rained the entire time (torrential downpour, not sprinkles) we were there (which was under 24 hours), and we were really unprepared for it. We are all for trooping it, but this was impossible to put up with. The locals said it was really unusual to have rain, but what can you do. We did make it to Belem, which has the “world’s best pastries”. We spent the evening in our hostel relaxing and our hostel provided us with authentic Brazilian food with music and dancing, so that was a fun time. Sunday we flew back Rome home. 

Brazilian Dinner 

It was harder than I thought it would be to be away from family on Thanksgiving, but I’m very thankful that I will be home in time for Christmas. Being with Rhythm and Rima helped too. Just so you are warned, I have a heightened sense of Christmas spirit this year; I’m in the go big or go home mentality with being away from America for so long. 

On Tuesday, Caitie and I shadowed some Roman PT’s at a hospital near our campus called Villa Stuart. It was very similar to home, but this was a private hospital, not a public one. About 10% of Italians go to private hospitals, and 90% go to public hospitals. Shadowing at a public hospital would have probably been a lot different, and interesting to see. But Villa Stuart is a FIFA Medical Center. FIFA has one hospital in every country, and this was where Rome’s was located, so there were lots of soccer players getting treatment. We shadowed a PT who was doing rehab with a Russian tennis player named Vitalia. When we got back to school, we googled her, and she has a wikipedia page and was pretty legit- so that was really cool. We are pretty sure that there were some famous AS Roma team soccer boys there too, but we don’t them well enough to recognize them. 

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