Final weeks of ILP: Recap

Alright, so it looks like the last time I wrote was 2 weeks before the end of the intensive language program. Well those 2 weeks were mostly eventful, minus the grueling and painful classes every day. But here’s a brief entry about everything eventful that I can remember:

(+) 2 tapas: Mabi turns 20!
On the eve of Mabi’s 20th birthday we all went out to a bar and then a discoteca where we all enjoyed ourselves and danced the night away!

(+) 5 tapas: La Noche en Blanco
La Noche en Blanco is part of the European White Nights celebrating contemporary art from 9pm until 7am the next morning! In summary, it basically consisted of hundreds of different kinds of art, all on display for free (including museum tours), and tons of people who flooded the streets of Madrid. You can all read about it here:

http://lanocheenblanco.esmadrid.com/lanocheenblanco/en/lanocheenblanco

I was very lucky and got to see some amazing things. The first place I went was to the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, where Real Madrid CF plays. They had opened their doors for a free tour of the stadium, and hundreds, maybe thousands of people showed up to get a free glimpse.

Sarah G. and me on the field!!

Sarah, Blake, and me just relaxing on the bench :)

Right next to the stadium was a performance of vertical theater. After our tour of the stadium, we went to watch these actors perform a show on the side of what looked like stacked containers (the kind carried on cargo ships) instead of performing on the side of a building. They were all strapped into harnesses and performing and dancing horizontal to the ground!! As you can imagine, it was pretty awesome.
After watching the vertical performance for a few minutes we left to hunt down our next art piece. We showed up at the Palacio Real to find out that there was a line for a tour of the palace kitchens. We immediately jumped in line, only to wait for another hour to get inside, but it was worth it. The kitchens were HUGE and Sarah said it felt like being in the movie Ratatouille. The only bad part of the tour is that we were hungry and there was lots of real food out, but we weren’t allowed to touch any of it because it was on display.
The GIANT stove top in one of the kitchens.

When we walked out of the palace we ended up in front of a giant art installation. Here, Lancome had sponsored this art piece that was basically a giant ruby squirting perfume every few minutes. We jumped over the velvet ropes to score this awesome picture! Rachel, me, and Sarah standing in front of the ruby, spraying its poison into the wind.

Once we had successfully taken our picture, Sarah and I took about a 15-min walk to this enormous light installation I really wanted to see. The walk was definitely worth it. It was the giant field covered in thousands of spheres of light. When we got there they were all different colors, then all of a sudden they went off and we were scared that the light show was over. But then they went back on, but this time all in the same color, and they started changing colors together all through the colors of the rainbow. It was amazing, like watching a real-life screen-saver.

We finally ended our night by meeting up with some other girls for some chocolate and churros at 4am. We went to this place called San Gines which is supposedly very famous for their chocolate con churros. We actually had to wait in line, and there was a bouncer! Luckily he thought we were cute (:P) and put us at a table behind the velvet ropes instead of making us stand like some of the other patrons!! It would have been a great way to end La Noche en Blanco.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end… Apparently taxis in Sol (downtown) don’t like to take fares that are going outside of the immediate neighborhood. We literally tried to get a taxi for 30 minutes and ended up walking all the way from Sol back to our colegio mayor, which took about 1 hour. Not fun. As soon as I got to my room, I threw my shoes off and layed down to think about all the amazing stuff I was able to see, before I promptly passed out. La Noche en Blanco, or rather the European White Nights, is probably one of the coolest and greatest events EVER!!

(+) 2 tapas: Mexican Independence Day!
September 15th a huge group of us went out in search of a Mexican restaurant to celebrate Mexican Independence Day (apparently you’re supposed to party and celebrate it at midnight – aka 12:00am September 16th). We ended up eating amazing food. I shared a rockin’ platter of nachos with two other girls, as well as a dish of enchiladas con mole. Both of these things were amazing, and most of us Californians had been craving our much-missed Mexican food. Although Mexican food here is super expensive, this stuff was totally worth it.

(+) 1 tapa: End of ILP!
Friday, September 19th was the day of our finals, aka the day of FREEDOM. I am soooo thrilled to be done with that course.

The very next day I moved all my things into my flat. My room is decent sized, with a bed, desk, armoir, nightstand, and interior window. My bed has slats for the mattress that are too big for the bed, so I always run into them and get bruises. Oh well, my apartment is huge (but old and falling apart), and I share it with 3 Spanish guys (2 from Bilbao, 1 from Pamplona) and an American girl (an ’07 Tulane graduate!). My flat-mates are all really awesome but I didn’t really get to talk to them because I left that very night for my travels and didn’t even sleep in my own bed!

On to my travels the very next day…