De Madrid al cielo

This week I've been graced with a horrible cold, on Wednesday I went to Catalan sniffing, sneezing and making it quite obvious I was ill and didn't want to be there, my teacher said to me 'Estàs constipada?'. Although I am more than aware that constipada translates to 'cold/flu' in Catalan, my knowledge of this word just completely left me  for about 10 seconds and I thought she was asking me if I was constipated! Funny story from my week.

So this weekend was a big weekend throughout Spain due to el puente. Although puente actually translates to bridge in English, it can also mean bank holiday too. The days off vary, here in Andalucia we had the Friday and Monday off but in Madrid they only had Friday. We set off on Thursday early evening,the journey takes 5 hours on the bus but on the plus side it is only 35 euros. Once we arrived we hopped on the metro straight to our hostel which only cost 39euros for 4 nights including breakfast, absolute bargain considering the location (Sol, very central) and given the fact it was the puente. We got an early night so we would be feeling fresh for Friday's tourist antics. We were so lucky in the fact that Rosie's friend, Ana, works at the hostel and knows Madrid very well. She gave us a great tour seeing all the important bits including, Palacio Real de Madrid, la catedral de Madrid and el templo de Debod. We went to loads of other little random places which we definitely wouldn't have found without her help. My favourite was La Calle de las Pasas. It's said that if you walk down the street with your boyfriend, you will get married. It's a nice saying 'Quien no pasa por la pasa no se casa'.  Anyway, our day was jam packed full of lots of exciting things, including a trip to el tigre del norte. This is a restaurant chain around Spain, from the outside it looked pretty shabby but on the inside it was a different story. You pay for a drink, 3.50 for a medium tinto de verano and the food you get is ridiculous. We had about 10 plates of food ranging from croquetas, jamón, lomo, tortilla de patatas, all sorts basically! A great price and we were definitely full after all that free food! Who says Madrid don't do free tapas like Granada? Later that night we hit Madrid's nightlife and went to JOY nightclub which happened to be a 5 minute walk away. We had a great night, slightly more expensive entry than Granada (15euros with 1copa). The nightclub is in an old theatre and had trapeze artists hanging from the ceiling which was different. After calling it a night around 5:30 we got a burrito take away and went to bed.

All of us outside el Palacio Real de Madrid

El Palacio de Cibeles

Saturday turned into a bit of a waste as we didn't get up til very late following our late/early night after clubbing. Some of the girls wanted to go the the Real Madrid stadium so I went along but me and Adele didn't go in. It was 20euros and it seemed a waste of money as football doesn't particularly interest me, so we had a walk round the area and did a bit of shopping. That evening I met up with Fernando, a family friend who lives in Madrid, he spent time in England with us years ago and I've spent some time in his home city of Oviedo a few times. We haven't seen each other for 3 years so it was really nice to finally be able to meet up. We went to a great taberna with his friends and we had a few metros de sangria, literally meters of sangria. It comes in a meter long plastic tube which you dispense with a tap at the bottom, very cool. 

Sunday, our last full day in Madrid was jam packed. We started off at a flea market. It was absolutely huge and in all honesty, a nightmare. There were so many people it was near enough impossible to move. There were some cool things but I gave up after 45 minutes or so because I was getting too frustrated! There was a book stall though, I managed to get 2 books for one euro each. Unfortunately one is in Catalan (not my language of choice) but on the plus side it's New Moon / Luna Nova (twilight saga) and for 1euro it'd be silly not to, I could probably do with the Catalan practice anyway. The day before I had looked at buying The Hunger Games however was slightly put off by the 18euro price tag just for the first book. After the market and bumping in to two girls from Kent Uni on my course in the midst of the thousands of people (how random), we headed to El Parque del Retiro. This was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Madrid. The photos I had seen were beautiful and I'd heard great things. Due to our busy day we didn't get that much time in the park and I'm so eager to go back and spend more time looking around it all. Luckily we did the main thing I was hoping to do - rowing on the lake! It was only 7.50euros for 45 minutes and between 3 in each boat that's not too much. It was really fun, we all had a go rowing, trying not to crash in to other boats. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining and the trees covered in autumnal coloured leaves, it was amazing and made me feel so lucky to get all these opportunites on my year abroad. Unfortunately my moment of bliss was then ruined by 2 shitty spanish kids who splashed me with their ore making me look like I'd wet myself! I wasn't impressed, they didn't even say sorry - typical Spanish. 

might join the uni rowing club with the skills i had

view from the mirador at the Palacio de Cibeles

After some post rowing lunch we headed to Museo de Prado. This is probably one of the most famous museums in Madrid. I'm not an arty person but it was free and I did want to check it out. We had about an hour and a half to look around but it was overwhelming as there were so many sections to the museum and I wasn't really sure what I really wanted to look at. Luckily I saw the painting 'Las Meninas' by Diego Velázquez which was the main painting I wanted to see, I also really liked a painting by Francisco Sans Cabot called 'Episidio de la batalla de Trafalgar'.  

El Episodio de la Batalla de Trafalgar. Francisco Sans Cabot

Las Meninas. Diego Velázquez

We finished off our fantastic weekend with a nice meal out with a menú de noche. These things are great, for about 12 euros you get 3 courses, a drink and bread. When I say 3 courses I don't mean starter, main and desert. Here you basically get 2 mains and a desert as they portions are that big! I couldn't eat all of mine but the food was delicious and my primero was one of the best I've had on my year abroad, I had pimientos de piquillo rellenos de bacalao (red peppers stuffed with cod). Muy rico.

All in all great company, great food and great sights - what more could I ask for in my penultimate weekend before I go back to England for Christmas? Next Friday I go home for 10 days - I cannot believe how quick these past 3 months have gone, but I'm so happy and really am having an amazing third year abroad. In these first 3 months I've visited:

Seville x2

Nerja

La Alpujarra

Sierra Nevada

Madrid

... had 3 sets of visitors and went skiing for the first time! Not bad.

I wonder how Sleaford will compare to Granada and all the places I've been able to visit? Free tapas with a cider in Spoons? I think not, but at least I can look forward to my mums christmas dinner.

Hasta la próxima,

Ellie

Lady Gaga nice price!

It's now less than three weeks until I come back to England for Christmas holidays and I'm making the most of the remainder of my first semester here in Granada.

This week nothing too exciting happened but I did have my first exam in Catalan so hopefully that went ok. Everyone in my norma y uso class (Spanish grammar and syntax) now know me as the English girl. Our lecturer often asks to see who the English people in the lecture theatre are, to ask them a question about the language, generally I'm the only one who actually seems to go so the teacher now knows who I am which is rare for Spain I feel. On Wednesday he asked me (in front of the whole lecture theatre) about English syntax, I have absolutely no clue about syntax in the English language so I just said 'no' and everyone laughed and then we spoke about how it can sometimes be difficult for English people to understand other English people depending on where they are from and the accent they have. 

On Thursday evening Tara arrived and our weekend began. On Friday we went to the same place I take everyone (Mirador San Nicolas), had a walk around Granada and some pretty good food. We also went out for tapas in the evening with some of my friends and had more really good food (calamari and octopus). It was the first time I had tried octopus and it wasn't as disgusting as I thought it'd be. After some more drinks, pool and  table football we called it a night. Saturday was a pretty similar day walking around Granada and we had some really good food at a Moroccan restaurant with a cocktail and some shisha. 

Sunday has easily been the best day of the whole week. Last week the ski season in Sierra Nevada opened and I've been dying to try it out. I've never skied in my life but when it's this close to where I live I think it'd be a mistake to try it at least once. The bus journey is only 9euro for an ida y vuelta which takes about 45 minutes each way, skiing is an expensive sport so I knew it wasn't gonna be a cheap day but as the resort opened earlier than expected some of the equipment hire/liftpasses were cheaper than normal. The lift pass was 33euros for a day with insurance included, and the equipment hire was 25euros for skis, poles, a helmet and goggles. Luckily Becki and Rosie have been skiing before so they taught us for an hour and off we went. We all started on the beginners slope where, naturally, I fell down first time. The hardest thing is getting back up, I ended up rolling on my back with my legs and skis in the air - not my most flattering look. After a few tries I got the hang of it quite well and didn't have any more falls, I clearly got a bit big for my boots so when the girls asked me if I fancied joining them on the blue slope (next slope up from beginners), I agreed. In fairness, they said they thought I was ready. How wrong were we! The best part was the telecabina up to the slope with amazing views and a surreal feeling. We got off and started the decent, then I fell over. It took me about an hour to finish the slope because...I'm shit. I couldn't stop falling over and just didn't have the balance. I felt bad making the others wait so they went on whilst I shuffled down half the slope on my bum (whilst holding skis and poles remember). Unfortunately this was right under where the ski lift was going up to the top so everyone could see me looking like an absolute twat. By the time I got half way down the girls had lapped me and tried to help me again, I fell again and again and they weren't light falls either, legs and skis flying all over the place and I also managed to land myself in to a snow ditch which is always fun. It's a good job I was wearing a helmet or I think I could've really hurt myself. It was so horrible, embarrassing and really hard work trying to get yourself back up once fallen down. Anyway, I finally made it to the end after giving up, taking my skis off and just walking in a grumpy and sweaty face. Although it wasn't quite how I thought it would go it's still quite funny to think about me just shuffling down a ski slope on my bum whilst I was being overtaken my skiers and snowboarders going really fast, including some that could only be about 5 years old - how embarrassing. It really tired me out and I ache a bit but it was 100% worth it. At least I'll know that if I go again I need to keep practising the baby slope before heading to the next one. I don't really think the transition from the beginners slope to the second one I went on is fair. It's so much steeper and a lot different but never mind, it was my first time so I wasn't sure what to expect.

View of the mountain on the bus ride there

All kitted up

Lady Gaga ready for her first ski

Sierra Nevada resort

View on the telecabina

selfies on the telecabina

the slope of death. the beginning of my ski disaster

The town

All in all, today was a great end to the week and we have some good photos from the snow. Next weekend is the puente which is basically a bank holiday weekend meaning we get Friday and the following Monday off. Our tickets are booked for a long weekend Madrid and I can't wait to check it out and meet up with family friend Fernando as it's been years since we've seen each other.

Hasta la próxima

P.S. if you're wondering what the blog title is about, the black men who sell knock offs around Granada apparently also take the trip up to the Sierra to try and flog hats, scarves and gloves. I was wearing some pretty 80s retro ski wear from a vintage shop in Granada and apparently I looked like Lady Gaga. Everytime we walked past he shouted 'LADY GAGA...NICE PRICE' pointing to his array of neon green hats. Pretty funny, I went a long with it and waved to him.