Only five and a half weeks left in Spain – I can hardly believe how fast the time has flown. I have been continuing to have a lot of fun, but it amazes me how fast money goes here. I wouldn´t say that it´s necessarily all that expensive to live in the city of Madrid (unless you eat at the really touristy places), but it just adds up quickly!

The family that I am living with went to Valladolid this weekend. They are both from that Spanish city and have a small apartment there they so they went to visit family and friends. I stayed in town because I had planned a trip to Segovia on Saturday with some friends. It was quite the adventure getting to the RENFE train station on Saturday. We all took the Metro from different stations and decided to meet at Chamartin, the train station. Of course we all left later than we thought we would, one of our group members forgot to print her boarding pass, we never found one of the girls who was supposed to meet us there, and someone else hopped on the train one minute before they closed the doors! Segovia was a very small, traditional Spanish town with some impressive sights that included a massive aqueduct and the Alcazar, the castle upon which Cinderella´s castle was based. This was my favorite part as the inside of the castle still looked like people lived there. It had the big tall chairs where the rulers sat as well as a dinner table for the royal family. There was even a room with cannons and all sorts of weapons and none of it was behind glass or anything. We climbed the 152 stairs to the top of the tower too. Before we left, we had to stop off for lunch so a few people could order cuchenillo (basically, baby pig) which is the traditional dish of Segovia. I decided to pass since it was quite expensive.

Saturday night was another new experience. Because no one goes out until at least 1:30am here, it is typical to enjoy a botellón before going to a bar or club. It basically just consists of a group of people having some drinks in a park or public place. The five of us decided to go to El Parque de Oeste and the Templo de Debod, the Egyptian temple here because it overlooked a beautiful part of the city. The park was PACKED and I felt like we were doing a very local Spanish thing so that was fun. Then we took a VERY crowded Metro around 1:20 to the big club, Kapital. It is definitely a tourist attraction as I felt like I heard more English there than Spanish, but it´s one of those things you have to do once while you are here. The club has 7 stories with distinct themes to each one. The top floor was an open air terrace with comfortable couches and a lounge atmosphere, another was a smaller dance floor that played American rap, and the main floor was a HUGE dance floor and a stage with performers. There was even a karaoke floor where three of us (horribly) sang Can´t Fight the Moonlight. The layout of the place was really impressive and we had a lot of fun there, it reminded me of the clubs in Vegas or Mexico. But it was expensive, about 12 euros for a drink! But we ended up staying until the Metro opened up again at 6am

Right now in Spain, the big rebajas are going on. These are just massive sales at all of the stores. You can find some pretty good deals, but I don´t really have the money to spend on that! I have a pretty fun week ahead of me. On Wednesday, I am going into the Weber Shandwick office in Madrid (the company I interned for in Chicago) to meet with the Director of Consumer Practice. They also have a nutrition communications division in this office so we are going to see if there is anything I can do there while I´m here. It will be interesting to spend even one day in a Spanish company though. On Thursday night, I am going as the guest of my friend Alyssa to the 4th of July celebration at the U.S. Embassy. She is an intern there and each intern is allowed to bring a guest. We also booked a trip to Valencia, Spain this weekend and will be leaving Friday morning around 9am to take a 4 hour bus ride. It will be another weekend lounging on the beach and enjoying the city that made paella famous. I am going with three other girls – Alyssa, and two girls from France, Marie and Élodie. Today and tomorrow I don´t have to pick Eloisa up until 5:00pm so I have a little more time during the day for sightseeing. Today, I went to the Botanical Gardens next to the Prado.

Besos! (Kisses)