Things I heart about Madrid
aka Cosas que amo sobre Madrid

1. Calle de Hilarión Eslava: This is my new street that I walk down to go to school. It is much nicer to walk through a neighborhood than next to a bust street. Plus this street is full of interesting shops, including a surf shop???, a huge grocery store, and also a store that sells clothing reminescent of horse riders. Plust there is a Mexican food restaurant and two night clubs. Fun times.

2. Coffee: The coffee here is amazing. Even Starbucks is delicious... and I hate to admit that is where I am often found hanging out due to its prominance as the only cafe in the city where you can´t smoke. But in general the coffee is great, and strong. And you will be hard pressed to find regular coffee... you will be drinking espresso in one of its various forms. There is café con leche, which is espresso with steamed milk, and this is drank by true Spaniards only in the morning. It is like a slightly stronger latte. Then there is the cortado. This is basically a shot of espresso with a raindrop of milk in it. This is what the Spaniards drink the rest of the day. If you are feeling particulary gutsy, you can have the straight espresso shot, but I havent gotten to that point.

3. Short people: This one may seem a little bit odd, but since it has been raining for the past 5 months (ok like 5 days... it gets old fast)this is pertinent. When it rains even a tiny bit, the Spaniards whip out their umbrellas. These things are permanently attached to their hands. It is a challenge to walk about Madrid normally, but when it rains, the sidewalks are slick in places, and you have to dodge the umbrellas. This has proved almost deadly for Maren, as she is the perfect height to be blinded my the pokey ends of the umbrellas when they are opened. I luckily am way above the short people´s umbrellas.

more to come...

Cuenca

A while ago, aka the day before the night my computer got stolen, I traveled with my friend Kali to Cuenca. Cuenca is a small-ish town in the eastern part of Spain. It is the halfway point between Madrid and Valencia, the closest city with a beach. Cuenca is known for its casa colgadas, or hanging houses. I thought these would be amazing feat of engineering, with large parts of the houses dangling precariously off the edge of a huge cliff. Well the was a huge cliff, but not much dangling.

My friend and I left Saturday morning to take the 2 and a half hour train ride to Cuenca, arriving at about 11. This was my first train ride ever, and it was quite uneventful. We arrived in Cuenca, and not having a guidebook, started to wonder. We saw signs for the hanging houses, and headed that way. They were rather unimpressive, but the art museum inside one of them was amazing. We wondered about the town, finding more museums and visiting the cathedral. For lunch we sat on an outlook of the mountains and had bocadillos and wine. It was very fun. And the people were NICE!

And now the pictures:

ROBBED!!!

So last Saturday Night, after an amazing trip to Cuenca (a small Spainish town East of Madrid... another post), I was robbed. I was sitting outside my apartment building using the WIFI when a man ran up to me, grabbed my computer, and took off. I ran after him but couldn´t catch up. I don´t really know why I ran after him, because I have no clue what I would have done if I would have caught him. I wasn´t hurt, and yes. I can now say that I have visited a Spanish police station and have gotten a police report. Everything is fine, and I will be getting another computer hopefully soon, but the beautiful posts with amazing pictures will be lacking until I get another computer.