Quite a lot has occurred since then I suppose.. Dave came to visit during Semana Santa when I had a week off school, and that was super. We had fun visiting various places in Madrid and going to El Escorial where we went to the Monastry, which is worth a visit. We saw a few of my students who seemed to find it funny seeing me outside of school and Dave got to try the typical San Lorenzo cake things, although they did get a bit squashed on the way back, how sad. We also took a trip on the teleferico (cable cars) which are near my house and go to casa de campo, and I have to say neither the cable cars nor the casa de campo are worth a trip, so if you were thinking of going, don't bother. Well maybe little kids would enjoy the cable cars. We also went to a nice restaurant which is called A dos velas, which was really nice.
Only a few days after saying farewell to Dave (sad times) Lizzie came to visit, which was great. We went to the Royal Palace with Hanna, which was also worth a visit, and some of the decoration is bizarre. We had the classic Madrileño snack/dessert of chocolate con churros which Lizzie enjoyed. We also spent a few hours in the Retiro Park, I'm sure I find a different part to it every time I've been, and am never quite sure where I'm going to come out, but it's definitely one of my favourite parts of Madrid, it's really pretty.
On Easter weekend, I went to a Catholic church which was interesting, and the building itself was pretty cool inside. We also had bacalao (cod) and torrijas which are both typical Spanish Easter things.
Last weekend I went back to Southampton for Dave's birthday and had a great weekend. His friends from home came and we also went to visit my housemates from last year so it was great to see them and catch up a bit. We also went to Pizza hut, which was the first time Dave had ever been there, cyi.
School has been going well, the other day for día del libro (world book day) all the kids dressed up and did a presentation type thing which involved some drama and dance and recitals. It was really cool to see some of the kids who aren't so academic doing something that they enjoyed and really doing well at it.
And I've actually more or less finished my year abroad project/dissertation, and since I could not have imagined getting to this point a few months ago, it's quite a relief as well as a sense of achievement, having written 6,000 words in Spanish. And one of the teachers at my school kindly agreed to read it for me, so hopefully I'll be able to change anything that doesn't make sense before submitting it this week.
Ironically I feel a bit like I don't have anything to do now that I've finished my project, and I'm quite eager to go home soon, but I'm just trying to make the most of the time I have left and sort out my plans for the summer, before leaving Madrid for the final time on the 5th of June.
All in all, it's been a great few months, and I still have a few weeks so we'll see what happens then and I'll try and write at least one more blog before it's all over.
Thanks for reading, I hope you've enjoyed hearing about my experiences in Spain thus far.
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| palacio de cristal en el parque de buen retiro |
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| el palacio real |
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| lizzie and me in the palace courtyard |
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| dave and me outside the monastery |
