Tripping to Toledo

In November I left Villarrobledo again, and to another place that wasn’t Albacete or Madrid – double woo!

Kayla and me in Toledo

I had been told multiple times that the two places I neeeded to visit in Castilla-La Mancha were Toledo and Cuenca… so in the middle of November me and a few of the other Americans in Villarrobledo made a weekend trip to Toledo. Unfortunately, it was another cold and rainy weekend, but we still had a good time…

The first stop in Toledo was our hostel, where we ended up hanging out and lounging for a few hours. When we finally left we met up with Elisa, a friend of a friend who is from Villarrobledo but studying in Toledo right now. She was awesome and showed us around to a bunch of tapas places and bars. We ended the night at a place called Circulo de Arte, which is a former church now converted into a small concert venue/club.

Saturday we spent more time walking around the city. Toledo is one of those places where you can just wander and every few minutes you stumble across a beautiful building, church, synagogue, whatever. It’s full of narrow, windy streets and lots of hills. (Free exercise while sightseeing, always a bonus!) We also visited the El Greco museum, which started off a little slow but eventually became interested with his paintings being held in the last 1/4 of the visit.

Mellany, me and Kayla at tapas

Saturday night included more tapa-hopping and more rain.
There was one dish in particular that we couldn’t get enough of. It’s called “La Bomba” = the bomb. It’s a ball of mashed potatoes filled with some spicy-ish meat in the middle then deep fried and served with brava sauce. I had had a very similar tapa in Galicia when I visited my friend Julie there last February and I loved it as much this time. Now I just need to find somewhere in Villarrobledo that makes it…

We wrapped up our weekend with more walking around in the rain and a visit to a torture museum – ouch. Before we got on the bus to go back to Madrid (the to Villa) Kayla and I bought some manchego cheese and bread as a snack for the ride home… this sounds lame since I had just visited a beautiful medieval city, but that was one of my favorite things about the weekend… sometimes it’s the small things, right? Or just food. I’m not sure.

Madrid x2

Catching up (again)…

In the beginning of November I finally left Villarrobledo! For somewhere other than Albacete! Woo!

On Friday morning (November 4) I took the train to Madrid, which is only about two hours from Villarrobledo. First I met up with my friend Ashley, who I met during my year in Huelva. She is from Wisconsin and is back doing the program again this year as well, and her placement is in Madrid. We spent a rainy Friday shopping and relaxing a little bit. And Ashley was super sweet and threw me a mini birthday party since we have never celebrated my birthday together. After a night out at a crazy tapas bar and a few other spots around the city we came home early by Spanish standards (4:30am).

Ally, Julia, and me

On Saturday Ashley and I went to 100 Montaditos, one of my favorite eateries in Spain. They have 100 different small sandwiches (montaditos) so you can pick a few different ones, makes for a tasty, tasty lunch mmmmmmm. In the evening I went to meet my cousin Alyson. We maintained our tradition of meeting up on the first weekend of November every year (catch up on previous trips here).

There was a small mix-up when I initially tried to find Ally’s hotel, which resulted in me knocking on a random person’s door in the wrong hotel. Luckily, no one was there to answer! After I finally found her, Ally and I went to dinner at the same paella place we had visited the first time we were in Madrid together.

On Sunday we met up with Julia, a cousin of Ally’s husband Alex. She is studying this fall semester in Madrid. We ate at 100 Montaditos for lunch (yes, that makes it twice in one weekend for me. And, no, that’s not excessive).  We finished up our day with a little shopping and churros with chocolate, more mmmmmm! The unfortunately it was time for me to take the train back to Villarrobledo…

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Fast-forwarding a month to the beginning of December, I was back in Madrid to meet up with some other old friends, one of my roommates from Mary Washington, Kristen, and her fiance Jamie. They were in Spain for a week-long trip in which they visited Barcelona and Madrid.

Friday evening we hit up Plaza Mayor, the main plaza in Madrid. I have never seen it so crowded! Granted that doesn’t mean much coming from me since I’ve only been to Madrid four times before. But we were there on a holiday weekend (Thursday was a national holiday so many people had off Friday) and shortly before Christmas so it’s no surprise that it was packed. We also returned to the crazy tapas bar I had visited with Ashley (I had to give them an authentic Spanish tapas experience). Then we walked around and took pictures of Christmas lights before calling it a night.

On Saturday our first stop was for tostada and cafe con leche for breakfast before heading to the Prado museum. For lunch we feasted on paella, jamón, cheese, empanadas and sweets at a the San Miguel market. The main event for the rest of the day was El Clásico – the soccer match-up between Real Madrid and Barcelona FC. Jamie is a huge soccer fan so he was pumped to learn that El Clásico was being played in Madrid while they would be here.

He ordered a ticket online (for a pretty penny) and had it sent to the hotel because there wasn’t enough time for it to go the US. But there was a small scare when the package was conveniently “lost” when he got to the hotel. The manager of the hotel handled it though and got him a replacement ticket, phew. So at night Kristen and I escorted Jamie to the stadium. Unfortunately, it was a cold and rainy night so the atmosphere outside the stadium wasn’t as fun as it could’ve been. And I was wearing my Barcelona gear so I was a bit wary, but it was fine, no hooligans harassing me or anything.  Kristen and I watched the game from a bar near the hotel and it was so much fun. It was an awesome atmosphere – the place was packed with people watching the game, and there were even a few other Barca fans!

To wrap up my time with them on Sunday we visited the Palacio Real, the palace of Spain’s royal family. It was  pretty impressive, I had never been inside it before. Then once again, I had to catch the train back to Villa… two great weekends, neither one long enough…