The following week of the big visits has been rather quiet, in anticipation for our huge break and even larger trip. Sean and I will first set off to Valencia for Las Fallas, a huge festival on the coast. We will then meet Taryn in Rome, and Ben in Vienna. In between the two, we are going to Venice, and afterwards to Prague, parts of Germany, and the finishing in Amsterdam. The highlight of this week was a hike through Casa del Campo with Hansen and an Atletico v...

After a long week of Studying and exams, we decided to go out in a big way on Thursday night. There was a big DJ playing at a club called Sala Heineken (which means the Heineken Room - clearly a huge sponsorship at hand), and so a huge group of Middlebury students and my piso mates all got together for a Botellon (an outdoor party) in a local park where plenty of other students had the same idea. After a long night we came back and crashed to get ready for the fa...

So, Taryn arrived on the 25th of February to kick off a Marathon of guests and travel. On Friday, I got to know what it was like to have a medical operation performed in Spain. Throughout the past week a cyst had formed under my arm, which became extremely painful and needed to be removed. Fortunately, I had assistance (Taryn) because I was put on a local anasthetic and cut open. The doctor was great, and the operation went extremely well, as I soon healed up com...

Today, I decided it would be in my best interest to go ahead and skip class and go skiing with Hansen and his father. It was an awesome decision. We left from the Moncloa bus station, and took the bus for only about an hour before arriving in Valdesquí. The weather was absolutely amazing, and so we skied all day and then came back extremely tired and ready to go to bed. As I was about to fall asleep, I was awoken by an extremely loud chanting coming from the st...

So after my lengthy trip to Paris, I certainly needed a break so this past weekend I relaxed in Madrid. This week I pretty much caught up on school work, as it is starting to get heavy but I got a chance to do a couple cool things this week. On Thursday, Hansen, Sean, and I decided to do a tapas night. First we went to a bar near Hansen's house where you can eat all the Tapas you wish with the purchase of a caña (small beer). We later went to the Mercado San Mig...