Oriente Hostal Madrid

... speak slower (at least in theory). The core course is divided into 2 sections roughly by Spanish level, but other than that, my schedule was mine for the making. I decided to take "History of Spanish Art" with Blanca Muros and "Spain and Latin America in a Global Context" with Professor Jimenez. The art history course is something of a legend with DIM-- typically, it's the most popular course. And for good reason-- one day a week, we go to class, and ...

... on a relatively cooler day. [The weather was down from about 65 to 45-50 ish (esque) on this day] Stop #1: El Escorial El Escorial is a historical residence of the Spanish king as well as a monastery, royal palace, museum and even a school located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Background information: El Escorial comprises two architectural complexes of great historical and cultural significance: El Real Monasterio de El Escorial itself and ...

... Mayor & Puerta Del Sol. The hotel was more of a guesthouse with a self-help concept. All the breakfast food was stored in the tables. We could use anything, any time of the day (or night).

We went to a nearby Indian restaurant for dinner. Tired from the long journey we called it a day.

Day 14 – 04/01/09

MADRID

Woke up late & had a leisurely self-serve breakfast at the ...

... temas como carga viral, tratamiento antirretroviral de gran actividad (TARGA), porcentaje, revisiones semestrales, co-infección y reinfección, adherencia, inhibidores de la proteasa, y tantos otros términos que ahora domina a la perfección. Se sorprendió porque todo parecía estar muy controlado, muy conocido, cuando él nunca había sabido qué pasaba con una persona VIH+. No sólo eso. Todo el personal médico, desde el médico hasta la recepcionista que le daba la cita, le trató fenomenal ...

Le voyage de Bilbao a Madrid c'est bien passer jusqu'a ce qu'on arrive en ville. Madrid est une grande ville plein de grand boulevard. Nous avions l'address mais c'etait difficile de s'orienter. Amaya etait en contact avec Luciano qui est l'ancien coloc de la soeur d'Amaya. Finalement nous sommes arriver et nous avons trouver un ...

... market... everything. It's a big chain. So I stumbled in and got a phone card and some fruit. I've never used a calling card before, much less one in espanol. I'm at the pay phone internally freaking out because it's not working and the machine keeps sprouting intangible Spanish at me. I asked this guy who tried a few times and said "No functiona". Haha well eventually I got it to work and I talked to my mom. Felt a lot better. The first ...

... at the Port ampitheatre. Another highlight was the huge Oceanographic Aquarium (the biggest in europe), again a very modern structure and impressive with even an arctic section with real whales and walruses! I'm not usually into that type of thing but it was amazing to see. Overall Valencia was a great city to visit with so much to do and wonderful contrasts between the old and modern architecture. enjoy the 55 pics!

... a lot of free time to explore the city during the week. I walked through the streets, did some shopping, visited an Egyptian Temple- Templo de Debod, ate at delicious bak**ies, saw a movie- La Dahlia Negra, and went to the Prado Museum. We went out to an Irish Pub on Tuesday night for Halloween and I met sev**al of Isabel's friends. Wednesday, All Saint's Day, was a holiday in Spain and ev**ything was closed, so a group of us met in ...

... some English ladies, Joy the Sth African, Liam the Brisbanite and Fausto the exuberant Brazilian. Chowed down the most nutritious meal i'd consumed in 10 days, hesitantly enjoyed another few cervezas then convoyed with the crew out for some kickass ice cream. Met up again with Nick's mate Zoelle, whom after last night's wasting woke up in a dishevilled state at 9am going around in circles on the central Madrid city loop train (see previous ...

A couple cheers have to be sent for today....first and most important is to my mom, who turned 50 on May 14th...yah for her...hopefully she doesn´t kill me for posting this, however, I can say that she looks beautiful for her age, and I would be happy to look like her at age 50!!! The second cheers, goes out to Antoni Gaudi, as he was the center of our tourist type day. He had amazing vision in his day. So our first day ...