One of the things she had learned early in her life was that if you discovered something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn more about it. If you simply ignored the feeling, you would never know what might happen, and in many ways that was worse than finding out you were wrong in the first place. Because if you were wrong, you could go forward in your life without ever looking back over your shoulder and wondering what might have been.
(Source: breezyyyyy)
SO PROUD OF MY BIG MIKEY<3
-for graduating Fordham Law School… is he real? I still can’t believe he’s that old! ..which also means that I’m getting old, as well as Emily!!
LOVE HIM<3
—Michael Scott (via andrewpaladino)
She is definitely my best friend and favorite person to spend Saturday nights with<3<3<3
OH HOW I’VE MISSED HER!
xo<3
—The Harold Song (via myrevelries)
TODAY: Staten Island, HERE I COME!
3,591 miles —> 0.
muchos abrazos y besos<3
(via summerescapade)
(work in progress-I’ll keep adding until I leave for el aeropuerto domingo por la mañana)
Last days in Madrid! :(
Actually, today IS MY LAST DAY IN MADRID. So weird. Where has all the time gone? I guess we’ll never know.. Maybe now it’s time to look forward to Eurotrip 2012 :)?
The 4 pictures above^ are actually from a little goodbye fiesta that NYU in Madrid threw for us on the last day of real classes. It was at school on the patio, and all of the students, professors, and their families were there. It was really nice<3 Lots of food, too.. but fancy/weird Spanish food that wasn’t soo appealing to most of us.. we stuck to the fruit & cheese/tortilla… that’s about it haha.
My Spanish class was OBVIOUSLY obsessed with Montse (like I’ve mentioned I am before), so we got her a card, chocolate, and flowers. I think she came close to dying when we gave them to her. She got all choked up and was hugging and kissing every one of us. She made us each eat a chocolate with her, and then took a ton of pictures<3 She’s the best/cutest. The last day of class she gave us all little wrapped presents, and they turned out to be “best friends always” pencils with these big wooden bobbly hearts on the top. And she gave us little ladybugs too! (since the flowers we got her had a ladybug on them)
Today it’s really hitting me that I’m leaving. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS, THOUGH!
Sososo bittersweet.
So, my ridiculously long spring break was graced by a visit from AUNT SUSAN!!! Aunt Susan and I always do really fun stuff together.. she’s always taken me to Broadway shows, on shopping sprees, out to dinner in the city, had me sleepover for weekends, etc. So, the Sunday that I returned to Madrid from Mallorca, Aunt Susan was already there waiting for me!
I went home quickly, threw down my stuff, and packed more stuff to go meet her at her hotel, where I stayed with her for the week. We didn’t waste any time that day. We went for a nice walk, and then ended up taking the metro to Las Ventas, where the famous Madrid bullfighting ring is. It was a beautiful day, and we ended up getting tickets to see the 6:00 corrida de toros that night. We walked around the area, where there were a bunch of street vendors selling bullfighting souvenirs, and Aunt Susan did some shopping, as per usual ;) We sat down to eat something before the show and ended up having falafel - SO GOOD! Side note: while we were sitting outside eating falafel, I ran into Andrew Stern, Eric Lee, and a bunch of their other friends. We were soo confused haha. The boys are studying in London this semester, so they were in Madrid for their spring break and actually going to the same fight that we were. Soo good to see them, though! We had really good seats at the fight (in the sun:), enjoyed it.. even though it was really sad :(, and learned a lot about the art of bullfighting in Spain. It really is so strange.. there’s so much.. calculation(?) behind it. We felt soo terrible for the poor bulls, though :( For some reason they killed so many.. more than usual. But after the fight we headed back to our area on the metro, and just went back to the hotel because we were both exhausted. Aunt Susan surprisingly wasn’t so terribly jetlagged - go her! But we both did need to get a good night’s sleep that night.
The next morning we woke up, had breakfast and coffee, and headed to SOL! I love Sol! .. who doesn’t?! It was a beautiful, sunny day, naturally, and we walked all around Sol, went on a tour of the Royal Palace (complete with the audio guide haha), saw the Cathedral, the Royal Armory, the Royal Farmacía, the Plaza Mayor, and many other things. Aunt Susan also did some shopping - yay! And we rewarded ourselves with churros con chocolate y cafés con leche at CHOCOLATERIA DE SAN GINES — only the best<3 After a long day, we headed back to our ‘hood,’ or should I say barrio, and got dinner and went to sleep.
Tuesday we woke up bright and early and took the metro to a bus station to go to Segovia! Segovia was definitely one of my favorite places to see in Spain, so I felt like that was definitely a place to go with Aunt Susan. We got off the bus and stopped for breakfast - typical: cappuccinos, pinchos de tortilla, and some kind of weird pork crunchy things… since suckling pig is a huge deal in Segovia. We were kind of nauseous the rest of the day after the pork..things.. haha. We saw the Aqueduct of Segovia, got to walk through all the old, pretty streets, saw the Plaza Mayor, went inside the Cathedral, and took a tour of the Alcázar, or castle (complete with audio guide). We had a delicious lunch and dessert, too. Later that afternoon we headed back to Madrid, went back to the hotel, and then had dinner.
Wednesday we went to the Museo del Prado and I taught Aunt Susan EVERYTHING I know about that place haha. The time I spent at the Prado and in the class all semester finally paid off for something. Later that night was the best! We went to dinner & a flamenco show at El Corral de La Morería, which is the best flamenco venue in Madrid. We had a deeeelicious dinner - shrimp, paella, dessert, sangria, and the show was amazing — and so long (in a good way haha). Normally flamenco shows aren’t more than a half hour or so, like the one I saw with my friends in Barcelona, since the dancing is so intense and exhausting, but this show was an hour and a half, maybe more?, and had about 5 or 6 female dancers, and 6 or so men singing and playing the Spanish guitar — WHICH I LOVE.
Thursday we went to the Reina Sofia, and went back to Sol and did some more shopping, walking around, and churro eating! We were so exhausted by Thursday, and it was also our last night, but we were too tired to leave the hotel for dinner. We ended up eating dinner at a restaurant in our hotel, which was delicious, drank some really good white wine, and called it a night. That was also our last night :(
The next morning, we had breakfast and got all ready to check out of the hotel. We left Aunt Susan’s luggage in storage in the hotel, and headed out. We also made a stop at my house, and Aunt Susan got to meet Mina in all her loveliness haha. She was trying to force food on us, of course, and wouldn’t understand the fact that we couldn’t sit and stay for very long because we had to get her to the airport for her afternoon flight. We finally got out of there, and headed to the airport. I left her at security, since I wasn’t allowed to go any further, and that was it. I missed her right away! We had so much fun! She gets an award for being soo cool.. and for enduring 6 days jam-packed with activity.. and lots of walking.. and Spanish food, as well as language!
GREAT WEEK, I can’t thank her enough<3 :) xoxo
[see photos below!]
