El Otoño

Autumn is here, the leaves are turning gorgeous shades of red, orange, and yellow, it's getting colder, and the rain has started to come...I love it!  I wonder if the trees are as pretty in Arcata and Berkeley as they are here, I'm sure they are.  Everywhere is beautiful this time of year, hopefully it will snow this winter.  I am getting excited to go snowboarding when I get back to the states!  Maybe a trip to Vancouver?  We'll see. 

This past weekend, and actually the weekend before I spent a lot of time walking...meeting up with different friends, and usually happening to go to the same general areas, but I enjoyed it.  My good friend from the program Nina just left for home early this past Saturday, so I tried to spend a majority of my time with her.  She'll be back next month though so i'm not TOO sad.  We all went out for churros con chocolate and then the ladies went out for a night on the town, it was one of her last nights in Madrid so we had to make it special!

I spent a good amount of time in Retiro during a couple sunny days.  There is so much that park has to offer...

like old men playing the saxaphone and little girls dancing along to the jazz...

and then are tons of puppet shows out and about with kids and their parents surrouning them!

We saw a cool group of guys playing jazzy music and doing...well i'm not sure what...but they attracted a pretty big crowd!

 And then there are those that simply come to read their newspaper with their cute dog...

Miguel had found a place right next to retiro that rents out bikes and roller blades, we chose roller blades and  did a lot better than we had thought we would!  Although it reeeeally hurt my feet, I'd do it again just so I could be a professional like this guy and play frisbee while roller blading...



 I'm glad I live 2 blocks next to Retiro, one of the best parks in the world in my opinion.

I also went to El Palacio Real, although I couldn't go see the antique watch exhibit (Dad) I got to see other pretty impresive paintings, incredibly decorated rooms, but my favorite were the royal gardens right behind the palace. 

I also ate some good food...

It's nice to have the whole month of November in Madrid, since I will be doing a lot of traveling in December.  I feel rushed as it is to try and do as much in Madrid and Spain in general I don't know how I'd feel if I was going away every other weekend.  Although I do want to travel and see everything Europe has to offer!  I know there will many more trips in the near future to Europe and the world in general.