Happy Halloween!

Happpy (almost) Halloween!

Halloween here is not a very big thing. They celebrate Dia de todos Santos which is around the same weekend but it has more to do with paying respect to the dead instead of trick or treating and getting dressed up.

This past weekend (10/25, 26) I finally got to ride the Teleferico, which is like a gondola like they have at some of the big ski resorts. It was really fun. I went with one of the assistants Jen and two of her friends. It goes 40 meters into the air and goes from Parque del Oeste to Casa de Campo where there is the Zoo and the Aquarium and the Theme Park. I thought it would take a while for teleferico to go and I was suprised that it only took 11 min. It is actually quite quick especially when it enters and leaves the turnstile. Also very much like the ski lift when it swings in really fast right before you get on and off but slows down to actually enter and exit the thing. We were really lucky because the weekend was beautiful. It was sunny and warm and it had just rained so the air was nice and clean. We had some nice views. (I would have taken pictures, but I had unfortunatley lost my camera a couple nights before...)

After the bout of warm weather, it turned freezing (for me, from Ca,) cold! Temps dropped to right around 0c. And then it rained a lot and since I don´t have rain boots I didn´t feel like going anywhere. The nice thing is that there is now snow on the mountains close to school and the mountains that you can see on the bus. Its so pretty and the air is so clear. I have to find a way to get up into the mountians and the snow.

Halloween was last weekend and my friend had a party at her place which was really fun. I dressed up as a cat and she was a bunny and some people came dressed as priests and as Dexter (Main character from the tv show of the same name) and we had some vampires. We went out to a club afterwards and it was interesting to see what people dressed up as. Not that many people dressed up and there wasn´t a large variety of costumes. They tend to stick to the traditional vampire, ghost, witch etc. Basically it is just an excuse for places to make large flyers and have another excuse for a party.
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I have made my plans for Munich. Buying fares online is horribly frustrating because the fares can change by the minute and while I was booking our hostel the prices for the flights more than doubled. At least we good a good price on a hostel which is voted the ¨Best Youth Hostel in Munich¨...We´ll see if it lives up to the hype. I´m going with my friend Chelsea and we have found some interesting things to do. There is a huge Christmas Market and then there is a tram that serves spiced wine and Gingerbread, an old monastary that is also a huge brewery, and Dachau is also close by. We´re going for 4 nights and 5 days and I think it will be very packed. It will also be very cold. and snowy. and cold.

Also in the works is a trip to the Canary Islands with Rebecca after Christmas. We had planned on being there for New Years, but we might end up staying in Madrid for News years because they are supposed to have a large New Years celebration as well. December looks to be the travelling month because I also want to plan a trip to Galicia with Jen, one of the other assistants and then a trip to Italy with Alissa and some other people. We´ll see if this all works out. Trip planning takes a lot out of you. Especially if you´re trying to it as cheaply as possible, but still trying to have a good time and see the sights. At least this time around we´re getting paid instead of like the last time I was in Madrid when I was just going off savings...