tired

okay so it is officially beautiful out here in spain! about 50 degrees and sunny its amazing!! So i had a very busy weekend. on friday our whole group took a trip to Madrid for the day. we took a four hour walking tour which was amazing, but very cold! Madrid is absolutely beautiful! every building is very ornate and old. its pretty much exactly how i pictured europe to be. after lunch we were on our own to do whatever we wanted, so some of us girls went shopping as the sales here are great right now, its like black friday from january to march! we were a little nervous to take the metro and the train home by ourselves but completed it without any trouble.
Saturday morning 8:30 AM we met in the plaza de cervantes to go on what we thought would be a little hike up to some arabic ruins. when we got there all of the other people in the group (it was a bunch of people from the community: old young and everywhere inbetween) had fancy hiking boots and hiking pants and those hardcore backpacks and ice pick/ski pole things. that was pretty much our first indication that we might have gotten in over our heads as we stood there in our jeans and tennis shoes. The hike ended up being about 15 kilometers, and we only went halfway! we basically encountered every type of terrain as well. it started out snowy and very icy and as the day warmed up the snow melted and the path was solid mud. seriously i have never been in so much mud before in my life! it felt like my shoes were getting stuck and it was so slippery we're lucky no one fell! the ruins were cool but very anticlimatic after the hike, but the view was amazing. we found a huge empty cave and a cool abandoned house and went on some of our own adventures, but in the end it was very fun. i have to get to my homework today and then we start our second week of school already tomorrow. i hope everything is going well back in the states!! besos!