Fall break in Madrid, Spain

For our Fall break we had 7 days to wonder around the world. My roommate and I decided to visit the Iberian Peninsula. We had targeted two cities Madrid, Spain and Lisbon in Portugal. Here are a couple of pictures of the different sights we had a change to visit. 

The famous Plaza de Toros or Bullfighting rings. 

Oso y Madrono is a famous statue in of of the main squares of Madrid. Plaza del Sol is the square at the end of Madrid's most famous street Calle Mayor. The bear statue stand at the entrence of this turistic center. 

El Palacion Nacional is one of the most famous places not only in Madrid but in all of Spain. It embodies a tremendous amount of the country's history. 

The museums were not short of having important pieces of history. We got to see some of Salvador Dali's paintings. This here is called El Gran Masturbador. 

The most famous and historical painter we recognize was Picasso. There were many of his paintings including the famous Guernica we we got to see but no pictures were allowed. Here is a different painting by him. 

El Qujote de La Mancha (Quixote) is also embodied in many different way around the city. 

And finally a picture of the Palacio de Cibeles, Madrid's city hall. 

Spelunking

Also as part of the Budapest Semester in Cognitive Science we went spelunking or underground cave exploring. We started walking in and as we were surrounded by stone walls void of light my heart begun beating harder and harder. Then we had to walk bent over through smaller and smaller paths and my hart kept on beating harder and harder. But the paths also kept on getting smaller and smaller making us crawl and then making us slide through what now were holes made out of rocks, so small we had to push while breathing out because we would get stuck otherwise. Oh yeah it was intense.

Balaton, Hungary

The Budapest Semester in Cognitive Science took a trip to Lake Balaton. Balaton is the largest lake of freshwater in Central Europe. We had a two day trip and got to visit some churches, boat trough some underground water caves, hike, tree climb, and well... here are some pictures.

There was a beautiful tree which we naturally decided to climb. 

There were some great mountains from which the lake could be seen in its entirety. 

Langos a somewhat Eastern European dish. The photo does not makes justice to the size of a Langos. 

Some street art we got to see (finger painting). 

Underground cave canoeing. 

More street art. 

It was a great experience to share with everyone, specially over coffee. 

And many other adventures along the way. 

Transylvania, Roamnia

Here are some pictures of a visit to Cluj-Napoca a city in the country of Transylvania in Romania . Two friends and I decided to visit Cluj-Napoca given that it was just a short trip from Budapest. 

We met some people who were slack-lining and decided to try it. 

And yes we did find Dracula, hiding behind some trees in the hear-by botanical garden. 

The Botanical Garden was truly beautiful. 

We also visited a medieval village. Which had a beautiful scenery  and was really interesting. 

Random city. We went with nothing planned and yet at the end we were short of time to see everything we wanted to see.  

For more pictures check my facebook albums. 

Late Updates

Time flies. It really does! More than about half pass this great adventure and it feels like yesterday that I got here. Not really. For some strange reason it feels so far away but I have felt so at home that it feels I was never a stranger to this place. So as I have gotten busy traveling and enjoying this beautiful city and this cultural continent. I have neglected keep up with the blog. So following are going to be quick excerpts about Budapest, Europe and everything in between.