Aranjuez y exámenes

I’m back to write about day trip #2! I can’t believe I’m still four months behind when it comes to writing about my trips, but at least I’m slowly catching up.

This was a short trip, and, honestly, there’s not all that much to say about Aranjuez, so this won’t be a long post.

Aranjuez is a town within the Comunidad de Madrid (as I explained in my last post, comunidades autónomas are like states, so it’s in the “state” of Madrid). Jessica (Leng, as I have to specify since I have too many friends named Jessica here) and I took the Renfe train there one afternoon.

Aranjuez’s biggest sight is the Palacio Real (royal palace), which apparently is an alternate residence for the king of Spain. By the time we arrived, tours had ended, so we wandered around the grounds, which included pretty gardens full of ponds, plants, fountains.

Me in front of the Palacio Real.

Me in the gardens of the Palacio Real.

From there, we went into the main part of town and visited a few chino stores (Have I explained “chinos” yet? I don’t think I have. Chinos, or bazares, are basically small cheap shops, named that because they’re usually run by Chinese people and Spaniards make little effort to be politically correct, that carry everything you could need, kind of like 99-cent stores except not everything costs 99 cents. I love them.), laughing at all the products written in poorly transalted English.

My favorite poorly-translated product. I don’t know why I didn’t buy it.

We then walked through town a little more before heading back on the Renfe. Nothing too thrilling to see, so if you’re in Madrid, honestly, Aranjuez can be passed up, but it was a pretty town, and I always have a ton of fun with Jessica, so I enjoyed it.

In other news, finals! It’s finals time! I’ve been freaking out about it for weeks, because taking finals in Spain in Spanish with all/mostly Spanish students is very daunting, but now that it’s actually here, it’s not too bad. I’m already halfway through, and the first two were fine. I think I did well on the first one (we were given the potential essay questions in advance, so I was well prepared), and I’m proud of myself for simply surviving the second one since the material was really difficult.

I’m very much looking forward to being done with finals. I’m going a bit insane being cooped up inside all day when I could be out exploring marvelous Madrid, and I’m excited to be rid of stress and start next semester since I think I’ll enjoy my classes more. Plus, my mom and Valerie will be here two days after finals are over, and in March begins a long string of awesome trips! Four days, and I’ll be done. That’s not too bad. I can make it!