Exploring Madrid

Well the past two day have been eventful. I have gone to all of my different classes now and I like all of them. My teachers seem pretty cool, although I have to say my theatre teacher is kind of strange, and I'm interested in the classes. I've met some nice people in them. I even had a chance to suck up to my theology teacher because he visited a seminary in Mundelein near Libertyville so we talked about that a little bit after class. He seems super nice too, and he's leading a trip to Loyola (in North of Spain) that I will probably be going on. The library is my new friend since I have huge breaks between my classes, but I'm hoping to find other places to go. I also found another cheap place to go for lunch called Scalini's, which is only a tiny bit more expensive than tienda verde and gives you way more food. That's about it for being school related.

Thursday afternoon after we got done with school, my roommates and I met up with my friend Miranda from school. She lives kind of close to us so we all went to explore the palace gardens. We only saw a small portion of them but they were very pretty. The palace itself is breathtakingly beautiful. Miranda and I joked that we are going to marry whoever lives in there so we could live there. We also got to see the cathedral that is next to the palace. There was some kind of guard progression/gun ceremony thing going on at the palace so that was fun to watch too. While we were walking around the neighborhood near the palace, a group of around 10 or 12 boys on bikes and they kept saying "hola! hola chicas! mira" and similar phrases trying to get our attentions. I kind of wanted to talk to them to help improve my spanish but I figured that was not a very smart time try it out. Spanish men are very aggressive.

The Palace

 The Cathedral

Miranda and Me

 My roommates and me

After that we walked home and had a delicious dinner of paella (tradition spanish meal, with rice and chicken), salad, bread and ice cream. Maria's cooking is so delicious. My family asked me if I liked it better than home, but I can't really compare the two because they are so different. I love Madrid, but it also makes me realize how much I love America and everything that goes with it. After dinner, I watched bones with Megan, skyped my family, then went to bed. I slept for 11 hours, so I was pretty tired. But I felt refreshed and ready to go when I woke up this morning (or rather afternoon, I woke up after 12).

Megan and I met up with Miranda and our new friend Abby (who goes to Baylor) for some adventuring around Madrid. We met outside at this place called Retiro Park. We went to eat lunch and we ended up at this little place, but it was by far the hardest time we have had ordering food. We usually don't have a problem but the people spoke really quickly and it was hard to understand. It turns out it was more of a tapas place where you should order a lot of little things, and we only each ordered one thing. The waitress asked if we wanted more but we just want to go explore so we didn't, and then she kind of rolled her eyes at us. She was kind of rude. But it doesn't matter because we left shortly after.

At Retiro Park, we met 4 other boys from SLU. They offered to take a picture of all 4 of us if we took some of them. It worked out nicely, but with us doing this, it drew attention to ourselves, and all of a sudden we were surrounded by gypsies. They were screaming at us to sign something, but that's their trick. Once you start to sign it, they steal whatever they can get their hands on. It was kind of frightening because they pretty much surrounded us and started screaming. Needless to say we all walked away very quickly. We all walked around the park together and admired the many different attractions it offered. It has a lake, a crystal palace and a modern art museum. I'm sure there are many other things to do but those we what we saw. After walking around the park for awhile, we left the boys behind and headed to Sol to try this crepe place that Miranda and Abby had been to. Megan and I split a nutella crepe and it was heavenly. It tasted so delicious. I will definitely be headed back there for more.

 Me, Abby, Miranda, Megan

Lake

 Crystal Palace

Museum

 Favorite art piece

Statue

Royal Palace Gardens

Then after we went to explore more of the palace gardens. They were pretty, but I imagine they will be even more beautiful in the spring time when all the flowers grow. We actually ended up right next to the palace, although we weren't really supposed to be there. A chain fence was down in front of a path that leads up there, so we took it, and I think it was not supposed to be like that. A security guard rode up on a moped and told us that we needed to get back down to the path. Whoops. It's kind of cool to say that 4 Americans got up close to the palace for a good 10 minutes without being detected. Then Megan and I separated from Abby and Miranda to head home. Now I'm just waiting for my senora to tell me it's time for dinner. We might be headed out tonight, but I am not sure exactly what the plans are. That's about it for now. I'll update again on Sunday about what other cool places we check out.

Love,
Ashley