My life in Madrid

Hola,

Although I didn't go anywhere this weekend, this past week has still been pretty eventful. My cousin Rob and some of his friends who are studying in the Netherlands visited Spain for their spring break. They started out in Barcelona and then headed over to Madrid on Tuesday. I was able to meet up with them for a little bit that day after class, so we went to the Naval Museum. It was pretty interesting, although I was paying more attention to my cousin than the museum. It was so nice to see family! I love it here but I miss home a lot so it was nice to see a familiar face. After the museum we were going to go to el Prado, which is  Madrid's most famous art museum, but the line to get in was really long. So they headed back to their hostel and I went back to my apartment.

The next day they explored Madrid while I was stuck in classes. Although I can't really complain because it was a pretty good day. Spanish class was pretty fun because we just listened to all of our favorite spanish songs. Theology we had a lot of different interesting discussions about beliefs, christians values and if the Mormon religion should be considered christian. Then in theatre we did a day of improve, which was really fun, although the particular exercise we did was kind of difficult. We have to present our monologues tomorrow, and I'm kind of nervous. But hopefully it'll go well! We also get our final scenes and our partners so I'm looking forward to that. School's going pretty well. It's definitely different than in the US, and I think I prefer SLU's classes, but it's still interesting here. They all just have a different attitude toward school here, they don't really care about it at all, which is absurd to me.

Anyway, after dinner my roommates and I met up with them and we went to this club called Orange Cafe. We all had a really fun time and it was nice to get some new people! Rob and his friends are really cool, they're all hilarious. Of course, no night out for us would be complete without something weird happening right? As Megan and I were about to leave this guy stopped us and kept trying to get me to dance with his friend. I kept trying to say I had to go and he just kept pointing to his friend. After multiple attempts to get around him, he finally let us leave. Other than that, the night was really enjoyable.

Roomies :)

Cousins

Spencer, Daniel, David, Aaron, Nick, Rob

I was worried that I would be slow moving the next morning, but I actually felt fine. I just had Spanish and Child Psych class. I met up with the boys later for dinner because they were going to the oldest restaurant in the world, which happens to be in Madrid. It's called Botin and it's famous for serving suckling pig, which is what my cousin got to eat. I tried a little bit and it was delicious. I had almond chicken but the weirdest thing that was eaten goes to Nick, for ordering baby squid in it's own ink. Apparently it tasted good, but it was one of the most unappetizing looking things to me. Dinner was fun and after we met up with my roommates and friend Maureen at our favorite little bar before going out to Joy, which is one of the most popular discotecas in Madrid. We wanted to show them Madrid night life. It was a fun but decently late night. The night before we had met a sketchy guy while we were waiting for the metro and he saw us at Joy, so we tried to hide/stay away from him. And while walking home we ran into some creepers but we kind of just walked past them as they tried to talk to us. Most Spanish men are just really forward, not very dangerous or anything. We got home safe and sound.

Oldest restaurant

yummy chicken

roomies

plus maureen

us 5 plus David, Spencer and Nick

What a goof

Cousins plus Nick photobombing

<3 

Joy

Friday I was planning on going to Retiro park and having a nice little picnic/ reading for a while but it was really cloudy and cold out so I was forced to abandon that plan. Instead I chilled at home with my roomies. The boys went to visit Toledo (town outside Spain) and we met up with them when they got back. Rob had to leave pretty early though because he was leaving a day earlier, so we said our goodbyes. I was really glad I got to see him and catch up with him. He's actually going to be in Venice the same day we are and I am going to visit the Netherlands in April so I am excited to see him again. After he left, we walked around and went to a couple of bars. We ended up in one called Dubliner's (Irish bar but really more American). It was nice there except there were some pretty creepy people trying to get close to us. Nick, Spencer and David were really good about shielding us from them. We decided to leave and they walked us home. We stopped by the rope park on the way home and goofed around there for a bit. It was really fun.

Churros and Chocolate

Dubliner's

Rope Park

 spider web

Finished

Saturday was another chill day for us. Going out wears me out. Since it was Nick, Spencer and David's last night here, Meg and I met up with them for a bit just to hang out. We were waiting for Spencer and couldn't find him, so we went back to the hostel, only to find that he had left. Luckily we did end up finding him. We stopped by a little bar off of one of the side streets of Plaza Mayor, split some sangria and just hung out. Then they walked us back and headed back to their hostel to leave for the airport (they pulled an all-nighter). So it has been a really fun past week. Tonight, Meg and I are going to a Real Madrid game, so I am really excited for that. Then starts another week of schools. That's what I've been up to. I'll blog about the game soon.

Love,
Ash