this weekend was great in madrid, i rode the train there on friday afternoon. I missed my class on friday morning after a late night thursday involving lots of dancing at umbracle until i realized that i had forgotten my keys in the apartment and had to call and wake up my roomie katrina at an incredibly indecent hour. she was great about it though, totally knocking my plan b to wait outside on the street until 7 when she would wake up for class anyway. so i got to madrid after a 3 and a half hour train ride, during which i had a 2 hour silent battle over the shared arm rest between me and the prissy woman next to me. after 2 hours of sneaking my elbow on to the armrest and not budging no matter how nonchalantly she tried to knock me off, she finally fussed at me and actually told me to let her have it, talk about awkward.
i got to madrid around 6 and met up with alicia and peter and walked around a little and went to a little art exhibit on cultural awareness. there was a collection of photos of pakistani women who had been attacked with acid that was particularly shocking and uncomfortable.
we walked through the puerta del sol, which is a huge square in madrid that is home to kilometro cero; that's the point from which every place in spain is measured. there were all sorts of street performers and crowds hanging out in the evening weather by the fountains. i love big cities that have people who take advantage of the allure of the city instead of being locked up inside all the time.
i met up with my family after that to check into the hotel and we headed off to grab some food from plaza mayor and el mercado de san miguel. the mercado was seriously the most awesomely delicious place i think i've ever been with gourmet food EVERYWHERE. booths for cheese and jamon and olivas and wine and mariscos and pinchos and postres and everything you could want. we had olives stuffed with muscles, which were insanely good, and topped off the night with some truffles. john and i headed out to a bar to meet alicia and some of her friends from spain and the states, giving me a chance to practice some more spanish and hang out a little. we started at a place described to us by alicia as "a bohemian gay type of place" with cool black and white photos of tatooed people on the walls and some fun techno music, and later headed to a discoteca courtesy of her friend bruno, who apparently knows like everyone in madrid. told lots of funny stories (including one about accidently ordering a bocadillo de polla instead of pollo), learned how to say "i'm the shit" (soy la leche), and learned that about 10 years ago, the discotecas stayed open until 3 pm the following afternoon. how's that for crazy night life? ended up getting back to the hotel pretty late before an early wake up call to go explore the city the next day, but definitely worth it.
the next day we went to the prado and saw tons of famous paintings and sculptures, from goya and velasquez and el greco, etc. after walking around for about 3 hours i sat down to take a quick break but was freaked out by HANNAH VARNELL jumping on me and hugging me in the museum. i knew she'd be in madrid but to run into her in a huge museum in the largest city in spain? who knew. so we did lots of introductions and hellos with her friends and hugs and freaked out for a while and promised to meet up later that night after dinner.
we got some delicious tapas for lunch in plaza mayor (i'm really starting to love tapas, i don't think i could get sick of them. what a genius way to eat) and wandered around the city and walked to the royal palace and cathedral for a few minutes to give us a slight hiatus from museums. We next went to reina sofia which is the popular art museum near the train station, to see lots of sick picasso and dali paintings, which i definitely preferred over the more traditional stuff in the prado. after a solid siesta we went out to dinner with alicia and peter and alicia's dad and uncle who both speak pretty limited english, so i once again got to whip out my mediocre spanish to try and keep up with the accents and speed. they were so sweet though, i'm so glad i finally got to meet them, and hopefully if i go back to madrid for a day or two next weekend i can meet back up with them.
after dinner i called hannah and with her awesome directions (and i quote, "find the homeless lady with the bicycle") i found her and her whole group ready to leave their hotel and go to a cool 7 story discoteca downtown. after about 2 hours and a ridiculous metro trip later, we ended up getting turned away from the club because some people didn't have id's but don't think the night was a loss. we wandered around puerta del sol all night and had some insane laughs and absurd interactions, and got some late night pizza to watch the sunrise. needless to say i was once again feeling terrific when we got up to leave the hotel this morning about 2 hours after sunrise, but the delicious breakfast buffet with unlimited chorizo and sandia helped to soothe the pain of the morning. i said my farewells to my family as they headed off to the airport to go back home and met up with hannah and friends again to laugh histerically over the night before, recapping everything over what else? more pizza.
had a seamless train ride home and bought some hammer pants for only 5 euros that are ridiculous and for some reason super stylish here, so now i'll blend right in. now i just need to get in some studying and finish my project on los toros de españa so that i can enjoy my day tomorrow and cheer Spain on in their game tomorrow night.
Oh and I can't wait to redeem myself playing soccer on tuesday night because last week, we joined in with some local guys who already had a game going. the week before, my friend maddie wasn't allowed to play with the boys so i was stoked i was even allowed to play, and what is the first thing i do? score an own goal. great showing. so i guess that whole just-like-riding-a-bike thing comes and goes.
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