MADRID REVISITED, PARTE UNO

I should be studying for my two exams that are tomorrow and Wednesday, but instead I will write a huge post about my wonderful weekend in Madrid. I find that I always make the right choices. :p

First off before I get to talk about my romantic weekend getaway with Kiersten, I think I should mention that I lost my voice. I never lose my voice! Imagine a frog. Now imagine a man. Now imagine a frog-man. That's me.

Oh and on Thursday, Alissa and I went joined our flamenco dance group at a bar. They played flamenco music (which is basically like Spanish Viennese Waltz music) and some salsa, so we danced the pasos that we learned in class. And by "we," I mean "them" because I was too embarrassed. At least there were free tapas! I've concluded that I am not a huge fan of dancing flamenco (watching is cool though). I'm not sure if it's because I'm so terrible at it, but that's a very huge possibility. Too much stomping.

Girls who look cool flamenco dancing. That's not me.

So on FRIDAY, I left right after class to catch a bus to get to Madrid at 4:30pm. I met up with KIERSTENKDFJKFJDK at the hostel, and it was so good to see her! I miss(ed) her. Our hostel was right next to a metro station (p.s. I love metros. They are so cool), and it was really clean and safe! I was a little worried about the safety because my professor was concerned for me, but they had video cameras and lots of locks, so it was fine. And the people there were nice too! I was surprised to hear so much English (and I assume that they were from America), but it was nice to be surrounded by so many hip, young travelers. And I'm guessing I'm one of them too! :D

Anyway, after we siesta-ed, we went tapas hopping! We basically did that all weekend. The first place we went to introduced me to goat cheese. We couldn't figure out what to order (it's pretty hard when you don't know what half of the things mean), so we picked a tosta (toast, basically) with crema de something something, and it turned out to be goat cheese. It was super grody. I took a bite and that was more than enough for me hahah but the beer I got was good, and they gave us a free tapa of chorizo (that I love) and bread, so I handed all that wonderfulness of goat cheese to Kiersten.

Then we went to ANOTHER tapas place, and we got patatas bravas, which are essentially fried diced potatoes with a creamy, spicy sauce on top. They're my favorite tapas here (except calamari), but this place only made them mediocre-ly. Then we went somewhere else for ice cream, and I got arroz con leche flavored ice cream! That's essentially rice pudding flavored. It had bits of rice in it! It was really good. And then we had a mango smoothie made with frozen yogurt. OH how I miss fro-yo. As soon as I get back to New Bruns, I'm going to have me a huge helping of Fruity Yogurt. Yum yum.Double-fistin' that ice cream!

By that point, we had eaten enough food (clearly), so we walked it all off until 1 am and went back to the hostel to sleep. LUCKY ME, I HAD PEOPLE MAKING OUT ON THE TOP BUNK hahahaha I was woken up by the creaking of the bed and couldn't fall asleep to the melodious sound of the smacking of their lips. And then a condom (unwrapped, thank goodness) fell on my shoulder through the crack between the wall and the bed. Awesome hahaha but slightly not. Weird. And it sounded like the girl was the predator. I heard her say, "You're 20 right? And a virgin? Oh alright" but the "oh alright" was more like "OHHHH allrIiiIIIGHTTTT" dayum girl!

On Saturday, we woke up pretty early to get breakfast and then go shopping. It was so nice to go real clothes shopping--I'm super picky, but I still got a shirt from Zara! And it was only 4 euro! July is the month of super sales in Spain apparently, so I'm planning on taking full advantage of that (meaning skipping class on Wednesday to go shopping muahaha)

For lunch, we went to a grocery store and got a baguette (SO WONDERFUL), wine, waffle cookes, candy, and nectarines to eat at El Retiro, which is basically like the Central Park of Madrid. It was really nice out, so there were a lot of people just hanging around. It was fun not needing to worry about drinking underage (although we were a little worried about drinking in public--not sure if that was allowed but oh well!) because it's not like we ever want to abuse the privilege. We're safe drinkers (although she is a champ now from all the pub drinking in Wales)! But my body started turning red again so I stopped. Stoopy asian genes.

And this was really weird, but there was a man sitting pretty close to us who was watching us sometimes and had his pants unzipped. Kiersten thought she saw some rummaging down there. That's weird. I'll just forget that that ever happened.

Then we went shopping some more (unintentionally! We totally meant to just go back and siesta, but the stores beckoned us), and after the siesta we had some MORE tapas! My professor told us to look for places with lots of napkins on the floor because that was a sign that a lot of locals go there and that it's very good. I was pretty skeptical, but she was totally right! We got a calamari bocadilla (which is like a baguette sandwich) and a tosta with shrimp and garlic sauce. SO GOOD. And then we went somewhere ELSE (after taking ten minutes debating whether or not we should stay since that place was so good), and we got really good flan, a bocadilla of manchego cheese (that might be my new favorite cheese), and a horchata. I've never had horchata before, and it's really good! I can't really describe the taste. Apparently it's a drink made of almonds, but it didn't taste very almond-y. All I know is that it was delicious.

To be continued! Pictures of the food will follow yumyumyum