My Mexico and Spain Adventures!: Week 1 in Madrid

Sorry Grandma Stockelman

Mom tells me you were worried about me because I hadn't updated my blog. Truth is, things have just been crazy busy.

Mexico was busy too, of course, but there was always time after dinner to do both homework and blog since our host mom fed us relatively early (7:30). Here, dinner does not even start until 8, and more often we will spend time out in the city and not get home until 9 or ten, by which time we just want to eat, do our reading, and either go explore some more or sleep. It's a good kind of busy. Mexico was more exhausting, which means we didn't really have the energy to go back out to do more stuff after dinner. Also, the days start a bit later here which is nice. I'm much better at waking up at 9 than I am at waking up at 7:00.

For the sake of not having a gigantic post, I'll split it up into the rest of last week, and the weekend.

Tuesday

We went to the Palacio de Comunicaciones, which is basically exactly what it sounded like. It was a palace...for mail and stuff. It was very beautiful, but our tour guide just seemed like she did not want to be there, which made it harder, and everybody was tired as well. Even so, there were some beautiful views from the top, and some cool features like crystal floors.

We still had a lot of time left so we went to the nautical museum, which was more fun then the Palace to be honest. It was just fun to walk through with just the small group of us, no tour guide, and see all the models of ships and collections of nautical things.

It was just a really pleasant surprise because I could easily have not gone, but I was so glad I did.

On the walk home we went to a tapas bar and ordered like 4 tapas for six of us, then they gave us two more with our order, which we didn't expect. It was so much good food, then we came home and had a second round at the residence. So far in Spain, my favorite foods are the pimientos de padron, these little green peppers which my mother actually ate; cheese, especially manchego; and the wonderful Spanish wine. Tuesday night was pretty standard, I started an essay we had due Thurday then slept fairly early.

Wednesday

Unfortunately, but maybe fortunately for the length of this post, I was not able to take pictures on Wednesday because we went to the Prado again. It was fun to see it from a different perspective than when I went with my family, and i got to point out some of my favorites to my friends. We finished our essays after class, then we went to a club that was okay at best but is apparently Cristiano Ronaldo's favorite. I left early by Spain standards with a few of my friends but some people in our group were crazy enough to stay out till six when we have class at ten am, and Thursday was a very rough day for them.

Thursday

We turned in our essays during class, then went to the Palacio Real, which was very beautiful. The royal family no longer lives there, and we walked through all the rooms and learned what they were from a less terrible tour guide than the ones earlier in the week. Unfortunately we could not take pictures while walking through, but the most gaudily impressive room had ornate vines and depictions covering the walls and ceilings, and the rug and chandeliers matched. This is apparently where the meetings with foreigners took place, either to impress or intimidate them with the room. We were able to get some good pictures outside though, and those I will put below.