Madrid

We spent the weekend in Granada 2 weekends ago haha!! First time in a while. That Friday night we went to a place called poe and they have Jamaican flavored tapas- kind of like appetizers. When you order a drink of any type you get a free tapa!!! This place had delicious ones!!! Then we went to another pub and there was a guy wearing a t-shirt that said 83th with some other english words, try saying that out loud, we were like eighty thirdth??? We of course snapped a pic of it. Then we went to a botellon, we had read about these in Spanish class so i was really excited to see what it was all about. It was a huge street absolutely PACKED WITH PEOPLE. Mostly spaniard college kids. It was a great chance for us to be embraced into the culture and practice our spanish! That Sunday we went to the Santa Maria Cathedrial to go to a church service and it is actually where Queen isabel and King Fernando were burried. This was a Catholic service so when Caitlin whipped out a lunch before she entered the pew, you could imagine the panic in my face. But I got through the whole thing pretty well, I let Caitlin and Chris kneel, sit, kneel and then sit again haha. They told me I didn't have to do all of that. But it was really interesting to go to a Spanish service. The following week we got two girls from France that were going to stay with us. The girls were really sweet and a lot nicer than most of the girls we have had from France so Caitlin and I took them out to Tapas and befriended them- but then they started to get too comfortable with us and crossed the line when they asked to wear our high heels to go out at night-we made up some excuses because the streets ruin your shoes so quickly -we hardly wear our heals!!! So anyway - that weekend we went to Madrid-which make it last weekend. We left Friday and went to Toledo first actually. This is my favorite city in all of Spain- it is so cute and clean. We got to go see where swords were made and Gold into necklaces and other jewelery. I had seen all of the same things when I had come in high school but it was really fun to see the stuff again and recognize different things that I saw. I am pretty sure the guy who demonstrates the sword making was the same exact one as 4 years ago, and I am also pretty sure that all he does is sit there and when groups come in he gets up- lights the metal, pounds it a little and once we leave he sits back down again. I need to get that job. But any way that night we got into Madrid and we all went to a disco called Joy. Coca-cola was sponsoring it so there was a ton of fancy stuff and different dancers. But the later the night went the crazier the disco got- there were people in costumes walking around in stilts and then there were people bungy jumping from the ceilings!!! it was crazy! There were dancers on different rings in the air and lot's of other stuff- it was like out of a movie so it was pretty sweet. We all got in free because we had passes from our Hotel but usually this disco is 20$ to get into. The next day we went to the royal palace where the king and queens have parties, it was beautiful!!!! Then we went to the park of retiro- which has a big pond and boats on it- gorgeous! There was a ton of entertainment in the park too! That night we went HARD ROCK CAFE- we had eaten Mc Donalds with all of our weekend money for food so that we could go all out at Hard Rock Cafe- we could not wait to eat ranch dressing and american meat!!!!!! We got burgers, ribs, and A TON OF RANCH!!!!!!!! It was a very expensive meal about 20$-30$ per person but it was SOOOO WORTH IT!!!! Then with our college group we went to a play- it was supposed to be a scary one but since they talked so fast- we couldn't understand them and it just got kind of boring- but it was still fun to go to! Sunday we went through the Prado Museum - there are a ton of famous art pieces there and has a higher concentration of masterpieces than any other museum in the world. It was huge!!!! Caitlin and Shayna were determined to hit every room- Ben and I were spent after 2 hours so we "accidentally" lost them and went to find other people so that we could leave haha. Alex (another girl from our group) and I went back to the park to people watch, got some pizza, icecream, and nuts and then went back to meet the group to head back to Granada!!! Now we have mid-terms next week so this week has and will be consumed with studying!!!! And this weekend we go to Paris!!! We actually have a lot of Central kids visiting Europe for their spring break and all of us are actually meeting up in Paris, so there will be like 18 of us I think!!!