Prince William visits Madrid - Bueno!

So the next (and last for now until I go to Sweden/Norway) blog entry of my non-German adventures would be Madrid!Madrid was awesome because I just hung out with Andres and relaxed...There was no pressure to see a lot of touristy stuff which after Paris was a VERY welcome thing. I came home the day after Paris, did some laundry, watched movies, and then got ready to go to Madrid. I only had a day between trips so I wasn't about to get all crazy. I bought a bottle of wineschorle (wine with sparkling water which is not so classy, I know...), started some laundry, and watched some movies. I also ate a lot of pizza for dinner! It was really nice and relaxing to have the house to myself and just chill. Anway, Marid. I got off the plane, was excited to see Andres, and we took the subway pretty much right to his door. I am going to miss subways/train systems in Colorado when I go back. It makes things SO much easier! Imagine if Denver actually got serious about connecting the suburbs with a good train system? And if Denver itself had a good subway system?! It would make things so much easier and definitely convince people to drive less...Plus drunk driving accidents would go down. I don't understand why we don't have something like that. ANYWAY...Madrid. God, I'm distracted today. Maybe it's because I just looked at my GPA. Yikes. Well last semester just wasn't happening for me...looking forward to getting back and bringing that out of the shitter.Anyway...Madrid. I'm serious this time! After dropping off my stuff at Andres' house, we made our way towards the center of town and did a little sightseeing. It was cool, and we went to the Royal Palace which is really impressive. We did a little catching up, and told some funny stories. The two of us got lunch right by Plaza Mayor (the big tourist area) at a Belgian cafe. We ate mussels and had the BEST beer ever. I think it was a wheat beer, but it had some sort of 'fruit infusion' or something and I can easily say one of the best I have ever had. Viva Belgium. After that we went on over to see Andres' other Venezuelan friends living in Madrid: Dagmar, Marilyn, and Ismenia. These three girls are so sweet - I can't even believe it! Anyway, the girls and Andres made me feel right at home in Madrid just hours after I had arrived! It was great...and there was such a relaxed feel to the whole vacation. We ended up chilling at the girl's apartment for awhile, and then went to the grocery store to buy some alcohol and snacks for the 'Fiesta del San Isidro' which was taking place that day. I ended up arriving on a really great day because we went to the parque del Retiro for the festivities and caught the coolest fireworks show I've ever seen! But we had a great time before the fireworks just hanging out in the park and playing drinking games in Spanish/English. Andres also had another Venezuelan guy, Aaron, staying over while he was in Madrid so he also met up with us. Anyway, we were just sitting in the park, having a great time when some cops busted up this crazy drumming event going on behind us. We decided to just stay put, hoping the cops wouldn't come over. Well of course they did, and everyone was jabbering in Spanish so I couldn't understand. I decided to turn around and look at the cop for a second (he was standing directly behind me so he couldn't see my face). Well I turn around just for about a second, and then face forward again. I notice the Spanish jabber had turned up a notch since I had done so, and the cop sounded really excited. Andres told me to 'turn around again' which I did, however very confused as to why. So I turn around and look at the cop who said, 'Ooooohhh!' I found out later the cop thought I was Prince William! Get that! It was hilarious. After the loss of my celeb status, we were told to move to the other side of the parque because apparently where we had been sitting was going to the be the site of the fireworks. So we moved to the other side of the park and were hanging out for awhile until the fireworks show started. It was so cool - set to classical music, with a lightshow, and the fireworks were so elaborate and perfectly in time with el musica! Bueno! Andres' friend Kate (we joked later about her being Kate Middleton...AKA Prince Will's girlfriend) also showed up (she is the coolest girl ever) from San Francisco and we had a great time with her too. We were all a little inebriated at this point, and after the show started to head back into town to a really cool house party of Andres' coworker that had showed up. We had some wine at the party which was a really nice time. An Italian couple wanted to practice their English with me, and it was really fun to be surrounded by so much Spanish. God, why did I learn German?! We spent a good amount of time at the house party, but then Kate wanted to go out and I ended up going with. No one else came because it was Thursday and they had to turn in early. First we followed Ismenia to some weird bar in the middle of nowhere. There was also no one IN the bar except for two weird guys Ismenia knew. Kate and I decided to peace and go to a more lively place. We went to some bizarre club/bar close to Kate's house in Sol. We did a little bit of dancing, but mostly laughing at the strange dancing competition going on. Kate also amassed a male Latin fan club after dancing with a guy that worked at the bar! She was on fire! We ended up talking to this hot Irish girl dressed in a playboy bunny outfit for a really long time! She was rad...And she gave me a free tequila funnel shot thing! It was absolutely hilarious, and after all this I think Kate and I should actually date in real life. What a cool chica. After deciding to go somewhere else, and asking the Irish girl for suggestions we found our way to a salsa club with our new frineds! Casey (an awesome aussie chick) and her two weird American friends that were really antisocial. Casey was awesome though, and the 5 of us went to a salsa club where I realized I cannot dance salsa especially when I am drunk. Casey and Kate made it really fun though, and guess who showed up? Our little Irish bunny who was really, really good at Salsa dancing. Anyway, I think it was about 5 or 6 in the morning and Kate and I decided to head out. I ended up just crashing at her house because it was a little far to get to Andres' and very confusing.

I woke up quite late the next day! Probably around 1030 or 11 if I remember correctly and left Kate's house with the walking tour guide that Andres gave me. Did a little (actually not so little) walking tour of Madrid in my clothes that I had been wearing the day before...It was really great actually! I saw a lot of wonderful architecture, and I ended up doing both walking tours that were listed in the book which brought me all over the city. It was nice to do the touristy thing by myself for once especially because I like to walk fast. And that way I was able to see everything at my own pace and without complaints from anyone else! Just some nice alone time. Andres got off work and I met him at the house, (after getting really lost by the subway exit which let me out on a crazy street I didn't expect), took a quick shower, changed, and we went to go eat some tapas. I can't believe how hungry I was...I hadn't eaten anything since lunch the day before and some chips at the park. Surprisingly I wasn't really hungry until we got to the restaurant around 4PM, but let me tell you it was so good to finally eat. The tapas were really awesome...my favorite was this one called 'Tortilla Espana' that Andres recomended. We also got some REAL dulce de leche for dessert which is absolutely the yummiest thing ever made. We did a little more sightseeing together and visited some supposedly really haunted building. It was a government building so we couldn't actually go inside which was dissapointing. I think we spent that night just relaxing at the apartment, ate some gross snails with Aaron, played guitar hero, and watched that new musical Across the Universe.



Next day involved a trip with Marilyn and Aaron to the two 'leaning towers of Madrid' which are just office buildings that are tilted really far to the sides. Apparently if they were tilted even one degree further they would collapse! But as they stand, they are very sturdy. Andres, Marilyn, and I went to a Mexican restaurant where they had ONE vegetarian thing on the menu (haha) which ended up having mushrooms. The food ended up being really good but expensive. The coronas in Spain are called 'Coronitas' which just means little Corona but we don't know why because they are exactly the same size as the US Coronas. We made our way back to the house after seeing a cool library in a different ethnic district of Madrid, Lavapies, (can't remember exactly what the make-up of the people there was, but I think more south americans lived in that neighborhood than Spaniards or something.) Andres and I went back and got ready to go out later that evening. We joined the girls and went to a mueseum party at the Musee del Traje (museum of clothes/fashion). It was free to get in and the event was to sponsor the museum which is threatened with closure. It was really unique, and there were a lot of cool exhibits and some really wild clothes. Most of the exhibits featured clothes from the past of Spain and I was surprised at how much I learned. We left the museum and took a cab over to a club where some of the girls and Andres' friend worked. We all got a free round of Mojitos (um, delicious!) and danced the night away. I got a lot of Latin dancing lessons, and I would honestly say that thanks to Andres, Dagmar, Marilyn, and Ismenia, I am now a way better dancer! Yay! Andres, Ismenia, and I left to go back home but on the way stopped at some shady food place which had all their lights turned off. I guess they weren't supposed to be open at that time, so they were serving everyone in the dark. It was really amusing and it was full of hungry people, so I guess its an underground thing.

The next day I met Kate for lunch (Andres was feeling ill so he stayed home) and we went to a place called 'Maoz' which is 100% vegetarian and was the closest I have been to Chipotle in a longgg time. Absolutely lovely. We did some walking and met up with Andres and Kate's friend Amanda at a funky coffee shop full of board/card games. We played a little bit with some of Amanda's friends that were there, and had a coffee. At one point I went downstairs and had to ask a girl which restroom was for the guys...She pointed me in the right way thankfully and I wish I knew what the word was on the door! We broke apart after, but Amanda, Kate, and I, went to a flea market which had a bunch of stuff from local artists. Then they had a flamenco show, so I went back to hang out with Andres (who hadn't felt well all day!) and we watched some movies and went to bed early since he had work the next day. The next day I woke up, and got on the subway to the airport and went back to München. We also saw the Real Madrid plane - Real Madrid has the most funding of any football team in the world, so it was kind of a big deal that our plane was parked next to them! Thanks to Andres for letting me stay for the time I was in Madrid. I had such a great time, and can't wait to see you for Oktoberfest!