My flight from Venice to Madrid wasn't fun at all..EasyJet is NOT the way to get around Europe! I found my ISA group and got on the bus to our hotel, Hotel Nacional. It was so pretty and in the middle of everything! When I first got there, I couldn't find anybody. I walked into my hotel room and unbeknownst to me, you have to insert your key into a slot in order for the lights to work. I could not figure it out! Fortunately, the only other Seville person at the airport came to my room to see if I wanted to go eat later and he showed me how to use it..I would have felt so dumb if I had gone down to the front office and told them my lights were broken (which my roommate did!).
Stephanie is my roommate. She is from New Jersey and she is loud and very talkative. We get along great! There are 12 of us going around Toledo and Madrid and then we'll meet up with the students who are in Seville for both summer sessions on Sunday. I don't know how I feel about adding in more students to our little group but I guess I'll get over it! (:
The first day in Madrid was a blast. We went to this little cafe and got little sandwiches and tinto. Tinto is like sangria, which is very popular here. Later, we took siestas and got ready for dinner at 10. We found a great little tapa bar called TaparÃa and ordered sangria and food. I accidentally ordered just straight potatoes. It was surprising when the waiter brought me a bowl of whole baked potatoes! They were good though! We ended our night by going to some really sketchy bar and celebrating our friend Mike's birthday (my roommate's friend from NJ!). Then we found a discoteca called Kapital and had SO much fun. It was a great bar but we couldn't figure out why there were so many men and why they were handing us flyers of men wearing speedos...then we realized we went on gay night. It is gay pride week in Madrid right now so there were gay people EVERYWHERE. We had a very interesting time at Kapital; it was 6 stories tall and we went to the very top and sat on the rooftop bar. At one point I went to use the restroom and walked in, saw men, so I went out and rechecked the sign. It was a combination bathroom-one for men and women to use. I didn't like that all but other than that it was a cool bar!
Spaniards do everything late-they eat breakfast from 9:00-11:00, lunch around 2:30, and dinner around 10:30. They don't go out until 1:30 and they stay out until as late as 7:00 am. No wonder they need siestas! We ended up getting back around 3 the first night, but some of our group stayed out until about 6. I got up and went to the tour of el Prado museo and the Palacio Real with only 6 others...5 couldn't get out of bed! The Prado museum is an art museum and it had some very interesting pieces as well as some beautiful pieces. One of my favorites was The Descent from the Cross. It looked so real-it was amazing. The other of my favorites was Las Meninas. It was so cool to learn about all the history and the reasons why painters paint the things they do! Palacio Real was beautiful. It is the Palace where the king and queen of Spain used to live, but it hasn't been lived in in years. They had the ceilings painted beautifully, mosaic marble floors, and a porcelain room. It was gorgeous. Later Denver and I went exploring and found the post office. It definitely does not look like a post office. We found out that you could get free tickets and go up to an observation deck and see Madrid and I'm so happy we did. The views were amazing!
Later, we met up with Stephanie, Afhton (a Chi-O from Kentucky University), Kiersten (from Pittsburgh), and Will and went and got drinks on a patio. Then we went to dinner at a pizzeria and out to a karaoke bar. It was so much fun--we sang Dancing Queen, Party Rock Anthem, I'm a Believer, and a few other songs. We, being the obnoxious Americans that we are, left the karaoke bar but continued to sing Wagon Wheel, Amarillo by Morning, and Friends in Low Places on our way to the next bar. It was SO much fun. We ended up getting back around 3:30 and the 7:45 wake up call came way too early.
At 9, we left Madrid for Toledo. We took a bus tour of the city followed by a walking tour. Toledo is beautiful; everything is so old and just gorgeous. After our tours we ate at another cafe and got gazpacho, fried eggs and potatoes (they call their french fries potatoes!), and watermelon for dessert. It was so fun to have a real Spanish meal!
We finally got a little bit of Wi-Fi at this hotel but not enough for Skype or anything. I'll post pictures later-my camera is dead and I want a siesta before tonight's festivities! I'm having a great time but my email isn't working so email me at alisonporter24@gmail.com if you need me! (:
