craziness

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So this Friday I had my first class at the Prado museum. The Prado is the most famous museum in Madrid with paintings by El Greco, Goya, Velazques, etc. We have class in there every Friday for the next 6 weeks. The museum is pretty cool, but I honestly like the Reina Sofia museum better because the artwork is more modern. The paintings in El Prado are from the 19th century or earlier while the Reina Sofia has work by Picasso and Salvador Dali, 20th century artists. Still, I think it´s pretty neat to be able to say that I am taking classes in such a famous museum! After the Prado class, we took a tour of the Spanish Senate. We got to sit in the seats where they vote, so that was fun too. It looked a lot like Washington if you ask me!

For dinner Friday night, a group of us went out to Chinese! That was so much fun and the food was really good as well. There are A LOT of Chinese people in Madrid so the food was very authentic tasting 😊 After dinner, we got our 60 cent conos de helado (icecream cones) from McDonalds (haha!) and just chilled out in front of the Palacio Real (the royal palace) til around 2 a.m. Because it was so late, I had to take the "bujo" (night bus) home. So I´m on the bus when this guy gets on and starts yelling at the bus driver. The bus driver continues driving but starts yelling at this man to sit down and stop distracting him. But the guy won´t sit down, he keeps screaming "you missed my stop 4 stops ago..." And no matter how many stops we passed, he just kept yelling this. After about 10 minutes of this craziness, the bus driver pulls over and yells that he refuses to keep driving unless this guy gets off the bus. Well, this makes everyone on the bus really mad. People start going to the front and yelling at the crazy guy to get off and the whole time he´s yelling "No es mi culpa, no es mi culpa!" ("It´s not my fault!) Finally, one lady yells up to call the police. So the bus driver calls the police. We sit there for another 10 or 15 minutes waiting for the police to arrive. Meanwhile, the yelling continues with people telling the crazy guy that he´s an "idiota" because now the police are coming for him. When the police got there, they forced the crazy guy off the bus and the whole bus errupted in applause! But then at every stop from there on, the bus driver was having people put down their information so that they could be called in as witnesses if need be. I didn´t sign the sheet though! I wasn´t about to volunteer to be called as a witness in a court in Spain! I got home around 3:30...it was a very long bus ride!

Next morning:Toledo. We had to be at the bus by 8:30 a.m. I wasn´t late this time, so that was lucky! Toledo is about 1 hour away from Madrid, so it didn´t take us long at all to get there. Toledo is gorgeous! It was the capital of Spain before Madrid, so it has a rich history. We saw the main cathedral of the town, a mezquita (mosque), and 2 synagogues. The town is surrounded by the Rio Tajo making for some beautiful views 😊 I also tried mazapan which is a sugary pastry that is famous in Toledo (yum!) Toledo is also famous for their swords. Heather actually bought a sword there! Its almost as tall as her, so I´m not sure how she´s planning on bringing it back... (don´t worry Mom and Dad, I didn´t buy one!)

We were back in Madrid by 6:30. At 9:30, I met up with the Furman group at a Lebanese restaurant for Cailin´s 21st birthday. I got a falafel (pita bread filled with humas, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and some special Lebanese sauce...it tastes a lot better than it sounds, I promise!) After dinner, the Furman group headed to a plaza where we partook in our first "botellon." Basically, its the Spanish word for buying your alcohol from a store and drinking it outside somewhere to save money by not going to a bar. So everyone had brought their own "botellon" as well as a cup, and we put it all out and shared it as a group. I´m not going to lie, it was pretty fun! There were at least 200 other people out in this plaza with us...it was just like a giant street party! Around 1 a.m. we headed to Kapital, the biggest discoteca in Madrid. It´s 7 stories high! This place was packed!! On each level they were playing different kinds of music. There were also places to just hang out with couches and tables. On one of the floors they had a movie theater. It was so much fun! But if you had to leave the group to go to the bathroom or anything you were out of luck because it was close to impossible to find anyone again if they had moved at all. I was one of the first to leave from the Furman group, and I left at 4:30 a.m. Cailin didn´t leave Kapital until 7:00 that morning! She was able to take the metro home, haha! (it opens at 6)

Sunday morning I was up by 10 a.m. to go to the Rastro (a huge outdoor market) with Julie and Oli. I took a much needed nap that afternoon and then hung out with Heather and Ashley in el Parque de Oeste til it got too dark. This upcoming Wednesday we have another fiesta in Madrid meaning no class! Gotta love Spain and their fiestas!!!

¡Hasta luego!

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