Madrid

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Madrid & Funny Story about el Metro:

The program visited Madrid on Saturday the second of July & while there we had hours of free time after 2pm.
About the day: When we visited Madrid, it was very cool--there were many people and it is a huge city. We got off the city bus, which was very nice, and continued on an uphill walk to the garden of the castle. El Palacio Real--we walked through the very plain gardens (no need to ever see those) and then the castle. It was grand and beautiful. Basically, I should live there. (A true princess at heart=Emily) Then we continued to walk to the Plaza Mayor and la Plaza de Sol. La plaza de sol is where the protests for working and other problems in Spain are occurring. THey calmed down a lot the past couple of weeks, but there are still some remnants around. We continued walking to a lot of other places & then had free time for lunch and traveling around. A Group of 6 of us travelled. Myself, Rachel, Elizabeth (going to PAmplona with), Jillian (hopefully will go to Pamplona with us), Ali & Carrie Beth (both from UL and Kappa Deltas there. ALl of us plus one more are traveling to Barcelona together.
So, we ate food and drank sangria (of course) followed by touring some other buildings then attending Orgullo de Gais (the GLTB Pride Festival). It was crazy to see all these outfits these "men" were wearing. Quite an experience!
Funny Story: When we were leaving we decided to take the metro. It costs 1 euro per trip on the metro (just like any other subway). Ali was leading the way & the rest of us were not really paying attention since we didn't know where we were going....so Ali gets in front of all of us and we think we are following her. All of a sudden we do not her anymore! We for sure at this point think she is missing, so Carrie Beth tries to call her. When they talk Ali is trying to tell us where she is, but we don't see her anywhere. We finally see her & she is beyond some gates. Well, turns out we went up the escalator and immediately went straight exiting the metro. Yes, dumb.
I go up to a man working the metro and explain our mistake in spanish (yes, spanish). He really doesn't believe me until he sees my ticket that was bought 7 minutes ago. He is slightly horrified. It was quite a hilarious occurence. So, no one be worried. We survived! We just accidentally left the metro. Oh well.

Hasta que el proximo (Until the next time),

Em

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