Retiro Park

Well yesterday I had a great day with some friends, and none of it was planned! A few of us met up in Retiro park in the afternoon just to walk around. Retiro is probably one of my favorite places in Madrid. It is just so pretty especially with all of the leaves changing colors. There is so much to see and there are always a bunch of people there. In the middle of the park, there is a lake where you can rent a boat for 45 minutes and go out on the water. So Landri, Joe, Lindsey and I decided to do it. It was a lot of fun. Then after Retiro, we decided to walk around a part of the city that we had never been to. We ended up walking to the Real Madrid's soccer stadium and found out there was a game that night. So I ran to the ATM, got some money, and tried to find the cheapest tickets. We bought some about 15 minutes after the game started for a pretty good price, considering the cheapest that the box office had was 250 euro. Real Madrid was playing Atletico Madrid, the other team from Madrid, so it was a loud and rowdy game. The atmosphere in the stadium is very cool, and I'm glad I got to be there for the game. I'm wearing my Real Madrid jersey to class tomorrow (last day of class!) because my teacher is a huge Atletico Madrid fan. Hopefully, he doesn't get too mad...

On the boat in the Retiro

Joe and Landri at the Real Madrid game

Then after the game, we met up with some more friends and my "amigo," Alberto, from school. We are set up with amigos (friends) who live in Madrid and they plan events with us so we can get some good interaction with Spaniards. It was Alberto's birthday so he invited us to go out to a bar with him. It was funny because Alberto and all of his friends wanted to practice their English, but we wanted to practice our Spanish, so we would talk to them in Spanish and they would respond in English. We stayed there until about 4 am, and then Landri and I decided to go get churros and chocolate from San Gines, a famous chocolatería in the middle of Madrid. We walked there since the metro was closed and it was SO COLD. But SO WORTH IT. I have been there twice at around 4:30 am, and both times it has been packed with people coming back from clubs or bars. After that we decided to skip on a cab, and wait until the metro opened at 6:00 to head home. The metro at 6:00 am is also an experience. It's a lot of kids going home from being out (like me). Usually, people are falling asleep in their chairs, or being loud and obnoxious. So overall, it was a great day/morning!

Churros con Chocolate

On Thanksgiving, our school organized a dinner for all of us, our teachers, and some students from another university. We had Spanish appetizers, but the main meal was turkey, stuffing, and french fries. It was a little weird not being in the states for Thanksgiving, but hey I'll take Madrid!

This will be a busy week for class. We have final exams on Tuesday and Wednesday, and our big theatre performance on Thursday for our Theatre class. So lots of work to do, but then we have a week of traveling in Andalucía in the south of Spain!