Hello everybody! I am relaxed and well rested this evening, and my long, lazy weekend isn't even over yet! So Friday was definitely a lazy day. I slept in, hung out with Angelina watching Spanish movies, and then went out for dinner for the first time in Madrid. While Spanish food is delicious, it is very mild. We were all craving algo picante (something spicy)! So we decided that every few weeks from now on we will hit the streets of Madrid to try out various ethnic food. First came Indian food, something I have been dearly missing. For all of the Indian food I've eaten with my lovely friends, I had never really eaten at an Indian restaurant. We went to the "ethnic food district", called Lavapies, and just started wandering. We soon found a street with about eight Indian places in a row on it, and they all had guys out on the sidewalk trying to get us to come in. Neha chose one for us based on the menus that they had outside and in we went. The food was delicious. There were six of us at dinner, and we just ordered five dishes and went family style. Quite honestly, I don't even remember what we got, because we had Neha order for us, but I liked everything. I think we're going to go for Mexican next time!
Yesterday we hit up the Reina Sofia, which is the name of Madrid's modern art museum. It is most famous for being the house for Picasso's "Guernica", which was awesome to see in person. It has a sizable Picasso collection, as well as Dali, and various other well known surrealists. We wandered the museum for about two hours before heading back to the subway, stopping at Dunkin' Coffee on the way. Yes, that's right, here they don't call it Dunkin' Donuts, for some reason. I got some hot chocolate because it was freezing outside, but I couldn't even drink it all because it was so so so rich! It is way more melted chocolate and less milk here.
We have realized that one thing we miss about being at home is being able to socialize very cheaply. In Spain, it is not customary to have people over to your apartment/house very often. Sure, friends have friends over for dinner every once in a while, but the vast majority of the time, socializing happens in the streets, at bars, at clubs, and at restaurants. This makes it very expensive! We are all craving just a movie night or something, but we can't have friends over at our homestays, and we don't want to spend our weekend nights alone in our rooms, and we can't go out every single night! So last night while some people went to a concert Sinead and I went over to the apartment of our only friend here who is not living in a homestay. Stephen and Matt came as well, as they are in Joel's (the apartment dweller) program. We had a great night of just hanging out, and the apartment is within walking distance of where I live so it was very easy to get home.
Today I actually got up at a decent hour and went to the Rastro (flea market) with some friends. I got sunglasses, which I did not manage to bring with me from home! I've just been hanging out at home this evening, I will have dinner shortly, and then I'm heading to a club later for the Super Bowl! It's going to be a late night, considering that the game doesn't start until 12:30am Madrid time. Good thing I took a siesta this afternoon!!
So I bid you all farewell for the evening, as I will soon be heading out for the first time in Madrid with the intention of being obviously American. It will probably be weird, I usually try so hard to blend in! Anyway, hope you guys eat lots of chips/wings/spinach dip/etc. for me!
Love you all, GO GIANTS!
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