Busy Days!!!

Well it is officially the end of my second day in Madrid and I already feel like I live here. I can find my way around the city! That is really saying something considering my family claims I can't find my bedroom from the kitchen.

The day began with breakfast at 9:00 with Team Knight. We went to the hotel's little diner for a buffet of eggs and toast. After breakfast, Team Cron headed off to The Prado Museum which was fabulous. We saw TONS of famous paintings and bought some postcards to send to my history teacher, Mr. G. Team Knight went shopping while we were at the museum, and we met back at the hotel at noon.

From the hotel we took a taxi to the Perkin's house, a family from Fairfield who are living in Madrid for a year. We had a delicious lunch with them and their two sons and one daughter, Clark, Sam and Lucia. They told us about their school and about how hard it is having to learn and take classes in Spanish. We walked through Madrid in the pouring rain and ended up miles, or should I say kilometers from their apartment and had to hurry back!

We got back to the hotel and met India's hosts, the Navascuez family. They were so awesome and so outgoing! Claudia spoke English to us and we responded in Spanish so it worked great! Their family was adorable and they drove three hours to pick India up! I can't wait to take the train to Zaragoza to meet Silvia and her family. Claudia said that she is good friends with Silvia and every weekend we will all travel together to the Pyrenees mountains where they have a cabin. Awesome!

Well India left and we went back to the hotel for nap time! The jet lag is slowly wearing off so every thing is getting easier. The whole idea of sleep is apparently very abstract to Spaniards. They stay up all night and sleep all day like they're nocturnal. Claudia told us about Discotechas and the fun night time activities so apparently my strict 10:00 bedtime will not be in effect here in Spain.

After nap time, we went out to dinner at this small Indian restaurant. While we walked down the road, a young man came to us and gave us a brochure for the Indian food and walked us to the restaurant. He asked where we were from in broken English, and we told him New York because Connecticut is not well known among most Americans, let alone Spain. Well he told us he was from New York too... but we doubted he had been out of Madrid. It was sweet though, and he walked us out after we ate our curry chicken and rice.

We went out in search of some delicious ice cream and it was a huge success. Before we could find the quaint little waffle and ice cream stand though, we were asked out by a young Spanish guy. He sort of waltzed over to us and said in his heavily practiced, charming Spanish accent, "Escuse me ladies, would you care to join me for a beer?" We kindly declined and he sauntered away, but not before raising his fist in the air and yelling, "Cheers!!" I didn't know that two middle aged women and a fifteen year old girl could be very appealing, but apparently I wouldn't know.

Well the ice cream and waffles were delicious and now we're back in bed, ready to crash from all the walking and eating. Tomorrow is my last full day in Madrid before I'm off to Zaragoza for the rest of the month. I can't wait!