Madrid!

Ashamedly, it’s been almost a full week since I’ve written. I’ll try to do better in the future, I promise! There’s just so much going on! On Friday all the new students went on a tour of Madrid, and it was amazing! I can’t really do it justice at all, and my pictures only partially describe it all. We saw so many things, and Javier (our teacher and tour guide, who knows so much about Spain!) told us so many things, I can hardly remember it all. I should’ve taken notes. We saw so many amazing historical sites and “famous” buildings that I’ve learned about. We saw the Prado (but didn’t go in, I’m going in 2 weeks!!), the royal palace, el Parque Retiro, the Plaza Mayor, the Gran Via, and sooo many more incredible things! Check out my pictures on Facebook, if you can! I took so many, my camera died right when we made it to this amazing market. It killed me to not have my camera when I was in the presence of such beautiful food!


(Last picture at the market before my camera died!)




So I didn’t get to take any pictures of the royal palace either, which is really sad!! It is beautiful and incredible, and makes the White House look a bit shabby! It has thousands of rooms and brilliant architecture, but we were all very disappointed to learn that Juan Carlos doesn’t live here, but lives in a smaller palace about 20 miles away. Oh, well.

We walked around Gran Via, which is basically the central street with tons of stores, and the central square (pretty much like Times Square in New York, but prettier), and we got to eat our lunch by the fountain and then wander around for awhile. Chester, who had been to Spain before, remembered this Churrería (shop that sells churros) that he went to before that was nearby, so a few of us went there, and it was amazing! Churros are a popular breakfast/brunch dish here (usually on the weekends), and its basically a long friend doughnut dipped chocolate. The chocolate has a consistency between hot cocoa and melted chocolate… it is sooo fabulous! The picture will make your mouth water!

(Churros y chocolate... yum!)




(Part of the main square/Gran Via area, it's impossible to get it all in one picture)



We also got to see the Plaza Mayor, which is also beautiful and well-known! I read about it all the time in high school, so it’s weird to actually be there in real life!

(Plaza Mayor!)





I took almost 200 pictures while my camera was still alive, mostly because all of the buildings in the downtown places we were are gorgeous!! Like, super amazing. So I was really obsessed with everything I saw and took tons of pictures. Here are a few of my favorites!






Here are a few more of my favorite pictures of the day...

(Beautiful views from the Parque Retiro)







(There were some amazing statues at the Parque Retiro, like this mermaid!)






Pretty much, I spent the weekend recovering from the long day in Madrid and planning some future trips... we're heading to Barcelona next weekend, so except 300+ pictures from there! I'm so excited! We also booked tickets to Rome, Dublin, and various other locations in Spain! Soooo exciting!

Hasta luego!