Okay... pretend this post was posted yesterday.

Yeahhhh Madrid! We’ve spent the last few days since we’ve gotten to Spain here. The second day here, we walked to el Prado museum and saw some artwork of artists that I’ve learned about in Spanish class like el Greco, Goya, and Velasquez, among others. Goya was definitely twisted in the head, but that makes his work ridiculously cool. From what I’ve learned about Velasquez, he did a lot of paintings of royal families, but he was always satirical and mocking of them. A lot of his paintings include dwarfs, and the like, and he usually paints himself somewhere in the painting. A tad arrogant maybe, but super funny. Anyway, we went through most of the museum, but I think that there was a littttle too much of it to keep my attention.

Today we went to el Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, where the futbol (soccer) team Real Madrid plays. It was sweet! There were like a million seats there, and we got to take a tour through the stadium, as well as their trophy room, the players’ bench, the locker room, and the press room. It was awesome to see the pride that the city of Madrid has for its team. After that, we came home and slept for… 5 hours. Yeah, about that. I think that the walking is killing us more than we think? I mean, my hips are sore, and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that pain from walking before. But overall- good day J

A few observations about Madrid:

            1. It smells. Like sewer. I mean baaaaad. But I’ve almost gotten over it.

            2. The men=ridiiiiiculos. All men, young and old WILL stare at you. Up and down, for prolonged periods of time. Even after they’ve already walked past. Even from mere inches away. They make obscene remarks and kissy noises and chomp their teeth at you. And they give a WHOLE new meaning to butt grabbing. (Dad, please don’t freak out)

            3. I can’t figure out when these people work. Everyone is ALWAYS out and about.

            4. The majority of stores do not open til late afternoon.

            5. Okay… so shopping. They sell the same clothes that we do here?! Odd, and somewhat sad, I’ll admit. I want a European wardrobe! But that didn’t stop me from buying a new dress. ;) And what’s awesome… no tax! YAY!

            6. I’ve walked a lot. I know this is a Europe thing, and I think I’m ready to embrace it.

            7. The food… meh. Thursday for dinner, we both got paella mixta, which is seasoned rice with chicken and seafood- bones and shells included. Definitely gotta watch out for those. Friday we got breakfast at a bakery. According to Rick Steves, the shop is famous for its cream-filled Napolitana pastry, so I tried one of those. Pretty good. Lunch was at a place called el Museo de Jamon. or the Museum of Ham. We got bocadillos de jamon (ham sandwiches) for a euro. The ham is definitely different than at home, but not bad. Dinner was pizza and French fries! Woops… When in Spain, do as the French? Americans? do, I guess. ;) By the way, the pizza was GREAT!

            8. The music is in English- everywhere you go. In fact, the grand majority is our music. And no one here even speaks English! How much would it suck to have to sing along to music when you don’t even know what you’re singing? For cripe’s sake.

            9. The architecture in Spain far surpasses that of the U.S. The buildings are flipping amazing. Seriously.