La Vida Madrileña: Week 18: Catenas Take Spain (Round One)

Hola!

So this week was pretty boring, just the average week: class, studied, saw some fireworks in Retiro. Oh, right, and MOM, DAD, AND ROSS ARE HERE!

Classes are winding down, I have to turn in my two term papers this week and I have 3 finals next week. I'm not really ready for them, and I have a crazy hectic schedule for group study seshs this week. But I just have to get through the next two weeks and then I have pretty much a solid month of pure Madrid and travel before coming home [with a Complu exam thrown in the middle]. It's so crazy to think that my semester is wrapping up. I'm part glad because I'm almost done with classes, but I'm also really sad because its getting closer and closer to July 1st [aka back to the States].

Anywhos, this week was the San Isidro festival in Madrid. San Isidro is the patron saint of Madrid, so there were tons of street fairs and cultural stuff going on. Unfortunately, I was bogged down with a ridiculous amount of studying in preperation for finals so I didn't get to participate in a lot of the things. But, my friends and I took a nice little study break to go to the fireworks in Retiro. They were some of the best fireworks I've ever seen--they were coordinated along to classical music. Seriously, the 4th of July fireworks had nothing on these!

On Saturday, I got up bright and early to pick up Mom, Dad, and Ross from the airport. I taught them how to navigate the metro and we did a lot of walking on the first day. We walked around through Sol, Plaza Mayor, and Old Madrid. We also went into Palacio Real--which was amazing. The rooms were so ornate and ridiculous! I couldn't imagine anyone actually living there. After that, we went to lunch at a cafe near my piso and I showed them my piso. We got dinner along Calle Fuencarral at this place called Lateral, which was really good, it was kind of interesting, but it was nommy!

On Sunday, we met up and went to the Prado. I swear, no matter how many times I go [I've been at least 10-12 times this semester] I see something new. The art was amazing as always, and I realized that I really like Francisco de Goya's Pinturas Negras [Black Paintings]. They're all really dark and kind of creepy/morbid, but I really like them. They were painted right before he died while he was going kind of crazy. He literally painted his nightmares onto the walls of his house. After the Prado, I introduced my parents to my Sunday tradition--100 Montaditos. While they went and explored Retiro and Sol, I had to take care of studying. We met up again for dinner in my neighborhood, we went to my favorite Mex-Mex restaurant, La Panza Es Primero. It was delicious, as usual. They serve these little centritos, which are basically fajitas. We also went to San Gines to get some churros y chocolate.

Today, they met me at Ciudad Universitaria and I showed them around my campus. They did a tour bus around Madrid while I was in class. We met up again for a traditional Spanish lunch--menu del dia in Plaza Mayor. After lunch, we went to Santiago Bernabeu [Real Madrid's Stadium], it was really awesome. Its absolutely massive! And they have a ridiculous amount of trophies [fun fact: Real Madrid was awarded best team of the 20th century by Fifa]. We got to see the locker rooms, press room, walk on the pitch, sit on their benches on the sidelines, and see the presidents booth. It was really awesome! We wandered through Sol before finally settling on a yummy tapas place for dinner. Tomorrow, they head to Barcelona until Friday.