This weekend, my host family went to Valencia. I was supposed to go too, but thank you AFS, we had our first mandatory orientation for kids living in Madrid today. Much to my delight, this meant that I got to spend Fri-Sun at my friend Mariah´s house. So far, this weekend has been the bext couple days I have had in Spain so far!
Mariah has the greatest host brother ever. His name is Mateo, and within the first 30 seconds of meeting him he told me he was gay, and that he was taking Mariah and I into the center of Madrid to go shopping (and to get his hair done). Together, the three of us took the bus and metro into the city. Mariah and I waited at a beautiful outdoor bar/cafe while Mateo got his hair done. Afterwards, he gave us a tour of every nice store in Madrid, as well as a walk down the ¨Street of prostitues.¨ Overall, most of the shops were pricey, but it was fun nonetheless. One of Mateo´s favorite shops was an outrageously cute, two-story, teenage-girl wonderland of only pajamas and lingerie, all with Hello Kitty, Care Bears, and Mickey Mouse on them.
I bought myself a pair of ¨Jesus sandals¨ for 7€, which was good considering a pair of Converse in Spain go for 60€, which is $87.39. In the US, they sell for $40. I´m glad I brought my pair from home.
Mariah and I stayed up really late talking, but since we had to go to our orientation fairly early the next morning, we eventually went to bed. I wasn´t too suprised when I was abruptly awaken to the sound of ¨Just Dance¨ blasting from Mateo´s room around 2am. Oh well, live and let live.
On saturday, Mariah and I went to our orientation, which was also in the middle of the city. It was only for the students living in the Madrid area, so there were only about 12 AFS students there. We spent the first couple fo hours playing games, and then the mentors took us on an amazing walking tour of Madrid. We visited Plaza Mayor, Palacio Real, Plaza de Oriente, along with other old, famous, streets. We must have looked like the strangest bunch of tourists; 4 Americans, a French Canadian, 2 Austrian girls, a boy from hungary, a girl from France, a boy from Japan, and a girl from Finland. The ammount of translating being done amongst us was hilarious.
Calamar Bocadillo en Plaza Mayor
One of the activites they had us do was a scavenger hunt, where the objective was to find the name of the palace we were infront of, a theater, 2 kings of Spain, a park, and a church. My ¨Team Tortilla¨, made up of Simon from New Mexico, Sara from Austria, and I, ended up ambushing two Belgium tourists with a map. We eventually we asked them so many questions, they gave us their extra map. Unfortunately, our confidence in our imminant success let us down. We were the last ones to arrive at the finish, mainly because we stopped three times to have people take pictures of us. Oh well, Viva Team Tortilla!
Team Tortilla; map to victory
Simon, Sara, and I
Mariah and I took the train home after the orientation. Much to our dismay, a soccer game had just let out and the train was unbelievably PACKED! Literally, the doors kept beeping and wouldn´t close because there were so many people. Spain, meet deoderant. Please!
Mariah and I came to the conclusion that every town has a really crappy Chinese Buffet resturaunt. We are on a mission to find the ¨Buffet de Chino¨ in Madrid. If you have any idea were we could find such a thing, contact us.
Love,
Chloe
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