Woke up feeling a little better than the day before. Dana and I woke up early and went to the hotel breakfast where we got our first taste of Spanish food. Lots of crossiants and breakfast pastries, plenty of fruit, full selection of meats that look like proscuito and sausage, and cafe. It was delicious :) We sat randomly at a table with two other guys, Bevan and Kyle from California, who turned out to be a pair we hung out with a lot on the trip. They were telling us al about how they had randomly stumbled into an Irish pub the night before in which a local shared some beers with them and talked to them about the U.S. Civil War. After breakfast we met with our program and head to the Museo del Prado, a famous museums with paintings by Dahli, Goya, Greco and Valazquez. It was absolutely AMAZING. It was especially cool because a lot of the paintings we viewed I had learned about in my spanish classes. After the Museo del Prado, we had a long break for lunch and I followed a group I had recently met to Plaza del Sol where we grabbed a couple of pitchers of Sangrias and sat down for a nice lunch. It was a three course meal, starting with paella, and by the second course came around I was way too full!! The meal was a good deal but I avoided ordering that type of meal from then on. One of my new friends, Kelsey, ordered wine at lunch and they brought her a whole bottle!! Another thing I learned early on not to do. If I want wine at a meal, I must put "un vaso" in front of it to just order a glass. It worked out though, we helped her finish it :) After lunch w met back up with the rest of the group and went to the Reina Sofia, another famous art museum. This one was more modern, featuring artists such as Picasso and such. It was interesting but I was definitely more entralled with the first one :) In the afternoon after the museum tours, Dana and I did a bit of walking around the city. It was so beautiful :) So surreal to be in a whole new country. After our walk we had some time to kill before the night's activities. I took a small siesta and ran down to the lobby where I could enjoy a quick half hour on my computer, most of which was spent answering emails and trying to get ahold of people I hadnt talked to yet to let them know I was there. Around 10 p.m. we met up again with the same group from earlier in the day and head out again for Plaza del Sol. I was starting to get the hang of this metro thing! We had dinner at this nice sandwhich place, mine was a delicios combination of ham and some kind of goat cheese, and then scoped out a place where we could have drinks. My first night of drinks in Spain! After dinner we were still plenty early for the typical "going out" time (it was only 11:30 p.m. afterall) so we kind of walked around until things started to look a little more hoppin. We finally decided on this Irish pub kind of place (clearly a popular setup), in which I got carded at the door!! They asked me if I was 16, how embarrassing. The bar ended up being really fun, it was pretty crowded inside and there was a live band playing on some sort of second level platform above us. We all stood around this round table with a wooden beam running straight up through the middle of it to the ceiling. Pretty fun for the first night. After the bar we trudged home and I jumped immediately into bed, still feeling pretty jetlagged. What a long fun day in Madrid!!
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