8-8-09 Saturday..Happy Birthday to me!!!

It’s my birthday! Finally! I am legally able to drink and not get in trouble, which is very good for my case! That seemed to happen a little more often in High School than it should have! Anyways, 5 AM came fast and I got ready to head out for my weekend to Madrid. Carmen called a Taxi for me because the buses aren’t running that early and I had to be to the train station around 6:30 AM, our train left at 7 AM. I was too scared and nervous to walk to the Metro by myself (it’s about a 20 min. walk from here) so they got me taxi. The taxi was there right on time, thankfully, and got me to the train station. The cost was about 12 Euros. I met Gina and Betsy at the train station right away, but Emily was not there yet…in fact she didn’t get there until about 6:50! She was freaking out and so were we...we quickly got through security and rushed onto our train! The train was nice, but very cold, but fast! It takes about 7 hours to drive to Madrid by bus and it took us 2 hours and 57 minutes to get there by train AND we had to stop at another station for about 10 minutes! It was crazy, but nice! We arrived in Madrid around 10ish and walked to our hostel. We met Marisol, Rochelle, and Kaila there. We weren’t able to check-in until about noon, so we put our belongings in a locker at the hostel and were off to check out Madrid. The first 10 minutes of being in Madrid, I knew I liked Barcelona much better! It’s just more dirty in Madrid, more homeless people begging for money, and more guys catcalling you! It was crazy! We walked around and some plazas, a basilica, a cathedral, a palace with gardens (which looked much like Versailles in France), and stopped at McDonald’s to eat. Ugh, I was hoping to make it through this trip with no McDonald’s! But we were all so hungry and starving, we just settled on it. At least, I haven’t been there as much as Kaila, Emily, and Betsy! They have gone about 4 times now! Haha! We walked back to the hostel after that to get ready for out night out to celebrate my birthday. Before we did that though, we went to two museums. They were free and Gina really wanted to go to them! We went to the Reina Sofia for like 20 minutes just to see a piece of work by Picasso. The “Guernica” which is a mural, it was pretty big, and I was able to get a photo of it. Also, we saw some work by Dali. After that, we walked to The Prodo and had to stand in line before we could get in. It was a huge museum, but Betsy and I got through all of it in an hour and a half! There was a lot of work by Goya, which I learned about my World of the Arts class at UWW. That was really all I knew in that museum. I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to this stuff! We weren’t able to take photos in The Prodo, so I don’t have any. After the Prodo, we made our way over to a plaza to eat. We ate a restaurant and we wanted to get tapas, because that is very typical in Spain to have. There little portions of meals and you’re supposed to go from bar to bar and try different things. We didn’t really do that, we just ordered some and tried it. I had beans with ham in olive oil! It was really good. I ordered a glass of wine (which I didn’t like) and gave it to Emily! She traded her sangria with me, which was delicious! After we ate, we were on a hunt to get some wine and just drink it in the street, but some guy came up to us and asked if we wanted free sangria. We were all for that and he took us to this new bar (they were marketing for it, that’s why the sangria was free) and had a glass of sangria. Emily told them it was my birthday, so they gave me a free shot! Haha! Kind of like a true 21st birthday in the States! After the bar, we wandered around more to find a place for desert! Emily, Gina, and Kaila went to a store to get wine, while Marisol, Rochelle, Betsy, and I decided on a place with chocolate cake! It was soo good! The girls came back with the wine and we opened it up and drank on the street (which is illegal to do, but was done anyways…rebels we are!) Kaila wasn’t feeling very well (because she got motion sickness on the bus), Emily was drunk by this time, Gina was chugging the wine out of the bottle, Rochelle was buzzing from the alcohol, Betsy, Marisol, and I were just happy to be out and doing whatever! It was really fun, we ended up going back to the hostel early that night, but I had a lot of fun! It was a great way to celebrate my birthday! I mean who can say, they were in another country on their 21st, were in Barcelona in the early morning, traveled to Madrid, went to the Reigna Sofia, The Prodo, and had drinks in Madrid! Nobody that I know, all I do know is I am lucky to have the girls here, they were awesome and really helped me forget I wasn’t at home. I wish I could have been in two places at once, because I missed being with my friends, family, and Jordon celebrating…but we’ll be doing that when I get back!  YAY!