Ay Caramba - Dia numero uno!

Well, considering I haven't been in Madrid for almost a week now, I figured I should probably write down and/or blog about the experiences I had before they're gone from my mind forever.. considering I have probably the worst memory ever (except for when it comes to music), I probably should have done this a lot sooner but... I forgot to. Typical, right?

this was on a parking garage, but i just love how the exclamation points make it sound so excited!

I've also decided that I definitely can't post everything about Madrid in one little teeny blogpost considering I was there for a good five days. So.. I figured I'm going to try split it up as evenly as I can. Honestly, these five days were probably the best times I have had so far while studying abroad (aside from being in Dublin of course). Not only did I get to see a beautiful city with the most beautiful architecture that I couldn't help but always look up, but I also got to explore this city with two of my best friends (Claire and Zareef) and one of my future roommates, Anne!

El Oso y El Madroño - the symbol of Madrid

I didn't sleep the night before flying, therefore I expected to be completely exhausted that first day in Madrid. I was wrong. Once I got there, I couldn't stop listening to all of the conversations (which I understood a lot of, surprisingly) and once I finally got to the city, I kept getting ADD and looked at ALL of the buildings. Honestly, I'm still completely baffled by how much Spanish I actually know. I fee like if I studied abroad in Madrid, I would totally get the hang of speaking casually and eventually get fluent. AND THEN I'd be trilingual - HELL YES. But alas.. I am living in Dublin and am only bilingual (which I guess is more than other people could say...)

el hostel - as opposed to hostal (which is better)

Things that amazed me about the Spanish accent. The lisp. The lisp was hard to grasp the first couple of times I tried speaking with people. examples of lisp words include: Barthelona, Grathias, etc. (side note: Favorite moment making fun of these accents was me and Zareef saying Barthelona and attempting to yell Claire's name with a lisp and some South African clicks included. She walked ahead and pretended not to know us.. who woulda thunk she'd be embarrassed)

the ceiling of my hostel - que bonita!

I had previously arranged that I'd stay with Claire at her homestay, but because she was still in Italy with her roommate the Saturday I showed up in Madrid, I got to stay in a hostel for the first time outside of Ireland. I have to say.. I definitely prefer staying in hostels in Ireland because for the same price, I get a room with only three other people with a bathroom ensuite. Nevertheless, the Cat's Hostel (yes, cats as in meow) was not too bad despite my having to live with 11 other random people for the night. There were lockers in which I put all of my stuff and I spent the night snuggling with my purse, instead of a person. Woof. At least my identity wasn't stolen!


Continuing on... as I had previously mentioned, I spent the first day exploring Madrid with my future roommate Anne. We walked around all the main touristy areas briefly, which included Banco de España, Puerta del Sol and we even visited the modern art museum, Reina Sofia. Personally, I have never been a huge fan of modern art, but I figured it might be different in a foreign country. In one aspect, I was right.. it was completely different. But different in the sense that it was even weirder than I would ever have imagined. The majority of the exhibits we visited included videos of Spanish movies with subtitles. Looked normal, so I figured I would sit down and put the headphones on. Little did I know that these headphones had someone whispering something completely different than the subtitles and into only one of my ears. Needless to say, we left after only checking out a couple of the exhibits. 

my first cup of coffee in Spain which I drank after experiencing Reina Sofia. 

After the weird, but still necessary for the story, experience in the modern art museum, Anne and I decided to catch up for a bit, have some coffee and soak up the remaining sun rays of the day. She's been abroad for the whole year in Madrid, so there was a lot she needed to hear about! Although.. good thing facebook and the internet do exist, because I'm not sure I would have been able to recount everything that has happened at AU and Ireland while she's been in Europe... my stupid, awful memory. 

Well, this has just been a recap of one of my days... onto the next day, conveniently located in the next post about my explorations around Madrid by myself before Claire's imminent arrival!