Madrid

This weekend I went to Madrid. We left saturday morning. Ana and I were exhausted because we went to a party the night before and slept very very little. We drove there and it took about 5 hours, but it wasn't all that boring at least for me, because it was cool to get to see the Spanish countryside (and read AP human geo for 3 hours). We stopped in a town called Mérida to see a huge Roman bridge from the time of Augustus. After continuing our driving for a while, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant that was actually not too shabby.

We arrived to Madrid and first went to the hospital. Pretty exciting.... Couldn't find the light switch to the bathroom there so I just went to the bathroom in the dark. We were there to visit my host sister's cousin, Carmen, who had just had a baby girl the day before. We sat in her hospital room for a while... a while... and I practiced some Spanish, because they were all like obsessed with wondering if I spoke Spanish. Then they made the assumption that I couldn't understand them, and I was like just listening to them talk about me, like oh just FYI I can understand you. They were all really nice though! The baby had an infection so she has to stay in the hospital for a little while, we got to go upstairs and see the baby at like "time for visiting babies with infections" hour (which happened to be 5:45, or maybe it was 7:45). After finally leaving the hospital we bought pastries and went to my host mom's parents' house. They were really nice. Her dad spoke some English so the first thing he said to me is, "What is your Christian name?" He repeated it like 3 times, and I had no idea what to say. Then my family was like, "her name is Briannah, they just say name not Christian name." After staying there for a long time, we went out to dinner at Pizza Jardín. I swear they had the fastest service on the face of the planet for an italian restaurant. We finally made our way to our hotel. It was so freaking awesome, it was called the NH La Florida, it was pretty awesome.

The next day (yesterday), we awoke and left at 11 to go see Madrid. I pretty much got a driving tour of the entire city. At one point, my host dad had to make a photo copy at some store, but we couldn't park so my host mom just drove the car in circle around the big roundabout for like 10 minutes. I was getting so annoying going in circles haha. We visited the parents of my host dad. (Yes I did a lot of visiting of grandparents in Madrid). They didn't speak any English, but were very funny and nice. Their apartment was practically next to El Palacio Real. We had snacks at their houses, even SUSHI. We then walked around and saw Plaza España and the Royal Palace. It was really beautiful. We also walked around another plaza statues of all the Spanish kings. It was Carnival, so there were lots of people in weird costumes and little kids in super adorable costumes.

We went to lunch at Vips, with my host mom's parents, and two of Ana's older cousins. I actually got to speak some Spanish and have an Oreo milkshake! We drove to where the 4 skyscrapers (cuatro rascacielos) are. They are really cool and the pathways surrounding them are really nice. I don't even remember what we did next I am so tired. We drove back into downtown and went to El Corte Inglés to look at books. Then we went shopping. I think my family is obsessed with shopping. We just got food from the grocery store to eat back at the hotel.

On the drive back to Sevilla we stopped in Trujillo, which is famous because it is where Fransisco Pizarro was born, the conquistador of Perú. It was a more traditional little town and there was a huge old church and a statue of Pizarro. We ate lunch there. My family has finally understood that I am not starving to death. I swear they feed me as if I am like two senior boys combined.

Madrid is awesome.

~Briannah (I am too unmotivated to proofread this, so.... hope it wasn't too painful to read)