What a week....

Last week was crazy-fun packed, but this week we took it a little slow...
After having such a wacky weekend, we were exhausted.
Waking up at 7:15 for school definitely did not help!

On Monday night, Joann, the "leader" of our trip took 'us' out for dinner. 'US' meaning Aliza and I watched everyone eat dinner while drinking Coca-Cola light.
The food happened to look great, until Brandon put cheese on his hamburger.
Could you believe that a nice piece of steak is only 12euro!? I can't. Just imagine the life we'd have if food was so cheap... our oatmeal dinner was fabulous though, I must say.
Cinnamon roll oatmeal + a cut up apple = mmmm good!

I forgot to mention that on Shabbos, we met two nice couples from Plainview, who were on a vacation in Madrid. They did nothing to prepare for their trip and we told them everything and everywhere to go.
On Sunday night, when we went to the restaurant (whose name I still do not know), we saw them and they offered us tickets to the two museums that Aliza and I were planning to go to that week.
So, Tuesday, after school Aliza and I went on a hunt for the hotel. A hunt, because it was in the middle of nowhere!
When we finally got the tickets, we then continued on our voyage to a second El Cortes Ingles because the Chabad Rabbi's wife told us there would be Kosher food.
And guess what: THERE WAS!!
Aliza and I picked up (more) crackers, CHEESE, deli packets, and MAMA OF chicken! It was a great day; we were so happy to have food, even though for the time being, we're pretty content.
At night, we planned to go Flamenco Dancing. So as Aliza's job, she writes down the directions and when we get there...there was nothing there! There was a building that was completely inhabited and a club (that we obviously went into) that was empty.
We were embarrassed to be in there because there were so few people, so we left.

Wednesday was a fun day for me but mostly because i got a 95 on an essay that I worked really hard on! I also had a quiz that I did well on, so that was nice.
I had a lot of homework, so obviously that needed to be done before I went anywhere.
Aliza and I went to the train station to get out tickets for shabbos... Valencia, here we come!!
Then, we met the "wolf pack" (as Bryce calls it) at the Reina Sofia museum. It was really nice, it was modern art such as Picasso, Dali, etc. but we didn't get to see that much because the tour guide brought us to only a few portraits, so we have the Plainview people's tickets, so we'll go again! WOOT WOOT. Oh, how much we love free things.
The girls stopped in Starbucks and Aliza and I found some Kosher snacks, so while they were all drinking coffee, we ate tortilla chips and edamame!

Madrid is a very welcoming city. The are very gay-friendly, and have a "quad" with a lot of gay bars. So from Starbucks, we took the train to Chueka (Show-eh-ka). It was a girls night, so it was really fun. We first went to dinner, as in Aliza and I drank Coca-Cola light, and thennn we went gay bar hopping.
It was really sad because the bars were empty (Well what do you expect on a Wednesday night!?) But of course, Aliza got picked up by a 50-year old woman!
It was hilarious.
The beer was gross and it was 1 AM, so Shanna and I left.

Thursday was not a good day:
1. I slept for what felt like 10 minutes
2. I spoke to my teacher in Hebrew instead of Spanish and I was MORTIFIED because I just sounded stupid (although i'm pretty sure I am the first Jew he ever met)
3. I had to present in my speaking class and it did not go as well as I had hoped.
4. I'm exhausted!!!
5. For some reason without realizing, I just start crying (this has been going on for a few days now - I think i'm just REALLY tired)
6. And of course, my water bottle spilled in my knapsack.
This all happened BEFORE 2 o'clock!

Laura came for lunch. She's leaving on Sunday to Israel, so we had a "goodbye" lunch with her, even though it was a BYOL (Bring your own lunch).
It was nice to see her again... but we knew we'd see her later that day because she had a REAL cello performance!
Aliza and I went as her family. She was so happy that we were there and we were SO happy to be there too because she plays so nicely!!
(Since Saturday night, she has played in Puerta del Sol twice and made 50 euro!)

Aliza and I also tried our airplane dinner. We bought it at El courte Ingles and figured it would be fun to eat... mine was good but Aliza's wasn't (the first good thing that happened to me today!?)