España Cuatro

Alright so... Onto the fourth part of our adventures in Spain. Monday was almost completely uneventful, as Talia and I were both tired and she wasn't feeling great. We slept til almost 1 in the afternoon and stayed at the house to eat lunch with Susan and her kids, who got back from school around 1 30. We had salmon and vegetables for lunch, but the salmon was almost like a slab of steak, which I've never had before... I guess it never occurred to me that fish do have fat... Anyway, for the afternoon, Talia and I set off into the town of Alcala to have a look around and just explore. We took the map and went to a park first to just chill out a little bit. Then we made our way to the city center in hot pursuit of ice cream, which we found and ate successfully. I had mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream. Yum! Although the mint chocolate chip was so minty that at a certain point I started to feel like I was eating toothpaste... Regardless, we sat down for a white to eat our ice creams and came across two kids that were doing flips and jumps off of ramps and walls and videotaping them, probably to put on YouTube. I'll give them credit though, they were cool jumps. We walked a little more, went into a few shops, and I bought a pair of sandals. Then we sat down outside at a little cafe to get a drink. And I had non-carbonated iced tea for the first time since I came to Europe. Lovely :) In Spain, they do this thing called "tapas". Basically, when you get a drink, you get a little sort of food thing with it. They used to be free everywhere, all the time, but now most places charge you for them, and they're expensive. BUT! Not in Alcala!! They are still free there, so Talia and I took advantage of it and got a sort of chicken sandwich and a hamburger. (We don't speak Spanish so we just pointed at pictures that looked tasty) After enjoying that, we went into a few more shops, including a market, and then headed back to Susan's to eat dinner with the family. We didn't have anything really special that night. Some salad, cheese, vegetables, and what are basically croquettes, that once again, I don't know how to spell in Spanish...

That night, Susan and her daughter came into our room and told me that they knew that the next day was birthday and nobody should go without a gift on their birthday. And they gave me this beautiful Spanish shawl. It is black with embroidered flowers on it in all kinds of colors. I absolutely love it!

Tuesday was, yes, my birthday! Talia and I left the house around 11 30 with all of our things because we were going to stay our last night at Irene's. Susan walked us down to the bus stop so that we could meet up with Irene in Madrid and we said our thank yous and goodbyes. But of course, Talia and I had just missed the 11 30 bus so we had to wait for the noon one. We got to Madrid by 12 30 and met up with Irene. We took the metro back to her house and dropped off our things and then we were out once again for the day. Irene took us to this huge mall in Madrid with tons of stores. It was bigger than any of the malls I've seen so far in Europe. We did a little shopping and eventually ended up eating lunch at the same restaurant that we had that first day with the little sandwiches. Then for the afternoon, we looked around some more in the shops, but didn't buy anything this time. Around 5, Irene had to go to her university to find out her test scores, so Talia and I headed back to the Madrid city center to do some souvenir shopping. We also made a quick stop at Dunkin Donuts and I got half a dozen donuts for Ben, since I remembered that he loved them so much when he was in Chile and there are no Dunkin Donuts in Belgium. We did a little more shopping and then took the subway back to Irene's, getting a little lost once we got out of the underground. But we found it alright and waited at her door until she got home, since we did not have a key.

That evening, I met Pablo, Irene's very cool boyfriend. We got ready to go out for the evening and took the subway back into the city. Pablo left us, but Irene guided Talia and I to a nice little restaurant where we would have my birthday dinner. The menus were, of course, in Spanish, so Irene just ordered a bunch of stuff and they brought them out, one plate after another. We had croquettes, calamari, and then a dish that was potatoes with three sunnyside-up eggs over them and pieces of bacon-type meat sprinkled over it. Man was that good stuff. After we had finished eating, we got back on the metro and headed over to Irene's university to meet up with a couple of her friends. We hung out there, just talking and having a good time, and around 1am made our way to a nearby club called "Nuit". The girls got in free (ha!) and we spent a few hours there, dancing and having a good time. We left around 3 30am and started making our way home. But the subways in Madrid don't run at that time, so we walked. And eventually got too tired and decided to take a taxi the rest of the way. It was my first time ever in a taxi. We got back to Irene's and crashed for the night.

We woke up around 9 30 the next morning and Talia and I packed up all of our things to go to the airport. We were each also wearing about 6 layers of clothing, since we had to compensate for the things we had bought in Spain. Irene went with us to the subway and we met up with Pablo there, and then we all went to the airport together. There we said our thank yous and goodbyes once again and Talia and I were off through security. We got through it all no problems and then we went to find some breakfast and hung out until it was time for our flight. Once again, I slept through most of the flight until we were landing. And we had a rough landing... We were 20 minutes early, so Talia and I ended up waiting a while at Charleroi for our ride home. But around 4pm, Ben showed up to take us home. I gave him the Dunkin Donuts, which he was thrilled about, and we shared a couple before the leaving the airport.

And then it was home sweet home. There ya go, folks. Our Spanish Adventure in four parts. Hope you enjoyed it and tune in next time for more stories from The Belgium Blogger.