March 15 (Day 57): I Gots A Lotta Esplain' To Do

So first off, I really wanted to update this the night before we left for Madrid with thoughts like "I wonder what Spain will be like" "hopefully the travel will go well" "I'm nervous for the new culture but really excited" "I missed the sun, this should be nice" and "wish me luck getting up at 4am, oh god"
but then there was a jazz show and I took a few extra hours to pack so that didn't really work out. (OOPS)


As of today, it's been a mere 13 days since that fateful morning call and it feels bizarrely normal just to be sitting back on my bed after experiencing so many different things. Obviously my culture shock was not quite that of the 12-person group who ventured off to Morocco, but the Iberian Peninsula was plenty unusual for me this time around.

While there are far more accurate words to describe my packing experience, for now I'll settled on these: unnecessarily complicated, unnecessarily stressful, and (as it turned out) partially unnecessary. I almost made the mistake of bringing three dresses; the two I brought were more than enough, and the two pairs of pants were only really good for traveling. Even then, just one would've been fine. #learningexperience

Getting to Madrid was fairly uneventful, mostly because I slept for nearly the entire bus ride, but we got to the airport an hourish early and meandered around the front area, blearily sipping at coffee or hot chocolate until the meeting time. Apparently there was a Starbucks that I had no idea was there, but I keep leaving my *$s card in my desk so no lattés for this diva :c I wound up visiting a Starbucks in Madrid and Barcelona and having to pay real money - NOT making that mistake in Rome! Seriously, what's one little piece of plastic in a whole bag? Trust me, the gold paint does not add any weight whatsoever, it's totally worth it

The plane ride was a series of naps interspersed with chatting around with surrounding students and generally ignoring the three Dutch ladies beside/behind me, all of whom were equally as blonde, bespectacled, and excitedly exhausted as I was that morning. Alyssa turned around at one point to comment on some joke or another, but instead of her planned retort whispered "BEKKA. YOU LOOK LIKE A FAMILY."

We actually kind of did though

Part of the discussion during the inexplicably long descent (seriously, they had us shut our stuff down to "prepare for landing" and then a good 35 minutes later we finally hit the ground. Come on, EasyJet, I mean really) consisted of me passing around my blue glasses because apparently seven different people wanted to try them on "because they're square blue glasses!" Twenty house points to 12 year old Larisa for picking those out; you have single-handedly made me more interesting to tired classmates.

On the way to our hotels, yes hotels no s in the middle thank you very much, Maria - a fellow MCR and crazy-hair-color fan, although she actually has the pink/purple hair that I have since foregone - talked life stories, trip plans, blogging, and whiskey sours. The buses actually dropped us off on the wrong side of our square, so we were all frantically padlocking our bags outside the buses and watching each others' backs going down the square.

We were split into two hotels and didn't actually know who had which building/room until arrival: all of the boys were in the first hotel, closer to the Plaza del Sol, with some of the girls in that building as well. The way they split it up was pretty inexplicable, but I was in the second hotel closer to our meeting-place square with Mel, Alessandra, and Najah.

POP QUIZ!
Once we all bottlenecked and shuffled our ways into the bag storage room, the first activity on the Madrid list was:
a. Bathe
b. Nap
c. Eat
d. Multi-hour walking tour

Thankfully, the answer was C. Lucas led the way to and through a surprisingly filling lunch of tapas and delicious beer, but I surprisingly do not have a picture of it.
Actually that's not surprising at all, because we were all cranky and ravenous, but still. Minus ten foodie points.
Lunch was spicy potatos, garlic shrimp, and cured ham. At some point a bread basket landed on the table and you'd honestly have thought we were vultures.

The walking tour, led by Pieter of the Rijksmuseum, proved remarkably less inspiring than the Amsterdam tour - granted, that was Chester Lee, and nobody can best Chester Lee. At anything. The city is beautiful though! We saw a lot of gorgeous buildings in a very even temperature (finallyyyy), stopped in a square filled with terrifying squeaky-voiced Mickey/Minnie Mouses, fake baby carriages complete with screaming babies, and bizarre goat/yak/nightmare creatures that clacked their mouths as we passed.

Then, they finally let us into our rooms.

So.
Here comes the fun.

My phone had started roaming from the minute we landed in Spain, so I'd very cleverly turned it off. Then, a few hours later, I went to turn it back on. This delightful little piece of machinery requires a PIN to log into.
First try: nope.
Second try: nope.
Third try: nope PIN BLOCKED INPUT PUK NUMBER
.... "well that's just bloody brilliant now isn't it"

My PUK number lives under my bed. My bed in the castle. At this point, a castle with multiple countries between itself and I.

PERFECT.

That night, Mel, Lucas, Chris and I went out for dinner - no free food this time, boo - and I had my first McDonald's of the semester.

Obviously no pictures for this one. (shaaaaame)

That night was Lars's birthday, so we all scattered our way around Madrid to eventually meet up in a flamenco bar. The bar was actually having a show when my group (Lucas, Thea, Jacquie, Mel, Erin, Emily, and myself) showed up, so we scooted back up the road dodging drunk singing men to a little bar. A mojito later (which absolutely paled in comparison to the U Sudu potion), we tried the flamenco bar again.
Bouncer: "Are you all over 18?"
Lucas: "Yes."
Bouncer: "Okay go in"
Lucas: "................... he didn't ask for ID. I LOVE SPAIN!"

There was very little actual flamenco dancing going on, more like yet another Emerson nightlife invasion, but the sangria was good and we all had a fun (but not completely exhausting, for once) night out.

SO before anyone gets their knickers in a twist about the other 9 days of my break, I promise - updates are on the way. However, now I have Monkey Ethics until 4:15, a taxi ride from 4:16 to 5ish, and a flight to catch for Rome. It's never a boring life here, that's for sure!

In the next installments:
The rest of Madrid, including the museum tour with Dulcia (!!!!!) and Club Kapitol
The Epic Commute to Barcelona
Barcelona from Tuesday morning to Friday morning
The Separate but Equally Epic Commute to Porto
Porto, Portugal and all of its perfections, plus some imperfections
and
Rome!

...Ay dios mio that's a lot of writing to do.