I don't have the time to write a narrative about every detail from the past few weeks so I will stick to a few highlights:
1) Highlight one: Mom and Jeff visit from the states! (November 2nd -8th)
Well, they tried to surprise me with mom coming to visit, but given that Jeff sent me a confirmation email for a hotel room for three people, I knew something was up - the question was only who would be coming.
We seemed to be really good at passing the time wondering and eating, because the main (and really the only touristy thing) we accomplished in Madrid was seeing the Real Madrid vs. Real Zaragoza match on the 3rd. Madrid dominated, winning 4-0 and we got to see Benzema (soccer player we clubbed with and played tug-of-war with at Club Med in Mexico) assist a goal, which was really sweet! |
| Mom and I in Parque de Retiro in Madrid |
Mom got conned into a 30 euro 10 minute massage near El Palacio Royal by Asians who didn't seem to really understand her Spanish or her English. But, she claims, it was well worth it! (Only mom, lover of massages...)
Activities in Salamanca: Walking to the Plaza, seeing the cathedrals and the frog on the facade of the university....and well, yeah. That's about all that a tourist (who isn't interested in actually going to the museums or getting the tours) can do in Salamanca - a task that can be easily covered in an afternoon. Out of fear of driving mom and Jeff to boredom in Salamanca, we booked a day trip to Puerto de Béjar, a cute town with lots of hiking trails. We were dropped off in the middle of nowhere basically, in a small village with a lot of friendly elderly people. Jeff navigated us to the start of a hiking trail. The trail was pretty flat, full of colorful leave and prickly chestnut shells. We lost our trail and stumbled through some very painful branches! After trying various directions to continue with our trail, we decided to turn back.
After our hike, we found a cute little bar and went inside, asking what they had to eat. The man responded "Platos Combinados", which are basically dished with eggs, potatoes and some meat (lots of different combinations, some with just eggs and potatoes, etc.). I was translating, asking what mom wanted to do, so the man switched to English. He says, "For when do you need the food", to which we replied that we had to catch a bus in 40 minutes. His co-worker comes into the restaurant and is headed to the back of the restaurant and he asks her in Spanish if she can make 3 plates of eggs and potatoes, to which she replies "right now?" he says, "No, for 30 or 40 minutes". I corrected him in Spanish, saying that we needed the dishes as soon as possible as we had to leave the restaurant within 30 or 40 minutes (#bilingualbenefits). The dishes still took a while to be prepared, and we ended up gobbling them down in 5 minutes and booking it to the bus, arriving just when the bus arrived.2) Trip to LONDON!
Ok, I cannot believe that I never had the desire to go to London before I came to Europe. It is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous. We did another one of those sleepovers in the airport on Thursday the 8th (happy birthday to Sal!). We were sitting in a cafe, and a homeless man came asking for what we thought was money, but when we saw him looking at left trays for food, we decided to make him a little care package (since our host moms always back us enough for more than one person in our picnic meals). He had already started walking away, so I ran after him to give him the food, and said "Perdón, ¿quieres esta comida?" (excuse me, do you want this food?), to which he replied, "Sí, me convendría. " (it would be convenient for me slash it would help me). I gave him the food, and as I turned to walk away, he said "gracias, guapa".Megan and I lived the cush life during our first sleepover. This time, I didn't even bother getting ready for bed, just passed out face first on the table, woke up a little later, and then moved a few chairs together as a make-shift bed. In spite of my lack of a good night's sleep, I ran on full battery all day in London.
On Friday, we went to buy tickets for wicked, wandered in attempts to find Oxford(which isn't on Oxford Street, as one would intuitively think, if you were wondering) and the London Bridge (which, contrarily to what I assumed from Fergie´s song, is not the picturesque bridge, AKA Tower Bridge), went to the London eye, saw Wicked, and celebrated Sal´s 21st birthday with margaritas and burritos at a restaurant called "Chiquitos". Regarding Wicked, I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THE WICKED WITCH WASN'T EVEN BAD. My whole life just crumbled, just like when I found out Santa Claus isn't real (please tell me I don't have an audience of young children on this blog) and when I realized that Christopher Columbus was a jerk.
On Saturday, we went to the Madame Toussaud's House of Wax (which was ABSOLUTELY PACKED even though we are the so-called "off-season"...don't want to image that during Summer), to CHIPOTLE (for lunch yayyyy), shopping on Oxford street for souvenirs, and to the Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge.
Annnnd of course we got lost in the tube, getting on two wrong trains before we got on our real one. On the second train, we got on, realized our stop was in the opposite direction of the way we were going, cracked up, got made fun of/imitated by drunk men, stood up when the train stopped in the middle of the dark tunnel (then realized it wasn't a stop, laughed and sat back down), and then when we finally go to a stop where we could switch trains, Brenda tried to go out the door that's against the wall of the underground. All in all, an experience with lots of subway faux pas.
Saturday night, we were off to the airport for round two of "sleep"overs for the weekend!
AN INCREDIBLE TRIP.
Ta ta for now,
Katie
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