Spain is amazing! The people – food – culture – language!

Our first full day began with a tour of Madrid. We started tour in front of the Palacio Real de Madrid, the official residence of the Royal Family (though they don’t live there anymore), and ended at the Museo del Prado. The museum had a lot of paintings, many by Diego Velazquez. While I enjoyed learning so much of Madrid’s history, it was nice to breakaway from the crowds of tourists after the tour and get lost in the city. 

I walked to Mercado de San Miguel and tried fish noodles. When in Spain, do as the Spaniards do, right? It essentially looked like spaghetti, except, yes, it was fish. But it really wasn’t all that bad.

Then five other girls in the study abroad program and I wondered around Madrid. We walked by a bustling roundabout with a massive, beautifully constructed building. On the front of the building hung a large sign that read “REFUGEES WELCOME”. This was my favorite sight in all of Madrid. 

We ended up at Buen Retiro Park with a crystal blue lake. People were rowing the kinds of boats you’d expect to see in a picture of Venice, Italy. We saw couples eating picnics on blanks under trees, people resting on benches, and many sculptures. It was 350 acres of beauty. 

After almost 10 hours of touring around, we decided (or rather our exhausted legs and sore feet decided) it was time to head back to the hotel. We took the metro, which was fairly similar to the metro back home in D.C. 

After attempting a brief nap and freshening up in our hotel, we hopped on the metro one more time to head to Teatro Kapital. We’d heard rumors that it was one of the best clubs in all of Europe. Well, the club lived up to our expectations. It was crazy; each floor had it’s own theme. While we only hit the first four floors, there were seven in total. We jumped from floor to floor and ended the night dancing with a crowd of lively Spaniards.