Tourists for the Day!

Government buildings

Although we refer to Spain as home now, we are still most definitely tourists. Sunday, we spent our first full day in Madrid. What an absolutely beautiful city! Every building is made of white stone and there are fountains, plazas and statues at every turn. We spent the morning walking around the city. Maria Jose pointed out numerous important tourist locations, which of course are already all jumbled in my head (guess I will have to do some more exploring). This included a walk through of the Mercado de San Miguel. With every type of food and drink imaginable inside, the smell immediately draws you in. With people pushing in all directions, it definitely was a struggle to stay together following Maria Jose. Everything looked absolutely amazing, I could have stayed for hours.
Our tourist status came out in full bloom when we boarded a bright red sight seeing bus with our cameras ready to go! The bus was a great way to see the whole city and definitely confirmed our want to live in one of the beautiful apartments with a balcony overlooking an even more beautiful street. It seems as though we have been saying that quite a lot though!

Who wouldn't want to live here?

After seeing every important landmark in Madrid, we were left in la Puerta del Sol (the exact center of Madrid) to find something to eat and shop! We found a Italian restaurant with a "menu del día" (menu of the day). The menu of the day is extremely common throughout Spain for lunch time. It is a three course meal with a drink and bread for usually under 15 euros (quite a deal!). After a delicious meal of bruschetta, salmon ravioli, and ice cream we were ready to take on the stores! As always, everything seems better in Europe and it took a lot of strength not to purchase everything in sight. Our feet began to hurt and the 90 degree weather was getting to us so we headed back home to Alcalá. I can't wait to go back to explore the museums, plazas, and parks more...good thing I have four months!

Puerta de Alcalá (stay straight and it takes us home!)

Today, was our second day of classes and the majority of my conversation class was spent discussing differences between the many countries that the students in our class represent. This included the different costs of college across the world. In Denmark, not only does it not cost anything to go to school, but you are actually given $10,000 a year to learn! That sounds like a pretty good deal to me! I am still really enjoying my teachers and my host family is still amazing! I am being completely spoiled and definitely could get use to living like this!

Muchos Besos!