Aventuras en España: Descubrimientos en Madrid

Yesterday was a day of adjustment. The six hour time difference from Boston is very hard to get used to! When it is noon here, I feel like it is 6am, which is why I have slept most of the past two days. Yesterday we explored La puerta del sol more, and went in some shops around there. I want to discover other places now, because sol is a very touristy area, and I want to see real Spain, not just what the tourists always see. After grabbing some dinner at a restaurant near sol, I headed home on the metro and ended up just staying in and going to bed a little earlier. We tried to find some notebooks, and had an interesting adventure. We could only find a couple normal lined notebooks, 95% of them were graph paper! I guess Europeans write on graph paper? It was so weird! Today, I tried to get up at 10, but ended up sleeping until about 11:30, the time adjustment is so hard! I met up with the study abroad group at la Puerta de Alcalá, it is a very beautiful area. We explored el parque de Retiro, which was gorgeous. I would love to go back and explore some more. We were with a tour guide, so we had to keep up with him and couldn't really take our time to explore. This park is one of my favorite parts of Spain so far, it was beautiful. There is a place to rent boats, and other parts are just beautiful grassy areas. It is sort of the Central Park of Madrid. We went to the Retiro jardín, which was gorgeous as well. The plants are so green and beautifully arranged. At the end of the tour, we saw looked at some buildings near the park on el calle de Prado, which means Prado St. It is the street of El Museo del Prado, housing many of the most famous European paintings. I will be going there for class many times, because one of my classes is an art history class! I got a sunburn today on my shoulders, a first attempt at getting rid of the lovely farmers tan. After the adventure, I came home to have lunch and a siesta, then I decided to do a little exploring and got a gym membership, YAY! It was a little steep, but I have a place to workout that has cardio and weights, Tim will be so proud! Dinner was a filling meal of pork and vegetables, then my house mom took me out for helado (Spanish ice cream). I am hooked, it was so delicious. Little does she know, she has created a monster that will now be at that place every day. Good thing I have a gym to burn it off! The walk there and back was very nice, we passed many plazas, which are the Spanish equivalent of squares in the US. There area many very close to my homestay, and they have beautiful seating areas with a lot of trees and fountains. I also found some really good areas for shopping, sorry bank account... They are streets where the locals shop, yay! It is really just me trying to get involved in the culture, I need to spend some money to get a sense of the fashion here :) I also happened to note the location of a couple luggage stores, because I will need another bag to bring home since my luggage was only 1lb from being overweight on the way here. #Madridproblems, or as coach would say, it's a good problem to have :) My classes start tomorrow, crazy! I am not quite ready for academic mode, but since I only have class from 10am-2:15 with a 45 minute break, I still have plenty of time to explore Madrid! Tomorrow I am hoping to explore the neighborhood of my homestay more, I want to go back to the plazas nearby. I should really be sleeping right now, since I have a big day of classes tomorrow, but I can't go to bed until this LSU Mizzou super is over, it is such a good game! I can't even escape softball when I'm in Madrid! I'm already so excited for next year, and already missing hsb. I hope everyone is having as wonderful a summer as I am!