My 55-Year-Old Best Friends

I only have 8 days left here.  How the time has gone!  Well, kind of.  While 4 weeks did seem to go by pretty quickly, there were days when I thought to myself, "Is it still only Tuesday?"  My classmate and new friend Rob and I figured out it was because of the siesta.  When you wake up from a nap, it naturally feels like you're waking up to a new day!  Not the case, clearly.

Not too much has happened over the last week; I went to class (didn't get hit on my any more strangers, PHEW), took some notes, took an exam (bombed it, thanks a lot freaking history) prayed and journaled a lot, and went shopping for souvenirs!

On Sunday, Piedad and I went to Madrid with her friend Elena.  We met up with a bunch of the friends I met last weekend in Madridejos.  They were all super excited to see me, just as I was about seeing them.  We hit up two art museums during the day (no picture evidence, sadly), one of the was the Prado!  The line to get in was about 45 minutes, and for good reason.  Besides it having over 80 galleries, this place is full of artful goodness.  I didn't fully appreciate it until I saw The Naked Maja and Clothed Maja, paintings I've studied at OU, and after Piedad told me they were the ORIGINALS.  Everything became much cooler after that.  I'm in freaking Spain, THIS is where they have ORIGINALS to famous paintings and sculptures.  Unbelievable.  I saw a ton of other famous paintings I recognized, too.  They were all pretty guay*.

We walked through La Puerta del Sol, basically the heart of not only Madrid, but Spain itself.  I didn't realize it at first, but the Puerta del Sol was where I stayed in a hostel my very first night in Spain!  I started to recognize more buildings and shops as we kept walking.  Since it's Rebajas month (EVERYTHING is on sale, usually 50-80% off), there were tons and tons of people walking around.  Felix made me put my backpack in front of me like a good little tourist should look.  Thanks, Grampa Felix.  We went to a small restaurant for bocadillos, which are just little tiny subs that Spaniards eat as a snack, and then immediately after went to this great Indian/Pakistani restaurant Felix raved about.  Haha so the bocadillos were really appetizers in disguise.  Figures.  The Indian food was seriously great; I wasn't expecting it.  During the meal, Felix handed Piedad this plastic bag he had been carrying around all day, and she gave it to me.  "Not another present," I said, remembering my free gifts from Gregorio and Justa last weekend.  "Of course!" they ALL exclaimed (wouldn't it have been embarrassing if it was just a plastic bag?).  "From Ramón and I," said Felix (Ramón unfortunately wasn't able to make it into Madrid on Sunday).  The bracelet they got me is from Tous, the Spanish equivalent to freaking Tiffany in the US.  No cheap present!  I tried to tell them they all spoiled me, but I'm pretty sure it came out as something about me being a rotten person, so I used someones smartphone to look up how to say things along the lines of "I'm flattered."

As the day came to a close, I hugged and kissed (twice each, of course) everyone goodbye and told them to come visit the states.  Felix and I exchanged numbers so that when he comes to stay at his house in New York City he can call me and I'll drive 9 hours from Athens to see him.  Just kidding, but let's be serious, I'm not kidding.  I hugged Cristina, who started crying, and that's when I really felt the rock drop in the pit of my stomach at the thought of leaving Spain for good.  It was a hard adjustment being here, but I've grown into the culture and the food and the SIESTAS and everything else.  It's gonna be a serious bummer having to leave.

Today, when Piedad came home from work, she held out two boxes.  "From Segrario," she said, "Pick one."  Another present?  I'm pretty sure every one of Piedad's friends are just trying to out-due each other now.  I picked the box in her right hand and opened it up to find yet another bracelet with the word "forever" inscribed on it (Piedad's got "Friends" on hers, and in English, precious) and a little heart charm that can go on a bracelet or necklace.  Seriously.  All these friends need to come back to the US and live with me; I don't care if most of them are 3 times my age.  I haven't been this coddled over since....I guess since I left for Spain, haha.  I'm pretty spoiled at home, too.  Not with presents, but with a whole bunch of love, which is a present in itself.

The group!

Puerta del Sol

Indian restaurant.

We met Ian Gibson outside the Indian restaurant, he's famous in Spain!  Look him up!

*guay = a phrase used here (¡Qué guay!) that means something along the lines of "How cool!"  It's been waaayyy overused between me and mis compañeros (EVERYTHING is guay to us), but it's pretty funny.  Naturally I thought it deserved a spot in this blog.