Vamos a ver… (13/3/11)
Que dia mas bueno! This morning we went to my tutor’s restaurant opening in Tres Cantos (a town in the north of Madrid). It’s amazing, mostly because my tutor Carlos cooks so so so well. I’m sure he’s going to be really very successful.
Everything was set up in a tapas kind of atmosphere so there were plates everywhere and forks and knives and people grabbing off of other peoples plates, people running to the kitchen window to get more food, and at least ask for it, and everyone drooling over the amazing wine. The place was full of Rotarians and friends of Carlos and Piedad, his wife. Everyone was so nice and welcoming, but this isn’t a surprise: everyone in Spain is basically always really nice and really welcoming!
There were two other exchange students there with me, but one bailed for his soccer game so Thomas (from Massachusetts) and I set off to talk people up. We ended up talking to a Torero (bull fighter), someone who runs a flamenco company and is trying to a Rotary visit there, and a man who’s daughter speaks 6 languages, since she’s lived in America, Belgium, Italy, Spain (obviously) Portugal, and then she just knows German. Every person we went up to was so funny, questioning us everything from who we were to our favorite parts of Spain to why the Philadelphia basketball team never wins. (I don’t know why…. failures.)
I guess I must have looked good today because all of the host moms I saw that I knew came up and greeted me “Hola guapisima!” and a ton of the men I met were questioning how the exchange process works so they could get “una chica como tu” in their house. People were so funny with the exchange students in general, grabbing us plates of food, offering us their own food or desert, giving us wine, (we stuck to water, I’m very sick right now hahah) offering basically everything you can think of.
When we left we went to the town Manzanares to see A CASTLE. Okay, so I freak out for castles, and I didn’t realize we were going to see a castle castle. Like, 15th century, kings and queens and the whole hoop-blah castle. Castles. Are awesome. We ended up not going inside because we’re going to take my real parents there when they come, and it will be more fun if it’s new to everyone. Plus you have to pay 3 euros to get in.
Short summary of what happened Friday:
Long story short the exchange students all got back from the South/Portugal trip (I didn’t go ‘cause it’s realllyyy expensive.. anyway) so my friend Mika was going to stay in my house for a few days after since they didn’t get to see Madrid. We were hanging out with another girl Molly who lives in Madrid and Paige who was staying with her. They get a call from another exchange girl Cristina who says that she 1) lost her ticket, 2) apparently didn’t hear the number right, so she didn’t have the ticket number either 3) they refused to refund her or sell her another one for a lower price and on top of all this 4) the next train out was at 8 am the next day.
Later, another exchange student walked in, who had also done the same thing. He lost his train ticket, didn’t have any money to buy another one, and didn’t have his phone charged, so he went to starbucks to find wifi. We had to find places for both of them to stay in Madrid. Cristina stayed with me, and Austin the other student stayed with a different girl in Madrid. It was all so difficult haha but in the end everything got worked out.
I have to upload pictures to Spanish facebook lol so I can’t eat up my whole battery. Ciao!
