Saturday, October 9th

Outside our hostel

Saturday Katy and I got up around 10 am, showered, ate some toast at our hostel, and got ready for our 11 am walking tour of the city. Too bad they canceled it last minute because of the cruddy weather. A little rain never scared the two of us, so we put our tennis shoes on, grabbed our maps and umbrellas, and headed to the Alcazar.

Alcazar

To our surprise, the Alcazar is FREE to students!! Since the sky cleared up, we spent forever walking through the garden. There was even a “maze” (kind of like a corn maze – but with hedges). You could see over the hedges though so it wasn’t that scary! Haha! The flowers and the fountains were so pretty!

Garden

We also walked through some of the indoor chambers. The tiles on the walls and floors as well as the ceilings were amazing. I couldn’t believe how detailed everything was! I totally wanted to live in the castle! J

made it out of the maze!

After we’d visited the castle for several hours, it was getting to be Spanish lunch time. We found a little restaurant that had a Menu del Dia and after judging the rain clouds, we decided that this was our place! I went crazy and ordered tortellini’s for my first course, and then got adventurous and ordered bulls tail for the second course. Maybe the worst decision of my life. It was so nasty! Seriously. I’m not sure there was any meat, just bone and fat! EWW! For dessert I had this vanilla pudding ish stuff that was pretty good.

doves in the Garden

After lunch Katy and I walked to Plaza de España which is in the Maria Luisa Park. There is a tile mosaic for each providence in Spain! Katy and I stopped to get a picture with the Madrid mosaic. It was so pretty! J

At this point, the sky was looking a little gloomy again, so we started heading back to our hostel to rest up before dinner. After our naps, we ate paella and drank sangria in the hostel (6 euro meal! J) The paella was a mix of vegetables, seafood, and other meats! It was so delicious! J

inside the palace

Bull Tail = not okay!!!

After dinner, we got ready to go out with a couple of other girls we were rooming with. They were cousins from India, but one lives in the states really close to Katy’s home. They were really sweet.

MADRID!!!

We were on our way to a flamenco bar, when it started POURING down rain. So we sought shelter in the nearest bar and ordered a round of beers. The bartender was really nice and gave us good directions to the flamenco bar. He told us that the streets we were taking were really easy to get lost on and were less safe and night just because there’s less traffic on them.

Plaza de Espana

The flamenco bar was a joke. Not to be rude, but most flamenco dancers that I’ve ever seen are super skiny and flexible, and this woman was neither. Granted, Katy and I only stuck around for about 5 minutes, but the venue was just too stuffy and humid. There were no seats and we couldn’t push our way to the bar. We met a couple of Americans that were going to a different sit down bar so we followed them there.

The Katies

Getting ready to go out :)

holding all the umbrellas :)

At the new bar, Katy and I split a bottle of local Sevillan white wine called Fragata. It was really yummy!! After we finished the wine, we went to find this discoteca that our waitress suggested with our new friends. Somehow we ended up completely lost. The group of teens we ran into told us that the club was not within walking distance, so we decided to scratch the whole idea and go home to bed (it was nearly 3 am at this point anyways). So I gave our new American friends a map of Seville and we exchanged numbers so when they come to Madrid next weekend we can possibly meet up. Katy and I decided from now on we aren’t letting anyone else lead us places b/c we are much better with directions and never get lost when WE are leading the show! Haha! J