Good Morning/Afternoon!

I am live blogging from a little coffee shop in Lavapies! I needed to get out of the house- it’s small and quite dark and I think my host mom has a mild case of the hoardies.  But she is super nice, so that’s all that matters 🙂 Besides going to get dinner with Monica, I didn’t leave the house at all yesterday.

I woke up this morning feeling…antsy…like I’m not out doing enough/ seeing enough/ experiencing enough.  Like I am letting my time slip away here, when really I have been here for less than two weeks and I’m still homeless.  I guess I feel like this because I met a girl the other day that is spending 5 days in France this week before we start work next week.  I’m super jealous, but at the same time, I don’t have a place to live yet and to leave the country would not be a good idea.  Plus, I have been out and about exploring Madrid.

Regardless, I woke up this morning ready to go out and do something so I headed to Retiro- a massive park in Madrid where you find people running, walking, biking, having picnics, sunbathing, enjoying a bottle of wine, or just hanging out.

It’s absolutely beautiful and such a contrast to the busy, busy city life of Madrid.  There and back to Retiro was 3 miles or so and I ran ~1 mile in the park, but not too much because I was afraid of getting lost and my phone battery dies quickly!

This Sunday, my friends and I are planning to have a very Spanish Sunday- we will go to El Rastro (a large, bustling flea market) in the morning and then head to Retiro with a bottle of wine (or 3), a picnic blanket, and some food and relax in the shade.  🙂  When in Rome, right? On my way out of Retiro, I saw a book fair of some sort- but it looked somewhat permanent.  I really miss reading and books so this made me somewhat giddy.  I browsed a little bit, but I’m excited to hopefully join a library here soon!I even saw a photo shoot of some sort- the second since I’ve been here.

And then continued my journey home through the winding streets of Madrid.

And chugged water 🙂

Alright, this took me a lot longer than I planned and my coffee cup is bone-dry.  As soon as I publish this I am going to make the skeleton of a PowerPoint presenation about myself to share with my class and then I’m off to find a supermarket!  Almost out of food at home 🙂

Hasta luego!