Day 2--May 23

Day 2

After almost 12 hours of sleep, I actually woke up pretty quickly at 9:00. We got ready, went to eat breakfast in the hotel (so good), and then went on a walking tour at 10:30 of Madrid. We walked up to La Plaza Mayor and then all around the city, finishing at the Reina Sophia (Queen Sophia) museum. After the museum Sara, Nicole, Meg, Jane, and I were STARVING, so we went to a small restaurant inside of the plaza where the entrance of the museum was. Again, I didn’t have any better luck with ordering food. I thought I had order a mini bocadilla which was 4 euros and French fries which were 2.5 euros, but somehow I had to pay 16 euros. Not to mention, the sandwich was a very thing piece of fried chicken (the menu said grilled) with one small slice of cheese on it. That’s all. My luck is just getting better and better. After lunch, we decided to explore the city on our own, and we probably ended up walking around 7 or 8 miles in total. We went back to La Plaza Mayor like 4 times (not always on purpose), then visited the Botanical Gardens which were so pretty! Then we went on a crazy man search for gelato and/or ice cream and finally found it… near La Plaza Mayor. So we decided to stay and have a few sangrias and eat dinner. We got there around 7 and split a pitcher of sangrias, ordered our food at 8, and then eventually split one more pitcher (there were 5 of us J). I finally ordered Spanish food! I split a salad (all salads here have tuna on them) and a paella, which is a Spanish dish of rice and either vegetables, meat, or seafood. It was good but not something I would order all of the time. After dinner, we came back to the hotel, got on Skype/facebook for a little while, and then decided to go out and sit at a plaza because it was so nice outside. I think we got home around 2:00 am.