TGIF

Friday, what a great feeling. After the 5th day of school, and a visit to a museum Emily and I were extremely tired. School went well today, but it was the trip to Museo del Prado that completely wore us out. It was a beautiful museum but it was exhausting. We decided we were going to treat ourselves to a low key evening. We hustled back to our house to eat right after we saw and analyzed all of the beautiful paintings in the museum. The reason we had to hustle back is because we eat earlier than every other person in Spain. Our friends don't eat dinner with their families until 9 or 10. 8:30 is typically early for dinner, so 6 and 6:30 is unheard of. It has it's pros and cons but only having a sandwich (which I can sometimes tolerate)) and a piece of fruit at lunch doesn't quite cut it... especially until 9 so eating at 6 is good!

Speaking of dinner, it was DELICIOUS tonight. It was some kind of green, rice, vegetable soup and this salad with corn, tomatoes tossed in a scrumptious dressing. It was great! Me gusta mucho.

After dinner Emily and I walked back to Blanco and some other stores down our street. Our final destination for our little walk was the same place we had coffee yesterday... but they were closing so we went to a new one. Let me tell you, this new discovery is our favorite! This place has ice cream, pizza, pastries and more. The pizza smelled fabulous and looked great so we have to indulge in that soon. BUT we had the best ice cream. I had cafe and strawberry. FANTASTIC. I just can't even tell you. I savored every bite! We ate our ice cream and talked there for an hour or so. It was very relaxed and just down the street from our house!

Tomorrow we are going on an excursion to Segovia which is north of Madrid. It should be fun but tiring to I'm sure so it was nice to rest tonight after such a long day and week. We've been here a week from tomorrow and it has felt much longer than that! It's been great but a huge adjustment!

Funny stories and random facts:

- We've seen 2 grown men with disney character backpacks (Hannah Montana and Mickey Mouse)

- Remember how we thought gummy bears were an American treat but then we saw some at a little stand? No, no, there is an entire store here devoted to gummy bears.

-We saw a little, cute, precious baby spit up on a complete stranger on the metro

-We met a Columbian security guard at one of the stores in a big part of town and asked if we were from here. (disclaimer: only because Emily can speak like she is from here. My roommate makes me proud)

-There's a full length mirror downstairs in our apartment so we always check ourselves out before we leave. One day a cute old man was walking by and he chuckled. The lights aren't always on when you enter the building and we passed him taking out his trash when we came back tonight... we didn't turn on the lights and walked past the mirror... he turned them on and chuckled.