Apr 3, 2010: Tapas!

Bah--today was another long day. After breakfast, we left to meet Lucas. But he was running behind, so we got Starbucks and waited. It was still too cold outside! When Lucas arrived, we mostly just wandered. He's been to Madrid before, so he showed us this famous pastry shop. It was cheap, and way too good. I'm definitely going back. Then we found a cyber cafe, so Lucas could look up his hostel info and check in.

Finding his hostel was pretty easy. We dropped off his stuff, and then wandered more. It was raining a little bit, which was not exciting. We attempted to watch this "procession" thing at a church. We got there about 30 minutes early, and it was running behind. 30 minutes after it was supposed to start, we gave up.Melisa and Lucas were soaked by that time. An older couple shared their umbrella with me. They didn't speak any English, but made it clear that I should stand with them. They were nice :)

After getting soaked, we all came back to our hostel (mine and Melisa's) and hung out. It was warm and dry, which was all we were looking for, really. Rain and my hair don't mix well, so I took a shower. Plus the shower here is pretty great. Then we went out for tapas. In Spain, tapas are kind of like appetizers--they are served at bars when you order drinks. At the first bar, we all just had coke. We got served french fries with mayo, and another set of french fries with tartar sauce, as our free tapas. We also ordered mozzarella sticks, which reminded me of home.

At the next bar, we ordered actual drinks, which was interesting. I decided on a whiskey and coke, but had to pick my whiskey. And then the waiter poured it in front of me, and literally half of my drink was whiskey. Not my favorite. At this bar, the free tapa was a bowl of nuts, so we actually ordered food. We got canapes--mine was canape con tortilla, which isn't tortillas we we know it in the U.S. It's a mixture of eggs, potatoes, and peppers, and one of my friends recommended it to me. It was really good.

We decided that we wanted to go to this really famous club, Kapital. It has seven floors, each with a different theme. But it's horrendously overpriced--18 euro to get in, and about 10 euro per drink. We split up, and went back to our respective hostels to get ready.

But we changed our minds, which happens a lot. We didn't really want to go out. Instead, we sat in our hostel for a few hours, talking to our roommates. The German guys taught us all a whole bunch of phrases--it was pretty hilarious listening to non-Germans trying to speak German.

We thought (again) about going to a bar/club, but considering that it's 2:16 am, I don't think that'll be happening. No clubs for me...I much prefer to sleep!