After a great weekend in Amsterdam, it was time trabajar with my grupo de clase literatura on our presentation on the book Una Palabra Tuya (I definitely don’t recommend it, it’s not exactly una novela feliz.) After a successful presentación on Miércoles, it was time to get ready for la visita de Nana, mi abuela! Nana arrived to Madrid early Thursday morning and made it to her hotel where I met her for un abrazo grande before heading to my classes for the day. She ended up walking back with me to my apartment, which was right down the street, and met my simpático portero, Gregorio, as well as Lizzy and Greta! After that, Nana headed back to the hotel to take a nice siesta while I headed to my classes. Once I finished mis asignaturas for the day (and the week), I picked up Nana and we had a delicious lunch at La Nicoletta, a great Italian restaurant in mi barrio, and even popped into Museo Sorolla afterwards! We spent the rest of our afternoon walking down Gran Via and through Parque Oeste and even managed to squeeze a late afternoon Coca-Light in at Rodilla. As suppertime rolled around, I’m sure you can guess where Nana, some of my friends (Margaret, Lizzy, Kayla, Anne, Emily, JJ, and Anne’s friend Duffy), and I went for dinner – LATERAL! We had a great cena de tapas wonderful company and plenty of laughs!
Nana and I started our Viernes en Madrid off with breakfast at her hotel and then headed to el museo del Prado to take in the famous works of El Greco, Goya, Velazquez, Titian, and Murillo. (http://www.museodelprado.es/) Nana was blown away by all the Prado had to offer and we had a wonderful morning exploring the museum and I loved being able to teach her about las pinturas that I had already learned about in mi clase de la historia del arte! Following the Prado, Nana and I took a stroll to Retiro, a famous park in Madrid, for some lunch in the some and un montón de “people-watching,” from people walking throughout the park or the brave ones who had rented a row boat. (That was quite the site – while some people managed, others seemed to have given up and decided to bronceador en el sol instead.) Next stop: el famoso Corte Ingles. I’m sure I’ve mentioned Corte before but my friends and I describe it as the child of Walmart and Macy’s or Nordstrom’s. There are literally siete pisos of any and everything you could need! Nana loved it and we even managed to squeeze a little shopping in! We finished our night with a stroll around nuestro barrio and a yummy dinner at Wagaboo, a sort-of Asian infusion restaurant on el calle Martinez-Campos.
Entrance to Retiro!
Taking advantage of el buen tiempo that we were starting to have in Madrid, Nana and I did a bit of our own walking tour to Palacio Real, the bakery of the nuns, and Plaza Mayor on Saturday morning/early afternoon. Nana managed to pick up a few Spanish souvenirs along the way before we met a few of my friends at Cien Montaditos (a 100 little sandwiches) in Sol for lunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering down Fuencarral before a quick siesta and a dinner at Cornucopia. Nana flew out muy temprano en la mañana de Domingo for Germany but even her quick visit was wonderful! I loved having another visitor and can’t wait for my next visitors, Mom and Dad!! (PS, sorry for the lack of pictures on this section! Nana wanted to play photographer so I didn’t muchos fotos this weekend.)
Palacio Real
View from the Palace courtyard
Bakery of the Nuns
Plaza Mayor
After another week of classes and being a bit under the weather on Thursday and Friday, I was excited for un día divertido en el Sol en el parque de Retiro on Saturday! It turned in to quite the IES gathering with almost 20 of us all enjoying the sun and people-watching. That evening, I went with a few friends to Midnight Rose, a great restaurant en la Plaza de Santa Ana, to celebrate my friend Emily’s birthday. We had an incredible dinner that was followed by a great view of Madrid durante el noche on the terrace bar. (Random fact: Cindy Crawford’s marido owns this bar!)
Rootop bar for Emily's birthday!
(Adina, Kaitlin, Emily, Olivia, Sari, Marge, Hannah)
With Semana Santa (Spain’s national version of spring break) being only a few days away, it was time to trabajar some more on Sunday and start on mis composiciones y trabajo del campo. The rest of that week involved lots of work, with my trabajo del campo presentation about Flamenco on Wednesday, as well as el ultimo día de mi clase de la historia del arte at the museum, and the IES vs. Spanish partido del futbol! Needless to say, I was muy contenta when Thursday afternoon rolled around and I was able to get excited and pack for Semana Santa, which means a fun weekend with Margaret in Valencia before an amazing week in Granada/Sevilla/Madrid with mis padres starting Monday!!
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