Primer Día en Madrid

We found out that Madrid had a Starbucks, and since we hadn't even seen a Starbucks since August, we HAD to go, so we made that our first stop. On the way, we even found Dunkin, which was equally as exciting! Rome has no American chains other than McDonald's, which is nice, but it makes seeing them in other countries SO exciting. We sat in a really cute plaza with a fountain (we kept calling them piazzas like in Italy, whoops) in the sun where there was a mariachi band playing. Starbucks, sun, and mariachi? We couldn't have been happier. 

After that, we walked around and saw some sites on the way to the Royal Palace and the Almudena Cathedral. We also stopped at Plaza Mayor, which was my favorite Plaza in Madrid.

 

 We went to a market called Mercato de San Miguel, which was just like the Spanish version of Faneuil Hall! We were starving, so we finally picked a restaurant that looked good and realized after we sat down that it was actually a Belgian restaurant, and not Spanish at all, oops again. It was really good though, and we got to try different food anyway. Plus, we got Caesar salads which we LOVED because the only kind of dressing we have in Italy is olive oil, so we were very happy with our mistake.

While we waited for some of our friends from Notre Dame to arrive in Madrid, Kathryn and I decided to go crazy and get our ears pierced! I got my last two ear piercings when we were stuck in Texas on a trip, so why not get the next one in Spain? We found a classy place called the Tattoo Center, and tried to explain what we wanted to the ear piercing guy, who only spoke Spanish. Great decision, we know. We were all a little nervous once it was actually happening, but it all worked out, and now we both have our cartilages pierced!

Finally, two girls from my water polo team and two other ND girls who are studying in London and Spain arrived, and it was great to see them again! We found a restaurant and had paellas for dinner, which is a typical Spanish food that's made of rice and chicken and seafood. We had to try it since we were there but it was REALLY intense and seafoody. We felt so European when we finished our Spanish dinner at 12:30AM!