First weekend out!

So Thursay night was our first night out in Alcalá! and wow it is gonna take a while to get used to going out here... They are crazy! We ran into a couple girls who are studying at the same school as us, and they gave us the low down on what to do at night, which was nice so that we didn't really waste any time figuring it out. First we went to a bar at around midnight, La Gabanna, which was really fun and a cool atmosphere... but the drinks were like 5 euros... which is pretty expensive and they weren't that big, but apparently they offer free drinks before midnight since basically no one goes out till atleast 12 or 1 so well have to hit that up next time. After a couple drinks, we headed to this like "discoteca" or club type place called Can Can, which was sooo much fun! We danced with some Brazilians that we met, which were the first guys that weren't in the least bit creepy.. so that was a nice change. And we tried to request "no hands" but they weren't having it. They played a lot of American music, but mostly like the same 4 songs over and over again. We met a bunch of people from Loyola in Maryland and the University of Arizona.. They were a lot of fun; they seem to be just like us so I'm excited to have other people to hang out with! So we ended up getting home around 530 in the morning... and that was leaving the club early. Its crazy, I have no idea how people get used to this!

Three very short hours later, we had to be up for our tour of Madrid... which was a littleee difficult. LP basically dragged me there, and we were both pretty miserable on the train ride. But Madrid is beautiful so we quickly forgot how bad we were feeling and enjoyed the tour! The weather was gorgeous and we ate lunch at a cute little sandwich bar that was pretty good. Sara and Jane Anne got salads, which was the first place I've seen that serves salads yet. My whole diet here basically consists of all carbs, a little fruit, and a little meat. I don't even know the last time I ate a vegetable, which kinda sucks. I definitely miss American food... a lot. After we ate, we were all pretty tired so we just decided to head back to Alcalá so that we could get a good nights sleep.

Saturday we woke up around noon, and went to a local coffee shop/tapas bar with our madre to get a cafe con leche and some churros (sp?). Those were.... interesting. Big long pieces of fried greasy flour basically.... but I ended up really liking them once I dipped them in some sugar. We went to the mall together to get LP some more phone minutes and then went home to eat lunch. I can't remember what it was called but it was like baby pastina in a soup with garbanzo beans.. and then there was a giant platter of assorted means and potatoes in more garbanzo beans. The soup was awesome.. and I decided to stick to the meat I recognized.. the chicken. I'm soooooo glad that I did. Ended up finding out that the mystery meat on one side of the platter that resembled an uncooked white fish was actually raw pig skin. PIG SKIN. I lost my appetite just thinking about it, but she served LP some on her plate so LP took one for the team and tried it... The look on her face was enough to make me want to dart to the nearest bathroom. So yeah, needless to say, it was pretty gross... Saturday night for dinner we had nachos. I've never eaten so fast in my life, my padre was making fun of me for it haha pretty embarrassing, but they were so yummy!! Saturday night we went to our favorite little bar called casa blanca 2.. It's pretty small, but a glass of wine is only 2 euros and they were giving us free shots of some coffee tasting thing... They were so good! We met some locals there and they were loving us, so we invited them to Can Can with us and they came! It was another long walk home and almost 630 by the time we got inside! We grabbed some chips, tripped up the winding staircase atleast 2 or 3 times and went to bed. Our madre said she didn't hear us come in though so that's good. We woke up at like 130 today and ate lunch, which was spaghetti with boiled eggs, tuna, and like a sausage of some sort? very interesting/contrasting flavors.. but not too bad washed down with half a loaf of bread and lotssss of water. We went back upstairs to our cave to sleep and then for dinner we had sandwich mixtos... Which are definitely my fave. They're just grilled Spanish ham and cheese but they are sooooo goood. I've probably had atleast 10 since I've been here. Yum yum.

Our first full week of classes is this week! It should be interesting with a 745 wake up call. Definitely not used to that... Especially after this weekends festivities. But hope everyone has a good week! I'll update if anything interesting happens! Adiossss