A-Broad Adventure: Strawberries, Boats, and Soccer

Monday's class was a tour of some of the major sites where 15-M protests and other social movement gatherings happened. This meant that our class met in Puerta del Sol, which meant I got out of bed 15 minutes before we all had to be there. It was beautiful. The three places we stopped were: Puerta del Sol, outside of the Congress building, and in Lavapies. I had been to two out of the three. Obviously Sol, but also to outside of the Congress building because the plaza that allows you to see the entirety of it is actually the plaza of the Hotel Villa Real (where I stayed with my mom, BB, and Aunt Kait). Lavapies was the only unknown place, but the only thing that really stood out to me about it was the diversity. Lavapies is the most gentrified part of Madrid that I have been to, from the people walking around to the types of restaurants lining the streets.
After Lavapies we actually had a fourth stop, which was a place called "Esta es una Plaza." I highly recommend you look it up if you find yourself bored an unsure of what to do, but basically it is a 'solar' (an abandoned construction site) that some local Madrileños decided to use. The people living in the surrounding buildings decided to convert the site into a plaza to be used by all of them. Within the plaza they have a cabin type thing that holds all sorts of children's books and toys, a thriving garden, swings, tables and chairs made out of recycled materials, etc. It is absolutely incredible what they have done with the place, especially given that the city has no control. This means that while the locals get to use it, it is also their responsibility to clean and maintain it. My class was lucky enough to get to eat lunch and hang out there for a little. However, Katie and I forgot to ask Cristina for a bag lunch so we looked on and attempted to ignore our hunger. Classic Katie and Carolyn.
Once people were finished eating their lunches, we got Nicolette, Christine, Bri, and Jordan to go back to Sol with us to visit.... Museo de Jamón! We are addicted. Anyways, Jordan left shortly after but the five girls continued the early afternoon with a visit to a place called 'I'm Fruit!' It was really cute and the premise is that there are a wide variety of frozen fruits and you get to choose the form you want to eat it in: freshly cut, juiced, or turned into ice cream. Not really sure how the last one works, but the machine literally just mashes the fruit into an ice cream like consistency. Naturally all of us chose to get the ice cream. Being the intelligent human being that I am, and one who is extremely allergic to strawberries, I opted to wait until after other people had ordered and had their ice creams prepared before ordering my own. I also chose to not ask the lady working to clean the machine. Obviously the person who ordered before me (Katie) had gotten strawberries in hers, and of course they were the last item to be mashed, so it only makes sense that there was strawberry residue in the machine. The point of this story is that I had a really bad allergic reaction, Katie and I speed-walked home with a stop to buy a two liter water bottle for me to chug, and I began to take the miracle pill that is Benadryl. The rest of the day is kind of a blur, but I did make it out alive, thanks to some lovely medical assistance from my mom via FaceTime and Katie via her drugs. I did wake up to watch the US game though, a big win over Ghana!
On Tuesday I decided to take it easy after class, despite feeling much better when I woke up in the morning. Due to my allergic reaction I missed an event called "Fucking Monday" (sorry for swearing, Mom) that many of my classmates attended, basically it is a big party at some discoteca. Kind of bummed, but at least I got about 14 hours of sleep! Anyway, the rest of Tuesday was spent doing homework, watching soccer, and eating.
Wednesday was the last day of school for the week, and class had yet another presentation about 15-M. Not that it's a recurring theme or anything. After class, Katie, Lauren and I walked to Sol where we went to a famous bakery called La Mallorquina, where we met Lauren's parents who were visiting. Katie and I hung out long enough to have a conversation and a tasty treat and then left Lauren to her family while we went home for lunch. After lunch, Katie and I met Jordan in Sol and the three of us went to.... Museo de Jamón!! We took our bocadillos to go and headed to El Retiro where we met up with Thomas, and that is when I spent the best €1,40 of the entire six weeks. The four of us split the cost of renting a row boat and then took it out on the lake in El Retiro. We had far too much fun and it took the four of us far too long to figure out how to move the boat in the direction we wanted to. It was perfect weather and overall just a really good time.
Once our 45 minutes on the boat was up we headed over to our usual spot in the park and found Nicolette, Lauren and Marina there. It was a lovely surprise. The seven of us had a great time playing stupid games like Green Glass Door, One up One down, and other pattern games. As time passed the group dwindled down to Katie, Nicolette, Jordan, and myself and we took the Metro to over by the Bernabéu (the Real Madrid stadium). Nicolette went home for dinner while Jordan, Katie, and I watched the first half of the Spain vs Chile game in a restaurant as we ate. During halftime, Nicolette returned and the four of us went over to the stadium to watch the second half with all of the Spanish fans. As disappointing as the outcome of the game was, we had an absolute blast. We stayed out until about 1 and then caught the last Metro home (thank God) since we had to be up around 8 to meet at school as we were leaving for the long weekend!