So much but so little has happened since Brianna, Kelsey, Alyssa, and I made tacos. I spent Wednesday afternoon with Carley. We talked and walked around Retiro and had lunch at a place nearby. We ordered chicken sandwiches which were cut so thinly I thought I received fish by mistake, but the sandwich was soooo delicious! The word for sandwich here is bocadillo. 

Thursday was class as usual, though we had exams. Not fun. We’ve had class for 2 weeks and haven’t covered anything really concrete or worth testing on so it was difficult to prepare for the exams. In the afternoon though, there was a tour of Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida. It’s a church filled with Goya’s frescoes, and it’s also where his body is buried. Notice I said body - his head is in France. He loved France and Spain equally and wanted to be buried in both places. It was interesting to see but also underwhelming. The church is very tiny, though the frescoes are beautiful. Photos were not allowed so unfortunately I don’t have any to share :( This weekend marks the festival of Saint Anthony. It’s a week long festival honoring him and every June 13, girls go to the church to pray for a boyfriend. 13 pins are placed in a bowl resembling a potter and you put your hand in the pins. How ever many pins stick TO your hand (not in it, it’s not supposed to be painful) is supposedly how many beaux she’ll have that year. I’m curious as to why the Spanish have all these love/marriage rituals. I tried the pin thing for laughs, took three tries to get 4 pins. So in 3 years I’ll have 4 boyfriends? But the visit to the church is one more place checked off my list!

That night, we all went out to a club called Joy. A guy on the program befriended a club promoter and Thursday was a fun night and good deal so we all went. It was so much fun! I was dancing and shouting lyrics to songs (the clubs here play American music). A couple of us stayed until the club closed (5:30 am) and didn’t even realize the time. I wasn’t going to class at a normal hour on Friday because we had a field trip to a market and had to meet there at 10 a.m. This gave me more hours of sleep! 

Friday was spent in a haze. I was functioning at 2 and a half hours of sleep and met my class at Mercado de Maravillas. We were given a scavenger hunt worksheet where we had to fill out the different types of booths, food products, what each food is, and the highest and lowest price. The bakeries and fruit stands were amazing, but it was overpowered by eau de seafood (a fair amount of it was still living) and the slabs of unidentifiable meat parts. Tongue, brains, full rabbits, pig heads, intestines, liver, lungs, every part.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping until dinner time. Brianna’s teacher told their class about a delicious sushi place, Miss Sushi. 8 of us went: Me, Alyssa, Brianna, Kelsey, David, Nick, Mike, and Sean. But the restaurant required a reservation so we made one for Saturday night and ate at a restaurant around the block. I tried gazpacho! You know, because I’m trying to be a more adventurous eater. It was like drinking a cold and chunky V-8. Gazpacho is not for me, I’m mentally putting it in the same category as Borscht. Blech. I also tried páté earlier in the week. Not up my alley either. But hey, I’m trying! :D