We got to the school at 10:30 for a photo scavenger hunt, but we were all locked out, so we got a bit of a late start. While we were waiting, a few of us thought about going out on our own to explore instead, but we decided to hang around. When we finally made our groups, I intentionally went with people I didn’t know very well yet, which proved to be a challenging, yet good choice.
The places we had to find were located in every nook and cranny of the city, and we had until 7:30 to get pictures of our group with every landmark we could find. My group wanted to win, so we raced around the city finding notable landmarks and taking fun pictures. Everyone else loved the American Plaza, where you can buy bird food and be covered with greedy pigeons. I think it’s pretty needless to say I liked all the other landmarks better ;) My favorite was the Plaza de Espana…you should look it up. It’s incredible.
We took a very fast lunch break and met up again to finish the hunt. Corrine had her group’s list of things to find during lunch, so our senora pointed out some of the places we couldn’t find for us. After we met back up, my group raced through the last few places we didn’t have to take a train to and then waited at the school for all the groups to finish. I talked to Katie, one of the people who works at SIS about my concerns about taking too many classes this semester. She said that the Flamenco dancing class is really fun, but she also said that I should be careful not to overload myself. After that discussion, I decided that I will probably skip Flamenco. It’s not something I’ve been dying to do, and I’d rather have more free time than another class, even if it might be fun.
Anyway…once everyone got there, we had a really fun slideshow with everyone’s pictures from the day and ice cream. I was planning to go out to dinner with my group, so I told Rosa I wouldn’t be home for dinner, but I ended up going out with another girl who was hoping to find someone to eat with. We went to a tapas bar, which is a place where they sell small portions of traditional Spanish foods so that you can get more variety in your meal. I loved it! I got chicken curry (the sauce had a tangy, honey taste to it…yum!) and tortilla espanola (which is like an omelet with potatoes in it…also very tasty)! The two dishes really didn’t go together, but I loved that I could have both flavors in one meal.
After dinner we wandered the side streets of the city for a little while before heading home. Being surprised by how late it is has become a pattern for me, likely because the social culture and siesta time creates a pretty active city, even late at night. When I got home, I talked to Corrine and Rosa a bit and then pretty much went straight to bed. My legs and feet were so tired that laying down felt wonderful, and when I went to bed I couldn’t believe how much ground we covered today!
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