PatJohnDani Parte Dos

Great meeting about Operacion Ingles. Learned a lot about what I’ll be doing and it makes me super excited!

Anyway. Back to Thursday. So we took the train home and got ready for a night on the town which turned out to be hilarious. We just promoter-hopped and got free drinks at random and weird clubs and laughed at the hilarious people around us. We were pretty tired after our long day so we headed back to the hostel to rest up because John was supposed to arrive Friday! Thankfully that night we also got a private room so we could spread out and not worry about loud strangers stumbling around and yelling in the dark. Whew.

Friday morning we woke up (on time for breakfast!) then hung around the hostel for a while. We grabbed some lunch at a nearby restaurant then explored some of the tourist-y (and awesome) areas of Madrid like Plaza Major. We stopped for a few glasses of wine at different places and observed what was going on in Madrid. Then we took an epic nap in..wait for it…the royal gardens. No big deal. We finished the afternoon with a glass of wine on the street with all the prostitutes and watched them try to seduce people. It was great fun. I love our wholesome activity time. We then headed to the airport to find John..who wasn’t there! The poor guy was delayed and got in 6 hours after he was supposed to get in..meaning he was stuck traveling until 3am! Poor guy. But when Pat and I didn’t see him we made our way to El Tigre and ate until we were so stuffed that we had to take a break during the walk on the way home. John arrived and we were happy. Yay friends uniting!

Saturday=waking up early enough for breakfast. I love those croissants at that hostel. The three of us trekked over to the Blackston’s again. We loaded up with some friends of theirs and headed to Toledo for an olive oil tasting. But, psych, Spain sucks sometimes and the place didn’t even open that day event though we had a scheduled appointment. We ended up at this incredible restaurant built in 1657 and I tried bull’s tail and foie. Interesante. And I may have fallen asleep on the way back. Whatevs. The three of us took an EPIC trip and rode the teleferico cable cars across the city and got to spend some time together in a small, enclosed space high in the air while Pat thought it was funny to rock back and forth. I’ll slap him later for that. We then explored an awesome rose garden, photobombed some wedding pics and figured out how to walk from Arguelles to Principe Pio (crazy, huh, Grimm?) we explored Sol a little, did some prostitute watching, and headed back to El Tigre for more ridiculous portions of tapas. Nom nom nom. We headed back to the hostel for a quick outfit change then went to various bars. Read: O’Connells, O’Neills, Dubliners. Yay branching out in Spain. Haha. We headed back and got some much-needed sleep.

Sunday lead to another day of failing to wake up in time. Although we did almost get kicked out when John accidentally held an open water bottle over the floor and dumped it out..and some other hijinx…but we survived and got out of there in time to grab chocolate and churros! Yay nutritious breakfasts. I like hanging out with those two. We then headed to El Mercado de San Miguel where we shared croquetas, queso and wine. Thyssen museum was up next. It’s one of the best museums in Madrid (along with El Prado and Reina Sofia). It had an awesome Liechtenstein (one of my favorite artists) and O’Keefe along with some Monets and other nice bits. Also a lot of modern art. John knew his stuff and I learned a lot. And it was fun exploring the museum with those two. We generally have fun doing anything. Then, after some more wine we hit up A BULL FIGHT Epicccc. So many bulls were killed. A dude got flipped in the air. It was awesome. We stayed for hours watching bulls get killed. I loved it. No moral issues or anything. So great. Yeehaw! We tried a tasty new restaurant where we tried Spanish wine, gambas al ajillo, paella, and chicken and jalenpeno pizza. Num. We then free bar hopped for the rest of the night.

The next morning WE GOT FREE BREAKFAST, grabbed some wine cheese and baguettes and had a lovely picnic in the park and talked.

Then was sad time and we had to part and it was AWFUL. I just want to be with them forever. Can’t separate Lily, Marshall and Ted.

Ah well. We shall all be together again one day. I’m lucky to have such great people in my life as is.

Time to go rest up

La Truchita

Three Best Friends That Anyone Could Have

Hello all!

Yeah. My blogging has really gone down the tubes. Lo siento but c’est la vie. Gotta live life as it presents itself to you. BUT I shall update you now.

1. There has been a lot of confusion about where I’m living. I’m with the American family now. American food, pool, adorable kids, barbecue, air conditioning, American T.V. shows, productivity…all things I love. It’s a really great place. I’m sort of living there as an au pair right now and they’ve really made me feel like part of the family. It’s such a blessing.

2. Today starts mega planning for Operacion Ingles. I leave early Friday morning for the camp and will get back sometime on the 15th. Not sure how much internet access I’ll have but I’ll try to keep everyone updated as much as possible!

3. And now the good stuff. The Pat-John-Dani weekend in Spain. Glorious.

Okay. So Wednesday I scooted from babysitting to tutoring then on to the airport. In traditional “me” fashion I got there WAY too early. But, can you blame me? I was pretty excited. After waiting around for a few hours I FINALLY got to pick up my boyfriend from the gate! We grabbed our bags and headed to Cat’s Hostel (where Laura and Elle stayed when they visited). I took him to Euroshot night at O’Neill’s (typical Wednesday tradition) then we headed back to the hostel. That night we did not have a private room so we spent the night being woken up by loud roommates. Ah well. Such is the life of a college student on a budget. Can’t complain too much because I was overall just happy to be where I was with Pat.

Thursday we slept in pretty late (missing free breakfast. darn it) and headed out into the city. We got some tasty breakfast (quiche for me and a ham and cheese hot pocket-like thing for Pat), grabbed some nice wine/baguette/manchego cheese and headed to Retiro. I had been waiting for MONTHS to get to go to Retiro with Pat. It was even better than I had dreamed. We walked around the stunning park, ate our picnic and just talked. Even though most of our relationship tends to be us talking on the phone or skype we still manage to find stuff to talk about when we’re together. Then..the rowboats. YES. I’ll add pictures later but he and I changed into our swimsuits then headed over to the lake. We spent at least an hour rowing around and listening to music. We followed that up with ice cream cones and some more relaxing in the shade (note: this blog entry will contain many food references. and “how we avoided the sun” acknowledgments as it was over 100 degrees almost every day). We then headed over to the Blackstons (Americans) for a barbecue. YUM. As a reminder, I haven’t had barbecue since I left home. Oh how I’ve missed it. We walked in and Pat was immediately surrounded by 4 screaming little girls. They forced him to be their pool buddy where they promptly began abusing him with various water toys. He was a trooper, though, and won all of them over. We ate tasty gazpacho, sangria, roasted peppers, ham, cheese, hummus, veggies, potato salad and…drum roll please..RIBS. Pat ate pretty much a whole rack. We chatted with the Blackstons and their friends and spent about four hours just hanging with them and listening to all their stories about “how Ari saved George W. Bush from massive diarrhea attacks” and various other anecdotes about living the nomadic military life. Very cool. Alas, I must pause my retelling of the awesome weekend and go to an O.I. meeting. It’s weird being back at SLU-Madrid right now! Makes me miss all the people I studied abroad with this semester even more than I already did.

Hasta pronto,

La Truchita

Lake Como, General Musings

So I’ve been getting sass for not updating my blog…mostly Robin (hey, glad you read, at least!) so I’ll go ahead and add in some of my life updates. Last week I got home from Germany on Wednesday and pretty much just had time to shower before it was time to head on over to Italy (exaggeration. deal). Here are a few images/some info about the place I visited http://www.discovercomo.com/

Friday afternoon I headed to Milan and, get this, I used an actual airline. AN ACTUAL AIRLINE! I had an assigned seat and everything. And I was incredulous when the snack cart rolled by AND I GOT FREE SNACKS! Yum. I landed right after ten where I met up with my friend Rory and two new friends, Michelle and Caitlin. Unfortunately Pat’s plane was delayed an hour which lead us to missing our train home which meant we got to spend some quality hours sleeping on the floor of the train station. Not actually all that bad. It’s amazing how much safer you feel with a giant guy next to you who’s there to protect you. 

Early the next morning we took a train out to Lake Como to hang at Rory’s lake house. Between sessions of nodding off (it’s that public transportation narcolepsy I have) I woke to see stunning views of beautiful mountains and lakes in a beautiful, picturesque, small Italian town. (George Clooney’s place was across the lake, no big deal). We had to trek up a mountain to get to the home (big hill, whatever) but the views were totally worth it. Upon arrival the five of us promptly fell asleep (for like four hours) then had snacks on the balcony. We headed down to the main town to grab pizza and bond which turned into an unofficial wine tasting while we watched a storm over the lake. I also got to carry one a few conversations in Italianol (Spanish-Italian combo) which tickled me. Afterward, we headed back up to the house with groceries and spent the early evening eating Rosemary-flavored pringles (classy, Italy) and sharing more of that tasty Italian wine. We headed down again that night and went to a DELICIOUS pizza place where we all shared a bunch of different pizzas. My favorite was the gorgonzola-pear and I had a chance to try anchovy and caper pizza for the first time! Salllllty. After such a long day we decided it’d be best to just head home so we all hung out and chatted late into the night until we fell asleep. 

The next morning (after some serious sleeping in) we headed down to the town for pastries and coffee and some good talks by the lake. We had to head to the airport pretty soon after that but it was an incredible trip.

It sounds short when I retell it but this was actually one of my favorite trips. It was SO relaxing to be able to talk to friends and just take in the beauty of the surroundings. I felt very lucky.

Since then I’ve mostly been nannying for the American military family that I babysit. I’m still living in my friend’s apartment and will be until next weekend. (Then the American family is letting me stay with them) My friend Jason (shout out to Chaminade-SJA book club) just arrived in Madrid so we’ll be hanging out all weekend. Pat is coming this Wednesday until Monday and John is meeting up with us on Friday. I can’t WAIT to have my favorite boys with me. Yay!

In addition this week two of my friends were in town so I went out with them. Good bonding time. And when I was meeting up with them in Sol I got interviewed (in Spanish) which made me feel AWESOME with my language skills, made fun of stupid hippies with another hippy and chatted and prayed with a group of kids who were doing missionary work in Madrid. Awesome. 

So. It’s 1:15 on a Friday and I’m babysitting. Tomorrow I”m going to check out an art district with Jason and Sneed but also rest up a lot because I have a cold. I’m happy to be here but will definitely be ready when I can come home. 

Love and miss America

La Truchita