Petit Palace Italia Madrid

I've got to say, the highlight of this past week was definitely that there were no highlights. After all the excitement of having an organ removed last week...I was pretty happy to have a relatively average week again.

The majority of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were split mainly between catching up on work that I missed, and trying to convince my panicked host mom that it's normal to have less of an appetite after surgery on your digestive ...

... as i think he started to get the point that I was wasn't going to hook up with him he decided to invite his friends to the party - which was moved to his apartment before heading out on the town. By this stage of the night of a transit day (about 3am mind you) I was getting pretty tired so decided to crash out while the boys went out clubbing (sorry - to a discoteca heehee). Unfortunately one of the friends decided to stay back, and then he tried to pull the moves too! Unbelievable ...

... with every step I took. I basically ran through it really only stopping to look at a couple paintings (which I couldn't take pictures of). I saw Goyas famous naked lady thing and there was a neat one where a girl was sleeping and a couple of others. I'm glad it was free because I would not have wanted to pay 8 euros to see art. Since I was so close to Saint Jeronimo's Church, I decided to go see it. It was really pretty, and I didn't realize ...

... 57 year-old body for sure! Ah, another very funny part of the night following the meal that led to Millis and I and smirking at each other as a result of the hilarity that occurred. So Maruja decided she was going to make sandwiches for us for tomorrow once we left. However, she pulled out 8 pieces of bread and Millis and I became very curious as to what was about to happen. So Maruja basically makes us 2 sandwiches for tomorrow. And she asks Jon how many pieces of cheese he ...

... her what hapnd. She explains the situation and it turns out this has been a robbery! DUH! The Spanish locals take her to the police station, where the cops act like she is the biggest inconvenience they have come across since the Spanish Civil War! She speaks no Spanish but with the local´s help she registers her complaint. Now this is a weekend, so she has no access to the Australian embassy to get a new passport ...

... I snuck in some great pics so check'em out there right here. So now its Saturday night in Madrid, I am not feeling it at all due to the malarkey from Friday night. I wear a black v-neck, kinda cool sneakers, and a black on black white sox hat- not so European but my ambition to go clubbin was as strong as a sharps beer. But after a few jack daniels and grenadinos on the rocks, my boys convince me to go to this club called pacha, in which we have in ...

... das seit Jahren. Wo ist sonst in Europa eine Großstadt, mit einem so bunten Nachtleben, einer so modernen Architektur, mit einer so toleranten Gesellschaft, einer einfach verdammt guten Gastronomie - und das alles nur ein paar Haltestellen von Mittelmeerstränden entfernt, die man alle mit klimatisierten öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel erreicht? So auch in diesem Jahr: Strand, Nachtclub, wieder Strand ...

... painting....still art....royal family portrait...zzz....but with the background stories, it's interesting. The rooms in the Palacio Real were gorgeous: there's one decorated entirely in ceramic, and another in Rococo style that looks like a wedding cake. My favorite part was the courtyard because it offers this almost surreal view of the king's old hunting grounds through the stone arches. Classes are not the horror story that Ani warned us they would be. I can ...

... a tour of the Royal Palace. On Friday, we walked around the park near the Prado Museum with Dave and Carrie and then Jeremy and I left and headed to the Atocha Rail station to purchase our train tickets to San Sebastian (our next stop); as well as our train tickets to Toledo which was our day trip for Saturday. The train station was a chaotic experience. There were a large amount of people trying to purchase tickets and what seemed like a dizzying array of lines to choose from ...

... ofattention to detail in spanish culture I have noticed. I also had some paella today which I was really excited about. I am not one for seafood but one can´t go to Spain without trying the paella. It has been nice travelling around and I do notmiss being at home yet, I don´t miss the places that is. It´s a lot offun to go to a new country every few days. Take care.