A day for Food

This morning it was really weird to wake up by myself. I told Natalia the night before to wake me up when she left so I could say goodbye but of course I immediately fell right back asleep. I miss my roommate, but it is also nice to have my room to myself for a little while. I woke up around 8 so I could go meet my English teacher, Doug, and a few other students. It is so weird for me to call my teachers by their first names, at home I avoid it by not directly calling to them but here it's pretty unavoidable. We met at eleven so we could go to the Architectural museum, it was under serious construction and a large majority of the exhibitions were closed so the admission was free. The brief walk to the museum was great because it is in the richest neighborhood in Madrid. All the buildings here are amazing, you see some huge ornate buildings that are over a few hundred years old next door to buildings that are only a few years old; I can't get over it.

Once inside the museum started with its oldest collections to the more modern periods. They had a few mummies and sarcophaguses from Egypt. They had a lot of bones and fossils that they had found, and some tools and pots from the stone period. They also had a collection of Grecian Urns and jewelry which surprised me because I didn't realize that the Greeks had lived on the peninsula. Then they had a very large collection of Roman art, tools, coins and a variety of other objects from the time period the Romans ruled Spain. They also had some medieval artifacts which were very ornate but also extremely religious because Spain is such a Catholic country.
Because the museum is so small right now we went next to door to see the National Library. Here we were able to see copies of books and music from Mozart, Beethoven, Rousseau, Voltaire, and a ton of others. When we were finished we walked down the street (the fifth avenue of Madrid) until we found a small but elegant Italian place. We stopped in and each ordered a pizza. I got a four cheese pizza and it was amazing, their cheeses are very different here, I think it is because goat cheese is more common that cheese made from cow's milk. The sauces and flavors were amazing. We ended up staying here for almost three hours talking. It was me, Doug, our AIFS advisor Sian, and one of the couple's who went on the trip.

The girl of this couple, Michelle, drives me insane. She is my age and thinks she knows everything. She has a story to tell and always can top whatever anyone else is talking about. She never thinks about what she is going to say before she starts so "like" makes frequent appearances in every sentence. I sat through the majority of lunch trying to figure out who she reminded me of when it hit me. I am a Jane Austen fanatic and I love the movies of her books. In the movie Emma there is a character who constantly walks around going "I don't say so myself but my friends tell me that I'm quite good" about whatever it is they're talking about. That's her!!! She actually told us that she is such a great cook and that she can just throw whatever she wants in and it comes out. She said that she made chocolate chip cookies around Christmas and through in smashed candy canes, she said her friends actually ask her for baked goods rather than presents. Pa-lease.

After this exciting lunch we headed off in our different directions. I went home to work on my list of things that I want to see in Italy. I feel like have to make a list so I can see what I need to see and what I can cut out, very difficult. Later that night I invited the same group to my apartment so we could go grab some dinner. We ended up going to a small neighborhood a few stops away from our apartment. We stopped at this small vegetarian restaurant and we were actually able to get in for dinner, it was only 9 and we had to promise to be out by 11. First they brought us bread and a bowl of warm mush – this turned out to be garbanzo beans mixed into a sort of chunky dip with Garlic sauce. It was amazing. Then I ordered a sort of stew thing, it had wheat noodles, carrots, celery, onions, tofu and mushrooms in a thin ginger sauce. It was again, amazing. I have never been to a vegetarian restaurant and the lack of meat did make me sad, but the flavors were very strong and after eating sort of lightly flavored food I was grateful for the change.

After dinner we said goodnight to Doug and walked down the street and found a bunch of smaller boutiques that we all want to visit when it's a weekday. I finally got home around 12:30, fell into bed and slept.