V's Gap Year: Saturday, September 17, 2016

My family and I woke up in Madrid today. I could not believe that I woke up in the capital of Spain! Breakfast was cereal, bread with nocilla, and fried egg. Soon, we were up and at'em to Puerta del Sol, a busy shopping area of the city. Olivia bought a pair of black and white shoes that were suitable to day-to-day life. We passed a guy sitting with a chair across from him, a sign next to him saying, "Look into my eyes." There was a woman doing just that across from him. Walking a bit more, marveling at the beautiful buildings, we stopped to look in a sale Corte Ingles store. Olivia and I bought two pairs of nice pants and a pair of shorts, and Daddy bought a shirt.

For lunch, we went to an Indian restaurant. Mama got the best falafel I've ever tasted, and Daddy and her shared hummus and pita. Olivia and I split a huge bowl of delicious rice with chicken, heavy spices, and yogurt. Once we had finished eating, we went to a bookstore. Yay! The bookstore was called Casa Libro, and it was bigger than the Barnes and Noble in Triangle Town Center, which means it was huge. We all immediately went downstairs (the bookstore had three floors), which was where all of the foreign language books were housed. I scanned the titles and took a couple of pictures of the covers of books I liked. (These books were pretty expensive--and I'm cheap--so I normally take photos of books I want to read and then get them free at the library, or, if I really want to own the book, I go to the all-holy Reader's Corner or Edward McKay's.) I picked up a book that contained three plays written by Sarah Kane. I randomly flipped to one and was sucked in for about ten minutes, until we had to leave. With absolute certainty, I can say that the small part of that profound play was the most disturbing thing I have ever read. Maybe one day I'll finish reading it.

We then went back to the charming apartment. During our walk, I realized how liberal and open-minded Madrid seemed to be. On various walls, I saw rainbow-colored advertisements for "Gay Day" on September 24. Man, what a shame we would be out of the beautiful city by then! I also saw, on a huge electronic billboard on one of the main streets of central Madrid, Gran Vía, a colorful picture of two women with long, flowing hair kissing. I was very happy to see such progressive ideas proliferating the city.

We chilled in the apartment (you guessed it, I was reading), and after a while we decided to go out to eat. It was about 8pm, so still early for Spanish dinnertime, but we ended up not sitting down at a restaurant until thirty minutes later because of a great conversation Mama, Olivia, and I had with one of our apartment building neighbors. The elderly woman lived on the third floor, and we on the fourth (which would be considered the fifth floor in the US, because in Spain what we call the first floor is the zero floor). Her son worked at the Thai restaurant across the street and had a dog that they both adored. The woman had just finished walking the dog, who was now whining because her son was outside the restaurant and the sweet doggie wanted to be with him. Our neighbor was very sweet, and after talking with her for a while, we discovered that she hosted students from Chicago who were studying abroad at the University of Madrid. She said that she had to cook them one meal a day and do their laundry. How cool is that?

Dinner was incredible. For appetizers, we got anchovies in vinegar and fried calamares. Daddy got tomatoes with crispy-edged mozzarella melted on top on a bed of rich olive oil and herbs. I got potatoes covered in a fried egg, thick slabs of smoked salmon, and tender twirls of sautéed shrimp. Olivia got one of the best things I've ever eaten in my life: fried brie fresh raspberry and peach jelly to dip the cheese into. Oh my god. Incredible. Mama got gamba alajillo, which is a garlicky shrimp dish perfect for dipping bread into. Only O and I got dessert, and we got pretty much the same thing: a chocolate pastry covered in cold ice cream and fresh sweet cream. While Olivia ordered the chocolate fondant (which I totally should have gotten, it's literally a chocolate lava cake), I got the chocolate brownie for the bottom part of the dessert. Yum.

After the fantastic dinner--really, I would rate it one of the best dinners yet in Spain--we walked sleepily back to the apartment and went to bed.