I just got back from church and I almost fell asleep like five times.  I’m exhausted.  Last night was wild.  I wanted to meet up with a friend of mine from Newport who has been living in Madrid since September.  He gave me directions, and told me to take the metro.  So, about California people and public transportation…it’s sort of like a foreign language.  I was super nervous because I didn’t want to get lost, but at the same time I figured if everyone was saying it was easy I better be able to figure it out.

They weren’t lying.  The metro here is the easiest thing in the world.  When I got off, I just asked someone how to get to his street, got the directions, and walked over.   I really couldn’t have had an easier time and I was stoked.   I got there and he, his friend Mick, and I started drinking rum.  We went to a tapas bar around midnight and had beers for like 2 euro.  Madrid is ridiculously cheap.  It’s NUTS.  I’m going to make a list at some point of things you can buy in Madrid for under 5 euro and it will be great.

Anyway, at the tapas bar we met up with a bunch of people doing an English teaching program in the city.  There were a bunch of people from America, a guy from Mexico, and a guy from France.  I was once again reminded of how much I love intermixing cultures.  It’s always entertaining to get to know people who live an entirely different lifestyle.  It was a girl named Emiline’s birthday, and she wanted to go to a rock and roll club called Independance.  Andrew said it was the worst club in Madrid, but we agreed because it was her birthday.

In Madrid the clubs work differently.  You pay a cover (super cheap – like 10 – 15 euros…which compared to the LA $20-50 nonsense is awesome) and then with the cover you get your first drink or two comped.  So with this club we got a shot and a drink.  The tequila tasted like free and the vodka coke tasted like freshman year of college, but it worked and we were drunk.  Around 5am chaos was happening, the birthday girl was robbed, I was about to puke on Madrid, and Mick refused to leave saying he was going to “shut the club down sweetheart,” to whoever told him to leave.  Andrew and I went back to his apartment where we got to share a twin size bed.   Rooms in Madrid are TINY.  And not tiny like American standards…tiny like cupboard under the stairs is the master status.  His room fits one twin bed with about two feet between the door and the wall respectively.  That means that when Mick stumbled in at 9:00am, he got to sleep in that two foot crevice between the bed and the wall.  I really don’t want to know how the previous sleeping arrangement worked.

We set our alarm for noon and woke up and went to Rastro, which is some crazy flea market they have on Sundays.  It was CRAZY big and loud and awesome.  We had hungover sandwiches at a tapas café nearby, and then I hit the metro to go home and sleep.  Which of course I didn’t because I had to facetime everyone I knew.

Missing everyone like crazy, but this is awesome.

More soon.