Día Dos con Las Amigas

(El Palacio Cristal in El Parque del Retiro in Madrid, Spain)

Saturday: We met at about 9:30 am near the Bilboa metro stop to check out the breakfast at a cafe that was rated well in my student guide and recommended by Lauren's sister. The place is called Café Comercial and we all ordered tortitas, which is Spanish for pancakes! I don't know why I didn't know this word before. I managed to order for all three of us, a feat about which I was quite proud.

After we had finished, we walked towards El Palacio Real, stopping to do some shopping along the way. Lauren found a pretty shirt and both girls found awesome bags. I'm saving my pennies for London. We hit Gran Via, stopped at Starbucks, and then wandered through the world market held in Plaza de España. We then reached Palacio Real and saw that the line was a solid half an hour long. We took turns waiting and instead of waiting even longer for a guided tour, we decided to do the self tour through the Palace. I remembered next to nothing from my previous time, so we made up stories instead, which is always more fun. Plus, if we ever needed some real facts, there was an elderly couple from Texas (I know this because I chatted with them while I was helping them figure out how to use the storage lockers) using audio-guides with the volume turned all the way up. I liked them.

After we finished the Palace tour, we walked back to the metro past El Teatro Real, passing a parade that was celebrating the 20th anniversary of the signing of a children's rights act. We took the metro to el Parque de Retiro stop and started looking for the restaurant, Alfredo's Barbacoa. After my getting lost another few times (my friend's would call it lost, I would call it temporarily going in the wrong direction) we found the restaurant, which was packed. This restaurant supposedly has the best burgers in Madrid, though, so there was no way we were going to go anywhere else. It was about 3:15 and we got on the list with an hour and 15 minutes wait, so we all shared a small chocolate passion-fruit ice cream from a nearby ice cream store while chilling on a bench in Retiro until about 4:30.

Once back at the restaurant, we waited for another 15 minutes before we were led to our table, but I think it was worth it. The place has a decidedly American theme, although many of the flags were Confederate flags (?) and the burgers were good and authentic (I got a roasted onion and cream cheese burger - mmm. . .). But those poor deprived Spaniards! All the Spaniards in the restaurants were eating their burgers with forks and knives. My very American friends and I were going to take no part in that, so we ate our burgers as they were meant to be eaten - with our hands. We did notice that the little boy at the next table picked up his burger and started eating with his hands, although his parents refused. Then the restaurant's host, Jorge, who had been very friendly with our table since we arrived, brought us three shots of Southern Comfort. I actually finished mine - so I guess you could call that my first real drink, (even though I sipped it instead of shooting it). You only get free shots in a restaurant in Spain if you're pretty, so it's a kind of compliment, and Jorge also asked to take our picture for the wall of fame, (although from the looks of the pictures, you don't need to do much but eat hamburgers with a table full of girls). So if you're ever in Madrid and go to Alfredo's Barbacoa, check out the pictures on the wall - I'm up there somewhere.

Lauren, Melinda, and I then spent the rest of the afternoon at Retiro, rolling down hills and doing photo shoots in front of fountains, with the leaves, and on a random picnic table. We also saw El Palacio de Cristal, a glass palace in the middle of the park that houses art displays. At first, we thought it was empty, but it was actually a modern art display which involved randomly placed ladders and strings. Odd. As we were exhausted, we decided to head back to the girls' hostel before dinner and dancing. They slept while I did research (I got the short end of that stick), and after finding out that the paella restaurant we had originally wanted to go to required reservations and was all booked for the night, I asked the hostel-front-desk-people (for lack of a better title) for another and they provided me a name and directions. I crashed in Lauren and Melinda's room - in a bed which they told me was unoccupied - and after a 45 minute nap, we were up and dressed and ready to go.

We walked to La Fragua de Volcano for paella (pretty good) and then to Dubliner's, an Irish pub near Sol. This is where the rest of the BC kids were hanging out and since Melinda knew quite a few of them, we stopped by to say hola. This is the pub in Madrid where BC kids can come to watch the BC football games but it's interesting to think that in Boston we can't even get into such places because we're not old enough. Lauren and I ordered Cokes and chatted while Melinda socialized and afterwards we headed to Joy for dancing.

Apparently, I'm not up on my discotheque lingo, because while I was able to get us through the rest of the weekend with my Spanish skills, the bouncers were confusing me with talk of a list and pre-tickets and such, and I'm still not sure what they were telling me. We were probably quite an amusing sight to the Spaniards. I kept repeating, "¿Qué lista?" and when they asked Lauren how old she was, she responded, "89," (I believe she thought they were asking her what year she was born). But we eventually got into Joy with the help of the guy standing behind us (who also, coincidentally, had the 3 extra tickets we needed). Melinda and Jack went off for a minute and never came back, so me and Lauren danced with the rest of the BC group for most of the time. They had periodic shows with music from Grease, so that was interesting, but by 2:30 or 3 am, we were ready to call it a night. We found Melinda and the girls walked back to their hostel while I shared a taxi with Jack and got dropped off at Julia's. Day 2 complete!