Día Tres con Las Amigas

(Me, Lauren, and Melinda at La Puerta del Sol in Madrid)

Sunday: We gave ourselves an extra hour this morning and didn't meet until 10:15 at La Tirso de Molina, the metro stop closest to the girls' hostel and El Rastro. Before heading to El Rastro, we stopped at the Starbucks in Sol, as the girls were craving the muffins and coffee that isn't available in Parma. I got a chocolate muffin and a small hot chocolate, so I was content.

We then walked to the Rastro while having a conversation about the spirit world (is that what people call it?). Melinda's aunt is a medium and/or exorcism-er (she has a collection of possessed items in a tunnel in her house). I told Melinda I have a possessed iHome and two computer speakers to add to the collection (the iHome turns on by itself and slides back and forth between different radio channels and you can hear voices talking in my speakers when they're not even plugged into the computer). Me and technology - it's a fun relationship. Lauren said her parents have been to a couple group medium events and that her mom is convinced about the spirit world. It was an interesting chat.

El Rastro was as crowded as ever, but Lauren managed to find a cool sweatshirt and a belt. We walked around for a while, looking at all the stuff for sale and all the people, and then got on the metro and hopped over to El Banco de España, a good place for tourist pictures. One woman asked me to take her and her friends' pictures and even showed me exactly where to hold the camera. I moved a little on the first one and she made me take another. So afterwards, I had her take our picture. Then we walked to El Prado and wandered through the different exhibits. The place is huge and I know very little about art, but with Ana's class, I'm starting to pick up a little bit more, and art museums are becoming a little bit more interesting (although I think I still prefer the science museums).

After the Prado we were outside, walking back towards Banco de España when we saw a lady in a green trench coat running and jumping on the benches that line the street. We didn't find anything strange in this, as just yesterday, we were rolling down hills in Retiro, so we're not really in the position to judge. I became alarmed, when a little bit further down the sidewalk, we saw her on top of one of the streetlamps, feeling the lightbulb. She jumped down and we noticed that she was just wearing a trench coat and boots, nothing else. She then ran over to one of the street vendors and licked one of the paintings he had on display. He shooed her away really quickly so she turned around and started following a woman who was walking towards the Prado. The second woman had no idea she was being followed and having her hair sniffed by this other lady. By this point we had stopped in our tracks and were just watching her, trying to figure out whether she was un poco loca or on drugs. She ran over to a low billboard advertising the Prado and felt the lips of the woman in the advertised painting. We decided she was a little crazy. She kept running around and following people, and then she ran off up some stairs. Very strange - incredibly strange. We kept walking, me a little nervous that we were being followed by the lady in the green trench coat.

We got to Pans & Company for lunch, a wonderful place that I've mentioned quite a few times before. It's just a fast food sandwich shop, but it is fantastic. During lunch, we got onto the subject of Melinda's pageant past, which I had known nothing about. Apparently, she won one of California's scholarship pageant competitions (which is more prestigious than the beauty competitions), and had she not moved to North Carolina, would have been in the running for Miss California. She had walking training and interview questions and everything. That's pretty cool.

After a quick stop at Haagen-Daaz, we took the metro back to the hostel and the girls checked out. We headed to the airport and off they flew back to Italy (which they love, by the way. I'm a bit jealous of their food situation, to say the least). I took the metro back to Julia's and although I tried to be productive, I promptly fell asleep at my computer, an occurrence which probably had something to do with only getting nine hours of sleep throughout the entire weekend. I woke up and remembered that I needed to design the guide covers for my Spanish class and send them to the teacher, so I did that quickly, only to find out that the files were too big to send with my internet connection. I figured out how to send them eventually and then Julia called me for dinner. Ines is still here and I really hope she sticks around. She really nice, keeps Julia occupied all day, and helps keep the conversations going (sometimes Julia and her just talk and I don't need to say anything at all!) She also made Julia buy a Pandoro (an Italian breakfast cake) and a box of cookies, so she's okay in my book.

Must sleep - I'll try to catch up more tomorrow!