Another Weekend in Madrid

        This weekend I stayed in Madrid and explored more of the city. Thursday night I went to a discoteca (dance/night club) that was for Spanish and Latin dancing, such as tango, flamenco, salsa, and meringue. SLU-Madrid offers some dance classes (Flamenco, Latin Dance and Rhythm), and the teacher offered to take her students to this discoteca place, and she said to bring friends. So, everyone from SLU Madrid that wasn't traveling showed up! (ok, so probably not, but it was a large group of students) It was a lot of fun! Some of the people that were in the class taught me (and others who weren't in the class) some basic moves, and then we danced! I didn't dance too much, it was more fun watching people dance! I was impressed how much they have learned in the dance classes. And watching the Spanish people dance was a lot of fun too, you could tell some of them had been dancing for a long time. At one point, this "boy band" of 5 Spanish men came up on stage and led us in dance to "Gangham Style". It was kind of weird, but really fun to dance to a song that everyone knows!
             On Saturday, we went shopping in an area called Goya. It was nice because it wasn't as crowded as Sol, and it had a mixture of well known shops and privately owned shops. For lunch we stopped at this place called Rodilla, a sandwich shop that started in Madrid in 1939 and claims to be "World Famous". I think it is a chain of stores, but it was so good! I got a hot ham and cheese sandwich (so basically it was grilled cheese), fries and a large Fanta all for a reasonable price, around 5 euros.
           On Sunday we met some friends at Sol to go to Aguacate, which was kind of like a Chipotle's, probably the nearest thing you will find to it in Madrid! The menu was in English, and the and lady that was making our orders spoke English, so that was nice...although it was the easiest menu to figure out. I got a salad with rice, lettuce, chicken, cheese, peppers and some pico de gallo, which was only tomatoes. I also got a drink and some tortilla chips...it tasted so good! It was quite bizarre, because for dinner that night our senora made us rice with onions, peppers, and chicken. So I basically had the same thing twice. After we ate, we walked around a little bit and found a football (soccer) store. And they were having a sale! I decided to get an official Adidas Real Madrid jersey, and it was only 45 euros! So, I decided to get it, because I was afraid if I waited they wouldn't have it any more. The jersey I got is an away jersey, so it is navy blue with some neon yellow/green on it. I can't wait to wear it! After that, Claire and I ventured off to find the Temple of Debod, an Egyptian temple in Madrid. I had to go visit it for my art history class...who knew Madrid has an ancient Egyptian temple? We found Parque de Oeste, and there it was! The temple was built in 200 BC, but it was moved in the 1960s due to the Aswan Dam that was flooding many ancient temples. Spain helped to save some of these temples, and in return Egypt gave them this temple! We stood in line and walked inside the temple, which was very small. There were small rooms dedicated to different kinds of offerings, and an altar room for the priests. You could see stone carvings on the walls with hieroglyphs. There was an upstairs area that had some artifacts and information about the history of the temple, and how it got to Madrid. 

Temple of Debod at sunset.

     Today, (Sunday) I just did homework. It was our senora's daughter-in-law's birthday, so the family was over celebrating. Our senora told us to come get some "dulces", and I was excited to get cake, only to find out it was some sort of pastry thing instead. They don't have normal cake like we have in the U.S. Claire and I then went to mass at SLU-Madrid. Tonight for dinner we had some kind of bean soup, with leftovers - meatball type things, breaded chicken paste (she said it was chicken and meat but it was like she pureed it), and the rice/pepper/chicken mixture.

Things I have learned in Spain:

• Weird people on the metro: a group of guys drinking, with plastic drink glasses, a bag of ice, some sort of alcohol, fanta and coke.
• Spain doesn't have Mardi Gras, they have Carnival, which I think some other countries celebrate too. People dress up in Halloween costumes and party
• I already knew this, but you aren't supposed to cook broccoli until it is yellowy brown, eww! I love eating broccoli, but not when its overcooked. I like it green and crisp
• Mondays and Wednesdays are great because some friends and I go to SuperSol and get a really good lunch - bread, cheese, ham or salami, chips, and sometimes "cookies" (Oreos or these chocolate covered shortbread things). Claire and I usually split it so it is under 3 euros! 
• Madrid has a really cool ancient Egyptian temple...its like you are actually in Egypt! Or its like you are Indiana Jones and some creepy thing is going to pop out at you

Adios!