A week in!

Jan 14

Hello again everyone! Another day, another update. This Friday, 1/10, we spent our afternoon in Retiro Park, a very large green space 5 minutes from my host apartment. I was lucky enough to finally get someone to take pictures of myself, inserted below. With an iPhone 11 no less, so portrait mode did its thing (so much in fact, that you can barely see the monument to Alfonso XII in the back!!).

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Another day, another part of Retiro! On Saturday we discovered a book fair along the southern border of the park. I almost bought my mom a vintage cookbook consisting only of jellied mashed potato recipes, but I hesitated. Missed opportunity!

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Sunday we ventured into the center of the city for El Rastro. El Rastro is Madrid’s largest open air flea market, with more than 100,000 attendants every week! I sure do believe that, as it was nothing more than slightly organized chaos. In the best way! We went from walking on a quiet street from the metro exit to being swept up into a swell of people making their way through the stalls of the main drag and the surrounding side streets. And we saw EVERYTHING!! Gas masks, scarves, vintage fur coats, Real Madrid jerseys, live birds, antique toasters, tablecloth crumb sweepers (which my host señora has and actually puts to good use!), old telenovela VCR tapes, you name it! Hope and I decided to begin a “book club”-esque reading circle of various €2 romance novels we found at a stand devoted to this genre. Which shall I start first?

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And as if we had already had a full weekend of exploring our new home for the next four months, I don’t have classes on Monday! Whoop whoop for a four day weekend!!! We decided to spend our fourth day of the weekend at two “must hit” tourist attractions in the city, La Plaza de España and El Palacio Real de Madrid. Well, someone didn’t to their research (me!), as we quickly learned La Plaza is undergoing MAJOR construction. Cool graffiti on the blockades though! Onto the next grand event…

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El Palacio Real de Madrid

The Royal Palace of Madrid, as we discovered, is free on Mondays-Thursdays from 4-6pm. I have a habit of inviting EVERYONE I know to join me on my plans, so me and a group of ~10 of my favorite people ventured to the palace!! Somehow, everyone else in Madrid got the same message. No problem for us! Just a little wait in line. And it was AWESOME! Many photo ops on the outside grounds, hence I have many photos to share. Not many photos were allowed inside on the walk through of the palace, but it was very fancy!

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